Mayor Tom Menino has invited 6,000 of his fellow democrats to Boston to pick a new presidential candidate at the Democratic National Convention in July. 15,000 members of the press will follow them to the hub, and other components of the DNC entourage will bring the total “invasion” force to 35,000 people. If the U.S. electoral system encouraged candidates to bond with their constituents and know the problems they face, Bostonians would rightly be delighted to host such an event. As it is, the electoral system we have requires candidates to find simple, dumbed down, centrist messages that can appeal to large majorities instead of a platform that might have real substance and meaning for anyone. This majoritarian system serves to keep the diversity of voices that are extant in the United States out of the executive and legislative bodies of the government. Instead of party loyalists and dissenters alike enjoying an opportunity to talk to their representatives and candidates, the people of Boston are instead devising clever strategies that will allow them to breach the dividing walls, buffer zones, and police lines that will surround the Fleet Center and the delegates inside. One group, Boston’s DNC Coalition, has come up with a novel way to get their voices heard.

In a sordid tale of what appears to be greed and racism, Greenfield's Mayor and pro-development forces in that Franklin County town have sought to discredit and undermine attempts by Native Americans to protect Indian remains that may date back to the massacre at Turners Falls that took place on May 19, 1676. Tomorrow at Unity Park in Turners Falls that tragic event will be marked with a gathering intended to seek reconciliation, but such sentiments do not seem to be on the agenda in Greenfield's town offices, the enclaves of developers, or for that matter, at the offices of the town's paper, The Greenfield Recorder.