Arlington’s history
With regard to a recent BDN article about the wreath laying at Arlington National Cemetery, the story has (and not for the first time) placed it either “in” or as “a suburb of Washington, D.C.” It is in Arlington, Va., and overlooks Washington, which was the original intention when the house was built there in 1802 by the Custis family, who named it after their family’s Virginia estate.
General Robert E. Lee never owned it as it was entailed to his wife’s eldest son after Mrs. Lee’s death, but she left during the war at her husband’s urging and neither ever returned. General Meigs, commanding a garrison there, first used Mrs. Lee’s rose garden for the start of a military cemetery, with the intention of rendering it uninhabitable for the Lees. Even his officers considered it a petty gesture, and the Custises later sued the federal government for illegal confiscation.
My parents are both buried there, so I have a nodding acquaintance with the details. Still, since so many kind-hearted people give their time to make the wreaths and even drive them down, it would be nice if they knew where they were going. As for our schoolchildren, well, is it any wonder we’re falling so far behind the rest of the world?
Alice Jones
Cherryfield
Use welfare wisely
I agree with Christine Bouselle, the college student who wrote about welfare recipients shopping at Walmart because I work as a cashier at a supermarket and see the same thing.
I’ve seen people use two or three food stamp cards for their order. Why do they have two or three cards? I’ve also seen the cash part be used for buying cigarettes. Shouldn’t that money be used for soap, diapers or household cleaning products?
I understand that some people really need the help but they should use it wisely and not waste it. These people also could use coupons.
I had a young mother with a couple of young children go through my line using food stamps. She used coupons and looked like she planned her meals. She bought good healthy foods and very little junk food. You could tell she was trying to feed her family healthy meals and making her food stamps stretch. I could’ve hugged her. I was so proud of her but didn’t say anything because I didn’t want her to feel bad.
Please realize there are a lot of people who are abusing the program and they are the ones who make it hard for the ones who are honest and truly need the help.
Cynthia Hirst
Greenbush
Information age post
As education budgets are slashed throughout the state careful consideration must be given to the goals of educating our students. Literacy stands at its core. Library media specialists ensure guidance for the entire learning community, accessibility of resources, and direct instruction of research skills. This position is an integral part of high performance learning at any school.
Glenburn School stands to lose this critical position and a valued employee, if the district accepts budget cuts proposed by administration. Library media specialist Val Rich began her work for Glenburn Library in a former one-room schoolhouse with a small collection of donated books. In the 20-plus intervening years, the library has been transformed into a modern information center, housing 16,000 books and materials, serving both the school and public.
In the Information Age, with literacy at the core of education, it seems foolhardy at best to lose an employee who inspires students with both a love for literature and a firm knowledge of how to locate, evaluate and apply information. The position affords the opportunity to work with students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, getting to know each individual and his or her unique interests and needs. The library’s collection of books and materials is based on the needs and interests of each person using the facility.
We teachers believe Glenburn cannot afford to lose its library media specialist nor the professional abilities and personal qualities that Val Rich brings to her work.
Jean Watts
Deborah Crocker
Janet Ecker
Sari Ohmart
JEAN, DEBORAH, JANET, and SARI,
Your story is typical, we need cuts, but please not here. Cuts must be made and made where ever the axe may fall. What’s wrong with a library aide running the library at a whole lot less cost? America is already dumbed down as low as she can go, and no amount of cuts can get her to go any lower.
Then someone proposes we consider the Defense budget that nears a trillion each year and war hawks scream bloody murder. That’s hypocrisy.
Could you show me your numbers please?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1941
Depends how you add it up really, some numbers show below a trillion, some above, but that’s irrelevant to the point. Defense spending has gone up immensely. You don’t to complain that “Your story is typical, we need cuts, but please not here. Cuts must be made and made where ever the axe may fall” and then engage in that exact same behavior.
thanks for responding. Do you have an idea how the 2012 fiscal year defense budget works out with the planned decommissioning of one carrier battle group, curbs on the advanced fighters, decreased construction of military hospitals, the withdrawal of forces from Iraq and Afghanistan?
Those are included as savings in the budget. Obama was criticized for calling the draw-back measures savings/cuts to the budget.
Obama was criticized not for counting it but effectively counting it twice.
The base defense budget for 2012 is $671Billion…down a whopping $40Billion from the 2011 base budget at $708Billion. This is without the cost of the wars and foreign military aid. Defense costs the US 6 times more than any other country on the face of the planet earth.
