Nate Thayer

Holly Harris will spin her blues on 'BOS

Holly Harris will spin her blues on 'BOS

The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)

January 8, 1993 | Susan Bickelhaupt, Globe Staff

Holly Harris is an ambassador for the blues in Boston, whether she's listening to music at a blues club, emceeing a blues festival or spinning blues tunes on the radio.

Starting this weekend, Harris has a new home at WBOS-FM (92.9), where she'll host Blues on Sunday at 10 p.m. For the past decade, Harris has mostly found a nitch on noncommercial radio, hosting a Sunday morning show on WMFO-FM (91.5) and subbing for Mai Cramer on WGBH-FM (89.7). Last year she signed with WCGY-FM, doing "Rockin' Blues" on Sunday night.

Harris, from upstate New York, said she's not that musical herself, although she's been surrounded by it. Her father has a doctorate of music from Columbia University, and his father was Al Jolson's No. 1 trumpeter.

Her jolt for the blues came when she was 16 and heard B. B. King. "It just hit me as the most beautiful music I'd ever heard," Harris recalls.

She ended up in Boston at Suffolk University in the early '70s, and listened to all the radio shows in town. WMFO's Sunday Morning Blues caught her ear, and when host Nate Thayer asked her to fill in when he left to travel, she gladly did. It's been her show since 1982, and she plans to keep doing it.

Harris, a school counselor during the week, was content with the three-hour show on Sunday (11 a.m.-2 p.m.), but when WCGY-FM (95.3) approached her last spring about doing a blues show on the rock station, Harris was receptive.

"I thought a commercial station would be a great forum, and it is," she said. "I think the blues is finally coming into some respect it always deserved."

Harris' latest gig will be hosting a show that has been on WBOS for a year and a half. Up to now it has had rotating hosts, Bill Smith and David O'Leary, both of whom have full-time jobs at the station.

She said she probably won't make the show as rock-based and consistently uptempo as the one at WCGY, and will play a variety of tempos. She also wants to take listener requests.

"I'm really big on local features, too, and want to spotlight one local group every week," Harris said.

No stranger to the Boston blues scene, Harris frequently emcees shows at clubs, and served as a consultant for the new House of Blues. Harris and Rick Russell founded the Blues Society in 1988.

Harris is a fan of Cramer's show on WGBH on Friday and Saturday nights, but is encouraged that commercial stations are starting to take the nod. WBCN-FM (104.1) now has a Sunday morning blues show.

Steve Becker, the program director at WCGY, said he intends to continue with the program and is already on the lookout for a new host.

The radio ratings that came out yesterday reflect the fall period, when listeners supposedly are back to their regular schedules and listening habits. The numbers, on which ad rates are based, are the equivalent of TV's "sweeps." The bosses at WMJX-FM must be grinning broadly over their first-place ranking for all Greater Boston listeners, age 25 to 54. 'MJX, which has been sprinkling the TV airwaves with advertising, vaulted from fourth-place in the last ratings book; it bumped WODS-FM down to No. 2. Next were WBCN-FM, WXKS-FM and WBOS-FM, which zoomed up from 10th to 5th place for its best book ever. (It, like 'MJX, has been heavy into TV advertising, and has revamped its playlist.) Next were WBMX-FM, WBZ, WSSH-FM, WZLX-FM, WCDJ-FM tied with WZOU-FM, WRKO-FM and WVBF-FM. Then, WEEI, WCRB-FM, WHDH, WILD tied with WFNX-FM, WCGY-FM, WOKQ-FM and WAAF-FM.

On the all-encompassing group of listeners age 12 and older, WBZ jumped into first place with 7.4 percent of the audience -- perhaps the election gave the all-news station a boost. Next in line were WXKS-FM (7 percent of the audience), WRKO (5.5), WMJX-FM and WBCN-FM tied at 5.3, WODS-FM (4.7), WZOU-FM (4.5), WSSH-FM (4.2), WBOS-FM and WHDH (3.8). After that were WZLX-FM (3.6), WBMX-FM (3.5), WCDJ-FM (2.5), WCRB-FM and WVBF-FM (2.4), WAAF-FM (2.3), WEEI (2.1), WPLM-FM (2), WFNX-FM (1.9) and WILD (1.8). Finally were WXKS, WCGY-FM, WOKQ-FM, WCAV-FM, WCTK-FM, WLYT-FM and WMEX. Spinning the dial

Comedian and actor Roger Kabler, of the NBC sitcom "Rhythm & Blues," will take his TV role seriously when he takes over the WILD (1090) airwaves this morning from 8 to 9 a.m. Kabler plays "Bobby Soul," a hip-talking DJ at an all-black radio station in Detroit . . . Dave Palmater invites folkie Rosalie Sorrels to perform live today at noon on WUMB-FM (91.9).

