WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. With midterm elections upon us political candidates keep telling us what they'll do as lawmakers to change our lives. But meanwhile we have every day citizens picking up the slack doing their part to right wrongs the watchman and watch women of the world vigilantes. Today we turn the show over to these unsung folks from a twosome traverse in America taking on typos as they go to a woman turn waste management maven in the north in where trash violations have both streets and citizens. You mean in New Hampshire. A band of commuters thrown under the bus take on the town when their route is suddenly severed. Then we shift gears and head over to Arlington where one man's forking over 40 GS to keep a biplane out of his hood. We wrap up with big screen outlaws. A look at vigilantes in film. Up next from real life rabble rousers to Hollywood tough guys. First the news from NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying.

Illinois ousted governor Rod Blagojevich will be retried next year on corruption charges. A federal judge says it won't start earlier than January 4th but NPR's David Schaper tells us that federal prosecutors say they will not retry blow Goya bitches brother. Jurors and a lot of post verdict interviews were saying that they were much more than what you know about trying to say. Robert what a bitch. They felt like he may not have really known all of what was going on. There were more votes to acquit him according to many jurors than there were to convict him. And given the fact that that this trial is going to be lengthy and it was confusing to jurors the government positions in an effort to simplify the case it's going to just stick with the charges against Russell Boy that's the former governor and they have dropped the charges against the brother. NPR's David Schaper in Chicago the defendants were accused of conspiring to sell or trade President Obama's old Senate seat. Weekly unemployment claims are down Labor Department says drop to four hundred seventy three thousand last week. More from Daniel

Carson. Jobless benefit claims are volatile So analysts are hoping last week's encouraging drop wasn't just a blip but Nigel Gault chief U.S. economist with IHS Global Insight isn't pinning high hopes on one claims report. I wouldn't take too much from this. If we look at say the full week moving average that's still creeping up. I think the best we can see out of this is pretty major Op. which spiralled that seem to be there in the previous couple of weeks seems to have come to a halt. All told 10 million people were getting unemployment benefit checks at the beginning of the month. Analysts say claims need to fall below 400000 for job growth. And right now the economy is creating fewer than 100000 jobs a month barely enough to keep the country's nine and a half percent unemployment rate from climbing. For NPR News I'm Daniel Carson. A hearing in Anchorage Alaska is focusing on deep water oil drilling workers safety and oil spill response a day after a White House commission called the Gulf oil spill a major shared failure of public responsibility by the oil industry and government. More from NPR's Paul

Brown. Arctic waters are remote. The weather is often hostile. There is no Coast Guard station nearby. And even if there were rough weather could easily interfere with attempts to stop an oil leak there as it did in the much less forbidding environment of the Gulf Coast. Marilyn Hyman of the Pew Environment Group is testifying at the hearing in Anchorage one of a series around the country. She tells NPR the Gulf oil spill proves that better regulations and oversight are crucial as exploration expands. We need strict regulations on safety on spill prevention in place before we go to extreme places like the Arctic Ocean. Also testifying. Oil industry supporters industry trade groups want a drilling ban lifted soon and they're wary of new regulations. Paul Brown NPR News. This is NPR. The man suspected in a series of attacks in three states has been extradited from Atlanta to Flint Michigan where he will face charges in at least one of the assaults.

Ellie is able Azam was arrested at an Atlanta airport about two weeks ago as he was boarding a plane to his native Israel. The 33 year old is linked to 18 attacks including five deaths in Michigan Ohio and Virginia. Most of the victims were African-American men. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is pledging U.S. support to bring to justice Congolese and Rwandan rebels that the U.N. blames for the mass rape of women and children in eastern Congo. NPR's Ofeibea costar CTR reports at the U.N. Security Council is holding an emergency session on the matter today. Secretary Clinton describes as horrific the attack in the town in which more than 150 women and children were viciously raped and assaulted by armed men. She said the mass rape in eastern Congo was another example of sexual violence undermining attempts to maintain stability in conflict areas striving for peace. Clinton offered Washington's help to prosecute. The perpetrators the attack of four days at the end of July was twenty miles from a U.N. base but peacekeepers say they only heard

about it more than a week later when relief workers. Last year the U.N. adopted a resolution pledging to prevent and respond to sexual violence as a tactic of war against civilians. Stockton NPR News Dhaka. Former baseball pitcher Roger Clemens reportedly will be arraigned Monday on criminal charges. He's accused of lying to Congress about his use of performance enhancing drugs. Dow is down 17 points at ten thousand forty three. I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation committed to helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need on the web at our WJF dot org. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. It's

vigilante hour. Today we're turning over the entire show to the watchmen and watch women in our backyard. The people who take it upon themselves to make the world a better and more just place. We're kicking things off with a twosome who traversed America taking on typos along the way. I'm talking about Jeff Beck and Benjamin Hurston co-authors of The Great Typo Hunt and founding members of the Typo Eradication Advancement League. Gentlemen welcome. Thanks for having us on the show. You were say. Yeah thanks for thanks for having us on this is Benjamin. And this is Jeff right here. Very good. I love your monologue typos they must be stopped. You got to tell everybody how you got on the mission to stop and eradicate typos. Sure yeah well I was looking for some way to make the world a better place in just at least some small way and I really had to ask myself first of all what I'm actually good at. What can I get out there and do for the world and the answer I came

