Been there, cleaned that
A comment on Sarah Smiley’s column of Feb. 20: Housework is a crashing bore and should be done only by those who enjoy doing it, get paid to do it or absolutely have to do it themselves.
Over many years, I have filled each of these categories.
Rita M. Souther
Camden
Paint the town
Feeling a bit melancholy with no sweetheart on St. Valentine’s Day, I was “heartened” to read about Bangor’s mysterious Valentine’s visitor.
I took a walk downtown Tuesday evening to take in the array of hearts firsthand. Every heart had been hand-painted!
A rosy glow settled inside me. Thank you, Bandit. I love Bangor too!
Kate Tuck
Bangor
Steve for Searsport
Steve Tanguay has my vote for Searsport selectman.
For the past 10 years I have had the pleasure of working with Steve on the Searsport Shellfish Management Committee. He has proven to be hard-working and willing to put in long hours to make certain a task is properly completed.
Steve is versatile and creative, bringing fresh insights and energy into all of his endeavors. I am always impressed by Steve’s wide variety of interests and knowledge, and his ability to use what he has learned in one area to the benefit of another. This skill will be valuable as he works to balance small businesses with industry, and both with Searsport’s environment and “sense of place.”
Steve understands and works well with young people, as well as with adults from all walks of life. I believe he is an excellent candidate and would be a true asset to Searsport if elected as a selectman.
Bob Ramsdell
Searsport
Penobscot County query
With some time having passed since the unfortunate demise of Rev. Carlson, inquiring Penobscot County taxpayers are waiting for an explanation of how an apparently unqualified person was employed for 38 years as the county jail chaplain, what services he performed and what he was paid both before and after retirement.
These questions are especially relevant since there are many highly qualified clergy persons in the area, some of whom I am sure would donate their time as part of their calling to serve those associated with the jail.
Penobscot County taxpayers would like to know.
Timothy Haas
Holden
Keep schools public
I am writing to express my opposition to Gov. LePage’s proposed “open enrollment school choice.” Instead of diverting precious public taxpayer dollars away from public schools and into the coffers of private, religious or for-profit schools, those dollars are greatly needed to maintain and strengthen the public schools.
As things stand now, if parents want to send their children to these nonpublic schools, they are completely free to pay the tuition and send the kids.
We must maintain separation of church and state. Under Gov. LePage’s proposal, statutory language that prohibits public money from going to private religious schools is expressly removed.
A New York Times article published on July 15, 2006, cited a large peer-reviewed Education Department study that concluded that children in public schools generally performed as well or better in reading and mathematics as comparable children in private schools. In fact, conservative Christian K-12 schools were found to, on average, produce much more poorly prepared students and graduates than public schools.
Hence, throwing public money at private schools leads to no improvement in student education and simply undermines the great human achievement of decent public schooling available to all children in this country for generations.
Julie Gosse
Orono
Defending Romney
As a student, it’s interesting to hear the children who eagerly voice their parents’ opinions on political happenings. One such subject is Mitt Romney’s recently released taxes, purported to be controversial by some liberal media outlets and Maine citizens of the same political persuasion.
However, here is yet another inconvenient truth for the leftists: Mitt Romney paid 13.9 percent in taxes not because he is a “corporate fat cat” who is “handled with kid gloves” by the “Republican institution,” but because a large portion of his income came from capital gains.
Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than traditional income as an incentive to invest, and this investment stimulates the economy. Also, he gave 15 percent of his entire income to charity.
The bias and the aspersions cast through utter ignorance by a certain political party in this state as well as this nation is appalling.
Josh McNally
Brewer
Child victims top priority
There is a two-year backlog at the state computer crimes unit and I feel that we need to do anything possible to fix it.
There are so many children in Maine who have been victimized in the worst possible ways. The state is spending money on things that are not important; nothing is more important than protecting young, innocent children.
I feel that penalties for sex offenders should be increased. Most offenders do not learn a lesson and will do it again.
I hope that Gov. LePage will get on board to get a bill passed. The impact on children of child pornography is horrible; it ruins lives and needs to stop.