HANDICAPPED CRITICIZE MBTA ON VAN SERVICE FREQUENT DELAYS, FAULTY EQUIPMENT CITED - The Boston Globe

HANDICAPPED CRITICIZE MBTA ON VAN SERVICE FREQUENT DELAYS, FAULTY EQUIPMENT CITED

The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)

September 16, 1988 | Joe Ferson, Contributing Reporter

1

A group of handicapped people told a meeting of the MBTA's access advisory committee yesterday that the door-to-door service known as The Ride is unreliable and dangerous.

The Ride is operated by Transportation Management System Inc. under contract from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

Promises to improve the service have not been met, one participant said. "They're making an effort, there's no question on that, but it's not enough," Ralph Steele told the panel.

Steele mentioned reports of injuries due to incompetence, and added, "Are they waiting for someone to die before they take action?"

Timothy Gens, a spokesman for the MBTA, said the service provided by Transportation Management has improved since July 1, when the Virginia company took over the service from THEM Inc. of Cambridge.

"There has been significant improvement since the transitional period, when one would expect a certain amount of confusion," Gens said.

But according to Nate Thayer, transportation director for the state Office of Handicapped Affairs, criticism has been pouring in since Transportation Management took over operation of The Ride.

"There's a serious crisis facing the 9,000 handicapped individuals who depend on The Ride -- and right now, because right now it's not working," he said.

Thayer said his office has received 1,000 complaints concerning The Ride since July 1.

Thayer noted there was "not one complaint regarding service" during the time THEM Inc., a nonprofit agency, ran the service.

"It's like a leaking ship with 70 holes in it," Thayer said of Transportation Management. "The only solution is to get a new ship, a new contractor for The Ride."

Carolyn Stack said she came to the meeting, which was attended by about 25 handicapped people, to present the case of her 80-year-old father, Arthur Conway.

"My father goes to dialysis three times a week, and we've gotten calls from hospital workers asking us to come pick him up because The Ride didn't show up," she said.

Thayer said one woman was late for a dialysis treatment and was told by her doctor upon arriving that she was in serious risk of a stroke because of the delay.

"TMSI was warned specifically about this woman," Thayer said. "Either they don't know what they're doing or they don't care."

Thomas McKenne, who works at Ferguson Industries, told the committee: "The trouble with all these meetings is, they always pass the buck -- back and forth."

McKenne said The Ride drivers are polite and try to do their job, but that there is a lack of communication from management. He said some vans have faulty lift equipment, leaving the drivers hard-pressed to do their job.

Because of delays in The Ride, McKenne added, he's been arriving late for work by an hour or more for the last three weeks.

McKenne said if delays continue, he could be docked the hour's pay, adding that he's frustrated by the company's lack of sensitivity.

"A lot of these people are making money off the handicapped," he said. "But they don't give a damn so long as they collect their big fat salaries."

McKenne said that on a recent day he was picked up late by a van that had a broken gas gauge, no brake lights and no arm rest on his seat.

"Someone could fall out of their seat real easy," he pointed out.

Lorraine Greiff, assistant director of public affairs for the Office of Handicapped Affairs, said many handicapped people who use The Ride live at the whim of the company's scheduling.

"You make plans to go somewhere and then you discover at the last minute you're not going anywhere," she said.

JOURNALISTS TELL OF CAPTIVITY IN INFAMOUS IRAQI PRISON

 

JOURNALISTS TELL OF CAPTIVITY IN INFAMOUS IRAQI PRISON

The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)

April 3, 2003 | Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff

1

AMMAN, Jordan - The terrifying ordeal of the four Western journalists began before dawn March 24. Iraqi intelligence officers rounded them up at their Baghdad hotel and bundled them off to Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, where screams of torture victims rang through corridors and the walls reverberated to the blast of American bombs.

They were held incommunicado in separate cells for seven days and nights before they were released Tuesday night.

"From the time we realized we were being taken to prison until the time we crossed into Jordan, we felt our lives were in danger," said Matthew McAllester, Middle East bureau chief for Newsday.