up with was editing I'd worked as an editor for a couple different publications and I had really honed by eye for spotting things like typos so I figured I would make a national campaign out of hunting down typos and then you got into this because. So Jeff calls me up and he says I'm thinking of taking a road trip I said Hey that sounds great. He says to correct typos and I said I love road trips. So the typo part wasn't as exciting for you that that one grew on me slowly. The first stop of the that we made together. We found typos simultaneously so maybe I was just destined to be the perfect sidekick. Well I'm going to read this piece from your book which may explain why some others help you along the way as you get started on this. If this is what you say in a later chapter in the book I think most of us must carry a kind of repository of errors noticed and internalize during a lifetime of

bombardment by signs and ads and billboards and flyers. We may not even be aware of the repository and till it is unlocked by the right stimulus. Say for example a couple of yahoos walking around with elixir of correction the yahoos would be you and your election. Yes looks are of correction would be. Tell us about your kit to correct. That would basically be wiped out. We decided to calling it a lecture in the book so that just wouldn't start to sound like a product placement for you know for big brand white out after a while but it was it was a very useful part of the typo correction kit and so were sharpies and dry erase markers and crimson chalk we really wanted to be prepared for typos in various kinds of situations. OK give us some examples of what you're talking about. What kind of typos you corrected. Well sometimes the signs in storefronts sometimes there would be lets say a

chalkboard outside a restaurant or cafe Sometimes they'd be signs along the highway sometimes they'd be in let's say golf courses and museums and gift shops and pretty much anywhere where text is out on public display there's the potential for it to go sometimes tragically wrong the first time I watch Jeff in action. He had found puting instead of putting it was missing a D in bread pudding and he asked the host can I just fix this for you right now and then he produced a piece of chalk just with with a little flourish. And I said I have a piece of chalk right here. I can just do this right now and so the guy couldn't help but say Oh sure go ahead. Now the putting example is interesting but and you have others like that. I as I look through the book find that most of the errors have to do with the misplacement of apostrophes Can you talk about that. Sure yeah I mean that's really just one of the most common ways for for

for typos to happen for people is that there are so many different ways to go wrong with the apostrophe I mean in some cases we would find that people would put put the apostrophe into plural words where they're obviously not needed like. Like assign a fountain though as I just posed to say restrooms like indicating more than one restroom but it was rest room apostrophe Yes. And the inverse happens almost as often where people leave out an apostrophe when it's actually needed like like in a contraction like let's like let's go Cavaliers like we saw in Cleveland I was just ell you ts. Now on your trip you found four hundred thirty seven mistakes approximately and corrected about half of them a little more than half of them. So why just a little more than half how do people receive you were you chased off some place. Then there were there were not quite as many positive responses to the two observations as we might have hoped I mean we always tried to be as courteous and deferential as possible and really emphasize that we were just trying to get the typos themselves fixed

and that we weren't trying to you know impute anything to anyone's character or make any judgments about people. But all the same there were still some cases where people would just get defensive when we pointed out something that was mistaken in their signage and I suppose it's a natural human reaction to get defensive when somebody points a mistake of yours particularly in Texas since we sort of our own text but it's not really the most productive response for actually getting that mistake fixed and improving the impression that your business is giving off. Give me some specific examples of the kind of exchanges you had when you would and what would you say when you come to somebody and point out hey you. There's a typo here and I'd like to correct it. One of my favorite examples was actually in New Orleans because it was one of the most receptive cities to our type of hunting and there we actually did meet with success we were walking by this tour office and they had these very big signs in the window that

said cemetery with an A R Y instead of an. And we went inside and the manager was was rightly annoyed that those signs that supposedly been professionally produced had mistakes in them. And so she said yeah you can go ahead and fix it but just make sure that it looks good and so we really had an ascetic mission at that point and so we set to the vowels and perform very careful surgery with our red sharpies and white out and. And then the signs actually looked as good as new and we were finished with them and. Other times people would just try and deflect and avoid the problem altogether by giving an excuse why they couldn't fix it like you know I'm not I'm not in charge or somebody even told us that Fran sess instead of Francis in the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi that spelled with an E instead of an eye and he said Oh that's that's probably just the Spanish way of spelling it. Was there any did people take it personally so I mean any you just talked about people saying well it wasn't my job that's the manager you have to talk to or whatever but people feel

shame or embarrassment personally when this was pointed out to them. I think in some cases no matter what we tried to do it would inevitably somebody who would just react a little too defensively like when we were in Albany we did some some type of pointing at their annual tulip festival and we were passing by one stand where we noticed that someone had a sign up talking about an internationally renowned artist instead of renowned for the needy. And so when we pointed out to him he said No no I looked up renowned in the dictionary and it's right it's a word and and we said well we're not disputing that it's a word but it's not actually quite the right word you want right here. You want the E-D there and then his next tactic was to say oh well what university do you guys teach at it was it was almost system man for credentials. I am speaking with Jeff Deck and Benjamin Carson. They are authors of The Great Typo Hunt two friends changing the world one correction at a