John Wilson
Greenbush
Let’s get civilized
Recently, my wife and I watched a movie on television called “Mother and Child.” It is a well-acted, well-told story about the affects adoption has on the lives of a variety of people.
Among the characters were a black man and a white woman who have an intimate relationship, another couple composed of a Latino man and a white woman, as well as others of various races and ethnicities.
But here’s the thing — the racial and ethnic issues never arose. Not a single word of dialogue was spoken which referred directly or remotely to race or ethnicity. The characters went about their business, negotiated, made love, argued, cried, laughed, behaved sometimes immaturely and sometimes maturely, just as we all do all the time, but race and ethnicity never entered any of the discussions in any way. I kept waiting for someone to hurl the “n” word or another to utter an ethnic slur. But it never happened. Not once.
So, this is my question: Will the United States ever be a nation where people of different races and ethnicities actually live that way together, ordinary people living ordinary lives, completely oblivious of skin color or national origin, maybe even of sexuality and religion, political persuasion and economic status, a community free of “hate thy neighbor”?
I have read that, when asked what he thought of Western civilization, Mahatma Gandhi replied, “I think it would be a good idea.” He’s right, it would be.
Francis Sinclaire
Bangor
Julie Gosse: Christian K-12 schools actually outperform the public schools, because the basics continue to be taught, along with Bible classes–check into the amount of college entrants from your local one on Broadway–it is high, and the students have gone on and continue to go on to great careers.
If you support a school I think generally you will find the students do well. And, if indeed students there score well on tests and succeed in higher learning settings you can indeed be proud of your school. Children of parents who support school learning and provide additional opportunities for learning generally do well but there is no school for which the record is 100% in any category of success.
Twenty years ago I had to deal with two students that Bangor Christian decided were” no longer profiting from the educational experience” they offered.
There is a reason why Bangor Christian has a sterling record of achievement.
“As an incentive to invest” LOL! Seems more like an incentive to hoard.
Julie Gosse
http://ees.umaine.edu/run.php?pg=User&user_id=281
How did you know that?
I guess Ms. Gosse is one of those fortunate people who could afford to send their child to a private school. How nice of her to be still interested in the fate of those less fortunate, though! They can eat cake, I bet she’d say.
Let me Google that for you.
Why on Earth would you say any of those things based on Ms. Gosse’s bio? Your snarky comment was totally uncalled for.
I love that word, snarky. Thank you for using it. I would say it based on a general idea of what an Assistant Professor earns, and what her future potential earnings and job security due to her advance education will be. I don’t hold that against her. I love educated people. But, it is fairly safe to say that if she has or should have children, she will have quite a bit of flexibility and choice over where her child goes to school. In comparison, the unwed mother I know who is attempting to get her GED, and is starting a job at a local call center at $8 an hour, and who is really trying to improve her life so she can support her child and do the best for him–I doubt that she will be so affluent by the time he reaches school age that she will have those same choices unless the state offers her school choice. But, knowing how much she desires the best opportunities for her son, I expect she would like to have that choice.
I believe that Ms Gosse’s letter was in support of a really good public education for all children, hers and that of the struggling single parent.
You appear to have bought into the idea that taking money out of public education and giving people choice will benefit failing students from poor families. This may be true in a few (very few) urban settings. This has not happened in suburban and rural settings. There are no school choices for poor and struggling students in Maine except through public education.
If Ms. Gosse can assure that mother that her child will get the best education in the town she lives in, then I am all for it. But she can’t. So, I will prefer the mother to have the choice to decide for herself what the best option for her son is, just like those with means do for their children.
You know this is true. Even wealthy parents who support public education falter when it comes to their kids. If their kid is not succeeding in the local public school, they pull him and put him in private school. Case in point: Michelle Obama on 60 minutes in 2008:
Kroft: Did you seriously consider sending the girls to public school?Michelle: You know, we’re still in the process of figuring out that transition and what we have asked people to understand is that the decision that we make will be based on the best interests of the girls. We haven’t made that decision yet. We want that to be a personal process, and people have been really good about respecting that.
