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Boston Globe
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Meet the Retrologist, a man on a mission to document America's fading roadside attractions
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up By day, Pujol is a journalist at WABC-TV in New York, but by night, weekends, and pretty much any other spare moment, he devotes his time to documenting midcentury roadside kitsch. Most of Pujol's tales begin with road trips seeking out a drive-in theater or a pair of 12-foot hot dog statues, and then quickly build into adventures as he explores the country, collecting images and stories about a dying slice of Americana known as the roadside attraction. Advertisement He's perhaps the only person who can convincingly begin a story with: 'I was driving to see an old Ben Franklin store around Millbury, Vt., and then I saw a 20-foot concrete gorilla named Queen Connie, so I had to pull over.' Advertisement Retrologist is a term he's coined to describe his obsession. It's also the name of his Sometimes the attractions are saved (such as the Shell sign from 1933, located in Cambridge), but more often than not, communities don't see their value. Pujol included the now-defunct Twin Donuts in his book, but frets over the fate of its iconic and eye-catching sign. 'I was heartbroken to see that go,' he said of the 70-year-old donut shop, and then immediately asked, 'Do you know if the sign is still there?' Twin Donuts in Allston closed after 70 years. The diner's last day was March 23, 2025. Brett Phelps for The Boston Globe From the 1940s to the 1970s, roadside attractions were an essential part of the landscape in the United States. Eye-catching neon signs, glistening chrome diners, and 40-foot metal fishermen were intended to entice motorists to pull over, shop, or eat. When you see an ice cream shop shaped like a cone or a massive geodesic dome painted blue to resemble a blueberry, chances are, curiosity will get the better of you, and you'll stop in for a look. At least that was the logic back when family vacations involved getting in a car without iPads and cellphones. Pujol, 52, said he first became enamored with these gems of Americana during family road trips in the 1970s. He would look out the car window at the bright orange roofs of Howard Johnsons or gaze with amazement at Muffler Men, the term used to describe 20-foot-tall, fiberglass statues used for advertising in the 1960s. Advertisement The Modern Diner in Pawtucket, RI. Its owners placed it on the market earlier this month. Rolando Puloj/Handout 'From a very early age, I was transfixed by roadside attractions,' Pujol said. 'The first road trip we took as a family, I was 4, and we drove from New York to Miami. 'There are so many interesting stops along that route. But the one that, of course, comes to mind is good old South of the Border in South Carolina. That made an impression on me even as a 4-year-old. For those who have never witnessed its splendor, Go ahead and call it tacky. Pujol finds no shame in the word. "Queen Connie," a 20-foot concrete sculpture of a gorilla, hoists a Volkswagen over her head at Pioneer Auto Sales in Leicester, Vt. Christopher Muther/Globe Staff While South of the Border is still in business, many famed roadside relics haven't survived into the 21st century. Quirky old motor lodges and cheese wheel-shaped stores are continually razed to make way for more characterless square box stores. Neon signs that beckoned motorists for decades are tossed into the landfill or wind up in private collections. 'It is heartbreaking. And you see that happen all the time,' he said. 'Sometimes these old stores get almost manipulated by sign shops into updating their look. They're told they need a new sign, and then they'll replace their beautiful vintage sign with a banal plastic sign or bland awning.' Advertisement For his book, Pujol traversed the entire country in his quest to find some of the best attractions and sights, and New England did not disappoint. He fell in love with kitsch icons such as the giant orange dinosaur in Saugus that was saved from near-death after the miniature golf course where it resided went out of business. The famous "Leaning Tower of Pizza" in Saugus is one of Rolando Pujol's favorite retro roadside attractions. Pujol refers to himself as the Retrologist. Christopher Muther/Globe Staff In addition to Twin Donuts, he also included Donut Dip in West Springfield, the Golden Rod in York Beach, Maine, the Weirs Beach sign in Laconia, N.H., the Teddie Peanut Butter Factory in Everett, Dairy Witch Ice Cream in Salem, and Modern Diner in Pawtucket, R.I. Like many of his favorite places, the fate of the Modern Diner is also unknown. Its owners have decided to sell, and it's now on the market. 'What makes these things so appealing is that they invite you and encourage you, almost force you to get out of your phone and stop doom scrolling and get out there and see things and, God forbid, talk to people,' he said. 