“Could you show me your numbers please?”
http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm
In 2010 the base budget for Defense was $698Billion. Plus contingency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq add $159Billion, foreign military aid $125.9Billion, $2.1Billion for UN peacekeeping, $900million to NATO. This totals $986Billion. If you add in Homeland Security and other defense initiatives it easily tops $1Trillion.
“The eighteen nations with the largest military budgets in 2010 are the United States, with a budget of $698 billion, spends more on defense than the next seventeen nations combined. The United States military spending is almost six times that of the next biggest spender, China ($119 billion) and more than eleven times that of Russia ($59 billion).”
And you wonder where your money went?
The problem, as I see it, is the loss of control of our education system at the local level to the dictates and mandates of the State and Federal government. They define what resources go where. Parents, teachers, and the local community no longer have a say when it comes to curriculum, in particularly with the adoption of “common core standards” based on best “International” practices. The Maine board of education’s adoption of the 21st century report, where kids will be prepared for new forms of governance and the history books and all of the wonderful literature and prose in our libraries become irrelevant, because it is no longer about art, science and humanities. It is now about capitalism, greed and nurturing a flock of uneducated sheep, so the wealthy and powerful dominate our society. Our freedoms and property rights are being destroyed by restrictions on our rights and to our property and our kids will not know what true freedom is or to dream what is possible, because they will only be taught what is plausible.
And you do realize that with few exceptions progressives have taken control of our education system. Especially at the highest levels and internationally.
Oh yeah…all you have to do is look who is on Maine’s Board of Education…or the hierarchy at the US Dept. of Ed. The book “the dumbing down of America” pretty much described in advance where the system was headed. Turns out to be so true.
Or the Texas School Board which is where all the textbooks are written. Dumbing down indeed!
Cynthia nice letter couldnt agree with you more
The main reason so many need to be on welfare and public assistant is because of dead-beat employers. Ones like Wal-Mart who don’t allow their employees to work full-time. Ones that don’t offer benefits or pay living wages. You know, maybe if these companies wouldn’t funnel all their profits to the few up top at record high levels, the rest of us wouldn’t have to pick up the slack.
How is that the employer’s responsibility? An employer is only going to pay what the market will bear. Here’s a news flash – THEY DON’T HAVE TO WORK THERE!!! If you want to make more money then try to get a better job either by learning new skills or applying for one. That’s how people did it before welfare became more prevalent.
Does the economic and government system you favor begin with a “c” and end with the fall of the Berlin Wall?
How is it the employer’s responsibility to pay their employees decently? That’s a ridiculous question.
No one is forcing anyone to work at Walmart, so it’s not a ridiculous question. Who defines “decent” anyway? 20K/year, 40K, 100K? How many hours per week? If you think someone should be able to work unskilled jobs and support a family working 40 hours per week, then you are being ridiculous. Why should we reward unskilled work and de-motivate people from improving their skill set?
A decent wage is one where a person can live on and support themselves with. When people work a couple of jobs and they still can’t afford food without assistance, that’s a problem. That’s the sign of a dead beat employer.
I understand there is a need for low skilled part-time jobs, like for example, a student supporting themselves through school. However, this isn’t about “rewarding” people, it’s about paying them for the work they do. We saw CEOs drive their companies to the ground and get rewarded with bonuses. Why are we motivating that kind of poor behavior? Look at Romney, made millions by downsizing companies and killing jobs.
You can try and demonize workers all you want, but really, it’s ridiculous. When there is already a shortage of jobs in this country, you’re being ridiculous when you say no one is forcing them to work there. So then, what are the options? Don’t work there and have no job — be on public assistance. Work there and still, be on public assistance. There is no pleasing some people like you. Ridiculous.
Two jobs (80 hours a week) at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 yields ~$30K/year. I know many people who make that much and are reasonably comfortable. Now 80 hours is a lot, but doable. I work 60 hours now myself.
Sixty hours per week is not the same as 80 hours a week!!!!!
Yeah, for hophead2, somehow two part-time jobs somehow adds up to 80 hours a week.
Didn’t say it was. But if I can work 60 comfortably, one can work 80 when times are tough. No one wants to work 80 hours, but you do what you have to to survive.
If you’re doing 80 hours then you’re dong 3 part-time jobs, which is what the huge majority of minimum wage jobs are.
LOL, love how two part time jobs adds up to two full time jobs suddenly. Try reading my comment before commenting. Or at least don’t be so obvious in your altering what I’ve said.
“A decent wage is one where a person can live on and support themselves with.”
One can support themselves on minimum wage, by my calculations. One would not be able to support a family, but I would argue no one should start a family until they can support one.
I’m not saying minimum wage is a good job, but it is livable until a better job can be found.
http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/states/23
Your calculations are wrong then. Minimum wage is not a living wage. It’s not enough to even support 1 person without assistance.
