The Valley got a little meaner this week when the local daily decided to take a swipe at Selectmen (and former State Senator, School Board member and now coach) Mark Hounsell on the by-pass issue. Hounsell took the bait and responded with a clever rhyme (people said) in which he obliquely accused the paper of not caring about Berlin and Gorham, oddly enough. Who does care about Berlin and Gorham? Nobody, clearly, but that is a topic for another day.
I think the Daily has it right. $60 million is enough to buy half the homes on Conway Lake (the west side anygate) but it doesn’t buy a whole lot of highway. Last summer I timed the crawling pace from Beep Beep Deli to the Conway light and it was ten minutes every time even when we had to wait for the Seybold Express to blow through. That doesn’t seem awfully long. Not like trying to get into town/North Conway on a rainy summer night. I’ve seen traffic backed up to the Albany church. But that’s only once in a while and if you’ve been up here long enough, you know how to get around if you’re not smart enough to stay away or arrange your schedule so you don’t end up in that snarl.
Come to think of it, I do feel badly for the poor guys in trucks and busses that come down from the Grand bois du Nord. But is that worth the money? When they get to their teeming destination they have to put up with the same thing.
The “study” that has been going on for more than three decades is a farce. They have been talking about it, and having meetings up the ying yang and have even bought up land for it and now it isn’t going to happen. Why isn’t it going to happen? Because it’s not worth it. Then what the Sam Hill was the “study” for? It certainly wasn’t free. Are their reports to be had by the public that can tell us why they made all those people move out of their houses when they didn’t really have to? Some of them were in there for generations. I know they spent tens of millions on the “study”. Who is responsible for this “study” to no where? The whole bloody thing gives me an eyeache.
Some of us feel strongly that the reason everything is so crowded up here and tarted up like route 1 in Saugus is because we keep widening the roads so more people can come faster and then have to wait in line when they get here. I suppose that makes sense to people other than Billy Marvel and me, but its foolishness. The views to the mountains are scarred with McMansions and condos. The strip looks likes one outside of Cleveland or Phoenix and even the Catholic cemetery has lost the hedge between the stream of cars and those trying to rest in peace. My peeps are in that place and it fairly pisses me off.
Then I remember: Carroll Reed built an empire from a little ski shop in Jackson and sold out to a huge conglomerate. He set the tone in North Conway Village and it’s still pretty good. He also set the pace for making it big off the tourists. There’s nothing we can do to stop all these people coming up, I suppose. But do we have to make it easier?
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Notes on a blog
I am beginning to catch on how to blog (that nouveau verb that I thought I detested till I started doing it) even as the SJ is beginning to catch on. Recently we added a RSS feed which is at the bottom of the very first post (as in: Ctrl end) and there you can follow the easiest possible instructions on how to have the SJ come onto your screen with the least amount of effort on your part if you know what you’re doing. All suggestions for improvements are and will be appreciated. Thanks AJ, Master Cylinder and Victoid. Your service and devotedness to this weensy slice of the sphere is … bewildering.
Also, I’ve had some comments about the email that I send every time I post a new blog. Over a hundred of them go out Bcc. If you think that I just send one to you, well that’s alright too. Thank you, Margo; may you always have fair winds on your luxurious yacht, or I guess, uxorious yacht when you are ala barre.
And to all who knew me when I was penning my pompous prose for papers that paid: Thank you for reading and voting and mostly for commenting. To my advertisers: Pay up!
A word about the purpose of the blog, which is: To report on the Mount Washington Valley goings on and the media that covers it as well as weigh in on the world wide news randomly.
Also, I’ve had some comments about the email that I send every time I post a new blog. Over a hundred of them go out Bcc. If you think that I just send one to you, well that’s alright too. Thank you, Margo; may you always have fair winds on your luxurious yacht, or I guess, uxorious yacht when you are ala barre.
And to all who knew me when I was penning my pompous prose for papers that paid: Thank you for reading and voting and mostly for commenting. To my advertisers: Pay up!
A word about the purpose of the blog, which is: To report on the Mount Washington Valley goings on and the media that covers it as well as weigh in on the world wide news randomly.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Frannie and Freddie, just two crazy kids
Just before the housing collapse I started selling mortgages. The prime was around four and if you had “excellent” credit and a job you could get the best rate. The office was like a setting in a John Steinbeck story. It was seedy in that it was so undernourished. The only computer was on the “boss’” desk which when he finally strolled in, mid-morning, he would spend rest of the time till lunch greedily gawking porn sites. If we wanted to check someone’s credit rating, we waited till he was off. I’m pretty sure he was in the witness protection program because he did very little in the way of sales and his piece of what we did would barely keep his Harley in gas.
I was encouraged to bring in whatever business was out there and when ever I did latch on to something I was told “we don’t do that, yet.” One of them was a reverse mortgage for a friend of mine which even though it finally went through, the jagoff company never paid me for it. Then I went to work for the subsidiary of IndyMac that was pushing these things. IndyMac, 10th largest bank in CA, just shut their doors.
The concept is basic biz: if you can afford it you can have it. But as Jon Stewart said last night to some twit who had written a book about it, “So if I can’t afford it, you’ll still give it to me but just charge me more.” Laughs from the audience, a look of bewilderment from the expert.
What is unclear to me is why the mortgage bankers would loan money to losers. Not just the guy who wants to put a trailer he has been given on wetlands that his father-in-law sold him for $25K, but our little company in general. I remember Billy who had been in car sales talking on the phone to customer while emitting an occasional glorp of goo from his mouth into a coffee cup. Paul wanted me to help him sell modular homes but the only mortgage he sold while I was there was to his father. John had the most sales because he had seniority and would cherry pick the lists to cold call so that the rest of us would be calling people who had just refinanced, sometimes not even six months before.
If this company could get qualified to sell mortgages, it is absolutely no wonder that the system was and is chock a block with avaricious arseholes who’d figured a way to scam whoever came along. And then the guys just above us were in it so that they could bundle these sales and pass them on until Japan ends up with them.
So what happens when Schmucko goes away to the county lock up for a few months leaving his pregnant bride with the kids, and no car to get to a job? He defaults. Now my old company does not say “Schmuckey, we might have over extended you a tad and rates are still low, how about you give us a little less for the next few years till this thing blows over.” They don’t say that because they can’t. They’re not holding. And who is holding is who gets stuck when the payments stop coming in. Screw them. But apparently not. The government finds some way to help out the big shots at Fannie and Freddie, but the Schmuckster loses his house and any credit he might have had. Why not have the bailout for the little guy who can then keep making his payments and the money continues to go up the food chain? I’m just sayin’.
I was encouraged to bring in whatever business was out there and when ever I did latch on to something I was told “we don’t do that, yet.” One of them was a reverse mortgage for a friend of mine which even though it finally went through, the jagoff company never paid me for it. Then I went to work for the subsidiary of IndyMac that was pushing these things. IndyMac, 10th largest bank in CA, just shut their doors.
The concept is basic biz: if you can afford it you can have it. But as Jon Stewart said last night to some twit who had written a book about it, “So if I can’t afford it, you’ll still give it to me but just charge me more.” Laughs from the audience, a look of bewilderment from the expert.
What is unclear to me is why the mortgage bankers would loan money to losers. Not just the guy who wants to put a trailer he has been given on wetlands that his father-in-law sold him for $25K, but our little company in general. I remember Billy who had been in car sales talking on the phone to customer while emitting an occasional glorp of goo from his mouth into a coffee cup. Paul wanted me to help him sell modular homes but the only mortgage he sold while I was there was to his father. John had the most sales because he had seniority and would cherry pick the lists to cold call so that the rest of us would be calling people who had just refinanced, sometimes not even six months before.
If this company could get qualified to sell mortgages, it is absolutely no wonder that the system was and is chock a block with avaricious arseholes who’d figured a way to scam whoever came along. And then the guys just above us were in it so that they could bundle these sales and pass them on until Japan ends up with them.
So what happens when Schmucko goes away to the county lock up for a few months leaving his pregnant bride with the kids, and no car to get to a job? He defaults. Now my old company does not say “Schmuckey, we might have over extended you a tad and rates are still low, how about you give us a little less for the next few years till this thing blows over.” They don’t say that because they can’t. They’re not holding. And who is holding is who gets stuck when the payments stop coming in. Screw them. But apparently not. The government finds some way to help out the big shots at Fannie and Freddie, but the Schmuckster loses his house and any credit he might have had. Why not have the bailout for the little guy who can then keep making his payments and the money continues to go up the food chain? I’m just sayin’.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
It’s about Iraq, Jack
Annoying twit, that Nouri al Maliki. We create a safe haven for his like and then he bites us in the ass by asking us to leave. Leave? I don’t think so. We didn’t go into this thing for any other reason than to establish a beach head on the Tigris so we would own policy and process in the Centcom/Arab states into the next millennium and beyond. We aren’t building the billion dollar Baghdad bomb shelter/embassy because we can’t figure out other ways to waste money we don’t have. Oh nooooo. The cost of this 21 building, 104 acre behemoth is more than the GNP of half of the African countries. When McCain says he doesn’t care if we’re there for a hundred years, he knows of what he speaks. The Iraqi government sold us/US the land in ’04. We own 104 acres of their country!
Now Maliki’s making noises, most probably for his homies, about achieving a viable, livable surge-induced calm that presages a path to what could pass as a normal life for what’s left of the population there. We and they claim that democracy of sorts was the goal and it has been met. So they no longer need us and it’s time for the troops to go home. But we all know that “Blood for oil” is not just some lame lefty slogan. Every action that the present administration takes toward the oil industry is only what you would expect from these greedy psychopaths.
Most disturbing right now is what might happen in Iran. If we don’t have the troops to finish up in Iraq and Afghanistan, how do we contemplate a confrontation with the 18th largest country in the world? They’ve got 70 million people and military might that Saddam Insane could only have dreamed of. There are ¾ of a million Iranians in uniform. One of the oldest and sophisticated civilizations, they have stuff that dates back to 4000 BC. These guys helped start the UN. In fact, the only two countries they don’t have relations with are Israel, because they don’t exist, and the US, because we’re friends with the country that doesn’t exist. And, O maybe a little left over bitterness from the time we wrecked their democracy and put in our own guy. He had quite a military too and he got whupped by mullahs with sticks and stones. I remember Henry Kissmyass had to sneak him into this country to get treatment for his terminal cancer. He terminated anyway.
So how do we fight these buggers? (The ‘why’ is because Cheney wants to). The only possible way given how stretched we are in that area, is by air. Bomb the snot out of ‘em. Wipe out civilians and ancient culture, make even more enemies and just watch what will happen in Iraq. There will be no reason for the Iranians not to come streaming across the borders for revenge and no one to stop them. What are we going to do, have another surge? How many of them do we have to kill from the air before the world cries out for the madness to cease?
Seymour Hirsch thinks there is going to be war and he certainly knows a lot about it. The next president won’t do it so it will have to be the Dubber and I don’t think the shameless cipher has it in him. If you look closely you can see him getting slightly cyanotic from holding his breath waiting for the nightmare of his presidency to be over.
Now Maliki’s making noises, most probably for his homies, about achieving a viable, livable surge-induced calm that presages a path to what could pass as a normal life for what’s left of the population there. We and they claim that democracy of sorts was the goal and it has been met. So they no longer need us and it’s time for the troops to go home. But we all know that “Blood for oil” is not just some lame lefty slogan. Every action that the present administration takes toward the oil industry is only what you would expect from these greedy psychopaths.
