The End Of All Crossroads

Where the TAXI makes a stop, to ponder upon which road mayhap be true

Month: December, 2012

[Poem] Mirror

Illusion devours desire devours illusion.

Plight seduces lust seduces plight.
Fire lighten shadows lighten fire
Might conduces Love conduces Might
Dire is thus so cold so thus is dire.

Bare is fore thus old thus fore is bare.
Lair is nay but cove but nay is lair
Nights darken meadows darken nights
Blight imposes hush imposes blight.

Conclusion is nay thing nay is conclusion.

Blight imposes hush imposes blight.
Nights darken meadows darken nights
Lair is nay but cove but nay is lair
Bare is fore thus old thus fore is bare.

Dire is thus so cold so thus is dire.
Might conduces Love conduces Might
Fire lighten shadows lighten fire
Plight seduces lust seduces plight.

Illusion devours desire devours illusion.

infinity mirror

Goldman Sachs’ Global Coup D’etat

“Goldman made similar deals here in the United States, masking the true value of investments, then selling those worthless investments to customers while placing bets that those same investments would eventually fail.”

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Tuesday, 27 November 2012 16:07
By Thom Hartmann and Sam Sacks

When the people of Greece saw their democratically elected Prime Minister George Papandreou forced out of office in November of 2011 and replaced by an unelected Conservative technocrat, Lucas Papademos, most were unaware of the bigger picture of what was happening all around them.

Similarly, most of us in the United States were equally as ignorant when, in 2008, despite the switchboards at the US Capitol collapsing under the volume of phone calls from constituents urging a “no” vote, our elected representatives voted “yes” at the behest of Bush’s Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen and jammed through the biggest bailout of Wall Street in our nation’s history.

But now, as the Bank of England, a key player in the ongoing Eurozone crisis, announces that former investment banker Mark Carney will be its new chief, we can’t afford to ignore what’s happening around the world.

Steadily – and stealthily – Goldman Sachs is carrying out a global coup d’etat.

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos in his office at the Presidential Palace in Athens, Greece, January 16, 2012. (Photo: Eirini Vourloumis / The New York Times)

There’s one tie that binds Lucas Papademos in Greece, Henry Paulsen in the United States, and Mark Carney in the U.K., and that’s Goldman Sachs. All were former bankers and executives at the Wall Street giant, all assumed prominent positions of power, and all played a hand after the global financial meltdown of 2007-08, thus making sure Goldman Sachs weathered the storm and made significant profits in the process.

But that’s just scratching the surface.

As Europe descends into an austerity-induced economic crisis, Goldman Sachs’s people are managing the demise of the continent. As the British newspaper The Independent reported earlier this year, the Conservative technocrats currently steering or who have steered post-crash fiscal policy in Greece, Germany, Italy, Belgium, France, and now the UK, all hail from Goldman Sachs. In fact, the head of the European Central Bank itself, Mario Draghi, was the former managing director of Goldman Sachs International.

And here in the United States, after Treasury Secretary and former Goldman CEO Henry Paulsen did his job in 2008 securing Goldman’s multi-billion dollar bailout, he was replaced in the new Obama administration with Tim Geithner who worked very closely with Goldman Sachs as head of the New York Fed and made sure Goldman received more than $14 billion from the bailout of failed insurance giant AIG.

What’s happening here goes back more than a decade.

In 2001, Goldman Sachs secretly helped Greece hide billions of dollars through the use of complex financial instruments like credit default swaps. This allowed Greece to meet the baseline requirements to enter the Eurozone in the first place. But it also created a debt bubble that would later explode and bring about the current economic crisis that’s drowning the entire continent. But, always looking ahead, Goldman protected itself from this debt bubble by betting against Greek bonds, expecting that they would eventually fail.

Ironically, the man who headed up the Central Bank of Greece while this deal was being arranged with Goldman was – drumroll please – Lucas Papademos.

Goldman made similar deals here in the United States, masking the true value of investments, then selling those worthless investments to customers while placing bets that those same investments would eventually fail. The most notorious example was the “Timberwolf” deal, which brought down an Australian hedge fund, and which Goldman Sachs banksters emailed each other about, bragging, “Boy, that Timberwolf was one shitty deal.”

