May 15, 2011
News has reached us that the Tribal Council has failed to make payments on the horse farm, and are in default, however, we are trying to determine the present status and will report as soon as we do. It seems odd that they would move Quan Tobey and Chuckie Green’s offices there if they didn’t plan to make the payments.
If you recall, the horse farm was the subject of much brouhaha during the previous administrations, yet those same voices have been strangely silent since the ascent of the Cromwell regime. Hard questions have to be asked about the administration of this asset, especially of Mark Harding.
May 14, 2011
Buried on the lower right corner of the Mittark newsletter is a meeting announcement concerning a special Council meeting to be held “immediately before” the regular Sunday meeting. The announcement does not give a definite time, nor does it give any hint at the subject of the “proposed changes” to Tribal by-laws. Instead, the announcement directs the reader to the Tribe’s website, which has no information. (Who is getting paid to maintain this monstrosity?)
Word down at the herrin’ run is that they want the Tribe to authorize them to run the housing project on Meetinghouse road in secret, like Project First Light. You know, they don’t want you folks worrying your pretty little heads over little details like awarding contracts and finances and such—trust them. Now, I ain’t one to gossip, so you ain’t heard this from me!
May 8, 2011
Today is Mother’s Day, and as usual, some Tribe members put flowers on the graves of their mothers and grandmothers. I stopped at Curtis Hendricks’ establishment at Great Neck Road and Meetinghouse Road to pick up some flowers and proceeded to The Old Indian Cemetery. What assaulted my eyes there was crying shame. One would think that the cemetery would have been prepared for Mother’s Day. Instead, it looked like somebody overdue for a trip to the barber and a shave. Another family was there for the same purpose, and one was vigorously raking the thatch from the top of his brothers grave.
Weed wacker anyone?
I have always loved our cemetery. I have good memories as a young child walking between the rows of stones and wondering who some of the unfamiliar names were. I can honestly tell you that I never felt afraid or uncomfortable among so many dead people simply because it was always such a sunny and cheerful place, and it was kept so by the men who maintained it.
When I became an adult, and went to bury friends and family members, the cemetery held the same fascination for me, as I reacquainted myself with those who had passed over the years. Seeing the names, and the times that the deceased had lived in, gave me a perspective on life and my place in it. Now it provokes thoughts of my inevitable journey down that road myself, a decade or three hence. What will you see when you come to visit me? Will you also feel comfortable, or will you sense death through the gnarled and wizened appearance of the grounds?
Our people did the best they could with the resources they had. Ollie Pocknett did a great job with his limited budget, and more recently, Leigh Potter ran a tight ship. You would not find such a disgraceful situation on Memorial Day, Mother’s Day, or any other day for that matter. Well, at least not until Leigh was fired, at the behest of Carol Lopez. Such actions have been typical of the present regime, who present a schizophrenic mix of autocracy and week-kneed pandering to certain persons. But no surprise, Carol “plastic flowers” Lopez was Aaron Tobey’s campaign manager, wasn’t she?
Not what I want to see
And another thing: would it be so hard to put up a discretely located concrete block building with steel doors to replace that ugly container thing? And how much would a few sections of stockade fence cost? wouldn’t it be nice if your view of your loved one’s resting place looked more like a park than a dump? Machines, tools, and materials are central to the operation of a cemetery, but be discrete. A dumpster? Oh come on! And that trailer, don’t think there is nobody thinking about backing their trailer hitch up to it.
Our cemetery should be a showplace. It should be a park-like place that strangers would want to stop at and walk around. Let’s get on the ball!
May 8, 2011
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.
–Abraham Lincoln
Paula Peters is a perfect illustration of this old maxim from Abe Lincoln. In the Cape Cod Times article about Saturday’s meeting of Tribe members at the Collins Lot park, Ms. Peters reminded us of just how dedicated she is to the Holy War that she waged against the former Tribal Council members. Like a gopher in the Whack-a-Mole game, she repeatedly pops her head up, only to be whacked down again in this blog.
You see, Paula is not a fan of free speech, especially when that speech gets a little too close to her “husband,” Tribal treasurer Mark Harding. Though I don’t think that his name was actually uttered at the meeting, when the subject got around to the millions being borrowed and spent by the present administration, everyone knew who we were talking about. Of course, the subject of finances was not the only point of discussion. I would like to give a summary from my perspective:
- many are disgusted by the distance that the present administration and their hangers on have wandered from our traditional ways of doing things and their outright disdain for any who would question their introduction of alien concepts like “clan mothers,” and their misuse of the traditional offices of chief and medicine man.
- Their obsession with casino gaming has led many down a primrose path of champagne dreams and caviar wishes from which most will never return. A good consensus is that the possible financial rewards of a casino do not warrant the slide into corruption and “me-first-ism.”
- It is no secret that some of our young (and not so young) people are risking, and losing, their lives with addiction to narcotics and alcohol. The present administration has done little or nothing to prevent the tragic consequences of this behavior. About a hundred eighty years ago, the men of Mashpee formed a Temperance Society. I daresay that it was a critical factor in our survival as a tribe. Where will we be twenty years from now? Will I be an octogenarian, leaning on my cane and seeing yet another twenty-something lowered into the ground or led to prison?
- Our elders are being treated with the most heinous disrespect. No, I don’t mean the phoney “elders committee” that Cromwell & Co. created to be an amen corner for the Council, but the real Elders in their seventies and eighties. We have traditionally deferred to the elders when they offered admonitions and encouragement. Not this bunch, they see them only as a commodity to be herded as so many cattle.
- It seems that the present administration considers the Tribe’s constitution, and indeed, even the U.S. constitution, as documents that can be loosely interpreted or ignored altogether. I urge all Tribe members to actually read both of these documents.
- I could go on with more bullets, but will save some for future posts.
Why do I pick on poor Paula? Well, just ask her—ask her about her illicit affair with Glenn Marshall, and how she turned into She Devil when he would not leave his wife. Ask her how she used her connections with the Cape Cod Times as a platform to further her assaults on her enemies. Ask her about how she bragged about putting Cromwell & Co. into office in 2009. Ask her how Wampworx has profited from her “husband” being a council member and Treasurer.
I had planned to discuss Cedric Cromwell’s “prepared statement,” but I now think that it deserves its own post.
I do want to thank Paula for providing this old son-of -a-gun with some big bore ammo.
WHACK!
May 6, 2011
The Tribe’s ugly and poorly maintained website has nothing; nobody on facebook has posted anything. So when was the Tribal Council going to notify the Tribe at large about the event taking place Saturday at the Meetinghouse? I had to learn about it from the “grapevine.” They are going to choose a chief, so they tell me. Isn’t this a solemn proceeding that involves all Tribe members, not just the “chosen” supporters and dupes of Cromwell & Co.?
In choosing the traditional offices such as chief or medicine man, the Tribal Council has no more input than ordinary members. It is not too difficult to understand their program: put in a bobble-head robot who will agree with all of Cromwell’s dictates as a voting member of the Council. They demonstrated this with their inexcusable abuse of Chief Lopez. Now they are beginning to panic. Their power is beginning to erode now that the hopes of a casino become as remote as a reservation at the Shangri-La Hilton.
I know it is short notice, but please, please show up at the Meetinghouse at 10:30 Saturday Morning and ask the hard questions. Let us together rescue our tribe from these usurpers.