time. What kind of. What typo do you think brought you the most gratification of the fix. What fixed it really is made you feel good. There was an incident actually at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco where they had an exhibit profiling some female cartoonists and they had mistakes in pretty much every caption in the exhibit and if they really like garbled the meaning even in some cases and so when I brought this up to the person who was working there she was pretty dismissive and so I thought well I'm going to have to have a little help with this one so I I was keeping a blog at the time of various type of fines and corrections and so I really put this one out to our readers and said you know we need some help here and if you just send some polite requests to the curator about fixing these signs you know out of respect for the exhibit and into the cartoonist themselves and sure enough just a couple days later the curator got in touch with us and you know begged us to call off the hounds. But

the the the signs have been corrected it was really a team victory there. I was actually surprised as going through the book that more people didn't demand like the gentleman said where you guys do you teach or something. I didn't demand some something to say for you to prove that you are expert in this area. Like why should they believe you. Well I think I think Benjamin can speak to this because he's worked in a retail environment himself. What do you say there. They're just trying to get rid of you as soon as possible. Yeah they're just trying to deal with the problem as soon as possible they they want to get back to just helping the paying customers and we tried as much as possible not to interfere if there was a an actual customer purchasing something we definitely deferred to them to let them go right ahead first. You're called Gorilla Grodd Marion's by some folks and I have to point out that there are some people who laid a path for you of course there's Strunk.

And then I'm thinking about Eat Shoots and Leaves the author of that book Lynne Truss who sort of took on the same kind of thing albeit without a kit in Britain. Do you consider those people inspiration. Well I mean it was certainly an interesting starting point but we really wanted to be the kind of the kinder gentler alternative to the the angrier Mary in which people like Lynne Truss of sort of come to personify were. You know spelling and grammar mistakes become the source of sort of dark humor and sarcasm and we really wanted to get something a little more productive out of out of typos we wanted to be able to still find humor in them and so I mean in the book we try and make it as as fun and funny an adventure as possible and there is definitely a lot of hilarious stories to tell but we also wanted to just make sure that the people were actually you know seeing how to how to fix these mistakes and how to avoid typos in the future.

Now what do you say to people who say you're both from you know have a lead education and write errors. A lot of people putting up these signs they don't know how to spell and probably don't know very much grammar. How do you deal with that as an issue. Well I think good spelling and grammar shouldn't solely be the domain of the elite. And we're certainly not an elite ourselves I mean we had the good fortune to go to a good college but we really think that with the right spelling and grammar education early on I mean most people should be able to to improve their spelling and grammar and be able to avoid typos I mean I think the way our educational system is set up right now in most American curricula we're using the wrong method to teach spelling and grammar and so I think it really starts there. Yeah. Everybody makes mistakes and that's the that's the first thing to recognize. It's we're just trying to help people who have made their mistakes sort of out there sort

of broadcast them to everyone we're trying to correct them so they can. They can look just as good in it as anybody else assigns even professional corporate signs that come down come down to every store from one central place. I assume there are no typos in this book right. I didn't catch any you know. OK that's that's a job for somebody out there is listening who is listening as you say the struggle for grammatical uprightness begins not on the printed page but in the song. So somebody with some soul get on it. Thank you very much. I'm Kelly Crossley and it's vigilante hour we're talking with people who've taken on improving the world. And I've been speaking with Jeff Deck and Benjamin Hurst and co-authors of The Great Typo Hunt and founding members of the Typo Eradication Advancement League. Gentlemen thank you so much for joining us. Oh thank you very much. Thanks. Coming up it's the waste management maven of the north then my only poet. Stay with us.

The. Support for WGBH comes from you. And from Ace ticket. With tickets to sports concerts and theatre events nationwide. Ace ticket can help you find tickets to Red Sox Patriots Celtics and Bruins games and many other venues. 1 800 my seats or Ace ticket dot com and from the law firm of nutter McLennan and fish. Innovative collaborative and determined to achieve the best result for our clients. To learn more about another McLendon and fish detailed information is available at nutter dot com. Public Broadcasting has always told the stories that no one else is telling. Host Kelly Carr Yes we cover the big news but we also cover the way big news affects those who are rarely asked to give an opinion or offer respect for WGBH the Hindraf.

The mirror rolls around every August thirty first. And every year. What's really at risk are the stories that no one else is telling. Call 8 9 7 9 4 2 4 4 get securely online at WGBH dot org. On the next FRESH AIR the billionaire brothers who are waging a war against President Obama and helping fund the Tea Party movement. We talk with Jane Mayer about her article in The New Yorker investigating the covert operations of Charles and David Koch. Also Edgar Wright talks about directing his new film Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Join us. Weekends are great for getting together with friends. Does American life marriage last today listening to Bob Edwards weekend. I'm Carl Kasell and here's your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago. The Sago This is FRESH AIR.