"At times, the Iraqi antiaircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles were going off incredibly close, and the bombs would shake the walls and the floors where we slept," he said during a press conference in the Jordanian capital yesterday. "But we were more concerned about being killed by our hosts."

Iraqi officials never explained why they arrested McAllester; Newsday photographer Moises Saman, 29; freelance photographer Molly Bingham of Louisville, Ky.; and Danish photographer Johan Rydeng Spanner. American peace activist Philip Latasha was also held with the group, which was freed at the Jordanian border late Tuesday.

Almost daily, they were each led blindfolded from their dingy 6- foot-by-10-foot cells to interrogation rooms, where they were questioned closely about their activities in Iraq.

"We had no idea what they were going to do to us," said Bingham. "They kept blindfolding us and taking us away. Every day it was a question of, `Are they going to kill me or just ask questions?' "

The journalists stressed that they were never beaten or otherwise physically abused.

"They wanted to know if I was a spy," Bingham said. "I told them I was a journalist who came to Baghdad to cover the situation of the Iraqis in the war. But I was not physically harmed in any way."

Iraqis held in the same prison block were not so lucky, according to the journalists.

The four described Iraqi prisoners being led off to torture chambers. Other prisoners bore bruises, cuts, and other signs of beatings. Some hobbled about as if the soles of their feet had been whipped.

"We could hear screams, especially at night," McAllester recounted. "They were being beaten a few yards from my cell, beaten with some sort of implements."

Meanwhile, Newsday was making frantic efforts to locate them and secure their release, making appeals for help to world figures including Pope John Paul II and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who called Iraq authorities on the journalists' behalf, according to Newsday's deputy editor for foreign news, Jim Rupert.

On the eighth night of their incarceration, the four journalists and the peace activist were allowed to stay together in a single cell, apparently because officials of the regime had decided to grant them release.

But during the first seven days, the Westerners were not allowed to speak to one another, although Bingham and McAllester, in adjoining cells, devised a crude code system of knocks on the wall.

"It was basically just a way to say: `Are you there? Are you OK?' " said Bingham, who was in Baghdad on assignment for Esquire magazine, along with journalist Nate Thayer.

She credited Thayer, who was questioned and released the same morning of her incarceration, with raising the alarm. "Nate Thayer saw me taken off and said, `I promise I will do something,' " said Bingham, who served as photographer for Al Gore during his presidential campaign. "It was bad being led off at 4:45 in the morning by men with guns. Knowing that someone knew I was missing was all that gave me hope."

Abu Ghraib is the largest prison in the Arab world and is in famous as the place of torture and murder of enemies of the Iraqi regime.

McAllester and Saman entered Iraq legitimately as journalists, but had been issued visas restricting them to covering the activities of so-called human shields, Western peace activists who camp outside Iraqi water pumping stations, hospitals, and other facilities with the idea that their presence will deter attacks from warplanes of the British-American coalition.

McAllester acknowledged that he and his photographer colleague "stretched the envelope" by covering the war from Baghdad in a broader way. "We were there to tell a story," he said. "But we knew we were breaking a rule."

Bingham and Spanner, who have no professional connection, entered Iraq as tourists, an infraction that would result in rebuke and perhaps expulsion from most countries, not imprisonment.

The journalists slept on the concrete floors of their individual cells and were fed three meals a day.

"Breakfast was hard boiled eggs and chai," said Bingham, using the word for tea most commonly used in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. "Lunch was rice or potatoes. Dinner was chicken broth and bread."

During their confinement, they said, they were forced to wear prison uniforms and instructed to sign confessions that were essentially transcripts of their interrogations.

"They quoted passages that I had never written; they said I'd described Iraq as a `devil regime,' a term I've never used," said McAllester, who refused to sign an Arabic language confession but instead wrote out a statement stating that he was a journalist and not an agent of the CIA or any government.

Especially frightening to the journalists was hearing the sound of B-52s and other coalition warplanes and the blast of bombs and missiles.

"We didn't know if anyone knew we were there," Bingham said. "We didn't know if the prison might be targeted as a military facility."

As a woman, Bingham received slightly preferential treatment, she wryly acknowledged. "I was given a towel and a piece of soap," she said. "In that, I fared better than the gentlemen."