Most disturbing right now is what might happen in Iran. If we don’t have the troops to finish up in Iraq and Afghanistan, how do we contemplate a confrontation with the 18th largest country in the world? They’ve got 70 million people and military might that Saddam Insane could only have dreamed of. There are ¾ of a million Iranians in uniform. One of the oldest and sophisticated civilizations, they have stuff that dates back to 4000 BC. These guys helped start the UN. In fact, the only two countries they don’t have relations with are Israel, because they don’t exist, and the US, because we’re friends with the country that doesn’t exist. And, O maybe a little left over bitterness from the time we wrecked their democracy and put in our own guy. He had quite a military too and he got whupped by mullahs with sticks and stones. I remember Henry Kissmyass had to sneak him into this country to get treatment for his terminal cancer. He terminated anyway.
So how do we fight these buggers? (The ‘why’ is because Cheney wants to). The only possible way given how stretched we are in that area, is by air. Bomb the snot out of ‘em. Wipe out civilians and ancient culture, make even more enemies and just watch what will happen in Iraq. There will be no reason for the Iranians not to come streaming across the borders for revenge and no one to stop them. What are we going to do, have another surge? How many of them do we have to kill from the air before the world cries out for the madness to cease?
Seymour Hirsch thinks there is going to be war and he certainly knows a lot about it. The next president won’t do it so it will have to be the Dubber and I don’t think the shameless cipher has it in him. If you look closely you can see him getting slightly cyanotic from holding his breath waiting for the nightmare of his presidency to be over.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
A little housekeeping
Fair and balanced
Too bad about Tony Snow. He seemed a genuine good guy who has done the press sec. job better than anyone in recent memory. And when you think about all the people in the present administration that would not be missed, the irony borders on the macabre.
A nice cuppa
To the lady who has made such a splash in the Sun trying to get a warning named after her son ala the “Amber Alert”, great job! You’ve given the letter writers new reason to live and the rest of us a good chuckle. Now it’s time to go to Mickey D’s drive-thru and get yourself a nice hot cup of “shut the fuck up”.
It’s grip time. Get one.
And to the other poor soul trying to get Donnie Grow elected to Sheriff of Ossipee, a couple of things: a) he didn’t sign up, and b) the Sheriff is in charge of all Carroll County which has 19 towns including Hale’s Golf Course. (Disclaimer: I have signed on to be the campaign manager for Tamworth C of P, Dan Poirier who is running for Sheriff for real as an independent and safery nose tackle. If Franny Lord wins the Republican Primary, we are going to clean his clock in the general and I certainly do not have the candidate’s permission to say so, so I may be gone by the fall anyway, sort of like Phil Gramm and Samantha Power.
NIMBY but, how about yours?
I am waiting to hear back from Senatorial candidate and six time Rep rep Dave Babson who is against the idea of having licensed methadone clinics in this state despite the growing use of drug addiction and what that entails for the community. I thought maybe he would be willing to give up some portion of his version of the King Ranch down in Ossipee so he could make a few bucks and Conway wouldn’t have to have the unsightly mess of smack freaks hanging around the town. Don Grow could run it when he doesn’t get elected to Sheriff.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Getting your Baracks off on the NYer
I read and I watched the barkers trading opinions on whether the cover should have run and how it rated on the tasteless meter. It’s split. But when I see Carville defending it down the line to Bill Bennett who pretty much says what I did, I have to give pause. I remember that I chuckled verbatim in the way that Barry Blitt wanted me to when he cartooned a cover with Achmed Dannyjob sitting in the loo with his pants around his ankles and tapping some (likely) senator’s foot in the next stall. If I liked the present President of Persia (we’ve never met) I might have thought it was unfair treatment of a guy who is doing his best to make his country get along with the rest of the world. But then I remember his foolish comments about no gays in Iran and the drawing fit like a glove.
Cartoonist are supposed to be funny as part of their message. But not just funny, because they are usually trying to make a point and draw us in through humor. Not every one laughs at the same kind of stuff and though we might “get” a joke it may not rate so much as a smirk.
The spate of late night jokes about McCain’s age are curious. The only other place you see these jokes really are when they are re-run in the main stream media. Most are lame and make me squirm in a way that the cover did. I suppose it is his fault that he is old and we usually applaud that. But do you see any goofy guffawing at his mother’s age? The only one I’ve heard, he told, about her trying to rent a car in France. The agency said they wouldn’t let a 95 year old have a car, so she bought one.
Caricaturizing Levantines with XXL schnozzes is common as dirt and just as funny, unless, you are predisposed to having those people made fun of because you think they deserve it. People who were interviewed for TV yesterday, peeps on the street, thought the Os were Muslim (not that there’s anything wrong with that). So instead of the cover trashing the 527 type lies and disinformation that is out there in pretty good numbers, a lot of people will have their fears or prejudices reinforced. Of course the mag can print anything they want, but “brilliant” as NY Mag’s John Heileman called it, and similar praise from Joan Walsh of Salon, is a little self serving. I notice that most of the paid commentators are coming down firmly on one side or the other while CYAers are in the “I don’t know, whadda you think?” school. For me, the joke needed to be funnier.
Cartoonist are supposed to be funny as part of their message. But not just funny, because they are usually trying to make a point and draw us in through humor. Not every one laughs at the same kind of stuff and though we might “get” a joke it may not rate so much as a smirk.
The spate of late night jokes about McCain’s age are curious. The only other place you see these jokes really are when they are re-run in the main stream media. Most are lame and make me squirm in a way that the cover did. I suppose it is his fault that he is old and we usually applaud that. But do you see any goofy guffawing at his mother’s age? The only one I’ve heard, he told, about her trying to rent a car in France. The agency said they wouldn’t let a 95 year old have a car, so she bought one.
Caricaturizing Levantines with XXL schnozzes is common as dirt and just as funny, unless, you are predisposed to having those people made fun of because you think they deserve it. People who were interviewed for TV yesterday, peeps on the street, thought the Os were Muslim (not that there’s anything wrong with that). So instead of the cover trashing the 527 type lies and disinformation that is out there in pretty good numbers, a lot of people will have their fears or prejudices reinforced. Of course the mag can print anything they want, but “brilliant” as NY Mag’s John Heileman called it, and similar praise from Joan Walsh of Salon, is a little self serving. I notice that most of the paid commentators are coming down firmly on one side or the other while CYAers are in the “I don’t know, whadda you think?” school. For me, the joke needed to be funnier.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Obama's trauma
If you have already seen the newest New Yorker cover you know what the flap is about. BarackO taking it on the chin because the ace wits at the celebrated mag thought they would poke some fun at the non New Yorker types who actually think that the presidential candidate was raised in a Madrassa by Taliban war lords and that he is a five prayer a day guy right now. The cover has O’s wife looking like Angela Davis wearing cammies, combat boots, and an AK47 slung over her shoulder. Of course they are fist bumping, or doing “the terrorist fist jab,” as Fox would have it.
The O's are not happy and don’t want to extend the life of this nightmare with any comment. McCain’s camp came out immediately decrying the poor taste. Rick Hertzberg who edits and writes for the NYer came on TV this morning to lamely defend the decision and David Remnick, who is largely credited for doing a great job while he has been at the helm, felt the need to submit something to the news stations. It will be interesting to see what the Danes have to say about it all.
I think they shouldn’t have done it in that it can hurt him by reinforcing to some that these stereo types may have some traction. But I’m against censoring anything because of how it might be perceived. In the end, if I was calling the shots, I would not have run it. Vote at the right for what you think. BTW, the NYer website did not have an image of the cover when I last looked.
The O's are not happy and don’t want to extend the life of this nightmare with any comment. McCain’s camp came out immediately decrying the poor taste. Rick Hertzberg who edits and writes for the NYer came on TV this morning to lamely defend the decision and David Remnick, who is largely credited for doing a great job while he has been at the helm, felt the need to submit something to the news stations. It will be interesting to see what the Danes have to say about it all.
I think they shouldn’t have done it in that it can hurt him by reinforcing to some that these stereo types may have some traction. But I’m against censoring anything because of how it might be perceived. In the end, if I was calling the shots, I would not have run it. Vote at the right for what you think. BTW, the NYer website did not have an image of the cover when I last looked.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Who said what.
John McCain isn’t my favorite. I sat with him in the Daily’s office eight years ago and then again a month or so before this year’s NH primary. If he wasn’t "John McCain — The Personality" he would have put every one to sleep. The same old answers robotically delivered and seldom addressing the actual question. The only surprise was how many times he managed to bring up how “green” he is which I found interesting and it gave me something to write about. My somewhat conservative paper would not be happy with what I would have liked to write.
What happened last Sunday morning is the kind of stupid gotcha politics that makes all the players look like jerk-off kids pointing and laughing at someone who has just farted. Bob Schieffer broke in on what Wes Clark was saying to ask with a tone of incredulity, “Are you saying riding around in planes and getting shot down” isn’t a big deal? And Clark responded with Schieffer’s own words, “No. ‘I’m saying riding around in planes and getting shot down’ doesn’t qualify him to be president.” I think most of us would agree. George McGovern flew 35 missions in B24s during WWII and received the Distinguished Flying Cross but he didn’t even come close to giving Lt. Nixon, a poker playing supply officer, a run for his money. Today the chicken hawk Rs revile him as a namby pamby lefty.
Clark gets dumped on by the carnival barkers because they leave out what Schieffer said and it makes the story: War hero General Clark dumps on war hero Candidate McCain. Clark stated over and over again that John McCain’s military experience won’t be an asset should he ever get to be pres. McCain meanwhile is learning to live with the fact that he foolishly said he doesn’t care if we have troops in Iraq for 100 years. Neither do I, if it’s less than a dozen soldiers and they are inside the Green Zone drinking beers with all the civilians. But that isn’t what is being barked at. News that I watch wants to portray his numb-nut gaffe as wanting to fight the war for 100 years. Obama mentions it when ever he gets a chance, just like the Rs play the Rev Wright tape over and over.
In (my) perfect world the candidates would be touting their plans to address what Presidents can actually do to make the country better. But that would bore the hoi polloi to pieces. If you want to know what the country wants to know, turn on the Today show at 7 am some morning. They make a ton of money giving people what they want. You will doubtlessly be shocked at how much time they spend talking about “pain at the pump” and stranded air line travelers, even as the administration fails us on every front and affronts us unassailably.
What happened last Sunday morning is the kind of stupid gotcha politics that makes all the players look like jerk-off kids pointing and laughing at someone who has just farted. Bob Schieffer broke in on what Wes Clark was saying to ask with a tone of incredulity, “Are you saying riding around in planes and getting shot down” isn’t a big deal? And Clark responded with Schieffer’s own words, “No. ‘I’m saying riding around in planes and getting shot down’ doesn’t qualify him to be president.” I think most of us would agree. George McGovern flew 35 missions in B24s during WWII and received the Distinguished Flying Cross but he didn’t even come close to giving Lt. Nixon, a poker playing supply officer, a run for his money. Today the chicken hawk Rs revile him as a namby pamby lefty.
Clark gets dumped on by the carnival barkers because they leave out what Schieffer said and it makes the story: War hero General Clark dumps on war hero Candidate McCain. Clark stated over and over again that John McCain’s military experience won’t be an asset should he ever get to be pres. McCain meanwhile is learning to live with the fact that he foolishly said he doesn’t care if we have troops in Iraq for 100 years. Neither do I, if it’s less than a dozen soldiers and they are inside the Green Zone drinking beers with all the civilians. But that isn’t what is being barked at. News that I watch wants to portray his numb-nut gaffe as wanting to fight the war for 100 years. Obama mentions it when ever he gets a chance, just like the Rs play the Rev Wright tape over and over.