This sort of behavior by Goldman helped inflate, and then eventually pop, the housing bubble in the United States. The shockwave then ran across the Atlantic, hitting Europe and turning Goldman’s debt-masking deal with Greece years earlier sour, thus deepening the crisis.

All of these antics should have brought about the demise of Goldman as well, but with their alumni in key policy positions on both sides of the Atlantic, Goldman not only survived, it flourished.

As the DailyKos sums up, “The normal scenario usually involves helping a nation hide a problem and sell its debt until the problem blows up into a bubble that bursts in a spectacular way…Goldman Sachs then puts their ‘man’ into a position of power to direct the bailouts so that Goldman gets all its money back and more, while the nation’s economy gets gutted.”

For years, tinfoil hat crazies who’ve bookmarked Glenn Beck’s websites and often appear as “experts” on Fox so-called News have warned us about a one-world government (here, here, and here). The latest threat, according to them, is Agenda 21 and the creation of a Soviet-style world authority that will confiscate private party everywhere, redistribute wealth to developing nations, and force us all to live by new global laws that sacrifice our national sovereignty. It’s totalitarian governments and not transnational corporations that we should be afraid of, they warn.

But when the tinfoil hat is removed, you can see that a sort of one-world government has already been established in a far more subtle form, through the rise of Goldman Sachs and their colleagues in the Wall Street elite.

A million questions arise when looking at what’s happening around the world. But many of these questions can be answered, once it’s acknowledged that Goldman Sachs alumni have executed a global coup d’etat.

Why are the working people of Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy suffering under austerity and being asked to sacrifice their pensions, their wages, and their jobs when, after five years, it’s clear these policies are only making these nations’ debts even harder to pay off?

It’s because Goldman Sachs is sucking the last remaining wealth out of those nations to recoup whatever failed investments they made before the Crash.

Why have thousands of homeowners in the United States turned to suicide, domestic violence, and even mass murder when faced with home foreclosure, when a simple solution like re-writing mortgages, which FDR did successfully during the Great Depression, could put an end to the bloodshed and misery?

It’s because re-writing mortgages would force banks like Goldman Sachs to take a hit. And thanks to the game they’ve created, they actually make more money when a home they own is foreclosed on.

Why, despite mountains of evidence, have banksters at Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street institutions not been thrown in jail for defrauding customers, manipulating LIBOR interest rates, and throwing thousands of Americans out of their homes illegally in a massive robo-signing scandal?

It’s because we have a two-tiered justice system in which those in power, like Goldman Sachs executives, get a slap on the wrist when they steal $50 billion, but people like you and me go to jail for stealing a 7-11 Slurpee.

Now does it make sense why Wall Street was bailed out and Main Street was sold out?

In this post-crash world, where agents of Goldman Sachs have infiltrated key positions of power all around the world, we must all fundamentally re-understand how we view the global economy and just how much effect our democratic institutions have on this economy.

We no longer have an economy geared to benefit working people around the world; we have an economy that’s geared to exploit working people for Goldman Sachs’ profits. Trader Alessio Rastani told the BBC in September before Goldman’s Lucas Papademos was installed as Greece’s Prime Minister, “We don’t really care about having a fixed economy, having a fixed situation, our job is to make money from it…Personally, I’ve been dreaming of this moment for three years. I go to bed every night and I dream of another recession.” Rastani continued, “When the market crashes… if you know what to do, if you have the right plan set up, you can make a lot of money from this.”

And as we’ve seen over the last decade, Goldman Sachs knows exactly what to do. They’ve had the right plan set-up, and it’s nothing short of a global coup d’etat.

As Rastani bluntly told the BBC, “This is not a time right now for wishful thinking that governments are going to sort things out. The governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world.”

 

SOURCE:
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12996-goldman-sachs-global-coup-de-tat.html#13547977288201&action=collapse_widget&id=3478441

Philip Glass – Vessels

[Poem] The Hero

Never is too soon to flowers’ blossom

To bloom well deep inside the Hero’s bosom;

Nay is far too late his fate anew

Which is to pertain what he lost and still

Until his end of Life pursuits anon.

To find his love, and love everichon.

Fewer but are Moon’s so pale beams

To cast upon Mankind Her gentle gleams.