JOURNALISTS TELL OF CAPTIVITY IN INFAMOUS IRAQI PRISON

 

JOURNALISTS TELL OF CAPTIVITY IN INFAMOUS IRAQI PRISON

The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)

April 3, 2003 | Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff

AMMAN, Jordan - The terrifying ordeal of the four Western journalists began before dawn March 24. Iraqi intelligence officers rounded them up at their Baghdad hotel and bundled them off to Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, where screams of torture victims rang through corridors and the walls reverberated to the blast of American bombs.

They were held incommunicado in separate cells for seven days and nights before they were released Tuesday night.

"From the time we realized we were being taken to prison until the time we crossed into Jordan, we felt our lives were in danger," said Matthew McAllester, Middle East bureau chief for Newsday.

"At times, the Iraqi antiaircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles were going off incredibly close, and the bombs would shake the walls and the floors where we slept," he said during a press conference in the Jordanian capital yesterday. "But we were more concerned about being killed by our hosts."

Iraqi officials never explained why they arrested McAllester; Newsday photographer Moises Saman, 29; freelance photographer Molly Bingham of Louisville, Ky.; and Danish photographer Johan Rydeng Spanner. American peace activist Philip Latasha was also held with the group, which was freed at the Jordanian border late Tuesday.

Almost daily, they were each led blindfolded from their dingy 6- foot-by-10-foot cells to interrogation rooms, where they were questioned closely about their activities in Iraq.

"We had no idea what they were going to do to us," said Bingham. "They kept blindfolding us and taking us away. Every day it was a question of, `Are they going to kill me or just ask questions?' "

The journalists stressed that they were never beaten or otherwise physically abused.

"They wanted to know if I was a spy," Bingham said. "I told them I was a journalist who came to Baghdad to cover the situation of the Iraqis in the war. But I was not physically harmed in any way."

Iraqis held in the same prison block were not so lucky, according to the journalists.

The four described Iraqi prisoners being led off to torture chambers. Other prisoners bore bruises, cuts, and other signs of beatings. Some hobbled about as if the soles of their feet had been whipped.

"We could hear screams, especially at night," McAllester recounted. "They were being beaten a few yards from my cell, beaten with some sort of implements."

Meanwhile, Newsday was making frantic efforts to locate them and secure their release, making appeals for help to world figures including Pope John Paul II and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who called Iraq authorities on the journalists' behalf, according to Newsday's deputy editor for foreign news, Jim Rupert.

On the eighth night of their incarceration, the four journalists and the peace activist were allowed to stay together in a single cell, apparently because officials of the regime had decided to grant them release.

But during the first seven days, the Westerners were not allowed to speak to one another, although Bingham and McAllester, in adjoining cells, devised a crude code system of knocks on the wall.

"It was basically just a way to say: `Are you there? Are you OK?' " said Bingham, who was in Baghdad on assignment for Esquire magazine, along with journalist Nate Thayer.

She credited Thayer, who was questioned and released the same morning of her incarceration, with raising the alarm. "Nate Thayer saw me taken off and said, `I promise I will do something,' " said Bingham, who served as photographer for Al Gore during his presidential campaign. "It was bad being led off at 4:45 in the morning by men with guns. Knowing that someone knew I was missing was all that gave me hope."

Abu Ghraib is the largest prison in the Arab world and is in famous as the place of torture and murder of enemies of the Iraqi regime.

McAllester and Saman entered Iraq legitimately as journalists, but had been issued visas restricting them to covering the activities of so-called human shields, Western peace activists who camp outside Iraqi water pumping stations, hospitals, and other facilities with the idea that their presence will deter attacks from warplanes of the British-American coalition.

McAllester acknowledged that he and his photographer colleague "stretched the envelope" by covering the war from Baghdad in a broader way. "We were there to tell a story," he said. "But we knew we were breaking a rule."

Bingham and Spanner, who have no professional connection, entered Iraq as tourists, an infraction that would result in rebuke and perhaps expulsion from most countries, not imprisonment.

The journalists slept on the concrete floors of their individual cells and were fed three meals a day.

"Breakfast was hard boiled eggs and chai," said Bingham, using the word for tea most commonly used in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. "Lunch was rice or potatoes. Dinner was chicken broth and bread."

During their confinement, they said, they were forced to wear prison uniforms and instructed to sign confessions that were essentially transcripts of their interrogations.

"They quoted passages that I had never written; they said I'd described Iraq as a `devil regime,' a term I've never used," said McAllester, who refused to sign an Arabic language confession but instead wrote out a statement stating that he was a journalist and not an agent of the CIA or any government.