In (my) perfect world the candidates would be touting their plans to address what Presidents can actually do to make the country better. But that would bore the hoi polloi to pieces. If you want to know what the country wants to know, turn on the Today show at 7 am some morning. They make a ton of money giving people what they want. You will doubtlessly be shocked at how much time they spend talking about “pain at the pump” and stranded air line travelers, even as the administration fails us on every front and affronts us unassailably.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Uniting in Unity
The day after my regular class reunion I hooked up with Tommy Decourcy who had come down to Milford for the all class reunion. This event drew about 2000 former graduates from all the classes up until the school closed in ’83. Tom had been to a reunion the night before too, down the road from his house in Unity, NH.
We grew up on the same street but both of our families moved to NH before we had a chance to graduate MHS. Tom’s been living in Hawaii for years but bought his parent’s great old farm house and now spends summers up here. Because part of the main event on Friday night in Unity was a fellow Hawaiian remembered there as “Barry” Obama, Tom went down to see what all the fuss was about.
It was quite a hoot. The school’s maintenance man is the unelected Mayor of Unity and was chosen to make the introductions. He said he thought it was a bit odd for him to be doing so since he was a McCain man and he made an excellent point when he noted that the 214 votes in the primary were split right down the middle. Where’s the unity in that?
Tom was close enough in the rope line to share a “shucka” with Obama. It is a Hawaiian hand signal that indicates a friendly greeting. If you know the ‘hook’em Horns’ gesture using the thumb and pinky to indicate a pair of steers horns you have the idea. Only the thumb points up and the pinky goes down while a quick shake completes the greeting. Obama responded and came over to Tom and Ada with his winning grin and asked if they were Hawaiian. Tom explained they were from Molokai.
In seconds after Obama moved on, the Secret Service were in Tom’s face. “What does that mean?” they wanted to know. Tom told them and they too moved on.
It’s kind of a small world, but I wouldn’t want to have to paint it.
We grew up on the same street but both of our families moved to NH before we had a chance to graduate MHS. Tom’s been living in Hawaii for years but bought his parent’s great old farm house and now spends summers up here. Because part of the main event on Friday night in Unity was a fellow Hawaiian remembered there as “Barry” Obama, Tom went down to see what all the fuss was about.
It was quite a hoot. The school’s maintenance man is the unelected Mayor of Unity and was chosen to make the introductions. He said he thought it was a bit odd for him to be doing so since he was a McCain man and he made an excellent point when he noted that the 214 votes in the primary were split right down the middle. Where’s the unity in that?
Tom was close enough in the rope line to share a “shucka” with Obama. It is a Hawaiian hand signal that indicates a friendly greeting. If you know the ‘hook’em Horns’ gesture using the thumb and pinky to indicate a pair of steers horns you have the idea. Only the thumb points up and the pinky goes down while a quick shake completes the greeting. Obama responded and came over to Tom and Ada with his winning grin and asked if they were Hawaiian. Tom explained they were from Molokai.
In seconds after Obama moved on, the Secret Service were in Tom’s face. “What does that mean?” they wanted to know. Tom told them and they too moved on.
It’s kind of a small world, but I wouldn’t want to have to paint it.
Our reunion
Back in the fifties down in Milford on the Connecticut shore, we rode fat tired Schwinns, marched in scout uniforms in the Memorial Day parade, skated on the Town Hall pond and rocked out to Buddy Holly and the Crickets. The “fifties” came to signify a time of prosperity and ease and when I polled a bunch of experts at my recent 46th Milford High reunion, they gushingly agreed. It would be hard to encapsulate in a sound bite any decade where you go from 7 to 17. Ours was a period that began shortly after WWII. It ushered in the Korean “conflict,” sputnik, and had a lot of history and a certain magic that was oddly iconicised by enormous tail fins, d.a.s and turned-up collars.
1950 was only five years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the first and only nuclear attacks. The first part of that decade is synonymous with bomb shelters, hiding under your desk, “pinkos” and McCarthyism. Those who already owned a TV, got to see the new Queen (Lilybet Windsor) get her crown. Polio was a plague that left kids crippled and struck fear in every parent. Though the vaccine was discovered in ’52 our schools hallways bore the messengers of this dreaded virus. You don’t see this stuff on Happy Days and it is usually left out of sight and mind in our convenient memories. The rest of the decade was pretty much Elvis movies, the Mickey Mouse Club and the Dodgers and Giants fleeing for the left coast.
At the end of the decate Castro came to power, John Kennedy ran for president and I made it through my freshman year. It was surprising this past weekend to see so many people at our shindig that I remember from that time. And it is somewhat of a shock to the sensibilities to be amongst all these old people. It shouldn’t be as I go every five years to catch up with them and I find pretty much the same group. This year we had 92, more than a third of the class. Twenty-five were in the “In Memoriam” book which was a bit creepy as I looked at their year book pictures trying to imagine them older than 18.
When I first met my final wife I told her that I would never invite her to my reunions. I wanted to flit around the room, the perennial social butterfly, remembering the trouble that we got into or the cute girl in home room who moved by Halloween. In past meetings I had seen spouses who didn’t get the whole experience or were jealous of ancient relationships, and they came between us and the good time it was meant to be. But this time I brought wifey so she could put a face to the people of my past who remained a part of my present if only every five years. She got a kick out of hearing stories of back in the day and finally meeting the gray haired old lady who I had always remembered in a cheerleader outfit.
Richie and I remembered that we always won the window painting contest at Halloween when every store in town was decorated with paintings of goblins and ghoulies. Wayne brought up falling through the ice while seeing who could skate closest to the open water and Jonpy told her about me getting seasick while sailboat racing in the sound which we did every summer weekend. But this time my favorite story was my friend Jean telling my wife, “I had a real crush on him even though I was a head taller. Of course, that was before I knew I was gay.”
As always the management had to keep blinking the lights to get rid of us. Even the ones who still live in Milford and get to see each other all the time were lingering for a last air kiss and a drunken promise to keep in touch. I did manage to collect some business cards and said that I would send the blog. I’ve already emailed Paul who is a hot-glass blower in Seattle and I have been on line to check out Jonny Dio’s swing band based in Paris that plays weddings all over the continent.
One last great story. I knew George since we were in the fourth grade He lived on the block behind us. I always remember his birthday and as we were walking into the joint I wished him a happy sixteenth. He laughed that someone as old as I had such recall. His new wife told me they had a “Sweet Sixteen” party on Feb 29 and his son had said, “Dad you bought me a car for my sixteenth birthday and now I’ve bought you one for yours.” It was a new Jag.
I don’t think most reunions are as meaningful as I find mine, but I wish they were.
1950 was only five years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the first and only nuclear attacks. The first part of that decade is synonymous with bomb shelters, hiding under your desk, “pinkos” and McCarthyism. Those who already owned a TV, got to see the new Queen (Lilybet Windsor) get her crown. Polio was a plague that left kids crippled and struck fear in every parent. Though the vaccine was discovered in ’52 our schools hallways bore the messengers of this dreaded virus. You don’t see this stuff on Happy Days and it is usually left out of sight and mind in our convenient memories. The rest of the decade was pretty much Elvis movies, the Mickey Mouse Club and the Dodgers and Giants fleeing for the left coast.
At the end of the decate Castro came to power, John Kennedy ran for president and I made it through my freshman year. It was surprising this past weekend to see so many people at our shindig that I remember from that time. And it is somewhat of a shock to the sensibilities to be amongst all these old people. It shouldn’t be as I go every five years to catch up with them and I find pretty much the same group. This year we had 92, more than a third of the class. Twenty-five were in the “In Memoriam” book which was a bit creepy as I looked at their year book pictures trying to imagine them older than 18.
When I first met my final wife I told her that I would never invite her to my reunions. I wanted to flit around the room, the perennial social butterfly, remembering the trouble that we got into or the cute girl in home room who moved by Halloween. In past meetings I had seen spouses who didn’t get the whole experience or were jealous of ancient relationships, and they came between us and the good time it was meant to be. But this time I brought wifey so she could put a face to the people of my past who remained a part of my present if only every five years. She got a kick out of hearing stories of back in the day and finally meeting the gray haired old lady who I had always remembered in a cheerleader outfit.
Richie and I remembered that we always won the window painting contest at Halloween when every store in town was decorated with paintings of goblins and ghoulies. Wayne brought up falling through the ice while seeing who could skate closest to the open water and Jonpy told her about me getting seasick while sailboat racing in the sound which we did every summer weekend. But this time my favorite story was my friend Jean telling my wife, “I had a real crush on him even though I was a head taller. Of course, that was before I knew I was gay.”
As always the management had to keep blinking the lights to get rid of us. Even the ones who still live in Milford and get to see each other all the time were lingering for a last air kiss and a drunken promise to keep in touch. I did manage to collect some business cards and said that I would send the blog. I’ve already emailed Paul who is a hot-glass blower in Seattle and I have been on line to check out Jonny Dio’s swing band based in Paris that plays weddings all over the continent.
One last great story. I knew George since we were in the fourth grade He lived on the block behind us. I always remember his birthday and as we were walking into the joint I wished him a happy sixteenth. He laughed that someone as old as I had such recall. His new wife told me they had a “Sweet Sixteen” party on Feb 29 and his son had said, “Dad you bought me a car for my sixteenth birthday and now I’ve bought you one for yours.” It was a new Jag.
I don’t think most reunions are as meaningful as I find mine, but I wish they were.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Erratum
While picking on Marge in my penultimate post, I mistyped when I said she had already gone to Kansas City (like you care) which I thought because she had been missing at the last two meetings (like we care). She plans to go to KC to a conference this summer. The staff at TSJ wishes to thank Senator Babson who always knows what Marge is up to and brought it to our attention. I kinda don't think Commissioner Webster reads this blog, but my apologies. Anygate, we're more gossip than gospel at the SJ.
Methadone to the madness
The words of Mark Sisti, the State’s celebrated drug lawyer, were chilling and telling, “you have tons of heroin, tons of methadone, tons of crystal meth…your area has gone cosmopolitan,” he told a Sun reporter who was covering a drug related story this week. And this a mere month or so after the Conway Selectmen made it clear they were not interested in addressing this potentially devastating problem for the Conway area by considering a methadone clinic in our midst. They simply didn’t want to hear it. But do they really think it will go away?
In an afternoon of googling methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) in an effort to discover the effectiveness of clinics, I found no information that proved or disproved that existing clinics contribute to crime in the communities they serve. But the statistics that have been gathered and recorded across the nation over the last decade prove that the clinics work.
What is certain is that heroin and other opiate addictions can be and are controlled by substituting methadone and because the substitute is taken orally, proliferation of diseases commonly transmitted by multiple user needle use, is significantly contained. So too is the transmittal of sex related diseases and HIV/AIDS.
The main difference between heroin use and methadone treatment is that the heroin “user” suffers from “uncontrolled, compulsive, and disruptive behavior,” then of course they “crash” which involves physical pain and sickness that is so wrenching to the physical system and psyche that only a hair of the dog treatment will soothe the effects of withdrawal. It’s sort of like staying drunk to avoid getting a hangover.
