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Police kept tabs on Whole Foods protests
By adamg on Wed, 06/04/2014 - 7:37am
The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports on the cold, steely eye the Boston Regional Intelligence Center kept keenly focused on the activities of the anti-Foodistas, as well as Occupy Jamaica Plain and the funeral for one of Carlos Arredondo's sons.
The Dig, meanwhile, catalogs all the musicians the BRIC paid attention to.
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Comments
Look East Good Man! Really Just A Little East and N. East
While BRIC was monitoring the controversy over where will JP buy their kale chips, did they happen to notice all the rapid lead poisoning going on at Bromley Heath and Camden over the past few decades? I love it. People are dying but let's make sure the hippies don't get out of control first.
They do, actually
One of the things people might be more concerned about than police officers getting paid to browse the JP Gazette is the large and growing number of surveillance cameras permanently mounted around the city.
But in the meantime, whenever there's a violent crime in certain areas, such as Bromley-Heath, one of the things the BRIC does is switch to the feeds from any cameras they have in the area to see if they can spot suspects running/driving away.
Someone needs
to protect us against the $9 loaf of bread.
My personal Favorites at Whole Paycheck
The $7 "Brining Kits" that consist of a cup of salt, a cup of brown sugar, and a mason jar.
The organic, free range eggs that are clam-wrapped in a non-decomposable plastic sheath.
The doorway signs that announce a "partnership" with animals, most of whom are on display, in parts, in the meat case.
"Whole Paycheck"...
...is cliche. I'm sorry you cannot afford to shop there.
PETE plastic is very easy to
PETE plastic is very easy to recycle.
I feel pretty threatened
..by the worthless peanut soup peanut butter, but thankfully have Market Basket at my side.
As for camera eyes, I've found confidence in my utter insignificance serves me well as I chuckle at the near lethal eye glaze one would get from acute scrutiny of my little life.
But a neocon corp with gouge prices for fraud food.. now there's a topic to warm to that many will share interest in.
I was particularly taken by how the owner was busted by the SEC a few years ago for pumping his stock on some busy yahoo finance group, (back when such existed) with a sock puppet account.
And I so love it when they ask me if I want a bag.. every time.. as I plunk my day pack on the counter to put the stuff I'm paying for in..
You can't buy that kind of astute and it's probably a good thing. The employees have that deer in the headlight look as if it is a fairly neurotic work environment where CYA is job number one and let's forget about the customers.. shall we?
I know I try to,
And what's not to love about the unpaid pan handler "greeters", (although I found they can be trained by avoiding eye contact and shoe gazing instead)?
I soo miss the Johnnies Foodmaster it once was and return like some idiot pigeon who hasn't figured out that the roost blew up. "Class really shows when there's no class." as Tip O'Neill was said to have noted in some form.
I'm just busting chops
I know BRIC does a good job. It just seems foolish to waste police resources on the amount of hot air which got expunged on the 2011 Hyde Square Hippie Vs Yuppie What About The Poor People Screamfest.
Get back to your..
Bar stool on Centre st., Mr. Costello.
You dont know anything about Brom/Heath or Lenox/Camden.
Lead paint??
Not a chance.
Not even on "the old side."
In fact,
Why dont you head down to 934 Parker and check it out for yourself.
Protesting fresh fruits and
Protesting fresh fruits and vegetables... wow! Maybe the protestors would prefer equally expensive yet crappy produce from Shaws. WF makes an effort to support local farmers -- do other grocery stores? Not that I've seen. Every once in a while Trader Joe's has California strawberries at a good price, but 1/2 of the strawberries have fuzzy mold and are bruised. The broccoli always is already going brown by the time they stock it. I've pretty much given up on our local TJ's. At least when I go to WF the produce is consistently good and they tell you where the produce is coming from. I'll pay more to support farms in Mass., Maine, Vermont and NH. I'd rather more of my paycheck go to local New England growers who provide fresh food rather than to big corporate farms in Mexico where who knows what they're spraying on their crops and how much fuel it took for those tomatoes to Boston.