'I love that. And you can't have those experiences locked up at home. That's why it's sad to see another one on the endangered list.' While places continue to close or remodel, Pujol is encouraged that he's seeing a growing community of people who seem to care about the fate of these places. He's hopeful that an increase in retro appreciation will mean a brighter future for some of his beloved destinations. The sign for Howard's Leather Shop in Spofford, NH, harkens back to the days when mom-and-pop stores used over-the-top signs to attract motorists passing by. This is featured in the book "The Great American Retro Road Trip." Rolando Pujol/Handout 'I don't want to overstate the point and call it a trend, but there are some indications that a revival of interest in this stuff is beginning to manifest,' he said, choosing his words carefully as if speaking too optimistically might jinx the future of these attractions. 'At some point, I'd like to think that people will get tired of everything being bland and beige. These attractions are not only historic but they're a window into our collective history, how we used to live, and what brought us joy.' Advertisement Christopher Muther can be reached at
Coin Geek
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Coin Geek
Bitcoin's Sons of Liberty
Homepage > News > Editorial > Bitcoin's Sons of Liberty Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... This week, America again drapes itself in red, white, and blue. We'll wave flags, ignite fireworks, and watch fighter jets streak overhead to celebrate our so-called Independence Day. But like most things, the popular story is a cleaner, sanitized version of the hidden truth. We're taught the Revolution was sparked by a trifling tax on tea—which is not entirely untrue—or that a ragtag band of patriots threw off the yoke of tyranny in a single glorious summer. What we don't mention is that today, the average American surrenders more than half of their income to a government that props up military bases in 80 countries and funds both sides of nearly every war on earth. All while we cheer and toast our 'freedoms' or 'spreading freedom.' But July 4, 1776, wasn't magic. It was the violent culmination of decades of resentment: the debt from the French and Indian War, the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, the Boston Massacre… It was mobs dumping East India Company tea into the harbor. It was the First Continental Congress unsure how to even coordinate a militia. It was Lexington and Concord, and finally, Thomas Jefferson's pen slashing ink across paper in a defiant break with the greatest empire the world had ever seen while Ben Franklin and John Adams dictated anecdotes about freedom from tyranny! The war that followed was unpopular. Loyalists preferred stability over liberty. Pacifists prayed for calm. Many farmers simply wanted to be left alone. The Founding Fathers themselves were a patchwork of contradictions. John Adams was a stern Puritan lawyer. His cousin Sam was a brewer and professional agitator who spent his time pamphleting and making fun of British soldiers in public. 'If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude more than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains rest lightly upon you, and may… — Naval (@naval) September 27, 2024 Ben Franklin was a printer, a wit, and a legendary womanizer in France. Patrick Henry thundered about liberty or death from the pulpit. George Washington was a stoic, aristocratic Brit who was a slaveholding land baron who reluctantly took up the general's sword. John Hancock was a merchant and smuggler. The British would likely have called him a pirate, and he signed his name large enough on the Declaration of Independence so that King George could read it 'without spectacles!' .@pmarca on @joerogan: 'Ben Franklin printed newspapers before he was in govt. He had 15 pseudonyms. He was a pseud, an anon. He would have them argue with each other w/o telling people it was him.' Nothing's changed. Burners and alt even then. Today's BF tweets among us! — JT (@jiratickets) November 27, 2024 They didn't share a monolithic faith or a single economic theory. They were Protestants, Catholics, Freemasons, deists, and even skeptics. But they all agreed on one core truth: The Crown was wrong, and liberty was worth dying for. Here's where my historian's heart breaks The Revolution was short-lived. From 1783 to roughly 1789, the former colonies operated as truly independent states, loosely knit under the Articles of Confederation. Each was a sovereign little republic. But the old dream died quickly. The Constitutional Convention—originally convened just to tweak the Articles—turned into a quiet coup d'etat. Many founders, horrified at the power grabs proposed, walked out. The rest were locked in until they emerged with a compromise: a powerful central government, a Supreme Court designed to be an unaccountable aristocracy, the right to levy taxes, and eventually, the machinery for a central bank. To sell it, they dangled the Bill of Rights, but it was a thin guarantee against abuses they knew were inevitable. The propaganda was masterful. The Federalists won. And the Revolution, in many ways, was lost right in front of the men who had won it just a few years earlier. Before the United States Constitution was ratified, the Founding Fathers famously debated the merits and problems of the newly proposed government in a series of public essays that came to be known as the Federalist and Antifederalist Papers. In