Methadone relieves the user of the heroin hangover as well as eliminating the euphoric rush and subsequent high that produces the bizarre and often illegal behavior associated with addiction. It has the additional benefits of being legal and cheap which reduces the need to commit crimes in order to afford the next round. This last becomes important to the taxpayer when their home is not broken into and robbed, police are not put at risk, courts and jails are not jammed with these somewhat problematical characters that are most likely going to go through withdrawal while at the Crowbar Motel.
But let us not sugar coat this semi-solution. The reasons Robert Potter wanted to build one of his clinics here will make most people not want it in their back yard. The closest other clinic is in Rochester. That would make Conway a sort of Vegas for “biscuit” or “dollie” seekers. (I forsee a Sun headline: Valley of the Dollies.) Since the treatment (there is no actual “cure”) requires daily communion because you never really get off the stuff, people will be moving closer to the area. And just because these new neighbors are not necessarily a threat to the community, in terms of crime, studies show that the employment rate amongst those in treatment does not improve after addiction has abated. In all likelihood a certain collegiality will develop and they could start hanging out with each other. It also makes sense that since the rate of recidivism is one out of five, there will be some bad apples looking for mischief requiring more police.
But, mark Mark Sisti’s words, there is, right now, “tons” of the stuff around. And because there is no clinic, no one is getting help. They are out there looking for ways to finance the next fix and if you have never gone through withdrawal or not read Trainspotting, you have no idea what these people will risk to get their mitts on the appropriately named “junk.”
The Daily is replete with mayhem and misdemeanors that are drug related. Not long ago we read that seven quite young local people were arrested for beating almost to death a former compatriot who finked on a pot deal. It was reported that a 20 year old girl who was involved had urged the others to kill the guy. Anybody who doesn’t think that Sisti’s words are haunting and prescient has their heads buried deep in the sand.
I talked to Dennis Robinson who runs the County Jail and he said that he was as freaked out as I was that “kids” that age could be involved in crime of that magnitude. “But it is on the rise and it is coming this way,” and he know of what he speaks. It is his job to book them through the jail and report the statistics while the press is writing it all down.
He could also tell you that $13 a day for methadone seems like a bargain versus the cost of incarceration. For starters an inmate must be provided with three meals a day at $3.15 each. That’s $9.45. If the inmate is on meds, the County has to cough up. If he or she has to be transported they get to eat at Mickey Ds on your dime. The citizenry pays for their laundry, the guard’s salaries and benefits, the debt on the building and on and on and on. Then, they are let out so they can do it all over again. About one in five of everyone sitting down at the Hotel Robinson couldn’t get enough of the place the first time around. It’s clean, they’ve got TV, you don’t have to work, free clothes and it’s just so darn easy to get used to. Which is good for them, bad for you, because they are going to spend a lot of their life in there, or some place like it, and it’s your treat.
Potter was going to pay for the proposed clinic and the methadonee would have to buy their own daily dosage. If such a facility attracts the “wrong kind” it would have to be dealt with. But we already have the “wrong kind” and if you believe Sisti, who makes a fortune knowing the ins and outs, it’s going to cost us a fortune in the future.
I suppose it’s a good thing in some ways to have our heads in the sand; all the easier to pick our wallets.
In an afternoon of googling methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) in an effort to discover the effectiveness of clinics, I found no information that proved or disproved that existing clinics contribute to crime in the communities they serve. But the statistics that have been gathered and recorded across the nation over the last decade prove that the clinics work.
What is certain is that heroin and other opiate addictions can be and are controlled by substituting methadone and because the substitute is taken orally, proliferation of diseases commonly transmitted by multiple user needle use, is significantly contained. So too is the transmittal of sex related diseases and HIV/AIDS.
The main difference between heroin use and methadone treatment is that the heroin “user” suffers from “uncontrolled, compulsive, and disruptive behavior,” then of course they “crash” which involves physical pain and sickness that is so wrenching to the physical system and psyche that only a hair of the dog treatment will soothe the effects of withdrawal. It’s sort of like staying drunk to avoid getting a hangover.
Methadone relieves the user of the heroin hangover as well as eliminating the euphoric rush and subsequent high that produces the bizarre and often illegal behavior associated with addiction. It has the additional benefits of being legal and cheap which reduces the need to commit crimes in order to afford the next round. This last becomes important to the taxpayer when their home is not broken into and robbed, police are not put at risk, courts and jails are not jammed with these somewhat problematical characters that are most likely going to go through withdrawal while at the Crowbar Motel.
But let us not sugar coat this semi-solution. The reasons Robert Potter wanted to build one of his clinics here will make most people not want it in their back yard. The closest other clinic is in Rochester. That would make Conway a sort of Vegas for “biscuit” or “dollie” seekers. (I forsee a Sun headline: Valley of the Dollies.) Since the treatment (there is no actual “cure”) requires daily communion because you never really get off the stuff, people will be moving closer to the area. And just because these new neighbors are not necessarily a threat to the community, in terms of crime, studies show that the employment rate amongst those in treatment does not improve after addiction has abated. In all likelihood a certain collegiality will develop and they could start hanging out with each other. It also makes sense that since the rate of recidivism is one out of five, there will be some bad apples looking for mischief requiring more police.
But, mark Mark Sisti’s words, there is, right now, “tons” of the stuff around. And because there is no clinic, no one is getting help. They are out there looking for ways to finance the next fix and if you have never gone through withdrawal or not read Trainspotting, you have no idea what these people will risk to get their mitts on the appropriately named “junk.”
The Daily is replete with mayhem and misdemeanors that are drug related. Not long ago we read that seven quite young local people were arrested for beating almost to death a former compatriot who finked on a pot deal. It was reported that a 20 year old girl who was involved had urged the others to kill the guy. Anybody who doesn’t think that Sisti’s words are haunting and prescient has their heads buried deep in the sand.
I talked to Dennis Robinson who runs the County Jail and he said that he was as freaked out as I was that “kids” that age could be involved in crime of that magnitude. “But it is on the rise and it is coming this way,” and he know of what he speaks. It is his job to book them through the jail and report the statistics while the press is writing it all down.
He could also tell you that $13 a day for methadone seems like a bargain versus the cost of incarceration. For starters an inmate must be provided with three meals a day at $3.15 each. That’s $9.45. If the inmate is on meds, the County has to cough up. If he or she has to be transported they get to eat at Mickey Ds on your dime. The citizenry pays for their laundry, the guard’s salaries and benefits, the debt on the building and on and on and on. Then, they are let out so they can do it all over again. About one in five of everyone sitting down at the Hotel Robinson couldn’t get enough of the place the first time around. It’s clean, they’ve got TV, you don’t have to work, free clothes and it’s just so darn easy to get used to. Which is good for them, bad for you, because they are going to spend a lot of their life in there, or some place like it, and it’s your treat.
Potter was going to pay for the proposed clinic and the methadonee would have to buy their own daily dosage. If such a facility attracts the “wrong kind” it would have to be dealt with. But we already have the “wrong kind” and if you believe Sisti, who makes a fortune knowing the ins and outs, it’s going to cost us a fortune in the future.
I suppose it’s a good thing in some ways to have our heads in the sand; all the easier to pick our wallets.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Splitting hairs? No. Picking on Marge? Absolutely!
I asked the first question of the Commissioners, two of them anyway, on Wednesday morning: If someone is appointed to take Sheriff Scott Carr’s place from now until January (when the newly elected Sheriff will take over), who does the appointing, you guys (the one gal was late to the meeting but at least she showed up this time) or the Delegation? I was told “the Delegation.”
The Delegation is a compilation of all the County’s State Representatives whose Chair is Betsey Patten and the Vice is KHS golfer Gene Chandler. Their function is to oversee what the Commissioners do. Unlike the Commissioners, they take no heat from the prying press. There are 14 (I think) Dels. I asked the question because I had heard the rumor that Carr was going to resign and at that time, I queried the Comms, “Who would he submit his resignation to?” “The Delegates,” said Chairman Sorenson after silently polling the other two by checking left and right. It left me with the feeling he wasn’t sure.
During the meeting this week I was told that the Commissioner’s only have say so over the Sheriff’s budget. It is not clear whether they have oversight with authority when it comes to spending that budget but Dave Babson, who is mentoring me in the ways of State and County gov and is running for the State Senate for the Republicans says, “They have no such authority. He (the Sheriff) is an elected official and the only way to control what he does is to un-elect him.”
Back to my Q: Cap’t Jon Hebert, a Bartlett lad and KHS grad who has retired and come back as a part-timer, was at Wednesday’s meeting to explain how the department of 45 employees is being run with the Sheriff gone in person for the last few weeks and gone officially in ten days.
Hebert who is an articulate speaker, well in command of the facts laid out for anyone to understand what needs to take place during the next six months, and quoted the RSA (104:14) that gives the Delegation the authority to appoint an interim Sheriff. He said that he is not and will not be running for the County’s top cop job but is willing to stay until January if needed. He explained that as the Operations Chief (I think) his job is at the behest of the Sheriff and the next Sheriff will want to name his own number two. Hebert said he was “looking out for my family’s financial welfare beyond life at the Sheriff’s Department.”
I’ve know Hebert well enough to say hello to for many years. Listening to him I got the impression that it is too bad he’s not running. All that experience and stage presence, he’s just the kind of guy that could sweep the scandals of the department out the door and order a new broom. Either he figures to make a lot more than the Sheriff’s $60K salary or he is chary of the kind of exposure that his boss got.
On that. I’ve talked to other law enforcement folks who think that what Carr did to get so much attention from the press was stupid and insensitive but not illegal. Tamworth’s Chief, Dan Poirier who is a candidate for Sheriff, said, “I wouldn’t have done it. It just doesn’t look right. But I don’t think he broke any laws.”
I want to ask Scott, who has always been chummy with me, would you do it again knowing that you would get such scrutiny?
Scott blames the press for having his “good name” dragged through the ink but as one reporter said to me, “What would we write about if a guy [like Hebert] was running the show?”
Commissioner Marge, who has time to get one particular constituent fired for “harassing” her, but couldn’t make it to the public input part of the meeting on time, came breezing in (“A sail, a sail” – Mercutio) just before Chairman Sorenson ended the session exactly on time. Not one more question. It’s slightly possible that it was coincidental timing but I know that I and some others wanted to know if Marge learned a whole lot on her latest junket, this time to Kansas City. I thought it ironic that on the way in I heard on NHPR that the Governor had asked lawmakers to approve a “continuation of the ban on unnecessary out of state travel.” Naturally, I was deeply interested in her opinion on such a statement from the States highest officer and, if she felt an obligation to help him trim the budget. Her defiance of the other two Commissioners efforts to clip her wings is the only answer anyone needs, but Marge’s cranky quips are always reportable. As Vern Albright used to say, “That’s my little Margie.”
Anygate, after the meeting Commissioners met below stairs in their offices (without posting such a meeting) and summoned Captain Hebert in to anoint him the interim Sheriff. According to an inside source who was kicked out of the office when he started nosing around, though they would like to kick him out just on g.p., Hebert wisely asked that the request be put in writing which they did. Alrighty then. The Comms can appoint him to do this without the Delegation being consulted after telling me in answer to a direct question, that will appear in the minutes, that the Delegation are the ones who appoint and we are not supposed to think that “something stinks in Denmark” (not Mercutio).
We don’t really know if it “stinks” but there is a whiff of incompetence mixed with ignorance of their legal duty/rules of operation, and certainly overtones of nincompoopery.
The Commissioners meet every Wednesday and begin promptly at 8:15. Try to catch it.