Especially frightening to the journalists was hearing the sound of B-52s and other coalition warplanes and the blast of bombs and missiles.

"We didn't know if anyone knew we were there," Bingham said. "We didn't know if the prison might be targeted as a military facility."

As a woman, Bingham received slightly preferential treatment, she wryly acknowledged. "I was given a towel and a piece of soap," she said. "In that, I fared better than the gentlemen."

Swashbuckling reporter gets story on show trial

Swashbuckling reporter gets story on show trial

The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)

July 30, 1997 | Ellen O'Brien, Globe Staff

He chews tobacco, has a five-o'clock shadow, and knows his weapons.

Nate Thayer is a swashbuckling reporter who has a reputation for landing himself in the middle of the action -- and at the center of his stories.

At 37, Thayer already had a long list of foreign adventures on his resume before Friday, when he became known around the world as the guy who saw Pol Pot. Yesterday Thayer, who attended the University of Massachusetts at Boston years ago, spent the day in his Bangkok hotel writing the exclusive story of the Pol Pot sighting. Along with a cameraman, Thayer was allowed to witness a court proceding in which the Khmer Rouge denounced the mysterious leader and sentenced him to life under house arrest. It was the first time a journalist had seen Pol Pot in nearly two decades. And no one who knows Thayer was surprised that he was the one who landed the big story. "Only one reporter -- Nate -- could have gotten that story," said Frederick Brown, associate director of the Southeast Asia Studies School at Johns Hopkins University. Thayer is currently a research associate at the school's Advanced International Studies program, having received a grant from the US Institute of Peace, a Washington-based think tank. He is working on a book on the Khmer Rouge and living in a Washington suburb when he isn't traveling to Cambodia in search of the next big scoop. "He has that ability to conduct three or four conversations at the same time, from all over the world. He's always got a phone buzzing," said Brown, who was with Thayer earlier this week in Cambodia. Thayer got a taste for international travel while his father, Harry E. T. Thayer, was a career diplomat. A former US ambassador to Singapore, Thayer's father said yesterday his son often visited, and lived with him abroad. "He's pretty well known as a colorful character, rather independent-minded, a bit of a risk-taker," said Thayer's father. The family lived in Boston and Philadelphia, and Thayer graduated from the school now known as Cambridge Rindge and Latin. Thayer said his son's college career in political science was interrupted by foreign trips to Cambodia, where he interviewed Khmer Rouge victims as one of his first projects. He lived in Boston and Somerville, and worked as a disk jockey for a radio station at Tufts University. Interviews with Thayer's colleagues and his father yield a portrait of a man with local roots who has risked his life for his passion abroad. He is a distance swimmer who used to compete in races in Boston, and now wins river races in Cambodia. He has battled several illnesses while traveling, including malaria and typhoid disease. He collects guns, and has written for Soldier of Fortune, a magazine for military buffs. And he has always had a taste for adventure, his father said. He lost the hearing in one of his ears while covering a firefight in Burma, and had a brush with death from a landmine in Khmer Rouge territory. Thayer's story will be published tomorrow, when 85,000 copies of the Far Eastern Economic Review hit the newsstands. Owned by Dow Jones, the weekly magazine has exclusive rights to Thayer's story, but Thayer, who was working as a freelance writer for the magazine, owns the photographs that go with it.

Swashbuckling reporter gets story on show trial: He chews tobacco, has a five-o'clock shadow, and knows his weapons.

Swashbuckling reporter gets story on show trial

The Boston Globe

July 30, 1997

By Ellen O'Brien  

He chews tobacco, has a five-o'clock shadow, and knows his weapons.

Nate Thayer is a swashbuckling reporter who has a reputation for landing himself in the middle of the action -- and at the center of his stories.