this animated documentary,… — Federalist Society (@FedSoc) September 21, 2023 In truth, the real Independence lasted less than a decade. Back then, pamphlets were the blockchain of rebellion. Ben Franklin published scathing essays under aliases like 'Silence Dogood.' Others wrote as 'Brutus,' 'Cato,' 'Federal Farmer,' and 'Centinel' as they lambasted the overreach of the Constitution and Federalists like Alexander Hamilton. Sam Adams flooded Boston with incendiary broadsheets and cartoons. Thomas Paine's Common Sense lit colonial minds like dry tinder. The Sons of Liberty weren't just throwing tea in the harbor. They were plastering their peers with big ideas without tiring. They understood that to defeat the Crown, they had to own the narrative, and to do it, they had to print it themselves. But The Sons of Liberty weren't just polite dissidents. They were a band of agitators who understood that fear could be as persuasive as reason. Beyond the famous Boston Tea Party, they ransacked loyalist businesses, smashed the windows of customs officers, erected effigies of tax collectors to burn in the streets, and carried out public tar-and-featherings that left men scarred for life, an early form of political theater that doubled as savage intimidation. This 1774 British illustration depicts the Sons of Liberty tarring and feathering a loyalist tax collector. Good times. — The Free State Project (@FreeStateNH) December 13, 2023 In New York, they pulled down a statue of King George III, melted the lead, and cast it into bullets to fire back at British troops. In Rhode Island, they outright burned the HMS Gaspee, a British customs schooner, after luring it aground, which was an act of maritime sabotage that prefigured the full-scale war to come. Their defiance was messy, angry, and often brutal. It was proof that revolutions aren't sparked by polite letters alone, but by men willing to cross the line when justice demands it, and they were clearly crossing that line! Today And here we are, centuries later, with a new empire of surveillance and debt. We carry spy devices in our pockets. We pour our lives into social media platforms that will happily censor, demonetize, or algorithmically bury our speech. We bank at institutions that can freeze us at a keystroke. So I repeat what I've always said: own your own data. In this age of artificial intelligence (AI), where LLMs scrape and remix without credit, where deepfakes blur truth, where centralized servers hold your entire digital life hostage, self-sovereignty isn't optional. It's survival. Bitcoin was supposed to solve this. It was supposed to decentralize trust, let us transact without middlemen, let us record truth immutably. But BTC betrayed that dream. It became an investment vehicle for institutions, a 'strategic reserve' for big government, a speculative asset chained to ETFs and Wall Street approval… It's BSV that still holds the original spark: unbounded block size, microtransactions at fractions of a cent, and a stable protocol that's set in stone so developers can build without gatekeepers. It's where you can permanently publish data, filter for facts, and build tools that don't bow to Silicon Valley or Washington. It's a ledger that can be searched, timestamped, and proven: censorship-resistant speech in a world that desperately needs it. The Founders fought over everything amongst each other, but they unified when they saw tyranny. They didn't wait for consensus. They didn't wait for a poll to tell them it was popular. They threw their lot in, risked the hangman's noose, and went to war. Not because it was profitable. In fact, most lost everything. Patrick Henry's star continued to rise as his oratorical style attracted supporters to the cause of liberty. His most famous speech, at the Second Virginia Convention, agitated for freedom from the Crown (though without specificity of how that might be achieved). 5/8 — joshua steinman (🇺🇸,🇺🇸) (@JoshuaSteinman) June 14, 2025 But because liberty was worth losing everything for. So what are we waiting for? If we're the children of the Sons of Liberty, it's time to act like it. Stop treating Bitcoin like a stock ticker and start building tools that empower people. Stop waiting for permission to print your ideas. Use the chain. Start businesses. Store truth that can't be erased, and spread the inconvenient truths about Big Tech, Big Banks, and Big BTC that they have been trying to bury! Because only when we stand firmly against the new Crown (the Fed, the SEC, the White House, Blockstream and Chaincode Labs, or the astroturf cult of small blockers) will we earn the right to celebrate true independence again. Less fireworks. More fire in our hearts. Watch: Power, Protocol, and Protection with Mitch Burcham
The Guardian
24-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
NSW political staffers to appear at Durl caravan plot inquiry after being threatened with arrest warrants