Look, all I’m saying is that you can’t keep blaming workers for needing assistance when there aren’t enough decent jobs to go around. You can’t demonize them when the options are either limited or just not there. It’s hard enough out there without privileged twits out there like Rousselle writing editorials smearing them. Do you think she’s paying her own way through college with a part-time cashier job? Doubt it. She doesn’t know what it’s like being completely on her own.
The problem with that calculator is it assumes 40 hours per week. I would argue that the expectation should be to work more than 40 hours before they get some of my money. According to your website, one only needs to work 45.6 minimum wage hours to reach a “living wage” annual salary. Is an extra 5.6 hours that much to ask?
The problem with your comment is that you’re not operating in reality. Minimum wage jobs are rarely full-time and they generally do not allow for over-time. You’d need two jobs to get to that 45.6 hour mark. Now, there is about 6 job seekers per job opening — meaning it is difficult to even get one job right now. It seems many, like you, just think that people aren’t trying hard enough and they are simply choosing to struggle.
So then the issue isn’t that Walmart pays too little, but that there are no jobs available? Well, I’d agree our employment situation is bad. But if minimum wage pays a living wage with 45.6 hours of work, why all the vitriol towards companies that pay minimum wage? Or as you say “deadbeat employers?”
That’s not what I said. I said employers need to pay a living wage and offer full time for their employees in order for us to decrease dependency on aid, otherwise, the government is essentially just subsidizing. Your solution was to just get another job and I pointed out how that’s not a viable solution. So, what remains is that there are too many deadbeat employers.
So all employers need to offer a full time job and if they only need part time help they are deadbeat? You’re living in fantasy land…
Check out the newspaper and see how many jobs are listed, understanding that there are 5 or 6 applicants for every job listed. Then explain how taking a job with sub-standard wages is a “choice”.
How is paying people such a low wage they are forced to go on food stamps to support their families “motivating” them?
I’m speaking in general terms. Generous welfare benefits, for some, reduces the motivation to better one’s lot in life.
I see it all the time with employees at my company. For some people, once they hit some level of income (usually after an over-generous raise), they become satisfied and “coast”. They never put in extra effort, clock out a 5 on the dot, and do little to improve their skills. This is why we’re getting killed by China, India, etc.: we’re satisfied with our comfortable lives, while they are willing to work twice as hard for much less just for the opportunity to get ahead.
You and fwteagles seem to dodge this question: what is a “decent” or “living” wage? How many hours should one have to work to receive it? What about slackers and incompetents? Believe me, there are plenty of those out there. Should Walmart or the government be forced to support them?
I don’t have an easy answer, but knee-jerk demonization of corporations isn’t exactly constructive.
No, nobody is dodging what the definition of a living wage is, many have already pointed out what that is. Enough to live on — afford a place to live, food and health care.
When someone is working full-time and can’t afford to support themselves because they’re not being paid a living wage — the rest of the country is being forced to pick up the remainder. We’re subsidizing the deficits that corporations leave behind, corporations that are pulling in huge profits. There is no excuse for that. It’s just way too convenient to blame workers.
Still no specifics: how much is that? How much is “full time”?
According to the data on a website YOU posted, working 45.6 hours per week (a very reasonable definition of full time) at minimum wage DOES provide a living wage in Maine. So by definition, every employer in the state pays a living wage: it’s just the individual’s choice if they want to grab a few extra hours to make up the difference. And please don’t counter that asking folks to work 45.6 hours is too much: THAT would be ridiculous.
I find it really bizarre that I have to keep going over the same things with you. You say I haven’t defined what a living wage is, but I clearly have in the very comment you have replied. I also supplied a link for you that you even referenced which specifically outlines what the living wage is for different regions. Yet you maintain I haven’t defined it for you.
I’ve already pointed out that most minimum wage jobs aren’t full time and do not allow for over-time, but you’ve ignored that. You’ve already admitted it is very difficult to find even one job, but still maintain that that magically someone being paid minimum ought to be able to either find two or persuade their employer to give them over-time every single week. So, no, you’re still the one being ridiculous.
that’s right they can go work at McDonalds for even less.