At 37, Thayer already had a long list of foreign adventures on his resume before Friday, when he became known around the world as the guy who saw Pol Pot. Yesterday Thayer, who attended the University of Massachusetts at Boston years ago, spent the day in his Bangkok hotel writing the exclusive story of the Pol Pot sighting. Along with a cameraman, Thayer was allowed to witness a court proceding in which the Khmer Rouge denounced the mysterious leader and sentenced him to life under house arrest. It was the first time a journalist had seen Pol Pot in nearly two decades. And no one who knows Thayer was surprised that he was the one who landed the big story. "Only one reporter -- Nate -- could have gotten that story," said Frederick Brown, associate director of the Southeast Asia Studies School at Johns Hopkins University. Thayer is currently a research associate at the school's Advanced International Studies program, having received a grant from the US Institute of Peace, a Washington-based think tank. He is working on a book on the Khmer Rouge and living in a Washington suburb when he isn't traveling to Cambodia in search of the next big scoop. "He has that ability to conduct three or four conversations at the same time, from all over the world. He's always got a phone buzzing," said Brown, who was with Thayer earlier this week in Cambodia. Thayer got a taste for international travel while his father, Harry E. T. Thayer, was a career diplomat. A former US ambassador to Singapore, Thayer's father said yesterday his son often visited, and lived with him abroad. "He's pretty well known as a colorful character, rather independent-minded, a bit of a risk-taker," said Thayer's father. The family lived in Boston and Philadelphia, and Thayer graduated from the school now known as Cambridge Rindge and Latin. Thayer said his son's college career in political science was interrupted by foreign trips to Cambodia, where he interviewed Khmer Rouge victims as one of his first projects. He lived in Boston and Somerville, and worked as a disk jockey for a radio station at Tufts University. Interviews with Thayer's colleagues and his father yield a portrait of a man with local roots who has risked his life for his passion abroad. He is a distance swimmer who used to compete in races in Boston, and now wins river races in Cambodia. He has battled several illnesses while traveling, including malaria and typhoid disease. He collects guns, and has written for Soldier of Fortune, a magazine for military buffs. And he has always had a taste for adventure, his father said. He lost the hearing in one of his ears while covering a firefight in Burma, and had a brush with death from a landmine in Khmer Rouge territory. Thayer's story will be published tomorrow, when 85,000 copies of the Far Eastern Economic Review hit the newsstands. Owned by Dow Jones, the weekly magazine has exclusive rights to Thayer's story, but Thayer, who was working as a freelance writer for the magazine, owns the photographs that go with it.

Holly Harris will spin her blues on 'BOS

 

Holly Harris will spin her blues on 'BOS

The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)

January 8, 1993 | Susan Bickelhaupt, Globe Staff

Holly Harris is an ambassador for the blues in Boston, whether she's listening to music at a blues club, emceeing a blues festival or spinning blues tunes on the radio.

Starting this weekend, Harris has a new home at WBOS-FM (92.9), where she'll host Blues on Sunday at 10 p.m. For the past decade, Harris has mostly found a nitch on noncommercial radio, hosting a Sunday morning show on WMFO-FM (91.5) and subbing for Mai Cramer on WGBH-FM (89.7). Last year she signed with WCGY-FM, doing "Rockin' Blues" on Sunday night.

Harris, from upstate New York, said she's not that musical herself, although she's been surrounded by it. Her father has a doctorate of music from Columbia University, and his father was Al Jolson's No. 1 trumpeter.

Her jolt for the blues came when she was 16 and heard B. B. King. "It just hit me as the most beautiful music I'd ever heard," Harris recalls.

She ended up in Boston at Suffolk University in the early '70s, and listened to all the radio shows in town. WMFO's Sunday Morning Blues caught her ear, and when host Nate Thayer asked her to fill in when he left to travel, she gladly did. It's been her show since 1982, and she plans to keep doing it.

Harris, a school counselor during the week, was content with the three-hour show on Sunday (11 a.m.-2 p.m.), but when WCGY-FM (95.3) approached her last spring about doing a blues show on the rock station, Harris was receptive.

"I thought a commercial station would be a great forum, and it is," she said. "I think the blues is finally coming into some respect it always deserved."

Harris' latest gig will be hosting a show that has been on WBOS for a year and a half. Up to now it has had rotating hosts, Bill Smith and David O'Leary, both of whom have full-time jobs at the station.

She said she probably won't make the show as rock-based and consistently uptempo as the one at WCGY, and will play a variety of tempos. She also wants to take listener requests.

"I'm really big on local features, too, and want to spotlight one local group every week," Harris said.

No stranger to the Boston blues scene, Harris frequently emcees shows at clubs, and served as a consultant for the new House of Blues. Harris and Rick Russell founded the Blues Society in 1988.

Harris is a fan of Cramer's show on WGBH on Friday and Saturday nights, but is encouraged that commercial stations are starting to take the nod. WBCN-FM (104.1) now has a Sunday morning blues show.

Steve Becker, the program director at WCGY, said he intends to continue with the program and is already on the lookout for a new host.