Wal-Foods likes to pretend
Wal-Foods likes to pretend they support local, but they are a national chain like Blockbuster or Sams Club. Most of the money from big box chains goes to the headquarters city (out of every dollar, 50 cents of a local store like Harvest vs a measly 5 cents for Wal-Foods stays in the neighborhood). Sure, they make it look pretty, but supporting local businesses, not out of state chains that plaster "Local Local Local" all over when they are not. You can get local produce at Harvest and many other local businesses, and then you are truly supporting local, not an SUV packed big box chain like Wal-Foods. Why are you fine with your paycheck going to out of state corporation that has some limited local items versus a local business that has more local items? I understand some people want to support Whole Foods because they are loudly anti union and anti ObamaCare and they agree with those positions, but don't you care about your neighborhood losing money because chains have taken over? Support local businesses in your neighborhoods or your neighborhood will turn into nowhere USA.
Blockbuster? That was the
Blockbuster? That was the best example of a large national chain you could come up with?
I haven't noticed any
I haven't noticed any significant differences between the food at Whole Foods and Harvest, except that the produce is fresher at Whole Foods.
if the store has food
Many times the Harvest is out of stock on all the products I traveled there for.. The only joy in going to Harvest is supporting the world's tinyest library on the way to my destination--the store with empty food shelves
Happy to support GOOD local
but Harvest, at least the one in JP, is not good. I lived right near there for a while and did my best to shop there because the concept appeals to me. I quickly learned that it is (or was, a few years back) a disgusting excuse for a grocery store. Produce was old and sometimes got moldy in the bins. Freezers and fridge units leaked and were not repaired. Frozen food was often freezer burned and once I opened up a frozen burrito to find blue, fuzzy mold all over it less than an hour after I bought it. I was told that for that to have happened, the thing would have had to thaw, have time to get moldy and then be refrozen. All of that, and it's not exactly on the cheaper end of grocery options.
Now that I'm back in the North End, I can and do shop often at Going Bananas or the Golden Goose. Both of those are viable options for people wishing to shop at locally owned markets, although their small footprint means limited selection and the prices on most things are somewhat higher than at the chains. Harvest does not rise to that standard and unless it's vastly improved in the last few years, it should be put out of its misery.
Oh, and Harvest is no paragon of workers' rights, either. When I lived there, they were protested repeatedly by former employees for unfair employment practices.
The Cambridge Harvest
..is comparably forlorn.
Market Basket is the local.
The reason it can deliver food cheaply is because it is still a family owned biz, however much the family members may quarrel among themselves.
The other big boxes have to feed those odd parasite capitalism things called investors who hilariously expect to grab nickles and dimes from all manner of things that would be better off without them, health care, food etc.
A jar of good old local Teddy PB is 3 bucks at Market basket and a half buck to a buck more for the dubious joy of helping the Whole Food share price stay attractive.
The usual course of price discovery is for things to settle to a narrow range rather than a two tier system that makes chumps of customers.
It's as if the customers want to blow extra money for bragging status rights or some such.
Guess what
Not everyone here is a crunchy granola trustafarian who can afford to spend $5 on a single (allegedly) locally grown tomato.
Have an old milk carton handy?
A porch? A sunny windowsill? Grow some. And for Pete's sake stop complaining about the price of good food until you go work on a farm and understand the work that goes into producing to a of fresh, local produce.
If BRIC is going to spy on
If BRIC is going to spy on musicians, can they at least do something useful like finding out if Wu-Tang is ever getting back together?
Best.
Response. Ever.
Love it
White people move into a Hispanic neighborhood (once Irish) and then complain about gentrification. Then buy apartments (condos) for $600K and then complain about diversity and affordable housing. Wholefood moves in and they complain about displacement after they helped raise rents and gentrify the area more the a store could ever affect the area. And now Wholefood is packed 24/7.