Nay be said a word; nay need be spoken

Whan Sun Almighty’s glows as iron molten

All through surface and deep illuminate

The Hero’s core – before it is too late.

Chemical weapons reports in Syria, exactly as warned

“American soldiers likely will be on ground in Syria, facing not just Assad’s army, but the Iranians and the Russian armies. The Russians already have about 100,000 soldiers in Syria. There have already been 40,000 deaths in Syria. Are you ready for four million?”

By Douglas J. Hagmann

4 December 2012: And so it begins, or should I say, so it continues. CNN is now reporting that an unnamed U.S. intelligence official claims that Assad’s Syrian forces are “combining chemicals that would be used to make deadly sarin gas for use in weapons to attack rebel and civilian populations.”

As I wrote here before in various reports pertaining to Benghazi, this was the plan all along and you are seeing it play out, albeit a bit behind schedule as Obama, Clinton and their national security advisers had to coordinate the Benghazi cover-up that few admitted existed and even fewer would report. Information about the use of chemical weapons, specifically gas, was detailed in the second part of my interview with an intelligence insider:

“One aspect of the weapons plan was to set up a false flag operation to make it appear that Assad used chemical weapons against his own people. Imagine the outcry from the civilized world to the news that Assad ‘gassed’ his own people. That would be an invitation to NATO and the West to openly intervene. Don’t forget about the timing of all of this. Two months before the elections, and time was running out. The job of taking out Assad was not yet complete. Such an event would quickly advance this agenda. By this time, however, being caught and placed in a rather unenviable position between Russia and the U.S., the Turkish consul general was in a ‘CYA, clean-up’ mode, assuring that none of the chemical weapons that might have still been in Libya were headed for Turkey.”

Now, because no one has stepped in to expose the big lie behind Benghazi, it is nearly certain that the U.S. and NATO will become involved. By not exposing the big lie, American soldiers likely will be on ground in Syria, facing not just Assad’s army, but the Iranians and the Russian armies. The Russians already have about 100,000 soldiers in Syria. There have already been 40,000 deaths in Syria. Are you ready for four million?

As I wrote before, the fuse for WW III has been lit. You are witnessing history playing out right before your very eyes. I mapped out their plan. Has anyone been paying attention?

SOURCE:
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/archives/7215

Fare #1: Introduction To The Ride

…okay. Today I’ve decided to share some of my thoughts about the very awkward contemporary scenarios that have been simultaneously happening all thorough the world – and what are me personal fears upon most of the possible, plausible crossroads ahead. I tend nay to do it quite often, as I think that sometimes my means of expressing meself in English mayhap lead to a kinda clumsy text. But hey, let’s go.

Let’s ride.

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(Don’t forget to check all links along the reading – they open on new tabs. Their sources help to best illustrate what I wath to share with you all. Peace on Earth, people. Learn to read between the lines)
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Whilst we hop in this fare on, alongside, please do allow me to turn our TAXI’s radio on. I promise that I be changing radiostations alongtime.

#1 – Koyaanisqatsi

Hop in the cab, whilst I tell Ye some of the wrongedland we’re about to ride thorough. It is nay bright. ‘Tis dark and tends to turn macabre.

The road ahead seems dark and somber; the paths, slicky and among whitethick myst. About the road, incrusted inwith mountains atop, toxic rains befall upon our track; scorching weathers had droughten all soils aleft; awkward tremors and sounds are now heard all around the Globe; bare wastelands do lay their sore carcasses of flourishing nothingness across the entire crust that be perceived afar the Horizont – albeit be the whole landscape nay deprived of pulsing, yet dormant Life.

There live goats and sheeple, grazing still. So much are still in deep slumber. ‘Tis but time to get awaken.

Mother Nature struggles to survive upon Her very Land, as there be a such antique plague which had installed itself upon Her board – but nay since Her birth. Such were befallen from the Sky about a deep, deep Eon ago – and so much a list of the ancient fragments which we have already stumbled upon did try to tell Ye all of this road.

But Nay – Ye heard Nay of all the warnings, and visits, mayhap due to yer deep slumber.

And, as soon as they had arrived, there thus had also begun its pandemic infection upon Mother Nature: in such a frantic frenzy, this illness achieved to be omnipresent within the Earth, having awkward stone cages as their dwellings.