REPLACEMENT OF RIDE CONTRACTOR DEMANDED: The Boston Globe

REPLACEMENT OF RIDE CONTRACTOR DEMANDED

The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)

September 30, 1988 | Maria Alvarez, Contributing Reporter and Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff

Three days after a Newton woman died in a crash involving a Ride taxi, nearly 150 people with disabilities yesterday demanded again that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority replace the contractor that runs the troubled door-to-door van service for disabled people.

"The crisis of the last two months has reached such proportion that the disabled community of Boston is saying enough is enough," said Nate Thayer, transportation coordinator for the state Office of Handicapped Affairs.

Also yesterday, the MBTA released statistics from a recent survey showing that 39 percent of Ride users are "less satisfied" with the Ride now than they were a year ago. But MBTA officials said the survey also indicated that service is improving.

The Ride has been a target of criticism since a Virginia firm, Transportation Management System Inc., took over the contract to run it in June. Several riders have been injured in crashes and falls attributed to inexperienced drivers, and the firm was fined $57,000 for poor service.

On Monday afternoon, 80-year-old Ride subscriber Bertha Kowalsky of Newton died after the Veteran's Taxi in which she was riding accelerated out of control and crashed in Brookline. Veteran's Taxi, a Newton company, is a TMSI subcontractor.

At a packed meeting at the state Transportation Building yesterday, almost 150 Ride users unanimously voted to demand that the T place the Ride in receivership and run it until a new contractor is chosen.

"This is by far the biggest meeting and the biggest vote," Thayer said.

However, Anne Bickford, MBTA deputy director of operations, said the fatal accident will not result in any immediate action. "We are not prepared to take any action that will affect the rest of the riders," she said.

T officials said no penalties will be imposed on the taxi service or TMSI because of the accident.

"Veteran's Taxi has done a good job. This is an isolated incident," said Timothy F. Gens, the T's director of development and public affairs.

Police investigating the accident said the taxi driver, Robert Moriarty, 26, who was released from the hospital Tuesday after treatment of injuries, may have had a seizure.

In the survey of 400 Ride users, conducted by Atlantic Research Co., 19 percent said they are more satisfied with the service since TMSI took it over, 21 percent said they were equally satisfied, and 22 percent said they were undecided.

However, another survey question asked users to rate their experience with the Ride, "taking everything into consideration," and 60 percent of the 400 riders called it somewhat or very satisfactory.

"Those aren't terrific numbers," said Michael Meuhe, a member of the T access advisory committee. "I'm discouraged by those numbers. It's mediocre at best."

Meuhe said he believes the results reflect the "unpredictability and wildly varying experience" of people who use the Ride.

Gens said the survey "does not suggest there are no problems" but does provide evidence of what he called continuing improvements in the service.

The survey found, for example, that 90 percent said drivers are generally or always courteous, 77 percent expressed satisfaction with the reservation system, and 90 percent said drivers usually or always drive safely.

Gens, acknowledging "persistent start-up problems" since TMSI took over, said it would be a mistake to switch again.

"Given the imposing problems that riders would encounter with any transition, it really is incumbent on us to make the service work," Gens said.

A follow-up survey involving only those who expressed negative opinions in the initial survey showed that 49 percent are growing increasingly dissatisfied. None said they are more satisfied about drivers or more satisfied that drivers are improving safety.

HANDICAPPED CRITICIZE MBTA ON VAN SERVICE FREQUENT DELAYS, FAULTY EQUIPMENT CITED

HANDICAPPED CRITICIZE MBTA ON VAN SERVICE FREQUENT DELAYS, FAULTY EQUIPMENT CITED

The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)

September 16, 1988

By Joe Ferson

A group of handicapped people told a meeting of the MBTA's access advisory committee yesterday that the door-to-door service known as The Ride is unreliable and dangerous.

The Ride is operated by Transportation Management System Inc. under contract from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

Promises to improve the service have not been met, one participant said. "They're making an effort, there's no question on that, but it's not enough," Ralph Steele told the panel.

Steele mentioned reports of injuries due to incompetence, and added, "Are they waiting for someone to die before they take action?"

Timothy Gens, a spokesman for the MBTA, said the service provided by Transportation Management has improved since July 1, when the Virginia company took over the service from THEM Inc. of Cambridge.

"There has been significant improvement since the transitional period, when one would expect a certain amount of confusion," Gens said.

But according to Nate Thayer, transportation director for the state Office of Handicapped Affairs, criticism has been pouring in since Transportation Management took over operation of The Ride.