Bostons very own Portlandia
What a fresh and trenchant
What a fresh and trenchant observation. You are the first person in New England to ever comment on this apparent irony.
RE: Diversity in JP
JP was very ethnically diverse even when it had a much smaller Hispanic foot print vs today. Italian, Polish, German, Ukrainian, French Canadian, etc., etc., including Irish (English, Scottish, etc., too). And of course black (African American, West Indies, etc.,). The white population today is overwhelmingly 'Portlandia', the so-called diverse white ethnic working class pretty much gone. But for many people who obsese over such things as 'diversity', they never really counted.
From the Gazette article:
From the Gazette article:
"In general, it is illegal for the police to monitor or keep records on any legal activity."
Really? I wouldn't think it's illegal for police to, say, clip newspaper articles about events.
And who's to say an activity is legal or not, until there's been a trial?
when anon gets pulled over:
"Sir, do you realize you were going 45 in a 25 mile-per-hour-zone?"
"You can't say that! There hasn't been a trial!"
You do know that when a cop
You do know that when a cop pulls you over, you have the right to a hearing.
Of course the recent fees for a hearing kind of throw away that right, since you have to pay even if you're found not responsible. So in effect a cop can unilaterally give you a fine and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.
That needs to be kicked up to
That needs to be kicked up to a federal level court since the state supreme court doesn't seem to believe in the US Constitution on many issues until slapped by the feds.
Wow.
Has the surveillance state really reached a point where we are apathetic to the fact that they were spying on citizens lawfully gathering under the First Amendment and with zero likeness to a terrorist organization?
This discussion is about Whole Foods prices/quality/gentrification again? Dogs don't respond to dog whistles as well as some of you jump when you read 2 words within the headlines here.
The article is about the fact that BRIC was keeping tabs on Americans doing nothing wrong. But that doesn't bother you...because you disagree with the particular Americans in question? Yikes, we're in some serious trouble as a country then...
Um, yeah
Where have you been the last 13 years?
For starters
I was here waiting for the tide to rise up once some information broke. It's one thing to SAY "the government is spying on us illegally" and it's another to finally get proof of it. I knew that would take time (a decade too long, but at least only a decade?) and signs of a draw down of our War On Terror.
This right here is the smoking gun on a state level...and it's like people are happy it's smoking because it's the only thing keeping their temples warm.
I was here waiting for the
I would not recommend holding your breath on that one.
Sounds about right. I may have to steal that.
Doesn't really bother me either way
From my limited interactions with the BRIC, they appear to be a group that gathers publicly available information to determine if there are going to be any problems. And not just problems in terms of people getting rowdy, but also crowd control, access to services, and the like.
I don't see any First Amendment problems here.
Wasting public money on surveillance
Does that bother you?
Biased
A part of my job involves surveillance so I am a little biased. :)
Honestly, it depends on what is being looked at. Some surveillance is really useful, others not so much.
Nonsense
Nothing about which private citizens were attending which events or how much they cost or tracking movement of individuals has anything to do with anything you mentioned. It's all dossier-building activities as you would for tracking a criminal up to the time of their commission of a planned crime which you have prior knowledge of the planning.
In other words, we think having this information will let us crackdown on whomever we think needs to be cracked down on should anything go wrong. This is pre-crime where no evidence of planning of a crime exists. This is list-building in the tried-and-true methods of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Do something...anything..."illegal" later? Aha, and what OTHER people did you conspire with 3 years ago when we generated this report that has your name included on the roster of attendees!
Am I missing this?
I'm trying to click through the documents on the website that the Gazette links to, and I'm seeing a lot of organizational BRIC work, which is what I am used to seeing. No mention of individual attendees (just the speakers which, again, public knowledge, and may dictate when additional resources are needed based on the popularity of a speaker).
So, again, I don't see a problem, but maybe I'm missing whatever is putting the folks over at the Gazette in a huff.
That line made my day
Perfect - thanks.