And did the Obamas choose a DC public school?? The answer is no. They chose an exclusive private education for their children.
All I am saying, is give choice a chance.
We are giving choice a chance. So far it has not come up to expectations. Only about 10% of charter schools have done better than public schools. 37% have done worse and the rest have done about the same. We have given distance learning a chance (cyber schools) with dismal results but great personal reward to those running the cyber schools. High achieving private schools are not going to open their doors to poor single parents.
Why not make it our choice to improve what we have already instead of reinventing the wheel. This choice is just plain common sense unless one is really pursuing an agenda that doesn’t include a good public education for all kids.
Ah, Mr. McNally, if you actually analyzed Mitt’s tax returns you would see that much of what he calls capital gains is carried interest that, until recently, was never treated as capital gains. This is the money he made from managing other people’s money. Traditionally, that was treated as employment income, subject to both social security, medicare and income taxes.
The capital gains tax rate is lower than it has ever been. It did not encourage investment when Bush lowered it to 15% in 2003. It encouraged the wild speculation that triggered the second worst financial disaster in US history. Not only is it taxed at less than half the top marginal rate of 35%, but it is not subject to a penny of Social Security or Medicare taxes. When one accounts for Mitt’s legally skipping out on Social Security and Medicare taxes, his effective tax rate is less than 40 % of the tax rate on someone who made the same money from work, rather than speculation. It is less than the effective tax rate of a Mainer earning $80,000.
Timothy I think if you picked up the phone and called the County Manager you would discover that the position of Chaplain is a non-paid position. I could be wrong but a simple phone call would clear up the question.
JULIE,
This is were I depart from my fellow Republicans. School choice is simply a Republican PC answer to education. School choice would only add to the cost of an education as well as a nightmare on how to deliver these students to the school of their choice. Charter schools have failed and so will school choice. Get the unions, Feds, don’t want to learn students, and the not dedicated teachers out of our system, and the education system would soar overnight.
Where have you seen that charter schools have failed? Everything I have read hasnshown just the ooposite. Where is your documentation?
10% of charter schools do better than public schools, 20% do worse than public schools and 70% do exactly the same. Yet all of them take money out of the public school system to be spent with very little financial or educational oversight.
Do you have a link, I am not going to believe some random person on the internet.
Will this do? http://credo.stanford.edu/reports/MULTIPLE_CHOICE_CREDO.pdf
Don’t yet know what it says but I trust the source. Going to go read it myself as I would like info that is not filtered through a politician’s or bureaucrat’s lens. Here is one finding: results suggests that charters may have better impacts if they operate in states with low overall performance and another: more than half the charters have less growth in learning than what their students would have realized if they had remained in traditional schools in their community but 17 percent of the charters in this study deliver learning gains that are better but there is another but: But the good news of the top performers is diminished by the preponderance of charter schools that do not perform to that high level. Thirty‐seven percent of the charters in this study produce learning gains that are significantly worse than what equivalent TPS students accomplish.
So then the question becomes what risk are you willing to take with your child’s education, i.e. future. The odds are against them finding themselves in a charter school that will give them the skills to succeed. Seems a better bet to get involved in your local school to see how you can enrich students educational experience. At least there you have the opportunity to address policy/practice that appears to impede learning.
A thought I had the other week. If I were the parent of a child currently attending a private school and all of a sudden that school received an influx of students from the public school system. I would want my tuition fees refunded. After all I am still paying property taxes to support the public school plus paying tuition in the private school. In effect the government is taking over responsibility for both schools.
Or the private school could raise the tuition rate by the amount of the voucher so that parents already paying for their children to attend would not see a rise in the actual costs of educating their children and the undesirables would still not be able to afford to send their kids to your school.