"There's a serious crisis facing the 9,000 handicapped individuals who depend on The Ride -- and right now, because right now it's not working," he said.

Thayer said his office has received 1,000 complaints concerning The Ride since July 1.

Thayer noted there was "not one complaint regarding service" during the time THEM Inc., a nonprofit agency, ran the service.

"It's like a leaking ship with 70 holes in it," Thayer said of Transportation Management. "The only solution is to get a new ship, a new contractor for The Ride."

Carolyn Stack said she came to the meeting, which was attended by about 25 handicapped people, to present the case of her 80-year-old father, Arthur Conway.

"My father goes to dialysis three times a week, and we've gotten calls from hospital workers asking us to come pick him up because The Ride didn't show up," she said.

Thayer said one woman was late for a dialysis treatment and was told by her doctor upon arriving that she was in serious risk of a stroke because of the delay.

"TMSI was warned specifically about this woman," Thayer said. "Either they don't know what they're doing or they don't care."

Thomas McKenne, who works at Ferguson Industries, told the committee: "The trouble with all these meetings is, they always pass the buck -- back and forth."

McKenne said The Ride drivers are polite and try to do their job, but that there is a lack of communication from management. He said some vans have faulty lift equipment, leaving the drivers hard-pressed to do their job.

Because of delays in The Ride, McKenne added, he's been arriving late for work by an hour or more for the last three weeks.

McKenne said if delays continue, he could be docked the hour's pay, adding that he's frustrated by the company's lack of sensitivity.

"A lot of these people are making money off the handicapped," he said. "But they don't give a damn so long as they collect their big fat salaries."

McKenne said that on a recent day he was picked up late by a van that had a broken gas gauge, no brake lights and no arm rest on his seat.

"Someone could fall out of their seat real easy," he pointed out.

Lorraine Greiff, assistant director of public affairs for the Office of Handicapped Affairs, said many handicapped people who use The Ride live at the whim of the company's scheduling.

"You make plans to go somewhere and then you discover at the last minute you're not going anywhere," she said.

MBTA DECIDES TO KEEP NEW FIRM AS PROVIDER OF SERVICE TO DISABLED

MBTA DECIDES TO KEEP NEW FIRM AS PROVIDER OF SERVICE TO DISABLED

The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)

July 26, 1988 | Frances Robles , Contributing Reporter

Despite complaints about the poor service provided by the new operator of The Ride, a door-to-door van service for disabled people, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority has decided to retain the firm.

Ten days ago, MBTA general manager James O'Leary said he would give the Transportation Services Management Inc. -- which has operated the service since July 1 -- until yesterday to improve its service or seek another company to run the Ride.

Yesterday, the MBTA announced it "has seen enough improvement over the past 10 days to warrant continued operation," said Peter Dimond, a spokesman for the authority.

Since Transportation Services began operating the service, there have been six vehicle accidents, five reported hospitalizations, and hundreds of complaints of canceled trips, said Nate Thayer, transportation coordinator for the state Office of Handicapped Affairs.

But Dimond said that more recently "there has been a 14 percent increase in daily trips, a decrease in trips denied to passengers, and a decline in complaints." He said the reports of daily trips had risen from 632 to 722, and those of unavailable trips had dropped from 184 to 102.

"We were not satisfied with the performance, but we believe these improvements will continue," he said.

Dimond added that the firm was planning additional training for drivers and changes in management and staffing, and that it would beef up the Brewster Ambulance Service, one of the services with few complaints.

Thayer said, however, that the report of improved service "goes against anything we have seen or heard here," and added that he is still receiving a stream of complaints from passengers.

"I am extremely skeptical that that is true," he continued, saying the new providers "have said they would improve before."

Thayer said various groups will rally at noon tomorrow at City Hall to protest the service.

"It's utterly unbelievable," said Carrie Dearborn, who was injured last week when a driver dropped her off a wheelchair lift from a height of four feet. Dearborn, who refuses to use the Ride, has been taking buses since her fall. "It takes longer, but hell, at least I know they are not going to drop me. It cuts down my mobility, but I value my life more than my mobility."

Ralph Steele, a Ride user who is president of the Brookline Group for the Handicapped Inc., waited an hour for a van to pick him up from work yesterday. "Talk about frustration and fear," Steele said. "I am left stranded when a 6-inch curb is worse than Mt. Everest. It's traumatic."

He added that he will attend the demonstration, "if I can get there."