By Alan Burke
MARBLEHEAD — Stop pressing your nose against the glass — come inside!
Yes, take a tour of some of downtown Marblehead's most historic addresses. Act like you belong. Pay up to $35 (in advance) and troop through 10 of the town's most exclusive homes — just wipe your feet first.
It's part of the Marblehead Museum and Historical Society's annual Holiday House Tour on Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 5 and 6. How alluring is the prospect of marching through someone else's house? In 2008, they sold all 4,000 tickets.
Get them while they last, urges museum director Pam Peterson.
The houses are mostly in the historic district.
"There's a house on Franklin Street that is really quite elegant," Peterson says.
Another has been included on past tours, but it's since been renovated.
Several hundred volunteers will shepherd people through. Some homeowners will be on-site, but, no, you can't see them in their natural state like "Jon and Kate Plus 8."
"It's not like reality TV," Peterson says.
It's a beautiful country
And Mark Brown has lots of it on film.
Photos of everything from golden eagles to bighorn sheep, of the rugged Northwest and the jagged coast of New England (and lots in between), will soon be on display at the Abbot Public Library.
If you plan on some traveling, you might get some ideas on where you'd like to go.
"Wildlife and Wilderness: Photographs by Mark Brown" will be exhibited at the library's Virginia A. Carten Gallery from Dec. 5 through Jan. 21.
Still got a revolution
Barbara Anderson is celebrating the annual Citizens for Limited Taxation brunch, which drew more than 180 in Randolph on Sunday. Had the turnout been poor, she was intent on shutting down the organization rather than incurring debt.
"It was the biggest brunch ever," she says. Her e-mails now play "Got a Revolution" by the Jefferson Airplane. After eliminating one of its four workers, CLT now has enough money to last until winter fundraising begins.
One of Anderson's biggest worries was the number of long-term CLT members who had simply died. After all, the organization was fighting property taxes when it championed Proposition 21รขÑ2 back in 1980.
Sunday brought fresh blood.
"A lot of these were new people who hadn't been to CLT before," she says.
Attendees included congressional candidate Bill Hudak (seeking John Tierney's seat) and Republican U.S. Senate candidates Scott Brown and Jack E. Robinson. Swampscott's Charlie Baker, running for governor, bought several seats but did not attend.
Radio host Todd Feinburg spoke. He was accompanied by wife Rosalie, namesake of her long-ago Marblehead eatery.
Anderson will be targeting the system in 2010, she says, and spotlighting legislators who vote for taxes. CLT gives Marblehead state Rep. Lori Ehrlich a zero rating, for example.
Donkeys save elephants?
Ehrlich, a Democrat, recently attended a bipartisan hearing on the mistreatment of elephants (symbol of the Republican Party) in circuses and zoos. She joined an effort led by state Sen. Bob Hedlund (R-Weymouth) to ban the instruments used to control the mighty animals.
Devices like the bull hook are very sharp, Ehrlich says. "They're designed to inflict pain." Animal handlers claim that elephant skin is so thick that such things are needed to get their attention. Ehrlich has her doubts, and a bill to ban such things is now in committee.
Also supporting the measure was a delegation of Marblehead High kids. All were invited to speak, Ehrlich says, but only one did — her daughter, Casey. Is there another politician in the family?
"Ask her spokesperson," mom joked. "She enjoyed it."
Lori Ehrlich began the hearing with a plea, "I do hope my Republican colleagues will remember this if it's ever discovered that donkeys are ill-treated." (The donkey is the symbol of the Democratic Party.)