Thanks Kayakmama for providing a link. I got called away on a minor emergency. Here’s my belated link.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0629/Study-On-average-charter-schools-do-no-better-than-public-schools/(page)/2
There are many more simply google: studies charter vs public schools
FRANCIS,
Your America will never exist as long as most of these so called minorities are taking jobs their not qualified for, walking around with huge chips on their shoulders, always blaming the white man for their problems, their allegiance being to their past and not their current country ( USA ), multiple languages, and the list is long. Have you seen Afghanistan the last few days, and you think we can co-exist with these people?
Nor will it exist as long as white men blame minorities for all of their problems.
It’s called divide and conquor. Or more properly in this country, divide and keep them at each others throat while we reap the benefits.
“Taking jobs their [sic] not qualified for”? Taking? Sure would help the current unemployment situation if everyone could just “take” a job. I’m seeing a chip on *someone’s* shoulder, or perhaps a beam in one’s eye. (Matthew 7:3) Unreality-based resentment and judgment are never very attractive.
Your seeing the truth posted and mistaking it for a chip. Could be because you have a liberal blinder on. Have you ever heard of affirmative action, and the resulting jobs taken away from white males and given to less qualified minorities and women, or am I just making that up. Have you ever heard of HUBS? Historically underprivileged businesses, run by minorities and women who get government contracts because they are simply a minority or women owned business. You liberals don’t like the truth when it comes to minorities and women ? The truth is the truth and you all can’t compete equally with the white male. PS: Please don’t misquote the bible out of it’s intended context.
HUBS were allowed to get government contracts because they were not able to break into the “Old Boys Network” that kept white male businesses running and excluded any minority competition.
“and excluded any minority competition.”
A lot of white males were perfectly happy with that system and long for a return to the good old days of not sharing the wealth.
Yep, white men sure have had it tough over the centuries, poor guys. Forgive me if I’m not weeping into my lunch over the plight of historically unoppressed white males.
And possibly you’ve misread my name. It’s Libra, not Liberal. Harmony and balance, y’know?
Racism and bigotry at its finest.
I have my job because I beat out the other 109 people who applied, you included if you applied at the time. I earned this position, and it wasn’t given to me because of gender. I will put my skills against any white male. And imagine this – my second job was earned also out of about 20 people – imagine that.
Frankly you always sound that you have a huge chip on your shoulder and you sound like you hate anyone that isn’t white.
Yes, just saw segment on cyber schools one of which pocketed 45 million in tax dollars. Now if it were a public school with 45 mil in budget surplus it would have been returned to the taxpayer. Oh, and by the way, the students using these services were performing below the state average.
Interesting show wasn’t it?
You know what’s really interesting is that there have been no conservative rebuttals to these cyber schools creating $45M dollars profit and giving their executives million dollar salaries for truly abysmal educational progress.
Returned to the taxpayer. That’s a good one. Man you should be doing standup comedy.
If private schools have no chance to compete then why are the public school teachers soiling their pants at the mere thought of having to compete for the students money? You’d think they’d welcome the challenge, just whip the private school’s behind, and say I told you so. Curious.
Private schools like John Bapst have inflated test scores because they don’t accept special needs students or those with disabilities. Overall, Bangor High still kicks their rears in many categories and offers a much more diverse curriculum.
It’s not even about comparative scores. School choice allows for a school such as John Bapst to focus on academics and college preparatory work. This allows another school to devote its time and money to special education or vocational training. People complain all the time that test scores alone should not determine the effectiveness of a school and I agree. What determines the effectiveness of the school is the satisfaction of the students as they step out into life. Does the student feel educated and prepared for adulthood? Can he or she find a job to support themselves? It’s about making every individual student succeed–not about one school beating another on test scores or college admission rates.
Ah, I’m getting the picture you are painting. Private school for deserving kids like you. Public education for the less deserving. What a great philosophy: the philosophy of a banana republic.
That is certainly not it. I would like to see schools that meet the needs of each student, no matter which way the student wants to go. I think every single kid is deserving. I happened to be a gifted student, but that doesn’t mean I think only the smart kids should get choice. I think all kids can learn and be successful if we can tailor the education to fit their needs. Two of my children attend a local public tech school. My daughter is in building trades, my son in culinary arts. They are there because they are interested in learning these things. And they are doing great–I fully support the school and the teachers there.
