Posted December 16, 2013 9:36 PM ET; Last updated December 18, 2013 9:35 PM ET
The below images show six media vehicles parked alongside of my building outside of my window at about 2:30 PM on December 16, 2013. They came to report on the "bomb scare" at Harvard University earlier in the day. They parked in a "no stopping" zone on Broadway. It was used for the past three years by construction vehicles for the former Fogg Museum, new Art Museum, across the street. Now that only delivery vehicles park there, it is available to media personalities and journalists who visit Harvard University and Cambridge where laws are optional.
This is an example of the kind of vehicles using the roadway near my windows for staging for three years, bringing earth-moving equipment to the site. Notice the Cambridge city policeman on paid detail watching this delivery.
Now deliveries are supplies for the new museum.
Cab of delivery truck.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/17/media-explosives-threat-national/
National Media Follows Bomb Threat
By
ALEXANDER H. PATEL,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
December 17, 2013
WCVB-TV mobile broadcast truck.
Parking in a no stopping zone is one of the perks of living and/or working in Cambridge for special persons. It is the lesson taught by that great Harvard Law School trained constitutional law instructor, Barack Obama. If a law is inconvenient you may ignore it.
WCVB-TV truck.
Sheriffs across the nation ignore gun laws because they do not like the infringement on the Second Amendment. Sheriffs too are experts on constitutional law.
WHDH-TV truck, with cameraman and on air personality.
Obama does not like parts of the health care law which the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate passed into law and Obama signed without any of them reading it. So he ignores parts of the law and changes other parts. It is how the rule of law has evolved to a higher level of existence.
Closer look at TV journalist. Is this Sharman Sacchetti of Fox News Boston?
Thus in Cambridge if construction companies are renovating the prestigious Harvard University Fogg Art Museum, well, they can ignore no stopping signs in order to use the roadway for a staging area for three years. Not a problem.
Antenna extended ready for live broadcast.
Local police working details stand by and protect this operation. It is a development project of Harvard University, approved by the City of Cambridge and its boards and commissions. Do you know how many laws, ordinances and hoops that the over-worked and under-paid Harvard University employees had to jump through in order to get the approvals to renovate this art museum?
Four media vehicles parked on Broadway near Prescott Street.
The lesson applies to teenagers who walk along the streets of the nation and pass someone whose face they do not like. Because laws are inconvenient they simply ignore that law, and punch out the faces of those undesirable persons. Obama is a great teacher.
Preparing for broadcast.
Journalists covering the prestigious university which may be under threat of a bomb scare on final exam day, can ignore the local traffic laws because they are covering an important story about an important university. Not a problem either.
Doesn't look like Sharman Sacchetti.
Head in lower right of image is another on air TV journalist.
A mini media convention waiting but nothing happening after the bomb scare.
Stalling in case of a new development. Who wants to go back to the studio? We are at Harvard. Sigh!
Is that WCVB-TV's Jorge Giroga?
[From article]
In a statement released about 3 p.m., the university said students were allowed back into Thayer Hall, a dorm, and classrooms in Emerson and Sever halls and the Science Center. An earlier restriction on access to Harvard Yard was also lifted.
The Harvard University Police Department had ordered students and others to evacuate all four buildings in the morning after receiving a report that bombs had been planted there.
"Harvard's focus is on the safety of our students, faculty and staff," the university in Cambridge, Mass., said.
[From Harvard University Housing]
Harvard's focus is on the safety of our students, faculty and staff. We will continue to update the community via MessageME and through messages posted at
harvard.edu/emergency and on the University's Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Statements from "the university" and from "Harvard University Housing" say their focus is "the safety of our students, faculty and staff." In other contexts they say their focus is on "their mission," to educate their students. But university representatives, usually PR flacks at City Council meetings, Planning Board, Zoning Board and University Relations Committee meetings, boast of how open the Harvard University campus is to "members of the community," second class of citizens in Cambridge. So is the safety of "members of the community" who attend events on campus, and who may live in university buildings of any concern to the university? Or as is common practice, do members of the community become targets for abuses of campus police? Are vulnerable elder citizens targets for Harvard University Housing building superintendents and graduate psychology students at Harvard Medical School to prey on, for sport? Harvard University usually claims that their campus police, and their building superintendents are "not the real Harvard." But these employees are paid by the President and Fellows of Harvard College just as the faculty is paid. Campus police display the Harvard University logo on their patches. So why are these "not the real Harvard" employees permitted to abuse their power and the prestige of the prominent University contrary to law? Is that also part of their mission and focus? Ahem!
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304403804579262132386475134
Harvard Students Allowed Back in All Evacuated Buildings
Officials Found No Evidence of Explosives Following Bomb Threat
By JENNIFER LEVITZ
Updated Dec. 16, 2013 2:16 p.m. ET
* * *
[From article]
A White House spokesperson confirmed at half past 11 a.m. that President Obama has been briefed about the explosives scare at Harvard University. The White House will stay in communication with officials at federal, state, and local levels, and Obama will continue to receive briefings as necessary as the situation develops, the spokesperson added.
[. . .]
At 12:40 p.m., life in the Yard was returning to normality. Securitas guards stood by Johnston, Widener, Lamont, and the Science Center gates, allowing Harvard ID holders into the Yard.
Will Obama remind the Cambridge police that they are acting stupidly again?
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/16/unconfirmed-reports-explosives-four-buildings/
Campus Receives All Clear; Search Has Yielded No Explosives
By
CRIMSON NEWS STAFF,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
December 16, 2013