The C word is the one that you are advocating Kent. A communist nation already has their finger up our butt for over $1 trillion and climbing. Ridiculous trade agreements, greed, and complacency on the part of the average American have allowed the top 1%, big corporate America, and our “public servants” to sell this country out to a communist regime for the fun and profit of a few. I like to use ChinaMart as an example to no one. The 6 Walton brats are now sitting on $93 billion, or 93,000 million. I think they could afford to give their employees a raise. Maybe their workers could start paying for their own groceries, heating oil, and health care, instead of you and I. The Waltons could be worth a trillion and their employees working for $1 an hour and some would say they ovber pay those “unskilled workers”. Would you say that Kent? How much money is enough for inherited wealth like the Walton brats Kent? Do you suppose they have a magic number in mind? Should society place a number on it for them, before they are entirely consumed by the love of money? Buy American, pay your fair share in taxes, and stay to hell out of ChinaMart while there is still one America left with a decent job. That is my solution to some of our economic ills. Do you have any?
Everyone working for a “dead-beat employer” should simply walk off the job and quit. No more up-funneling until everyone is working full-time for “living wages”. Forget market forces – pay entry level employees the same as long-term workers or management. There is no excuse for not paying the “Welcome to Walmart” greeter $250k/year. No more slack “pick up” by the oppressed middle class!
LOL…
Or let’s go to the opposite end and just pay them 40 cents an hour. Your hyperbole is stupid and not constructive.
No offense, but nearly all your comments are stupid and non-constructive hyperbole.
If we made it easier to join a union and not be punished by the employer for that act, Walmart employees could collectively bargain for a living wage. The decline of the middle class in this country is directly tied to the decline of unions.
Major industries, Steel, Auto, Paper all were heavily unionized and all fell apart. You need to recheck your cause and effect.
Free trade agreements led to the decline of all three industries. Our corporate plutocracy doesn’t have any sense of patriotism: they will build products wherever the labor is cheapest. Germany’s corporate plutocracy has preserved its industrial base and its unionized work force: German corporate boards don’t ship jobs overseas. It helps that one half of that board are union officials. German plutocrats still love their country; our plutocrats love making money. Germany still runs a strong trade surplus.
Your sarcasm about the hardship of other people’s lives is inappropriate.
Alice Jones – Arlington is a great place with an interesting history. But, the Progressives no longer allow the proper teaching of history to our children, because the Progressives don’t want them to know how this country came into greatness, survived many struggles, and relied on God in times of peril. Even the First Lady said that we must rewrite our history. Sad, but true.
Cynthia Hirst – The welfare system in this country is one of the most abused systems in existence. True, there are many that need the help, but even truer are the many that simply use it as a way of life. America is slowly becoming a welfare nation, and that isn’t good.
Actually the Progressives and Liberals would love an accurate teaching of history. We love history. We have seen the struggles of this country and her people and see that the more time goes on, the more enlightened people become, the more people are treated equitably and fairly. It has been the common struggle throughout history. One of it’s greatest moments came in 1773. We progress towards more freedom and a better society for all, understanding history and where we came from is essential to this. Really, if we had no grasp of history, we would simply become conservatives.
I have never met a progressive or liberal who wanted an accurate teaching of history. Every one wanted history taught so it supported their agenda and portrays anything that conflicts with their agenda as evil.
Just like the Texas Board of Education removing Thomas Jefferson from the curriculum and replacing him with the religious right icon John Calvin?
Details, links, proof.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html
You know that won’t serve as proof, you need something from Fox News or Free Republic. Then he would say that Fox News and Free Republic probably had the information wrong and that isn’t really happening, and why is it that when Fox News says the Republicans are doing something incredibly stupid that all of a sudden liberals find them trustworthy. You see, reality has to fit his misconceptions or it is not true.
Thomas Jefferson is hated and his contributions hidden by the right because of his emphasis on the separation between church and state. He started that line of reasoning which lead to the Ist amendment when he was governor of Virginia. See “Virginia Statute For Religious Freedom 1786”.
What conservatives hate is the misrepresentation of his words and of the 1’st amendment to the constitution.
What misrepresentation? He was very clear from the late 1770s (perhaps earlier) on as to his belief in keeping religion out of politics and politics out of religion.
No, You misunderstand. You keep the “government” out of religion, not the other way around. “Politics” is something defined differently.
You are right. In that post where I wrote ‘ politics’ it should read ‘government’.
No Mr. Government-is-the-problem: You are wrong, totally wrong. Conservatives do dislike Thomas Jefferson and would like to erase his words. Your ID confirms that quite clearly.
His opinions and writings are very inconvenient for religious wing nuts…
Jefferson also believed in the supremacy of our white, Anglo-Saxon ancestors as the quintessential model of civilization. Read about it yesterday in James Bradley’s “Imperial Cruise”. The left hates it when their selective examples of progressive righteousness are undermined by the flaws of their icons.