OK so I’ll accept that you want a great public education for every child. How do you expect to achieve that by giving away public funding to private organizations.
Those of us who believe in the value of public education for all understand that taking money out of an institution that has been instrumental in making America a prosperous world leader will in no way improve it.
Those of us who support public education see skimming money and students into private education as simply a mechanism for destroying pubic education.
Those who support education for all have a greater understanding of history, sociology, economics, ethics and know that when every body is educated everybody prospers.
And it might be because those of us who support public education are more mature, intelligent, socially aware and economically generous than those who want to see public education fail.
Julie, the wealthy are able to send their kids to private school, but the poor cannot. So why not give the poor a chance at the school they would like to attend? Let’s give poor kids the same opportunity that rich kids have.
The US has fallen to 27th in the world rankings in education. The public school system that worked at one point in our history is not working now. It is not for lack of money. Don’t be afraid of change. Change is healthy and good. Giving parents more control over their child’s education is a good thing. There is nothing to fear but fear itself.
All we are saying, is give choice a chance.
I believe that parents that really care about their childrens education, have that opportunity right now. They can demand excelence of their children and their school. If on the other hand they consider schools as a mere baby sitting service that feeds the children breakfast and lunch (can’t be bothered with that), you won’t see any appreciable gain in outcome. No matter where you send your children.
I personally disagree. When I was in high school, I would have thrived at a more rigorous program, but we were low income and there was no way, even with a scholarship, that my family could have sent me to a private school. Instead, I grew frustrated at the lack of opportunity in the local public high school. My mother cared about my education–she just didn’t have a choice on where to send me.
I remember arguing this issue with my high school boyfriend who went to a private school. He insisted that he was getting a better education, and I firmly maintained that a student could get just as much out of a public education if they put the effort into it. Then I spent the summer of my junior year at an advanced studies program at a private school. I came back to my public high school for my senior year knowing for certain that my education was being short changed. If I had been able to go to the private school I had wanted to go to as a high school freshman, I would have been much better off.
What opportunities did the school not provide you with? Was there not a school library, band, art, drama. Could you have not taken additional classes? Were there no teachers you could have gone to and asked for special reading or learning projects? Most opportunities are self generated.
I’d say the biggest thing holding me back was that teachers were only interested in teaching the curriculum they had in front of them. They did not invite, or sometimes even accept, any effort to do more. The second thing was probably the culture of the students. Most were not interested in learning; they teased kids who were interested, calling them dorks, nerds, whatever. That’s powerful stuff when you are a teen. In contrast, the kids I was with at the private school were driven to do well–they willingly spent hours on assignments, they carried on educated discussions in the classroom and outside the classroom. The teachers would not accept anything but excellence. For the first time in my life, I had a teacher tell me my assignment didn’t meet his expectations. That was a wake-up call to my complacent student brain. I worked harder to meet expectations. The teachers pushed me to do more, because they saw I could do more.
I thought I was taking advantage of all the opportunities at my high school. I was in band, honors courses, played athletics, joined student government. But what I came to realize was the public school just wasn’t offering the same level of service that the private school was offering.
Hmmm, finding this difficult to relate to since you describe a public school that appears to have offered you adequate opportunity. You seem to be whining that they didn’t push you hard enough. Sometimes, we need to take personal responsibility to push ourselves.
They offered me adequate but not outstanding. How many parents want just an adequate education for their child?
Please remember who was the child in my story and who was the educational expert. Not only did they not push me enough; at times they held me back purposefully because: “It wouldn’t be fair to the other kids to let you go on ahead.”
Mmmmm
….
The argument for taking taxpayers money out of public education and giving it to charter schools, virtual schools, private and religious schools was/is that these schools would naturally be better, provide needed competition to public schools and force public education to improve. This has always been a deeply dishonest proposal.