Bare, sterile vessels. Once that the Sun had yet naÿven arisen, theyr activities commence.

Before daylight struggles to shine thorough the illthick air, there be the Virus. Masoned by It, all infected sheeple begin to move and act according to theyr grandmasters’ wishes.

To serve all goats that be alive, as such Virus relies on this vessel to procreate and proliferate within sheeple vessels. Once infected, the sheep will go to wherever the Virus commands them to; will then massively moving themselves in such an artificial pattern of habits and practises and fashions – absolutelly alien to theyr natural, dormantkept behaviour.

Many feel tired; stressed; depressed because of such treat – but ther dare nay to disobey. They simply proceed into smiling; deceiving; consuming. This is the real, bare truth.

Theyr lifes, hear Ye!, are as sterile as theyr masters’ desires want so.

Unaware of such parasitism of an entire, plural flock of still too many sheeple, many persist on replicating such behaviours – in a unfruitful pathway that leads to naught but vanity and perpetual submission – and yet even more: sprinkled by artificially implanted struggles among Ye sheeple, so that Ye all incline to seceed from the other beings.

Thus leading all Life to a spiral of eternal, sterile experience of artificialness in order to fulfill mere material, mercantile necessities of the vesselbeing, so that such slumber of consciousness among all beings and around theyr environments perpetuate.

That is, untill there be more sheeple awaken. The answer, mayhap it be coming within upwards.

Until then, all existence of all Ye sheeple be doomed as to be assembled upon the Earth’s plate as if Ye be but mere components of a giant, round circuit board.

If that be so, then also be our thoughts the agent eletrons of such core.

It is now but time to have a rest and stop alongside this next crossroad – inwhich one of the pathways would lead Ye to gravitons, matter and gravity force: allegedly modern, yet ancient concepts and practises which were verily mastered by the ancient peoples and tribes who inhabited the planet.

There be also the Sun, and how Its mechanics DO affect Life and Its wellfare. But this, let be at another time.

Now, let us come back to fantasy.

#2 Fantasia

==>> REMEMBER <<==
* * * DISCERN. Question, and ponder. Develop your critical thinking.

Bay Area Storm Causes 2 Giant Sinkholes, Swallowing Roads

December 3, 2012 5:58 PM

LAFAYETTE (CBS SF) — Two giant sinkholes formed in separate Bay Area communities during the heavy rain from a powerful storm that passed through the Bay Area over the weekend.

In one instance, a giant sinkhole swallowed two lanes of a street in a residential neighborhood in Lafayette Sunday.

High water levels and a clogged storm drain in Lafayette Creek destroyed a portion of Mountain View Drive Sunday, creating a sinkhole where the road once was, Lafayette City Manager Steven Falk said.

Erosion of the road accelerated when the heavy current of the creek clogged the storm drain with large debris, including branches and a bureau, some time between 7:30 a.m. and 9 a.m., Falk said.

A storm caused a 20-foot sinkhole to form along Mountain View Drive in Lafayette on December 2, 2012. (CBS)Water began to run over the top of the road, forcing its closure soon after. Around 3 p.m. Sunday, the road collapsed onto the storm drain and left a hole 80 feet long, 40 feet wide, and 15 feet deep, Falk said.

Utility agencies came out and shut off the gas and sewer lines that are below the road. East Bay Municipal Utilities District crews were still on scene at 2 p.m. Monday attempting to shut off the water line.

A handful of customers are still without water and one customer is without gas. PG&E has provided an alternate gas service for that one, Falk said.

 

Falk said the city’s plan is to convey the water temporarily across where the road was, and create a temporary storm drain that will handle all the water from whatever remaining storms there are this season.

Once that is completed, a team of civil engineers will create a plan to permanently fix the storm drain and road.

The collapse has left one home without access to its driveway but should not create a significant hardship to anyone in the area, Falk said.

The longest detour around the sinkhole is a block and a half, he said.

A second sinkhole opened up in the Santa Cruz mountains over the weekend as well.

 

SOURCE (videos also avaliable there):
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2012/12/03/bay-area-storm-causes-2-giant-sinkholes-swallowing-roads/

Entire Ukraine government resigns

“Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and the entire government resigned today in a surprise move after controversial elections as the economy teeters on the brink of recession.”