I think everyone, except Sarah Palin, recognizes that the only issue with slavery in the 1700s and early 1800s was how to count them as population. Hence the 3/5ths final determination. Since Jefferson was from the south it could be safely assumed he believed in the inferiority of non whites. That was a pervasive attitude throughout the country. Only in the north were there outspoken critics of slavery, but of course they did not treat the indians very well.
Nobody with a brain thinks these important figures in our country’s history are perfect. You just have to look to the Constitution to see that. Why else would we have added all sorts of amendments? To make some partisan claim about this is pretty stupid and makes no sense.
They removed him from one list in one section of the curriculum. A list dealing with the ideological sources behind other revolutions latter in history. That is hardly “removing him from the curriculum”. Is he or is he not still mentioned in regard to his contributions to the constitution of the US and as the third president of the US?
You have no grasp of history then. Not exactly surprising, otherwise you would see that government has been the solution to corporate greed and excess in our country not the problem. You would see the purpose of the rules and regulations that have been passed based on historical events. In essence, you would for the first time in your life get what it means to be an American, instead of this adolescent fantasy of what America is supposed to be and how it is to fit your narrow definition.
Many, if not most, of the rules and regulations you admire have actually helped corporations to become larger and more profitable by making real competition more difficult. It’s called crony capitalism. Stop looking at and listening to the government and business justifications and spin on these rules and regulations and examine the real effects.
Politicians and do-gooders are every bit as greedy as the corporations you demonize.
By the way, greed is one of the underlying driving forces behind all human progress. Along with sex, war, and power.
Your grasp of history is superficial. Dig deeper and go back further.
Another thing taught by history. Laws passed quickly in response to a crisis or in response to a single unusual event have almost always proven to be disasters over time with unintended negative consequences.
Like the Patriot Act?
And right there is one of the major problems of American education. It’s been politicized. Believe it or not most countries do not drag political agendas into their curriculum. They have, as an educational goal education not indoctrination. Imagine that? Educate the students. Now there is a really wild idea.
And if we had no grasp of mathematics, science, economics, or logic, we would simply become liberals and progressives…
Mr. Crabtree,it’s Conservatives that can’t understand the math of our domestic economy, believe Adam was created on Saturday, don’t understand charts,graphs, percentages and fractions and really, really don’t understand the mathematics of risk not the liberals. We paid attention in school while you were slapping your books shut telling everyone in earshot that school was stupid and only for sissies. Real men were tough and didn’t need no stinking education.
Sally, It strikes me that liberals particularly Progressives that lack math skills. As an example, Liberals figure that to get us out of our current economic crisis all they need do is tax the rich. Meanwhile the top 400 wealthiest Americans have $1.5 trillion in assets. If you were to confiscate (not tax) it all you would still not cover Obama’s current request for an increase in the debt ceiling. What would you do the next time you want an increase?
Nobody is saying taxing the rich is some sort of magic bullet that’ll solve all our problems, but that it is simply one part of the whole solution. You’re claiming that liberals hold this made up position on taxation in order to confirm your claim that they’re bad at math. It just shows that you’re bad at logic.
We have made an advancement I think. For years progressives have advocated a tax increase as if it is some sort of panacea. An admission that it isn’t, is all I need to settle for today.
I’m glad all is settled in your head, because no one on planet earth was making that suggestion. Heard the talking point about taking all the money away from the rich on Fox News a few times, but that’s it.
The EJ curriculum of really important facts: history and location of all 146 National Cemeteries.
Maybe our educational system is failing our students because thinkers like EJ and Ms Jones are pushing for teaching based on this type of irrelevant and unrelated facts.
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t the Texas School Board Text Book Committee (a bigger group of die hard conservatives would be difficult to find) working their right wing tushes off to take authorship of the Constitution away from people like Thomas Jefferson and give it to God? Aren’t they also the same up tight theocratic group that believes the universe was created in seven days and want that “fact” read out of the bible every day in science class?
Most text book companies follow the conservative path set out by the Texas School Board. Since when did they become a progressive organization?
Alice: We’re not falling behind because kids don’t know the exact longitude and latitude of Arlington, VA…we’re falling behind because we can’t produce and keep enough people who can design a GPS which would then allow someone to find Arlington, VA. Heck, half this country can barely use one…
On another note: That’s nice that you consider it an honor for your parents to be buried at Arlington. Of course, that also puts them in the same cemetery as some really slimy people who did NOTHING good for the American people but ended up there because their wealthy and powerful slimeball friends made it so…
Ms Jones; It’s very nice that your parents are in Arlington Cemetery and that you have so much information on it’s history.
Could you please explain why you assume students do not know where it is and why you to feel this knowledge is essential for a improving American education?
There are 145 other National Cemeteries. Does a well rounded education require knowing the history and location of each one of these?