The people promoting choice, charters and competition are ideologically opposed to the concept of public education. They have been working very hard since the 1950s at reducing respect for and confidence in American public education. An educated public is a smarter public, a public that thinks, rejects the rhetoric of demagogues and tends to make choices based on facts.
These people have enticed the union-haters, the teacher-haters, the conservatively religious and the religiously conservative to support them in the weakening if not the out right destruction of American public education.
This movement, at its upper levels, has never been about choice for poor people. Had it been, there would now be many charter schools designed for poor and/or failing children. There is one. The movement has never been about improving public education. Nobody improves an endeavor by eliminating that which works and reducing the means of improvement. It has always been about denying middle class and poor children the opportunity to become educated, independent thinkers.
Public education is at a critical point. Take more students and money out of it now and it will fail. The failure will not affect the rich.
If you want to believe this, that’s up to you. But why would anyone want to have an uneducated public? Isn’t it more believable that people want a better educated public? And isn’t it true that our students are graduating from public school without an adequate education?
Now maybe it is not the school’s fault. Let’s say it’s because parents are not supporting their kids like they used to, or that kids today are into video games so they aren’t learning, or it’s drugs…whatever. No matter what it is, it is still clear that a new educational dynamic is needed. Just because public school is run one way today is no reason why that is the only way it can be done.
Why would anyone want to have an uneducated public? You cannot answer that question because you are young, innocent and pure. I am old, wise and cynical and I know why.
Share a reason or two, please, oh mighty wise one! I am willing to be corrupted :)
Being old and not possesing one of those pieces of paper that you frame on a wall. It works something like this. You can keep your workforce more docile towards management if you can keep them ignorant. The system was working to a ‘T’ in the south until they started demanding more education from the powers that be. Once they opened the flood gates and more people were able to read on their own it sort of upset the apple cart of the south. The south where they easily kept the poor whites and the poor blacks vieing for the same low paying jobs. Working one against the other like a master musician. To some degree, the same thing has gone on in Maine where it was convenient to foster distrust or emnity toward French speakers or Native Americans. Maybe not quite as blatant but there non the less. Other parts of the country utilized what ever was available.
The early Church banned reading of the bible. Why: to control interpretation and religious behavior.
Fundamentalist Muslim groups ban the education of women. Why: to keep women from gaining control over their lives
The English refused to fund public education. Why: to keep the lower classes uneducated and unable to understand their rights.
Southern states banned the teaching of reading to slaves. Why: to maintain control over people that had been deprived of all rights.
Education is power.
1- the very early church did not have a bible. Not for several hundred years. And, once the canon of scripture had been put together, there was no banning of reading it. The problem was that there weren’t so many copies that every family could have their own. The available copies were hand copied and were kept safe in monasteries or churches. At every single mass, celebrated every day of the year, the bible is read out loud to the congregation as it has been since the early church.
2-Who is talking of banning education?
3- The English refused to fund public education in the nineteenth century, maybe. Not today.
4-The era of slavery has been over for 150 years.
5-Education is power, I agree, and parents and children should have all the choice possible to access that power.
But like I said that was generations ago. In the modern day, what benefit would an ignorant, untrained workforce be?
An uneducated public is more easily lead to the ‘right’ conclusion and will work for much less money. those are two reasons why some would want an uneducated public.
I agree a hundred years ago. Today, how many jobs are left in the US that you can do without basic reading and math skills or at least some thorough vocational training? They don’t use shovels to dig those ditches anymore. I can see why some people might like to keep a monopoly on education so as to control the product coming out of the school…now who could that be? Those crazy right wingers who want school choice?
Lets say that we have a voucher system so the parents can choose which school to send their child to. The voucher is for $9000, about what is costs to educate one student.
Parent A pays $3,000 in property tax, which would probably be a pretty nice house, and has two kids. They currently send both kids to Acme Private School and it costs $12,000 per student, a reasonable amount probably somewhere in the middle of the pack for private schools. Current total cost for property tax and private schooling $27,000. Now Parent A gets $18,000 in vouchers for school choice, cost of educating his two children now $8,000 ($3,000 + $24,000 – $18,000) Good deal for them.