The Delegation is a compilation of all the County’s State Representatives whose Chair is Betsey Patten and the Vice is KHS golfer Gene Chandler. Their function is to oversee what the Commissioners do. Unlike the Commissioners, they take no heat from the prying press. There are 14 (I think) Dels. I asked the question because I had heard the rumor that Carr was going to resign and at that time, I queried the Comms, “Who would he submit his resignation to?” “The Delegates,” said Chairman Sorenson after silently polling the other two by checking left and right. It left me with the feeling he wasn’t sure.
During the meeting this week I was told that the Commissioner’s only have say so over the Sheriff’s budget. It is not clear whether they have oversight with authority when it comes to spending that budget but Dave Babson, who is mentoring me in the ways of State and County gov and is running for the State Senate for the Republicans says, “They have no such authority. He (the Sheriff) is an elected official and the only way to control what he does is to un-elect him.”
Back to my Q: Cap’t Jon Hebert, a Bartlett lad and KHS grad who has retired and come back as a part-timer, was at Wednesday’s meeting to explain how the department of 45 employees is being run with the Sheriff gone in person for the last few weeks and gone officially in ten days.
Hebert who is an articulate speaker, well in command of the facts laid out for anyone to understand what needs to take place during the next six months, and quoted the RSA (104:14) that gives the Delegation the authority to appoint an interim Sheriff. He said that he is not and will not be running for the County’s top cop job but is willing to stay until January if needed. He explained that as the Operations Chief (I think) his job is at the behest of the Sheriff and the next Sheriff will want to name his own number two. Hebert said he was “looking out for my family’s financial welfare beyond life at the Sheriff’s Department.”
I’ve know Hebert well enough to say hello to for many years. Listening to him I got the impression that it is too bad he’s not running. All that experience and stage presence, he’s just the kind of guy that could sweep the scandals of the department out the door and order a new broom. Either he figures to make a lot more than the Sheriff’s $60K salary or he is chary of the kind of exposure that his boss got.
On that. I’ve talked to other law enforcement folks who think that what Carr did to get so much attention from the press was stupid and insensitive but not illegal. Tamworth’s Chief, Dan Poirier who is a candidate for Sheriff, said, “I wouldn’t have done it. It just doesn’t look right. But I don’t think he broke any laws.”
I want to ask Scott, who has always been chummy with me, would you do it again knowing that you would get such scrutiny?
Scott blames the press for having his “good name” dragged through the ink but as one reporter said to me, “What would we write about if a guy [like Hebert] was running the show?”
Commissioner Marge, who has time to get one particular constituent fired for “harassing” her, but couldn’t make it to the public input part of the meeting on time, came breezing in (“A sail, a sail” – Mercutio) just before Chairman Sorenson ended the session exactly on time. Not one more question. It’s slightly possible that it was coincidental timing but I know that I and some others wanted to know if Marge learned a whole lot on her latest junket, this time to Kansas City. I thought it ironic that on the way in I heard on NHPR that the Governor had asked lawmakers to approve a “continuation of the ban on unnecessary out of state travel.” Naturally, I was deeply interested in her opinion on such a statement from the States highest officer and, if she felt an obligation to help him trim the budget. Her defiance of the other two Commissioners efforts to clip her wings is the only answer anyone needs, but Marge’s cranky quips are always reportable. As Vern Albright used to say, “That’s my little Margie.”
Anygate, after the meeting Commissioners met below stairs in their offices (without posting such a meeting) and summoned Captain Hebert in to anoint him the interim Sheriff. According to an inside source who was kicked out of the office when he started nosing around, though they would like to kick him out just on g.p., Hebert wisely asked that the request be put in writing which they did. Alrighty then. The Comms can appoint him to do this without the Delegation being consulted after telling me in answer to a direct question, that will appear in the minutes, that the Delegation are the ones who appoint and we are not supposed to think that “something stinks in Denmark” (not Mercutio).
We don’t really know if it “stinks” but there is a whiff of incompetence mixed with ignorance of their legal duty/rules of operation, and certainly overtones of nincompoopery.
The Commissioners meet every Wednesday and begin promptly at 8:15. Try to catch it.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Farewell fairness?
I was struck by the constant commentators use of the phrase “fair but hard” when referring to what they considered to be the chief qualities of the late lamented Timothy John Russert Jr. whose soul is just a little way above our heads (as my man Mercutio would have it).
“Be against everything he’s for and for every thing he’s against,” Tim’s first MTP boss instructed him on the kind of show he hoped to see. “Not only that”, he might have added, “you will have a staff and a week to prepare while the poor schlub across from you will have to squeeze his or her prep time from an already crowded schedule.” Does that seem fair? Well, I’m not being exactly fair because Tim did have a full time job at NBC running the political end of things, no small feat in that competitive collesium. But all the carnival barkers used the same phrase over and over until it had lost all meaning, which they usually do. As they have with the constant airing of the poignant pic of Luke Russert touching his Dad’s chair in the MPR studio on Sunday. How long before it’s used in an ad for an airlines? “When you have to say farewell, fly with us.”
The most striking thing about Tim, to me, was his everyman-ness. His total insider take on the Beltway baloney. Today he will be waked at St. Albans School which is next to the magnificent National Cathedral. He could have done it there. But he will be on view at his son’s high school alma mater and Luke’s class mates have been chosen to be the pall bearers. How cool is that? I smirk at the thought of how many publicists and assistants to the muckety mucks of the political world will lose their heads over the failure to get on the list of possible contenders for such a career move as being a pall bearer to someone famous. It would be interesting to see how all the mourners in waiting are lining up and trying to elbow their way to the head of that line in the hope of being chosen to speak at the Kennedy Center tomorrow or at least get a seat that the TV cameras will pan. My guess is that no ex-Presidents need apply.
It will be hard to replace the guy on Sunday morning’s because you can’t teach people how to be smart, decent, caring, clever and hard working. You can’t just say, “be like Tim” any more than you can say to a young ball player, “hit like Ted.”
“Be against everything he’s for and for every thing he’s against,” Tim’s first MTP boss instructed him on the kind of show he hoped to see. “Not only that”, he might have added, “you will have a staff and a week to prepare while the poor schlub across from you will have to squeeze his or her prep time from an already crowded schedule.” Does that seem fair? Well, I’m not being exactly fair because Tim did have a full time job at NBC running the political end of things, no small feat in that competitive collesium. But all the carnival barkers used the same phrase over and over until it had lost all meaning, which they usually do. As they have with the constant airing of the poignant pic of Luke Russert touching his Dad’s chair in the MPR studio on Sunday. How long before it’s used in an ad for an airlines? “When you have to say farewell, fly with us.”
The most striking thing about Tim, to me, was his everyman-ness. His total insider take on the Beltway baloney. Today he will be waked at St. Albans School which is next to the magnificent National Cathedral. He could have done it there. But he will be on view at his son’s high school alma mater and Luke’s class mates have been chosen to be the pall bearers. How cool is that? I smirk at the thought of how many publicists and assistants to the muckety mucks of the political world will lose their heads over the failure to get on the list of possible contenders for such a career move as being a pall bearer to someone famous. It would be interesting to see how all the mourners in waiting are lining up and trying to elbow their way to the head of that line in the hope of being chosen to speak at the Kennedy Center tomorrow or at least get a seat that the TV cameras will pan. My guess is that no ex-Presidents need apply.
It will be hard to replace the guy on Sunday morning’s because you can’t teach people how to be smart, decent, caring, clever and hard working. You can’t just say, “be like Tim” any more than you can say to a young ball player, “hit like Ted.”
Monday, June 16, 2008
104th Bloomsday
“Stately plump Buck Mulligan…” is the way it all starts in Martello tower one fine June 16th in 1904 that changed the literary world forever. The first time I read Ulysses I read the Odyssey prior to so that I would have an idea of the analogy. I might have read all of Shakespeare and memorized Hamlet too if I really thought I was going to be able to figure out what old nimble Jimbo had in mind when he decided to do a day in the life of Dirty Old Dublin. It helped a little that I had been a Latin spouting alter boy.
I’ve written on the inside of the book cover when I read and reread the book and where I was at the time. No lectures about writing in books please. I paid $2.50 for my raggedy-ass copy at a second hand joint in Cambridge forty years ago and now it’s margins are full of my scribbles from the successive reads. I figure I must have read the thing one entire time half lit for all the times that I would have a jar while curled up with this curious tale that still has me intrigued after all these years. I’d read till the pages got blurry and then the next time I’d have to reread all that had happened while I was enjoying that last drink. Over the years, it’s got to amount to one whole read.
Once I sent in a dollar for the “One Minute Ulysses” to a clever fellow named David Lasky down in VA who nailed the story in an 8 page comic book style. I have wondered for a long time how he decided what to leave out and it reminds me of the sculptor who explained how he worked, “If I’m carving an elephant, I just take away everything that doesn’t look like it’s part of an elephant.”
Here’s my synopsis for those of you who have only read the end.
The story of two Dubliners wandering around the town for 24 hours is supposed to run parallel with Odysseus coming back the war in Troy which takes him ten years. It takes two people to tell this story and so we have the young and brilliant Stephen Dedalus who resembles the author in many ways and is some one we know of from Portrait of the Artist as a young man. Poor old Paddy Dignam has bought the farm and we meet a lot of his friends at the funeral. Leopold Bloom is there too (as he is the other half) but he is not exactly in with the crowd and we easily come to believe that it has to do with his Jewishness which he doesn’t practice and seems to resent, somewhat. After the funeral the mourners take up residence in Davey Byrne’s where much airing of the world’s worries is done at the bar. Bloom orders a glass of burgundy and a gorgonzola sandwich which has become the official meal of this day for U fans the world over.
Stephen has quit his teaching job that morning and taken what little money he is owed to town to attend Paddy’s send off. His father Simon, “a noisy man, full of his son,” holds forth at Davey’s and soon Stephen moves on with friends of his own. Bloom shoves off by himself and contemplates the letter he has from a mysterious Martha who occupies much of his thoughts, but then he has a lot of thoughts and we listen in while he goes to buy Martha soap and then heads to the baths and later the Strand where he espies poor Gerty MacDowel, a comely lass with a limp. He has impure thoughts about her but only tips his bowler as he passes. He seems to think that his amourous imaginations are justified because he’s more or less certain that his wife Molly not only shares the stage with Blazes Boylan, the famous tenor, but also his bed.
Stephen hits the bars and a bawdy house which he gets thrown out of sort of and Bloom takes him to Night Town. Nobody get’s laid but Stephen gets stewed and Bloom takes him for coffee before inviting him home. They talk and Stephen decides to pass on spending what little night is left at 7 Eccles, Blooms abode.
Bloom makes enough noise below stairs to wake Molly whose famous soliloquy while lying in bed takes up the last 40 pages employing the stream of consciousness style that has come to define Joyce. It ends “…how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again and then he said would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes”
I’ve written on the inside of the book cover when I read and reread the book and where I was at the time. No lectures about writing in books please. I paid $2.50 for my raggedy-ass copy at a second hand joint in Cambridge forty years ago and now it’s margins are full of my scribbles from the successive reads. I figure I must have read the thing one entire time half lit for all the times that I would have a jar while curled up with this curious tale that still has me intrigued after all these years. I’d read till the pages got blurry and then the next time I’d have to reread all that had happened while I was enjoying that last drink. Over the years, it’s got to amount to one whole read.