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3:46PM GMT 03 Dec 2012

The presidency said President Viktor Yanukovych had accepted Mr Azarov’s request to give up his post and become an MP, a move expected to be repeated by several cabinet ministers.

It remained unclear who would fill the powerful post of premier, with some analysts speculating it could go to a member of the elite close to Mr Yanukovych known as the “Family”.

“President Viktor Yanukovych accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, satisfying the demand of the latter,” the statement added.

The move cames as a new parliament prepares to meet after October 28 legislative elections which raised new concerns about democratic standards under Mr Yanukovych.

The ruling Regions Party appears to have retained control of the Verkhovna Rada with the help of independents despite a strong challenge from the opposition parties of boxer Vitali Klitschko and imprisoned ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko.

OSCE observers slammed the polls as a setback for Ukraine, marred by the absence of Ms Tymoshenko who is serving a seven-year sentence on abuse of power charges she says were trumped up by Mr Yanukovych.

But economists also fear the country is entering troubled times and could be on the brink of a new recession that would see it seek billions of dollars in disbursements from an IMF standby package.

Ukraine’s economy contracted by 1.2 percent in the third quarter of this year, and several banks fear the country is heading for zero growth in 2012, not to mention a sharp devaluation of the local currency.

“This (the resignation) is linked to a number of economic challenges which Ukraine has fallen into thanks to this president and this government,” said opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

A Russian-speaking bureaucrat mocked by many in Ukraine for his dry and humourless image, Mr Azarov took office in 2010 shortly after Mr Yanukovych defeated Ms Tymoshenko in a fiercely-contested presidential election.

Mr Azarov has always been seen as a close ally of Mr Yanukovych, but some analysts believe his power base has been undermined by the recent rise of a “Family” of close acquaintances of the president into top positions.

Possible successors to Mr Azarov could include First Deputy Prime Minister Valery Khoroshkovsky and National Bank chief Sergiy Arbuzov, analysts said.

mr Arbuzov, 36, is seen as a key member of the “Family” of Yanukovych allies.

His meteoric rise to one of the most important economic jobs in the country has raised eyebrows in Ukraine. He is a confidant of Mr Yanukovych’s increasingly powerful son Olexander, who is regarded as the Family kingpin.

“It is possible that this radical resignation makes sense; it is better to dissolve the government and appoint another one,” said Kostyantyn Bondarenko, head of the Ukrainian Politics Institute.

He said that resignation made sense for Mr Azarov, who was approaching the pension age of 65 and would have had to work on replacing a string of ministers had he stayed in power.

Mr Yanukovych has been criticised for concentrating ever more power around himself and allies since defeating the leaders of the pro-Western Orange Revolution in the 2010 polls.

Other candidates for prime minister could include national security chief Andriy Kluyev and deputy presidential chief of staff Iryna Akimova.

Ukrainian parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn said that a decision on the composition of the new government could be taken on December 13 or 14 after the new parliament convenes.

The ministers will remain in their posts until a new government is formed, the presidency said.

It also noted that under Ukrainian law, whenever the prime minister resigns the entire government must do so.

The presidency explained the mass resignation by saying that Mr Azarov had decided to take up a parliamentary seat rather than staying on as prime minister.

Under Ukrainian law, deputies have to cease their former work in order to take up their seats in parliament.

Along with Mr Azarov, a number of other ministers were elected to parliament including Deputy Prime Minister Sergiy Tigipko and Economy Minister Petro Poroshenko.

SOURCE:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/9719263/Entire-Ukraine-government-resigns.html

December brings record-high temperatures after November brings record highs without rainfall

Published on December 3, 2012 at 1:41 am
Last update on December 3, 2012 at 11:05 am
By Allie Kolechta

High temperatures in the Austin area have already broken records during December, after November also brought record high temperatures and, for the first time in decades, no rain in Austin for the entire month.

Austin saw no measurable rainfall in November, according to reports compiled on the Austin-Bergstrom Airport Area by the National Weather Service Southern Region Headquarters. According to the report, this is the first year Austin has had only trace amounts of rainfall in the month of November since 1970, more than four decades ago.