Let's go to quote We can like well we're going to show to my hometown spend time with your public radio friends all weekend long here on the new eighty nine point seven. WGBH radio. I'm Kelly Crossley. And this is the Kelly Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in it's vigilante hour with midterm elections around the corner and a governor's race on the horizon. We're hearing no in from the candidates about what they will do as lawmakers to change our lives. But meanwhile we're checking in with everyday people who are doing their part to right wrongs. My guest now Iommi Paul is a woman who is cleaning things up. She is the co-chair of the north and waterfront residents association clean streets Committee. Welcome. Thank you. Nice to be here. OK so when you move to the south and you found it extremely dirty north and north and then I have South and on the on the brain. Yeah. You found it extremely filthy. You just describe it for

us. There's dirt everywhere the gutters were filthy The sidewalks are filthy. What we really notice as there was trash on the street all the time we had to kind of work our way around the trash just to walk down the street. And what got you going what made you decide to do something about I'd never have lived in such a filthy environment before you know we move we downsize we move from the suburbs into the city it was going to be a fun great neighborhood and we couldn't believe the filth we were living in it was. It was just unconscionable. And so we found out that there was a residents association we got involved in. There was a clean streets Committee they've worked hard to fight to get their streets cleaned up for years but it took somebody like you to really boost this effort up I think. Well it's a committee. I know when this is the ball but it's a committee effort. And yeah we we came up with what the problems are on the north end and we have a list of solutions and we have public works who is working with us our

councilman Salama team is working with us and there are people who really do want to get this the city cleaned up it's not just in the north and Beacon Hill south and a lot of the neighborhoods are fighting the same problem it's a it's a city mentality. But what are some of the problems specific to the north in. Well the biggest problem you know we are worrying about the rats so we give them a lot to eat all the time. There is trash out on the street it's getting better but people still complain there's a lot of trash out on the street all the time. We have three days of pick up. And the people can put trash out five o'clock the night before and the earliest it'll get picked up the next morning at 7:00 o'clock and sometimes that's 9:00 or 10:00. So we've got you know we have 45 hours of trash on our streets. And when and when you see it out there what do you do. Because you've taken it more than complaining about it you're doing.

Exactly. You know if it's after five and before seven we have code enforcement out there who are ticketing people if they're not putting in the right kind of containers so that the rats don't get into them. What I get really upset about is the other times the trash is out there like today I walk down a street it was 12 o'clock in the afternoon garbage is tomorrow and there's trash out. Why. Because someone felt like it. It's. It's such a self you know they're just thinking of themselves and not really the environment that they live in so it gets my goat and I want to do something about it. And now that you and your committee have been really focusing on this what's been the reaction of people when they get ticketed or are spoken to about the fact that hey you're you're contributing to the rent problem and other sanitary issues. I just had a. Conversation with someone yesterday who told me he had gotten three tickets already. Unfortunately he is somebody who does keep his area clean. I'm not really sure why he sent in and paid the ticket I said if you're

ticketed and it really isn't your trash or you know you can go fight it. Unfortunately landlords are going to get the tickets because that's who's TechNet it are the buildings and a lot of them don't find out until they show up on their tax bill. And that's the beauty of the green ticket. I mean there's too much of a time lapse as far as I'm concerned. So people are angry that they're getting ticketed. And what we say to them when they come to our meetings is find a better way to get this cleaned up in. Let's look at a solution we've got to figure out a solution not just complain. So that's what we're we're trying to do people think you're a little kooky because you do in the not to my face. I think they're grateful. I think a lot of people think we're spinning our wheels. You know this is been an issue that we've been fighting in the north and long before we got there. We're just putting some different plans together and we have the support of some of the city departments that they're trying but we're fighting a whole

mentality. I was going to ask is this something a function of people used to be a lot of emphasis about not littering which then might carry over to this. Do you think you know that's what's gone now people just don't have that as a feeling anymore they don't feel bad about littering and so therefore they don't feel bad about leaving garbage out. You know that you're so frightened when I remember the Smokey the Bear campaign when I was a little girl so that showing age but it was about you know pick up your litter don't litter. And that's what I grew up with and I've always lived in a clean environment I've lived in cities before and never anything like this. When I was new to the neighborhood I was walking down the street and there was a guy tossing his sunflower seed shells on the ground and I was on the committee and I said excuse me what are you doing. And he looked at me like I was a little crazy and he says it's OK the city will clean it up. And that's kind of the mentality that the city is going to clean it up and you know I'm not going to get into budget and all that. But

you know in a dense in a dense neighborhood like we have you know it's a difference if there really is right on top of you it's really not that easy to have somebody out all the time cleaning up. And one of our campaigns was 10 minutes with a broom where we asked the residents and the people owned property or businesses on the first Florida sweep the sidewalk and the gutter you know we say 10 minutes a day that's really five minutes a day. And so many people wouldn't even do that for whatever reasons like that even take pride in people coming into their businesses so they the cities had Hokies out there you know cleaning up the gutters and even with all that. And our streets are cleaned every night still side of the street. But it's getting better getting better it is getting better and we're going to keep fighting. You know why it's getting better because Paul you are the new Dirty Harry please. Help me Paul thank you so much for joining us. You know me Paul is the co-chair of the north

and waterfront residents association clean streets Committee. Up next it's a woman who helped to restore a lifeline to her town a bus route. How do we're talking in real life vigilantes this hour. The watchman and watch women among us who are changing the world around us. My guest Cynthia Gonnerman of Tilton New Hampshire lobbied to preserve her bus route. Cynthia welcome. Thank you very much. Now tell us what the problem was they were about to take away your bus stop your bus line rather. Yes they were because of recent budget cuts. They wanted to shut down our bus that runs around that a few towns near us are in film and then different towns around us. Now we should say that you are a blind person and this is really