Once I sent in a dollar for the “One Minute Ulysses” to a clever fellow named David Lasky down in VA who nailed the story in an 8 page comic book style. I have wondered for a long time how he decided what to leave out and it reminds me of the sculptor who explained how he worked, “If I’m carving an elephant, I just take away everything that doesn’t look like it’s part of an elephant.”
Here’s my synopsis for those of you who have only read the end.
The story of two Dubliners wandering around the town for 24 hours is supposed to run parallel with Odysseus coming back the war in Troy which takes him ten years. It takes two people to tell this story and so we have the young and brilliant Stephen Dedalus who resembles the author in many ways and is some one we know of from Portrait of the Artist as a young man. Poor old Paddy Dignam has bought the farm and we meet a lot of his friends at the funeral. Leopold Bloom is there too (as he is the other half) but he is not exactly in with the crowd and we easily come to believe that it has to do with his Jewishness which he doesn’t practice and seems to resent, somewhat. After the funeral the mourners take up residence in Davey Byrne’s where much airing of the world’s worries is done at the bar. Bloom orders a glass of burgundy and a gorgonzola sandwich which has become the official meal of this day for U fans the world over.
Stephen has quit his teaching job that morning and taken what little money he is owed to town to attend Paddy’s send off. His father Simon, “a noisy man, full of his son,” holds forth at Davey’s and soon Stephen moves on with friends of his own. Bloom shoves off by himself and contemplates the letter he has from a mysterious Martha who occupies much of his thoughts, but then he has a lot of thoughts and we listen in while he goes to buy Martha soap and then heads to the baths and later the Strand where he espies poor Gerty MacDowel, a comely lass with a limp. He has impure thoughts about her but only tips his bowler as he passes. He seems to think that his amourous imaginations are justified because he’s more or less certain that his wife Molly not only shares the stage with Blazes Boylan, the famous tenor, but also his bed.
Stephen hits the bars and a bawdy house which he gets thrown out of sort of and Bloom takes him to Night Town. Nobody get’s laid but Stephen gets stewed and Bloom takes him for coffee before inviting him home. They talk and Stephen decides to pass on spending what little night is left at 7 Eccles, Blooms abode.
Bloom makes enough noise below stairs to wake Molly whose famous soliloquy while lying in bed takes up the last 40 pages employing the stream of consciousness style that has come to define Joyce. It ends “…how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again and then he said would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes”
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Letters to the Editor: Dear Eddie,
The latest salvo of silly incivilities in the Sun’s letters section hit a little close to home. Having foisted some of my own personal problems on the public via that medium, I wondered (my adoring fans not withstanding) if my own public beeves are perceived as some of the other rabid rantings are. I have backed off in the past because one soon realizes that it is not about the message after awhile but about wounded egos, gotchas and the perception that one is really quite clever on the printed page and that soon the New Yorker or the New York Post will come calling to have us take over the editorial section.
It also occurred to me that while at the Ear, we never received the kind of frothing that people like to vent in the Sun’s pages. It was always yes, please and thank you, and the ever so infrequent, “nice job”, which you will also be hard pressed to see in the Daily. I have personally told Nate when I think he has nailed a story, but I have never seen a letter that praises his prose or his Mickey Spillane like keenness for detail on the Maureen MacDonald murder case or taking to task the County Commissioner known as the “Minister of Tourism” for her outsized spending habits.
I’m sure I’ve never seen a letter praising Lloyd for his sports reportage, although several tele-talkers did mention him for canonization by having a Kennett High sports facility named after him. No, most of the letters, much like my own, tend to be self serving and have a certain quality of “can dish it out but can’t take it.”
Once I talked to Rob Figuly about doing a “personality piece” in another publication. He demurred, and said he would get back to me but I knew he never would. That kind of paranoia does not take kindly to the light of day, even though I assured him it was a fluff piece. If he had seen the other ones I did, he might have been tempted by the possibility of a little flattery. But his antennae were up and it is the Valley’s loss, I suppose.
There aren’t a lot of letter writers like Ron (the collective sigh out there is almost audible) but over the years there have been some pretty persistent pens that have embellished those same pages with their bombast. One thinks of the Susan Bruce fans who claim that she is a know nothing feminazi whose politics are to the left of Manny Ramirez (not his politics, his position). Don’t these guys love to jump all over her, so to speak. They rant, they rave, they accuse her of giving away the government. But it can’t be lost on anyone that they read her. What works better for a writer than knowing you have a loyal following that read every letter you type?
In a way, it is surprising how well most of the letters are written. Almost always with passion but also well organized (I said most) and grammatically appropriate, if not up to Catholic School or AP standards. I especially enjoy when students write in and we all muse that the kid’s mother wrote it. Naw, I’ve seen lots of stuff from High Schoolers that would put most adults to shame. I was recently at Williams College, on the top of almost anybody’s get into list, and three Kennett kids are matriculated there and bolstering up the school’s ski teams.
I don’t always have time to read all the letters nor do I want to take from my precious store of unused time to try to fathom what Laura Slitt will be going on (and on) about this time. Pavlov tells me that it’s going to be something about how people should not eat meat because it hurts the cows feelings, nor should they raise rats to help cure cancer. How ever much validity her point may have, I wonder how many readers she has convinced to come to her side over the years of beating that same drum.
Today’s batch of bashing concerning Ken Martin’s dust up with the Couture Construction Co., Children Un-Ltd, Carol Hounsell and Dawn James is classic. Imagine all the players are under five feet tall and at recess with no teacher around. One of them is suggesting that the footwear of one of the other’s mother came from the military, while the next one is challenging, “O yeah, you wanna bet?” and still another is injecting the heart piercing and ego crushing, “nanny nanny boo boo.” Yet, however unbecoming for adults, it is pretty good theater and where I work, it was the talk of the town for about four and a half minutes.
It also occurred to me that while at the Ear, we never received the kind of frothing that people like to vent in the Sun’s pages. It was always yes, please and thank you, and the ever so infrequent, “nice job”, which you will also be hard pressed to see in the Daily. I have personally told Nate when I think he has nailed a story, but I have never seen a letter that praises his prose or his Mickey Spillane like keenness for detail on the Maureen MacDonald murder case or taking to task the County Commissioner known as the “Minister of Tourism” for her outsized spending habits.
I’m sure I’ve never seen a letter praising Lloyd for his sports reportage, although several tele-talkers did mention him for canonization by having a Kennett High sports facility named after him. No, most of the letters, much like my own, tend to be self serving and have a certain quality of “can dish it out but can’t take it.”
Once I talked to Rob Figuly about doing a “personality piece” in another publication. He demurred, and said he would get back to me but I knew he never would. That kind of paranoia does not take kindly to the light of day, even though I assured him it was a fluff piece. If he had seen the other ones I did, he might have been tempted by the possibility of a little flattery. But his antennae were up and it is the Valley’s loss, I suppose.
There aren’t a lot of letter writers like Ron (the collective sigh out there is almost audible) but over the years there have been some pretty persistent pens that have embellished those same pages with their bombast. One thinks of the Susan Bruce fans who claim that she is a know nothing feminazi whose politics are to the left of Manny Ramirez (not his politics, his position). Don’t these guys love to jump all over her, so to speak. They rant, they rave, they accuse her of giving away the government. But it can’t be lost on anyone that they read her. What works better for a writer than knowing you have a loyal following that read every letter you type?
In a way, it is surprising how well most of the letters are written. Almost always with passion but also well organized (I said most) and grammatically appropriate, if not up to Catholic School or AP standards. I especially enjoy when students write in and we all muse that the kid’s mother wrote it. Naw, I’ve seen lots of stuff from High Schoolers that would put most adults to shame. I was recently at Williams College, on the top of almost anybody’s get into list, and three Kennett kids are matriculated there and bolstering up the school’s ski teams.
I don’t always have time to read all the letters nor do I want to take from my precious store of unused time to try to fathom what Laura Slitt will be going on (and on) about this time. Pavlov tells me that it’s going to be something about how people should not eat meat because it hurts the cows feelings, nor should they raise rats to help cure cancer. How ever much validity her point may have, I wonder how many readers she has convinced to come to her side over the years of beating that same drum.
Today’s batch of bashing concerning Ken Martin’s dust up with the Couture Construction Co., Children Un-Ltd, Carol Hounsell and Dawn James is classic. Imagine all the players are under five feet tall and at recess with no teacher around. One of them is suggesting that the footwear of one of the other’s mother came from the military, while the next one is challenging, “O yeah, you wanna bet?” and still another is injecting the heart piercing and ego crushing, “nanny nanny boo boo.” Yet, however unbecoming for adults, it is pretty good theater and where I work, it was the talk of the town for about four and a half minutes.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Where is the outrage?
I watch and read way too much news but I mostly watch the shows that I know and that reflect what I think, maybe, just possibly, might be as close to the truth of any on-going story that I’m following. That’s code for, almost never Fox. Fox is about as “balanced” as Ron Figuly and as “fair” as I am being to him right now.
What is truly surprising is the lack of outrage over the Texas decision to swoop in and pick up 450-odd kids because of what appears to be a phony phone call claiming that the underage caller was at risk. There was far more of a hue and cry when the Branch Davidians got bush whacked down in Waco almost fifteen years ago. But in the normal media all you get is a casual update on the status of these kids and their moms. Dads are back on the ranch doing whatever it is they do without the young’ns around, and we don’t even want to go there.
It does seem like the state of Texas messed this one up pretty bad. Can you think of any other community where it would be alright to bus a bunch of kids away from their parents and homes for eight weeks now, because of a perceived misdeed that has yet to yield anything like the much touted “shred” of evidence?
I wonder what would happen if our own Sheriff’s Department perpetrated a similar stunt on the Tin Mine Conservation summer camp. Just came in with guns drawn, a few borrowed tanks, extra deputies hauled in from their road details, several buses borrowed from the Community School in Tamworth and maybe the Gibson Center; charge them with not wearing flag lapels or something and then haul ‘em off to the hoosegow where the DOC would have to figure out how to make sure no siblings got to stay together and then find foster homes for them all over the county. Maybe have to ship some to other counties if homes couldn’t be found.
I know some folks who are parents and strong believers in the second amendment who would have a thing to say to whoever tried to take their kids away from them with or without a just cause. It is unthinkable that this indefensible action could stand without a ruckus resulting in bloodshed. Of courseI know that you know that our own Sheriff would never countenance such perversions of the law in this county but the goofball scenario only needs a few changes to simulate just what in tarnation is going on down in the Lone Star State.
The kids have done nothing wrong. No parent has been charged because as far as the public knows, no laws have been broken. And yet the children have been wrenched, as it were, from their Mom’s Mormony clad bosom to some strangely non-cultist environment for two freakin’ months! It is nothing less than outrageous and the mainstream media treats it like an ongoing story of a young family missing for a day after getting lost on the way to Dianna’s Bath.
Whaddup with that? I think it’s because “those people” are different and people in general, us “hard working white Americans”, and even some “elitists”, really only look out for our own. If those crazily coifed moms in their prairie couture and secret underwear weren’t so obviously autre, wouldn’t there be a stronger story here? One in which we all stood against the illegal nuttiness whether we’re from Texas or Tamworth? Whether they’re Mormon or Mainers shouldn’t matter. People all over the world are sticking up for the Burmese and Chinese, sending them money, and sticking up for our government spending all it can to get aid to the disaster struck. But these poor people, right on our own soil are getting it stuck to them in a way that seems dreadfully unfair at the very least.