Record highs were set on Nov. 1 at 88 degrees and Nov. 3 at 87 degrees. High temperatures reached into the 80s on 15 days in November, and lows never reached freezing. The most days it has reached 80 degrees in the area in November was in 1931, with 17 days in the 80s.

Temperatures Saturday hit 83 degrees, breaking the daily record of 82 degrees set in 1954. The high reached 80 degrees Sunday, and is forecast to hit 83 degrees Monday. Previous December highs were 84 degrees Dec 2. 2007 and 86 degrees Dec. 3 1995.

As of the end of November, the Austin area and 81 percent of the state was in a drought classified as moderate or worse, the second of five classifications for drought severity, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. 54 percent of the state was in a drought classified as severe or worse, 25 percent was classified as extreme or worse and 8 percent was classified as exceptional.

Printed on Monday, Dec. 3, 2012 as: Record-high climate continues in winter

SOURCE:
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news/2012/12/03/december-brings-record-high-temperatures-after-november-brings-record-highs-without

Police gun buyback program Sat. also offers shots … flu shots

“We’re asking folks to bring in any guns that they can’t store properly,” Dr. Hirsh said. “And by being stored properly, I mean unloaded and locked away from children.”

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Friday, November 30, 2012

By Linda Bock

WORCESTER — Flu shots instead of gunshots. People can get free flu shots Saturday and next Saturday, even if they don’t turn in a gun at the city’s annual Goods for Guns buyback program.

City residents, or residents of any other community, may bring their unwanted weapons, unloaded and wrapped in a bag, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday to the Worcester Police headquarters in Lincoln Square, or from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Dec. 8 to the Worcester Division of Public Health, 25 Meade St.

Since the program’s inception in 2002, the Goods for Guns Program have collected 2,200 guns in exchange for gift certificates.

“Absolutely, positively, come one, come all,” said Deputy Police Chief Edward J. McGinn. “We’re not asking any names or questions.”

A year ago, 40 guns were turned in to police. Deputy Chief McGinn said guns turned in are destroyed.
The Goods for Guns program is similar to buyback programs throughout the country. In this case, people who anonymously turn in operable guns at the police station will be given a Wegman’s gift certificate with a value that depends on the type of gun. A long rifle earns a $25 gift certificate, a handgun nets a $50 gift certificate, and a semiautomatic weapon yields a $75 gift certificate.

The program is collaboration between the city police and public health departments, UMass Memorial Medical Center’s Injury Prevention and community partners.

Also involved is the office of District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. On days of the buyback program, people bringing guns directly from home to the police station will be granted amnesty if they are not properly licensed.

Dr. Michael P. Hirsh, chief of the Division of Pediatric Surgery & Trauma at UMass Memorial and the city’s acting public health commissioner, said the city’s successful program has become a model for other cities. He also believes the successful gun buyback program over the years is a contributing factor in the city having the lowest firearm fatality rate of any New England city.

“We’re asking folks to bring in any guns that they can’t store properly,” Dr. Hirsh said. “And by being stored properly, I mean unloaded and locked away from children.”

Dr. Hirsh started the first gun buyback program in Pittsburgh in 1994 because he suffered the loss of a fellow surgeon, John C. Wood II, who was shot and killed on his way to work one day outside the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in upper Manhattan on Nov. 2, 1981. His son, John C. Wood III, plans to participate this year.

LaNyia Johnson, sitting in a wheelchair, and his mother, Marcy Johnson of Worcester, attended a news conference at Worcester Police headquarters to offer their continuing support of the program. Mr. Johnson, 18, was just 13 when he was struck by a stray bullet while was sitting on a couch at his aunt’s house on Douglas Street. The bullet came through a door and struck him in the spine. He was paralyzed from the waist down.

“Dr. Hirsh and my mom are very cool,” Mr. Johnson said when asked how he became involved with the program.

His advice for other teens? “Find a goal in your life and chase it instead of being inside negative activities,” he said.

Terrance Reidy, chief of the gang unit for the district attorney’s office, prosecuted Mr. Johnson’s shooter, and said it was a tragedy that should have never have happened. Mr. Reidy said the way he looks at the program; over 2,000 potential tragedies were averted.

“There was the potential for over 2,000 people to be hurt,” Mr. Reidy said.