your way of being able to get around and to take care of your errands but also to disperse dissipate in the life of your community. Exactly yeah that's exactly right. I ride on the bus. Just about every day. Well at least four times a week and I volunteer at our local veterans home and I also go shopping and I go to doctor's appointments and I go get my haircut just everyday things that everybody else drives. Do I take the bus now. What's been happening in a lot of communities is that municipalities are saying we can't afford this or that we have to make some cutbacks. And so that was part of the conversation here in your town they said we have to make some cutbacks but you thought it sounded a little fishy about how much they were saying they had to cut back. Would you please explain. Sure. Well first they said first there wasn't going to be any bustard at all they just wanted to shut us down completely. And then they said they had a public hearing. And at the public hearing my friend Pat and I went to the public airing we had I think we had 15 people there and they wanted to cut the whole town of Franklin and Franklin has a

hospital there. And so it was kind of like you can't shut off the hospital access to a hospital to all the elderly people you know that ride to their doctor's appointment and any different you know a lot of people need the bus that don't have cars or can't you know we don't have family around and they need it to stay in their homes. Well a lot of the elderly people need to just to be able to stay where they are. And so what you got them to do was to save at least part of the bus route and you're still in process. But they were supposed to cut it all out by July 1st so clearly you've made a difference. Yeah. Well we tried we went you know we but then the other interesting part was that when we went to the public hearing it was there. Just some fishy things that didn't make sense to us. We went to the public airing and we were there a little early and one of the guys that was from it's called the Community Action Program. He was there and we wanted to talk to the Department of Transportation because that's where the money was coming from. They give out the money and they give it to different agencies and community action is the program that runs our bust. And so the Department of Transportation

wasn't there so Pat and I were there and we asked the man from the Community Action Well can we talk to the d o t. And he said and they said well he said well they weren't coming and we said well can we have a meeting with him and he said sure he'd help arrange it and you know and so that sounded good to us and then the meeting started and we asked about it and when his meeting started all the other people were there and he said he changed his whole story and he was like well we can't stop you. And we said well what do you mean. You know what does that mean. But we were stunned at the meeting because I was stunned into silence we didn't know what to say so then I wrote to the DLT and I said you know how come you're cutting our budget. And I got a totally different answer from them they said they hadn't cut it. What you got was the runaround is what it looked to me. Did you get your head around. And I think that a lot of people listening will say gee I've gotten the runaround before but I never did anything about it so. What lessons do you have for other citizens who want to take things into their hands as you did.

Well you just have to keep if they give you an answer that doesn't make then you need to just go to the next person and the next person you know and keep. Backing tell you find out what the truth is till they get an answer that makes sense to you and that you know that makes sense. And so we've gone we've gone to practically everybody we went to our executive council or the governor's office the senators and so we're still we're still in progress but still working on it trying to just keep trying. And you're doing very very well I have to say your inspiration to all of us who are listening and I've been speaking with since you're gonna man who is of in July a t this hour. One of our great local vigilantes. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much. Up next is a man who's boycotting bike lanes. Welcome back. We're talking of vigilantes this hour my guest Eric Berger lives in Arlington

and he spent over $40000 of his own money to prevent the city from narrowing mass and have by adding a bike lane. Eric Berger welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Now you know at first listen mess sounds like you're just a meanie. I mean you know and I don't like bikes. That's not the case at all not the case at all no. The issue is safety and that's not me alone I'm the only one that got involved with a lawyer for a car Khant Embry is is an excellent for him and the area located in Cambridge and they help me a lot but. We have the startling thing Concerned Citizens Committee which is comprised of many many residents and we have over twenty five hundred signatures and 53 businesses are supporting us. And our issue is safety. This plan makes no sense. We have a one mile stretch of highway. The mass you have that's a very convenient hassle free. It's great and it has four wide lanes and the selectmen came in with a plan to take away two of those lanes one for a third of a mile and one for the whole mile. And we said why are you doing that. What's the purpose. They

said we want to add two white things. We said we have an a great bike lane two blocks away. The Minuteman bike way. It's fabulous. You use it yourself. I use it myself. Yes we have many bikers it is safe convenient. But they said well we want to add them anyway. We said Do you know what's going to happen. You're going to have more congestion. It's not going to make it greener because we're going to have more CO2 emissions we're going to have more air pollution. We're going to have emergency vehicles that operate from the center of town that's where the fire houses and the ambulance buys they're going to come down into East Arlington on mass have and that's going to be slower. I mean where in the world when you go from two traveling to one does it does it smooth out nowhere. It gets worse and then essentially told you you know go away. Regardless they said go away. Yeah and then we said why don't you do a comparison. If you don't believe us do a comparison put out some orange barrels whatever and compare your Ford at the existing four lanes with your plan. They said no we don't want to do that. I said you should

know the side effects before you spent over five million dollars of the taxpayer's money on this idea. You know what they told us if we have problems after we spend the money we'll fix them then. We said after you spend the money you must be kidding. I mean what are you going to get the additional money. Plus you can't fix somebody who dies waiting for an emergency vehicle and that's the point we've just had just a rash of stories about bikers being injured or killed in these narrow circumstances. Now you're talking about creating one. You have seen you. Well yes it's been a shared roadway for over 80 years. This one mile stretch Cali and it's worked. Now we did tell the town you want to put up a shared bike lanes signs. She had roadway signs all along the four mile stretch in Arlington and educate the public on that on on the situation. But we're not only worried about bikers getting hit out there because we do think it could they could entice bikers that don't know how to handle mass add because you have to be an excellent writer to ride on mass to have your bike has to be perfect