And it doesn’t take much imagination to calculate the cost to the average Texan like Danny Del Rossi who probably didn’t even have anything to do with it. This will not be over when it’s over. Oh no! Their little patch of polygamy is going to have the finest lawyers in the land descending on them from all angles with promises of wealth beyond what is stored in the hidden bowels of the Salt Lake Tabernacle. Law suits will abound like plagues of locusts and the average Texan taxpayer will get the tab. The poor shlub who couldn’t tell a Mormon from a Doorman is going to have his wallet handed to him because somebody, and we don’t yet know who, supposedly received a call from some one, who we also don’t yet know, that may have said something could have happened to someone who may not exist, but if it did it could likely be illegal and now 500 lawyers are all over it.
Where is the outrage? It’s aimed at Hillary for staying in. At Barack for having a pastor that’s a quack. At tornadoes and earthquakes and high unemployment and higher gas prices. Meanwhile, the height of stupidity gets a pass.
What is truly surprising is the lack of outrage over the Texas decision to swoop in and pick up 450-odd kids because of what appears to be a phony phone call claiming that the underage caller was at risk. There was far more of a hue and cry when the Branch Davidians got bush whacked down in Waco almost fifteen years ago. But in the normal media all you get is a casual update on the status of these kids and their moms. Dads are back on the ranch doing whatever it is they do without the young’ns around, and we don’t even want to go there.
It does seem like the state of Texas messed this one up pretty bad. Can you think of any other community where it would be alright to bus a bunch of kids away from their parents and homes for eight weeks now, because of a perceived misdeed that has yet to yield anything like the much touted “shred” of evidence?
I wonder what would happen if our own Sheriff’s Department perpetrated a similar stunt on the Tin Mine Conservation summer camp. Just came in with guns drawn, a few borrowed tanks, extra deputies hauled in from their road details, several buses borrowed from the Community School in Tamworth and maybe the Gibson Center; charge them with not wearing flag lapels or something and then haul ‘em off to the hoosegow where the DOC would have to figure out how to make sure no siblings got to stay together and then find foster homes for them all over the county. Maybe have to ship some to other counties if homes couldn’t be found.
I know some folks who are parents and strong believers in the second amendment who would have a thing to say to whoever tried to take their kids away from them with or without a just cause. It is unthinkable that this indefensible action could stand without a ruckus resulting in bloodshed. Of courseI know that you know that our own Sheriff would never countenance such perversions of the law in this county but the goofball scenario only needs a few changes to simulate just what in tarnation is going on down in the Lone Star State.
The kids have done nothing wrong. No parent has been charged because as far as the public knows, no laws have been broken. And yet the children have been wrenched, as it were, from their Mom’s Mormony clad bosom to some strangely non-cultist environment for two freakin’ months! It is nothing less than outrageous and the mainstream media treats it like an ongoing story of a young family missing for a day after getting lost on the way to Dianna’s Bath.
Whaddup with that? I think it’s because “those people” are different and people in general, us “hard working white Americans”, and even some “elitists”, really only look out for our own. If those crazily coifed moms in their prairie couture and secret underwear weren’t so obviously autre, wouldn’t there be a stronger story here? One in which we all stood against the illegal nuttiness whether we’re from Texas or Tamworth? Whether they’re Mormon or Mainers shouldn’t matter. People all over the world are sticking up for the Burmese and Chinese, sending them money, and sticking up for our government spending all it can to get aid to the disaster struck. But these poor people, right on our own soil are getting it stuck to them in a way that seems dreadfully unfair at the very least.
And it doesn’t take much imagination to calculate the cost to the average Texan like Danny Del Rossi who probably didn’t even have anything to do with it. This will not be over when it’s over. Oh no! Their little patch of polygamy is going to have the finest lawyers in the land descending on them from all angles with promises of wealth beyond what is stored in the hidden bowels of the Salt Lake Tabernacle. Law suits will abound like plagues of locusts and the average Texan taxpayer will get the tab. The poor shlub who couldn’t tell a Mormon from a Doorman is going to have his wallet handed to him because somebody, and we don’t yet know who, supposedly received a call from some one, who we also don’t yet know, that may have said something could have happened to someone who may not exist, but if it did it could likely be illegal and now 500 lawyers are all over it.
Where is the outrage? It’s aimed at Hillary for staying in. At Barack for having a pastor that’s a quack. At tornadoes and earthquakes and high unemployment and higher gas prices. Meanwhile, the height of stupidity gets a pass.
Friday, May 30, 2008
My Little Margie
Here’s an idea: Why don’t a half dozen of you try to make it down to the County Commissioner’s meeting this Wednesday and watch how the sausage is made. Not pretty at all but very interesting. I ran into the perennial candidate Michael Callis (R – Eaton) the other day who sees nothing wrong with the Sheriff’s new clothes, the trips that my little Margie takes or the lack of oversight in general on County finances. Yeah, I want Mike in Congress keeping an eye out for me. When did the Republican’s “conservatism” stop meaning fiscal prudence?
The reason we have a Commission is so that we can say some one is in charge, otherwise we would have departments making up their own budget that would be handed to them to spend any way they want which opens up the possibility of abuse. One of the biggest problems in government is not keeping track of the revenue streaming out.
A story in the news this week says the pentagon has lost track of 158 billion* in military contracts because the budgets have grown so fast that the infrastructure to keep track of them has not kept pace with the exponential growth/waste of tax payers dollars. You just know there is another infrastructure out there that is keeping pace with that kind of opportunity and they are siphoning it off to projects that never get built but get overbilled for cost over-runs. It’s kind of a whacky world where greed is the driving force. And so it is in the County.
When My Little Margie thinks it is her due to spend every cent in her travel budget and then some, and says to me out loud so other people in the hallway we were walking could hear: “It’s in his budget. He can spend it any way he wants,” speaking of Carr’s fancy pants, you have to believe that she has lost the plot. She no longer gets the idea of what the government role is. She’s not there to mind your tax dollars and see that the institutions run smoothly, she’s there to bilk the system. And you really need to look out now that the Commissioners won’t be getting a $500 raise that they had put in for. That was money that she felt was owed to her and you can bet she is going to find someway to make it up.
When I was down t’ Ossipee the last couple of times I noticed that the taxpayers must have decided that the Commissioners should have a coffee buffet in the meeting room. This is provided by the head of the kitchen at the nursing home. It probably takes him at least an hour to set up and half that to break it down. He probably makes $60K a year which is $30 an hour so it is safe to assume with the coffee and muffins it is costing you $50 every Wednesday so that the Commissioners don’t have to stop on the way in and grab their own cuppa. In ten weeks that would pay for Marge’s raise. Ten more weeks for Sorenson’s and ten for Olkkola.
But, them thieving bastids, the press and public, made so bold as to help themselves and there weren’t enough muffins left for the Comish’. Margie, who taunts the attendees with her inaudible murmurings and whispers her comments when she is conducting public business now belts out, “What happened to all the muffins?”
So come on down, It starts early and if you’re not there by exactly 8:15 the punctilious Chair will commence public comment without you and you’d be missing the fun part. You can help yourself to a coffee and muffin, if you hurry, and if you dare.
*$158 BILLION is almost the total amount that the $1200 per agent orange victim got (see Moving Wall above) for a one time payment to settle their suit in the ‘80s. Bush can only run the Iraq War for three more days on that kind of money and, y’ know, that’s not a bad idea. Then we can use the next three days worth to start funding the real cost of the war, broken bodies and dreams of the men and women who will never recover from the insanity.
The reason we have a Commission is so that we can say some one is in charge, otherwise we would have departments making up their own budget that would be handed to them to spend any way they want which opens up the possibility of abuse. One of the biggest problems in government is not keeping track of the revenue streaming out.
A story in the news this week says the pentagon has lost track of 158 billion* in military contracts because the budgets have grown so fast that the infrastructure to keep track of them has not kept pace with the exponential growth/waste of tax payers dollars. You just know there is another infrastructure out there that is keeping pace with that kind of opportunity and they are siphoning it off to projects that never get built but get overbilled for cost over-runs. It’s kind of a whacky world where greed is the driving force. And so it is in the County.
When My Little Margie thinks it is her due to spend every cent in her travel budget and then some, and says to me out loud so other people in the hallway we were walking could hear: “It’s in his budget. He can spend it any way he wants,” speaking of Carr’s fancy pants, you have to believe that she has lost the plot. She no longer gets the idea of what the government role is. She’s not there to mind your tax dollars and see that the institutions run smoothly, she’s there to bilk the system. And you really need to look out now that the Commissioners won’t be getting a $500 raise that they had put in for. That was money that she felt was owed to her and you can bet she is going to find someway to make it up.
When I was down t’ Ossipee the last couple of times I noticed that the taxpayers must have decided that the Commissioners should have a coffee buffet in the meeting room. This is provided by the head of the kitchen at the nursing home. It probably takes him at least an hour to set up and half that to break it down. He probably makes $60K a year which is $30 an hour so it is safe to assume with the coffee and muffins it is costing you $50 every Wednesday so that the Commissioners don’t have to stop on the way in and grab their own cuppa. In ten weeks that would pay for Marge’s raise. Ten more weeks for Sorenson’s and ten for Olkkola.
But, them thieving bastids, the press and public, made so bold as to help themselves and there weren’t enough muffins left for the Comish’. Margie, who taunts the attendees with her inaudible murmurings and whispers her comments when she is conducting public business now belts out, “What happened to all the muffins?”
So come on down, It starts early and if you’re not there by exactly 8:15 the punctilious Chair will commence public comment without you and you’d be missing the fun part. You can help yourself to a coffee and muffin, if you hurry, and if you dare.
*$158 BILLION is almost the total amount that the $1200 per agent orange victim got (see Moving Wall above) for a one time payment to settle their suit in the ‘80s. Bush can only run the Iraq War for three more days on that kind of money and, y’ know, that’s not a bad idea. Then we can use the next three days worth to start funding the real cost of the war, broken bodies and dreams of the men and women who will never recover from the insanity.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Yes, Virginia, we used to have real Memorial Days
Remembering Why We Have Memorial Day
I remember being with my son on a school vacay down in DC where he was born eight years earlier. I wanted to show him all the sights that I was so taken with when I lived down there for a half dozen years.
I decided to start at the top so we rode up the 555 feet and 5 inches of the Washington Monument from which you can see just about anything worth seeing in the whole of the District of Colombia. I had seen most of it, shepherding visitors to all the most sought after sites when they came. But I had not seen “The Wall.” It lived up to every description I had heard of it since the 24 year old Asian American, Maya Lin, had won a contest to design it while she was still studying architecture at Yale.
It gave me the chills. It gives all veterans the chills as well as anyone who has any connection with that hateful war. Looking at it from that height I began to wonder what old army buddies names might be on it. How would I find them? I took some solace that my brother’s name would not be there. He only lost an eye.
We walked down the million or so steps to the base of the monument. I couldn’t get my mind off the meaningfulness of “The Wall.” As we approached, I felt that my legs were getting rubbery and I knew it wasn’t from all those stairs. About half way across I started to slow down as I felt an awkward moisture blurring my vision. I knew in a trice what was happening. It happens to everyone I know that has been there but more intensely for any GI and most especially for the men and women who were in Vietnam and knew somebody whose name is one of the 58,000 plus on those 148 panels.