Parent B pays $1,500 in property tax, still most likely a nice house, and has two children he currently sends to public school. He would like to send his children to private school but cannot afford it. Now Parent B gets $18,000 in vouchers but does not have the additional $6,000 to send his kids to private school, so no savings to parent B.
Now, Parent A’s school, and some of the parents, do not really want to accept children from Public school so they increase tuition to $15,000 per year. Parent A still saves money ($3,000 + $30,000 – $18,000 = $15,000 was paying $27,000), better then he was paying and Acme Private School makes more money. Win win situation for both.
Now throw in a Special Needs student and no amount of vouchers are going to get that student into a private school.
Now that pre-supposes that 100% of the Property Tax goes to education, it does not. In this scenario taxpayers, both rich and poor, are subsidizing the private education of the few who can already pay for private schools. Parent A pays $3,000 in property tax but receives $18,000 in taxpayer money and Parent B has to send his children to a public school that will be losing funding, based on the formula that a school gets so much money per student.
I can see why The Right is for school choice.
First of all, school choice isn’t going to look like that. Not just any school will be able to accept students with state funds. Schools will have to meet criteria set up by the state in order to accept students. One of those criteria will be they accept the student at the tuition rate set by the state. It’s not going to be a voucher system.
My nephews have a choice of which high school to attend because they live in a small town in the middle of nowhere. They can choose Ellsworth public school, Bangor high school, or John Bapst private school. But John Bapst has to accept them at the same rate paid to the public school.
You put it together rather nicely. Good job.
Gee, Josh…poor, poor Romney! I know it is tough to be him. He just can’t connect with the average American because they refuse to understand him. But, I don’t worry about Romney very much–there are programs in place to help him out.
Businessmen, engineers, and doctors should stay out of politics. Politics is a field that requires compromise since so many different people are involved. The above professions are not used to the idea of compromise.
John Wilson, I totally agree. We have more MDEA agents in Washington County than they have working in the computer crime lab. I’m quite sure that they can buy quite a few more computers with the money for one cruiser. Maybe they could set up a program of volunteers to help with the drudge work involved.
A vote for Tanguay is a vote for Tanks But No Tanks who are led by Ms. Tanguay and Ms. Ramsdell.
BTW, why isn’t the Friends of Sears Island and the shellfish committee concerned about pollution from GAC, Sprague or the dog waste on the island? Those clam flats that you have commendably worked hard on restoring are only going to be affected by a bulk propane storage tank? C’mon now…
Mr. Haas, good luck in getting your answers. The position was probably an unpaid one, the perks are another thing. From what I have heard the investigation will remain open, as some people i.e. Ross believe it is too hot an issue for the public to deal with apparently. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that victims of abuse do not come forward. Public figures with friends in power are evidently not only protected when they are alive.
McNally:
So why can’t your income be taxed at 13.9% ?
I know.
You’re not a rich fat cat like Rmoney.
and if it stimulates the economy – why are we in a recession?
I know – cuz it only stimulates the economy of the fat cats.
yessah
Josh,
Well written story, but it seems to lack elements of reality. “….incentive to invest”? To build his own wealth? Why should Willard catch a break, when the rest of us are still taking care of the the bills?
Hey Frances, If your not seeing that world then your not looking very hard. It’s happening all over the place.
If we allow a handful of crazies like Cornell West to continue to tell us how terribly the Black man is STILL BEING treated, we’ll never get anywhere. Once his generation dies off perhaps we can get a clearer picture of race relations. Heck, most African American men and women that I’ve spoken with don’t even like the idea of affirmative action. They demand they be graded on the merits of their work. Because they know they are capable.
Those that choose to perpetuate the ignorant, “Angry black man or woman” are doing their own race a disservice. Why be proud of running around SCREAMING ‘N—-R”
That’s lowbrow crass humor. And let’s not forget how “DORKY ” all white people are.
I have an idea, learn to write smart jokes, Don’t pander to ideas that should be put to pasture.