and you have to know what you're doing and you can't swear one inch. And if you want to get more bikers out there it's going to be dangerous especially if they're not qualified. Plus this but these bike lanes die at the end of one mile. That's right now they don't go anywhere. Now let me just say this though Eric a lot of people like you would be just as angry express all the things that you're saying Speak up at the meetings but they wouldn't put their own money into making this making a difference but you are. That's true and the reason is because I don't. Two reasons one is I don't want to lose this. It makes no sense. This is common sense tells you this doesn't work and we haven't gotten any answers that make any sense. Plus so. And I. What about your little local legislate anybody saying I'm just saying Yeah you're right Eric let me join well in our group. Good question our group the east Allington concerned citizen committee is preparing a letter now that's going to go out to the selectmen giving them one last chance. And was she sitting at all the legislators legislators and so on and were telling them that this plan makes no sense. And it's a you know it's unsafe that's the key we're going to have more traffic on our side streets the side streets nice

Arlington NRO anyway Kelly. They have cars parked on both sides. Kids they're out there walking the dog riding their bikes you going to have more cars coming down there. And we say don't you understand there's going to be more congestion and they look at you and they say it won't happen. So that that's their response what's been the response of other people in the community. Well the vast majority of the people we've contacted are against this plan. They did a poll on the Arlington advocate a fine local paper and that that poll said said that over 80 percent of the people responding to that poll said they did not think that this select plan would make mass AB safer. And I'm sure if they had also asked the question do you think you'll make a blessed safe. They would have said yes. It's obvious you had more congestion. You know plus that for the first half mile you believe as you leave Cambridge Cali on this massive and head into Arlington. There's no left turn lanes in the plan so you stop. The other point is that it's illegal. I'm sure that the selectmen and FE Spofford Thorndyke the engineer didn't

know that there's chapter 82 Section 17 of the mass general law that says a selectman cannot narrow a highway any select group of Selectmen anywhere in Massachusetts. Why. Because it messes up. It does not facilitate safe and convenient travel between highways. Your laws have been changed for years but that's remained why. Because you mass have connects to the west with Lexington and Lincoln to the east with Boston and Cambridge. So you need safe convenient travel. I think Erick they know now. I hope so and I hope they they and your all of them accountable will hold them accountable by going to you can make a difference they cause you can't fight city hall we should fight it if you don't fight it. There you go. That's because you're a vigilante. Eric Berger thank you so much for joining us. We've been talking a real life rabble rouses the vigilantes among us. Coming up it's our film contributor gerund daily on larger than life law breakers the saviors of the silver screen. Don't go away. We'll be back after this break. The.

Support for WGBH comes from you. And from Ace ticket. With tickets to sports concerts and theatre events nationwide. Ace ticket can help you find tickets to Red Sox Patriots Celtics and Bruins games and many other venues. 1 800 my seats or Ace ticket dot com and from Newberry court overlooking the submarine river in Concord Mass. A full service residential community for persons over the age of 62. You can learn more at Newbury CT dot org. A deaconess abundant life community. And from Somerset Chrysler Jeep Dodge featuring the new 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee with select terrain and quadrille lift systems. You're invited to stop in for a test drive off Route 195 in Somerset Somerset auto group dot com. This is an eighty nine point seven WGBH Boston's NPR station

and a new choice for New England from the most trusted content source in public broadcasting. CAMILE de Grasse Tyson post of Nova Science now given one of what would happen if you dug a hole from one side of the earth. Through the center. Out the other side and then jumped in. Tonight on Frontline correspondent Lowell Bergman investigates black money. We are WGBH. I am Philip Martin from WGBH news as many news organizations continue to downsize WGBH and NPR continue to increase their commitment to long form investigative series. August 30 1st marks the end of the fiscal year for the future which means budget for investigative series are once again under review. Please help secure the future of public break by making a contribution. 8 8 8 9 7 9 4 2 4 4 give on line at WGBH dot org ten thousand nine hundred fifty one The GBH has brought you the best in public radio stories that make you think

shows that make you laugh and music that moves you. There's more coming up thanks to your support. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. Today we're talking about vigilantes. We're wrapping up the hour with our film contributor Guerin daily there and daily is a film critic and host of the gerund Daily Show on 15 50 W NTN. Aaron welcome back. My pleasure. So I know a lot of people are going to think that you anti's account for Joran have not been not a great word but but we know that it means something else. Well it comes from the Spanish to mean watch man and you know it actually has a very long history started you know back in the days of you know it was in the folk hero days of Robin Hood believe it or not when you know that people would you know redress the government through acts of violence or disobedience. And you know they became folk

heroes Robin Hood William tell all these guys were basically vigilantes. And when you start thinking about the history of it in New England the same there was a very difficult line when there was there wasn't a lot of law and order back in say 16 50 or 17 50 New England. But you know people would take the law into their own hands and it was a fine line between what was rebellion against the government or rebellion against the English. And that was being and that was. You know the. Just take it all on your own hands and being a criminal. Well that's the thing you know you do you. It seems like the vigilantes that we see on the silver screen are all outlaws we've just been talking to some real life folks who've been working within the law as they can to make things happen but the ones on the silver screen they're all outside of the law. But they start off it's a very interesting arc if you take a look at any particular classic vigilante film for instance taxi driver. It always starts off with someone who's kind of a pillar of society. Travis Bickle is a vet