I was an airborne medic in Germany when the hideous Gulf of Tonkin scandal broke and propelled us toward a full commitment in Southeast Asia in 1965. By 1966 I said goodbye to spit-shine and white-wall haircuts forever. I vowed never to do another push up or wear khaki or OD. The news of Nam came in steady drips. Some one I knew in school had died. A guy from our medic unit down in Ft. Sam had been brutally executed. A friend of mine, still in college, was trying tearfully to cope with his best friend’s death that happened only a few months after he got his lieutenancy.
I joined other Vets down in DC in the late sixties in the hopeless effort to get Tricky Dick to come to his Quaker senses and end the senselessness. Then as now I ask what those people died for. Name one thing that was accomplished that we can say even one of those lives was worth. People went to war for their country because of a sense of duty, sure, but many went against their wishes because it was the law. Both types ended up on “The Wall.”
My brother came back convinced that he had not lost his eye in vain and resented the hell out of my anti war attitude. My younger brother became a conscientious objector. My father rolled over in his grave. It was a time of division in this country whose likes have not even been hinted at since. A time when long hair could get you beat up, where hippies and straights were like the Jets and Sharks.
At UNH I hung out mostly with ex-service types. We never talked about the military to anyone else. It was a disgrace. People called anyone in uniform “baby killer” and used to give soldiers in uniform the finger sometimes when they were hitch hiking home on leave. Brother against brother, Father against son, citizen against country. It was awful.
And then it stopped. GIs came home one by one. No parade as had happened when our fathers came home. No pat on the back or attaboys. They slunk home and walked in the door to the only people who gave a crap about them. They came back haunted with nightmares of Nam that would never go away. They learned to live with the specter of “Nam Vet,” code for whacko or even dangerous.
But the Vets pulled together and formed groups and counseling centers and lobbied Congress. Insult to injury came when agent orange was recognized as an agent of cancer and genetic defects. In 1984 most affected veterans received a one time payment of $1200 for their pains. Most are not expected to live past 65. Thanks for your service guys. Dow and Monsanto still thrive.
When the first Gulf War broke out there was an outpouring of support for the troops and even the war itself. The country pulled together and it began to dawn on all how shabby we had treated our Viet Vets. People openly expressed their regret and promised to make it up. Soon, the cry was, “What about our guys who came back from Nam?” Things got better and, better late then never.
It was a treat to watch the volunteers putting The Moving Wall up on Thursday morning. Old guys (my age) hanging around in remnants of uniforms of all descriptions with T shirts that said Army or Marines. Dave Dube of Lazy Susan’s restaurant down on the Eff/Oss line has been working for veterans for years. On Thursday morning the ex-Marine took another hit for the cause. While riding in a cherry ’55 Chevy convertible to lead an antique car procession down to Constitution Park not far from his restaurant, he and two buddies were rear ended. The car was totaled and Dave and two others were ambulanced to Huggins. When I found him at the Moving Wall, he had 15 stitches in his head and some in his back and neck but he was right there with the others admiring the handiwork of Mike Gaudette’s crew who were putting the finishing touches on the project. It was heart warming to see a dozen or more Kingswood High Schoolers polishing the 148 panels and it was eerily reminiscent of the real deal down in DC.
The Moving Wall will be here through the end of Memorial Day with taps and a final ceremony at 6 p.m. It is a beautifully done replica that has constantly been touring the country since the mid eighties. Dave couldn’t believe his luck when they told him he could have it for Memorial Day. Going to see it is a great way to be counted for the ones we so counted on back then. Just go up, or down, Route 16 and then East on Route 25 for a couple of miles.
I remember being with my son on a school vacay down in DC where he was born eight years earlier. I wanted to show him all the sights that I was so taken with when I lived down there for a half dozen years.
I decided to start at the top so we rode up the 555 feet and 5 inches of the Washington Monument from which you can see just about anything worth seeing in the whole of the District of Colombia. I had seen most of it, shepherding visitors to all the most sought after sites when they came. But I had not seen “The Wall.” It lived up to every description I had heard of it since the 24 year old Asian American, Maya Lin, had won a contest to design it while she was still studying architecture at Yale.
It gave me the chills. It gives all veterans the chills as well as anyone who has any connection with that hateful war. Looking at it from that height I began to wonder what old army buddies names might be on it. How would I find them? I took some solace that my brother’s name would not be there. He only lost an eye.
We walked down the million or so steps to the base of the monument. I couldn’t get my mind off the meaningfulness of “The Wall.” As we approached, I felt that my legs were getting rubbery and I knew it wasn’t from all those stairs. About half way across I started to slow down as I felt an awkward moisture blurring my vision. I knew in a trice what was happening. It happens to everyone I know that has been there but more intensely for any GI and most especially for the men and women who were in Vietnam and knew somebody whose name is one of the 58,000 plus on those 148 panels.
I was an airborne medic in Germany when the hideous Gulf of Tonkin scandal broke and propelled us toward a full commitment in Southeast Asia in 1965. By 1966 I said goodbye to spit-shine and white-wall haircuts forever. I vowed never to do another push up or wear khaki or OD. The news of Nam came in steady drips. Some one I knew in school had died. A guy from our medic unit down in Ft. Sam had been brutally executed. A friend of mine, still in college, was trying tearfully to cope with his best friend’s death that happened only a few months after he got his lieutenancy.
I joined other Vets down in DC in the late sixties in the hopeless effort to get Tricky Dick to come to his Quaker senses and end the senselessness. Then as now I ask what those people died for. Name one thing that was accomplished that we can say even one of those lives was worth. People went to war for their country because of a sense of duty, sure, but many went against their wishes because it was the law. Both types ended up on “The Wall.”
My brother came back convinced that he had not lost his eye in vain and resented the hell out of my anti war attitude. My younger brother became a conscientious objector. My father rolled over in his grave. It was a time of division in this country whose likes have not even been hinted at since. A time when long hair could get you beat up, where hippies and straights were like the Jets and Sharks.
At UNH I hung out mostly with ex-service types. We never talked about the military to anyone else. It was a disgrace. People called anyone in uniform “baby killer” and used to give soldiers in uniform the finger sometimes when they were hitch hiking home on leave. Brother against brother, Father against son, citizen against country. It was awful.
And then it stopped. GIs came home one by one. No parade as had happened when our fathers came home. No pat on the back or attaboys. They slunk home and walked in the door to the only people who gave a crap about them. They came back haunted with nightmares of Nam that would never go away. They learned to live with the specter of “Nam Vet,” code for whacko or even dangerous.
But the Vets pulled together and formed groups and counseling centers and lobbied Congress. Insult to injury came when agent orange was recognized as an agent of cancer and genetic defects. In 1984 most affected veterans received a one time payment of $1200 for their pains. Most are not expected to live past 65. Thanks for your service guys. Dow and Monsanto still thrive.
When the first Gulf War broke out there was an outpouring of support for the troops and even the war itself. The country pulled together and it began to dawn on all how shabby we had treated our Viet Vets. People openly expressed their regret and promised to make it up. Soon, the cry was, “What about our guys who came back from Nam?” Things got better and, better late then never.
It was a treat to watch the volunteers putting The Moving Wall up on Thursday morning. Old guys (my age) hanging around in remnants of uniforms of all descriptions with T shirts that said Army or Marines. Dave Dube of Lazy Susan’s restaurant down on the Eff/Oss line has been working for veterans for years. On Thursday morning the ex-Marine took another hit for the cause. While riding in a cherry ’55 Chevy convertible to lead an antique car procession down to Constitution Park not far from his restaurant, he and two buddies were rear ended. The car was totaled and Dave and two others were ambulanced to Huggins. When I found him at the Moving Wall, he had 15 stitches in his head and some in his back and neck but he was right there with the others admiring the handiwork of Mike Gaudette’s crew who were putting the finishing touches on the project. It was heart warming to see a dozen or more Kingswood High Schoolers polishing the 148 panels and it was eerily reminiscent of the real deal down in DC.
The Moving Wall will be here through the end of Memorial Day with taps and a final ceremony at 6 p.m. It is a beautifully done replica that has constantly been touring the country since the mid eighties. Dave couldn’t believe his luck when they told him he could have it for Memorial Day. Going to see it is a great way to be counted for the ones we so counted on back then. Just go up, or down, Route 16 and then East on Route 25 for a couple of miles.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Pink slip for Pigge
Sent to The Sun today:
To the Editor,
By three o’clock last Friday—the same day my hot note about the county commissioners appeared in the Sun—I was told that Salmon Press (publishers of The Mountain Ear) no longer needed my services. Of course the people who wanted me gone didn’t do the deed in person; they left it up to one of my oldest friends in the Valley who already had the unenviable task of being my editor.
There are no hard feelings. Politics and punditry go together like cops and robbers. One without the other is unthinkable. Merriam-Webster likens pundits to “authoritative critics” and while pundits are usually from the press, not all reporters are, or want to be one.
Insightful journalism is not “he said, she said.” It’s about reading up on the subject and in between the lines, getting to the bottom of the truth and exposing wrong doers and lie tellers. It is also being willing to get your nose bloodied when someone else’s nose gets out of joint. That’s what makes a good journalist.
If a public official thinks that reading the news is below him or her, then don’t bother, but approximately one third of the entire County (your employers) reads the Sun every day. And I bet that they care that Commissioner Webster gets junkets to Hawaii while they can’t afford gas to get to work. I bet they are interested to know if the Chief of Police is stealing from D.A.R.E. And I bet they want to know what other people in their community think.
So, if you are interested in what’s really going on and you’d like to read some news and opinion that even the Sun might not print, come to my new blog, “The Smoking Jacket.” We’ll torment, and comment on, the pols and the press and whatever else makes news in the Valley of the Crammed. Go to: http://piggesblog.blogspot.com/ to get started.
It’ll be wicked fun.
Peter Case
Tamworth
This blog is so new that I'll need some help getting the word out. Pretend it's like one of those chain dealies, only nothing will happen to you if you don't send the http on. But it would be damned nice of you.
To the Editor,
By three o’clock last Friday—the same day my hot note about the county commissioners appeared in the Sun—I was told that Salmon Press (publishers of The Mountain Ear) no longer needed my services. Of course the people who wanted me gone didn’t do the deed in person; they left it up to one of my oldest friends in the Valley who already had the unenviable task of being my editor.
There are no hard feelings. Politics and punditry go together like cops and robbers. One without the other is unthinkable. Merriam-Webster likens pundits to “authoritative critics” and while pundits are usually from the press, not all reporters are, or want to be one.
Insightful journalism is not “he said, she said.” It’s about reading up on the subject and in between the lines, getting to the bottom of the truth and exposing wrong doers and lie tellers. It is also being willing to get your nose bloodied when someone else’s nose gets out of joint. That’s what makes a good journalist.
If a public official thinks that reading the news is below him or her, then don’t bother, but approximately one third of the entire County (your employers) reads the Sun every day. And I bet that they care that Commissioner Webster gets junkets to Hawaii while they can’t afford gas to get to work. I bet they are interested to know if the Chief of Police is stealing from D.A.R.E. And I bet they want to know what other people in their community think.
So, if you are interested in what’s really going on and you’d like to read some news and opinion that even the Sun might not print, come to my new blog, “The Smoking Jacket.” We’ll torment, and comment on, the pols and the press and whatever else makes news in the Valley of the Crammed. Go to: http://piggesblog.blogspot.com/ to get started.
It’ll be wicked fun.
Peter Case
Tamworth
This blog is so new that I'll need some help getting the word out. Pretend it's like one of those chain dealies, only nothing will happen to you if you don't send the http on. But it would be damned nice of you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