Five staffers from the offices of the NSW premier, Chris Minns, and the police minister, Yasmin Catley, have agreed to appear before a parliamentary inquiry into the Dural caravan 'fake terrorism plot' after they were threatened with arrest for failing to attend last week. A senior staff member for the premier confirmed on Wednesday that they had been told by the president of the NSW Legislative Council, Ben Franklin, that he was planning to seek arrest warrants. Franklin had sought legal advice from Bret Walker SC about his powers to seek the warrants after the staffers defied summonses to appear at the upper house inquiry. They have now 'voluntarily' agreed to appear on Friday. The inquiry – launched with the support of the Coalition, the Greens and crossbench MLCs – is examining the handling of information about the caravan plot amid concerns parliament may have been 'misled' before controversial laws aimed at curbing antisemitism were rushed through parliament. In January, after it was announced that the caravan had been found, Minns said it had the potential to be a 'mass casualty event'. But in March, the Australian federal police revealed they believed it was a 'con job' by organised crime figures seeking to divert police resources and influence prosecutions. The premier and the police minister refused to appear at the inquiry before the committee sought the appearance of their staffers. Greens MP Sue Higginson, who is a member of the inquiry, also confirmed on Wednesday the political staffers would appear to give evidence on Friday. The standoff had been sparked by the refusal of Minns and Catley to appear. Ministers from the lower house cannot be required to appear before an inquiry of the upper house. Higginson said the staffers' decision to ignore the summonses 'put us all in a very difficult position'. 'We believe, as a committee … that these individuals hold information that could genuinely assist us in exercising our forensic capacity,' she told ABC radio. 'The lesson here is the parliamentary powers are strong powers. They're important powers. No one is above the law and don't challenge these powers.' Higginson was asked on Wednesday if she thought the government had misled parliament before the hate speech and places of worship laws were passed. 'There was absolutely knowledge held by some and not presented to the parliament to assist us in understanding the full picture,' she said. 'This is a democracy, and how we pass laws is a very important matter for everyone.' - Additional reporting by Jordyn Beazley
New York Times
24-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Guess Who Else Sent Troops to Quell Protests in American Streets
A decade before America's original No Kings movement, Ben Franklin stood in London before the House of Commons and — while attempting to explain in some small way the American mind — warned against sending troops to America to quell unrest. 'I do not see how a military force can be applied to that purpose,' Franklin declared, adding, prophetically: 'They will not find a rebellion. They may indeed make one.' His words fell on deaf ears. In October 1768 nearly a thousand redcoats marched into Boston, a trail of artillery behind them. As we limp our broken way toward the Fourth of July, it helps to remember the political lessons forged on those Boston streets. Protests are as much a part of the American experiment as baseball and barbecue. And nothing more effectively powers a low-simmering resistance than disproportionate force. Many Bostonians, who regarded a standing army in time of peace as a deep violation of American rights, believed the Crown was doing its best to make the colonists look like insurrectionists. It had manufactured a crisis, dispatching troops on dubious charges to establish arbitrary power and, as one paper noted in mid-March 1770, 'to quell a spirit of liberty.' It can be dangerous to mistake a protest for a rebellion. Insurrection was nowhere in the air when those troops arrived. Eight years later, the imposition of troops would figure among the grievances enumerated in the Declaration of Independence. Boston's opposition leaders made the most of the redcoats' arrival. 'No man can pretend to say,' Samuel Adams declared in the pages of the town's most popular newspaper, 'that peace and good order of the community is so secure with soldiers quartered in the body of a city as without them.' He too knew how to manufacture a crisis, publishing lurid accounts of redcoats who daily threatened to blow women's brains out, knock children down with cutlasses and burn Boston to the ground. The people of Boston responded by stalking, threatening and hissing at the soldiers, pelting them with stones, mud, spit, oyster shells, snowballs and pieces of brick. They made trophies of swords and epaulets. They lost no opportunity to inform British grenadiers that, the grenadiers complained, they were 'bloody-back thieving dogs' or 'damned rascally scoundrel lobster sons of bitches.' Tensions came to a head on the evening of March 5, 1770, when, in the center of town, snowballs and oyster shells finally elicited lead balls. After an attack on a sentry, a regimental captain ordered his men to level their guns. In a tense, tight space, a stick flew through the air, followed by the crackle of muskets. There would be five casualties, among them a half-African, half-Native American sailor named Crispus Attucks, shot twice through the chest and later deemed the first victim of the American Revolution. Wildly different accounts of an evening that remains clouded in murk circulated through the colonies. Dueling versions made their way to London. Denouncing 'the Horrid Massacre,' one pamphlet claimed the Crown had falsely accused the province of being in a state of rebellion, then did its utmost to drive it there. 