and it's only through his own perceived perception of wrongs being done to him that he starts wondering what he can do to address them redress those. Well let's listen to a clip from Texas. This is from Martin Scorsese Scorsese's 1976 classic taxi driver starring Robert DeNiro as the troubled Vietnam vet to have a speckle for anything for attack. I mean. It was cheap to rent a hotel private area for you. People on Bereshit cannot even act like you know it. Tash and I wouldn't even exist. This city here is. Like an open sewer you know it's full of filth and scum. I think I know what you mean Alice. But it's not going to be easy. You guys get to be a signature. One. I'm just curious because I'm a bad McKibbin. There's a thing about that and most of these characters on the silver screen they

have this kind of dark side to them. You know you don't think of them as being cheery fellows. They're they and it has an edge of violence it seems to me. Well that's that's the thing is that for some reason for whatever reason and you know Travis because he's obviously dealing with post-traumatic stress and someone like Paul Kersey in death wish is as a white middle class guy whose family is killed in the brave one Jodie Foster's boyfriend is murdered and she you know and all of them have grievances against the government and in society you know the justice system is supposed to address that when it breaks down and that addressing is not done and then they go start going outside and plot revenge and somehow create a situation where there's going to be a. Everything coming to a head usually in a bloodbath like in Taxi Driver there's a bloodbath in that bloodbath. The hero or the anti-hero is somehow cleansed and is drawn back into society and everyone is kind of happy again. But people

have to do a little nod nudge nudge wink wink because they did break the law and death wish. He is you know said OK I want to just get out of town which is kind of forget about it. So I mean there's a whole arc in the in the movies. All right I want people to hear a little bit from deathwish This is the 1974 film starring Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey an architect whose life comes undone after his wife is fatally attacked and his daughter is left in a catatonic state. We have here a peculiar situation with the currency. We find it necessary to make your proposition since you are not going to save us but he'll let you work for a company with lots of offices. Get a transfer to another city. And I'll drop this gun in the red. How we connect think this is a. We want to the get out of New York. That financially.

So there you have it. There is that 6 and if you take a look at all of them they're somehow whatever they do they're going to end up getting accepted back into society so they go outside of the society to address their wrongs. Then they are brought back into society and kind of forgiven because they become pillars of society again. Somehow the bloodbath you know atone for that for for the wrong done to them. It's very biblical It's very eye to eye. And for whatever reason audiences like that and they like it at particular times in our history for instance in the 70s and early 80s and the post Vietnam Watergate Malays period that's when deathwish came out that's when the classical classic miss 45 came out. That's when a number of these vigilante movies really kind of exploded on the scene because we were as an audience were feeling you know that that it was all out of control the government wasn't addressing our needs. Was he providing basic protection and things were out of control. So we got a chance to. You know somehow get our ya yas out by watching a movie where it's done.

Well let me just follow up on that an ass. Are we somehow fantasizing that this is that we excuse the bad behavior and the violence because we really want the the wrong corrected. But we know all this other stuff is wrong and that's hopefully not something we would do in our own lives. But we like to fantasize that when we walk out of this movie theater the wrong was righted. Yeah I think that we need I think in some ways it's sort of like going into a confessional and confessing your sins except the center tainment. And when you come out you feel cleansed much like the guy who is in the movie who gets cleanse in the blood bath were walking away feeling somehow that we can now move forward with our regular lives because we've seen some sort of atonement. All right well here's a clip that one our listeners to hear in this is from the film Edge of Darkness which came out this year starring Mel Gibson. He plays Thomas craven a homicide detective whose mission is to uncover clues surrounding the murder of his daughter. I want to call everybody and everybody concerned to tell them I know everything I need to know. You investigate

this at a national level. You do that. Maybe you'll come out of this all right. I don't know. I don't think you know the people you are in business with. Killed my daughter. How do you do you know. Well here he is again that's Mel Gibson. This is probably very post-millennial type type of vigilante. He's a cop whose daughter was poisoned with with radioactive pill and we don't know if he's also been poisoned to the government. And the big business are in collusion to do something nasty and he's found out about it and he's found out who the people are and he's trying to force them to change their ways and there is going to be a little bloodbath a little later on in the film. But what's really interesting is when I was looking at this and I was looking at Mel Gibson OK because Mel Gibson is in a lot of these films. I mean Mad Max is a vigilante film payback which is a cute little film that I actually like. There's a vigilante film Braveheart is a vigilante

film Edge of Darkness ransom. You look at the body of Mel Gibson. He's in a lot of vigilante films. And you wonder whether his own personal. Ghosts or demons or whatever is running through his head. Also allows him to or wants to make these films where he can be a vigilante and that kind of has bled a little bit over into his own life. Well I'll articulate the psychobabble you wonder if he's crazy. You know after you've seen him be crazy in real life if this is actually just his living out what he does in normal life. I mean really I think I said I think I was in his. I actually think that with me I think problem is that he drinks too much. OK well we're really going down the path now which shrinks are you know cringing when I think that though I have to I have to say that the ransom film of the ones that you've mentioned was I thought kind of the perfect marriage. If I'm going to look at a vigilante film personally that's what I liked as it was a he was pretty great a normal family person. He tried to have a resolution that would make the bad

guys pay attention to him they were you know some great characters and that the rest of the people not just him. It wasn't a solo act I thought that was really quite interesting. That was a good one. There's also the brave one which is with Jodie Foster directed by Neil Jordan where it's a female and she's a very standing person in the community and her husband or her boyfriend is you know is also that and he is murdered. And the fact that she goes on a tear. A reign of terror is very unusual because you don't see many women it's usually white males. It's very rarely is it anybody else. But like 40 year old white guys like Mel Gibson or Paul Kersey or you know and so that's an unusual one and I like that because it has that same arc. Now what about films like falling down with Michael Douglas and then I was thinking about the Clint Eastwood one when he became a vigilante on behalf of his Asian neighbors who were being bullied by grants I mean yeah right I couldn't name a great grandchild you know I would put in the vigilante things I'm not sure that I would put the other one in there because it's you know fall

and fallen down. I mean he's just an angry white man. And it's you know the slights there's no greater good it's no greater good is there's a pretty it's more perceived on his end and he's actually just his life is out of control that the traditional. Vigilante is someone who is like trying to do something good. Francis you think Robin Hood and a 938 version with Errol Flynn was one of my favorite films because it's just such a good boy film. He is you know he's trying to do the better good you know the Saxons are being oppressed by the Normans. They're being taxed to death they're being tortured and he's just trying to help them survive. All right let's let's hear a little bit about that again this is the 1938 Classic Robin Hood based on the well-known English legend Robin of Locksley an outlaw who steals from the rich to help the poor in this clip we'll hear Errol Flynn as Robin Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marian and Claude Rains as Prince John. We sections have a little bit by the time you get tax gatherers through the

sheet a gentleman I need to stand up show me up back up. So you think you're over text a text over what I picked up by you speak keys fluently. That's my kind of vigilante. First of all I love that's one of my fairy speak treason fluently but that you know there's a there's a good. You know there's two kinds of vigilant is one who's going after some personal trauma like you know death wish Paul Kersey and someone who's going after governmental one which is Robin Hood or some of these other people but when you think about also historically and what's happening now we still have a lot of vigilanteism going on right now. The people who are on the southern border between Mexico who are out there working it and trying to prevent illegals from coming across. That's vigilanteism. You know and you can there are other places where it's at with the Guardian Angels. That's vigilantism again. So it's very much in our society. There's a recent film that just came out. Harry Brown starring Michael Caine which takes place in England which is very interesting that's taking place in England because you

had thought about vigilantes in England before except for maybe Robin Hood. But again he's an older man who is feeling. The power being taken away from him his best friend is murdered and he takes things into in his own hands and he's an ex whatever the equal whatever Marine is in Britain so that's interesting that again we're starting to see a few more vigilante films coming out. Well you know as you know as you have often said there's a lag time between what's happening in real life and then what ends up on the screen so I'm surprised we actually haven't seen more angry because there's a there's a culture of anger right now going on some surprise we haven't seen that on the other hand. Television is now adapting some of it. There's a show called leverage where there's a team of outlaws who leverage all of their skills at being bad guys on behalf of other people. Yeah there's leverage which is just sort of like the A-Team updated and The A-Team again was in the 70s so you're right about that. But you know I think one of the reasons you're not seeing that the classic vigilante films I think is being supplanted by the superheroes because the superheroes if you take a look at

like say Batman. Even Spider-Man and even Superman they have elements of the vigilante and especially the Dark Knight the Christopher Nolan film that's very dark and very much revenge oriented. And when you think about Spider-Man Spider-Man starts fighting for good because his uncle was murdered. So there's a lot of the G20 isn't going on in the superheroes and the superheroes are assuming that guilt and somehow expiating it with their super powers. And now when we move to super heroes we are starting to see more women because Angela Angelina Jolie as there was a large craft and I'm thinking about there's a couple of things. So also yes so. So we're is she the only one that could maybe move into this role. No I mean if you think of Linda Hamilton in Terminator You know I mean I think what we're seeing is we're finally seeing an equality and that women have as much anger as men. Salt is good because it's a great action film with a female lead which you don't see a lot of and she carried that film. So I think we'll see more of that but just because salt did so well

and I think that you know there is that demographic of women who. Do like action films but they want to see their prototypes up on the screen. Their role models up on the screen. So yeah I think we could see a few more coming down the pike. I'm just a little bit more psychobabble so if we're moving toward superheroes as our vigilantes is that because we just want to really truly escape from suspend reality our own reality where we may be angry in the sense that some of the other was vigilantes on screen we've talked about in operate in real life situations where as we move to a superhero situation there's nothing I could do anyway I don't have those powers but I can enjoy somebody being good. Well you take a think you know the film kick ass. There is a bunch of kids who adapt superhero tendencies even though they don't have those super endings. So there you go. So I've been speaking with our film contributor gerund daily he put the button on vigilantes today. Karen Daly is a film critic and host of the gerund Daily Show on 15 50 W NTN. Karen as always it's a pleasure to have you on. My

pleasure. This is the Kelly Crossley Show where a production of WGBH radio Boston's NPR station for news and culture.