'The Late Unhappy Disturbance at Boston' reduced the skirmish to a 'ridiculous fray' and painted the people as the aggressors. No other piece of propaganda worked the magic of Paul Revere's indelible engraving. In a scene drawn liberally from the imagination, a crisp line of soldiers fires into a huddled crowd. All the misery is on one side, all the rage on the other. There is no snowball or oyster shell in sight. (In most versions of the engraving, Attucks has become white.) So much did Revere's engraving misrepresent the scene that at the soldiers' trial, jurors would be warned against it. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Guardian
23-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
NSW upper house president seeks advice from Bret Walker over possible political staffer arrests
The president of the New South Wales upper house has sought advice from high-profile barrister Bret Walker SC over whether he can seek arrest warrants for government staffers who failed to give evidence to an inquiry examining the Sydney caravan 'fake terrorism plot', Guardian Australia understands. Ben Franklin is expected to reveal on Tuesday whether he intends to seek arrest warrants from the NSW supreme court for five staffers who were summoned to appear before the inquiry on Friday, but did not attend. Three are from the office of the premier, Chris Minns, and two work for the police minister, Yasmin Catley. According to sources with knowledge of the situation, Franklin has sought advice from leading senior counsel Walker, who represented George Pell in his appeal to the high court and former attorney general Christian Porter in his defamation case against the ABC. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Under the Parliamentary Evidence Act, if the president is satisfied that the five staffers failed to appear without just cause or reasonable excuse, the matter will be referred to a judge of the supreme court. If the judge agrees, then warrants would be issued, the staffers arrested and brought before the committee to give evidence. The standoff between the premier's office and an upper house inquiry into Minns' handling of the Dural caravan incident has inflamed simmering tensions between the premier and the upper house. There is a long-standing precedent that members of the legislative assembly cannot be compelled to appear before the upper house and vice versa, but the question of whether staff from a minister's office can be compelled is heavily contested. 'They are staff employed by the executive. If the legislative council can't scrutinise employees of executive government, of a minister's office, we might as well go to the beach,' independent upper house MP, Mark Latham, said. Constitutional law expert Prof Anne Twomey, from Sydney University, suggested that the right to refuse to appear may also extend to ministerial staff. Twomey pointed to the principle that members can't be compelled by the other house and the well-established principle of ministerial responsibility, with questions in parliament providing an avenue for other MPs to seek information of ministers. The inquiry – launched with the support of the Coalition, the Greens and crossbench MLCs – is examining the handling of information about the caravan plot amid concerns whether parliament was 'misled' before controversial laws aimed at curbing antisemitism were rushed through parliament. In January, after it was announced that the caravan had been found in Dural laden with explosives, Minns said it had the potential to be a 'mass casualty event'. But in March, the Australian federal police revealed they believed it was a 'con job' by organised crime figures seeking to divert police resources and influence prosecutions. The inquiry was told that the briefings on the matter were 'pens down' meetings and no notes were taken. They have since sought to summons staff to determine who knew what and when. More staff from the NSW premier's office are facing summonses and the threat of arrest if they do not agree to appear at a second upper house inquiry, intensifying the standoff between the NSW upper house and the Minns government. A second committee is currently considering responses to requests that premier's staff appear to answer questions about the $37.6m Local Small Community Allocations program. Minns' chief of staff, James Cullen, has agreed to appear, but others more intimately involved with the grants program are believed to have raised concerns about appearing. The little-known grants program has come under scrutiny. Although it gave equal allocations of $400,000 to each of the 93 NSW electorates, its detractors allege Labor candidates were asked to nominate how it would be spent, effectively turning it into a pork barrelling exercise to benefit Labor. The upper house has already expressed its anger about the slow pace of the government in producing documents about this program to the upper house. It took the rare step in late May of censuring the leader of the government in the upper house, Penny Sharpe, over the tardy production of documents.
