My father, despite being a successful businessman and owner of the complete set of Clint Eastwood movies, is not the first person I look to for political insight.
Maybe I'm not giving him enough credit. His latest zany scheme would save the state umpteen millions of dollars with no more chaos than would result from a herd of paranoid elk stampeding through an MPBN membership drive:
Invert school vacation. Shut down classes for three months in the winter, and keep them going through the summer.
As heating oil prices soar to $19 a gallon by 2012, this unlikely idea will look more and more appealing. Still, the powerful summer camp/Little League baseball lobby will never let it happen.
But conventional wisdom has the Maine taxpayer reaching his or her breaking point relatively soon. Actual relief will probably require radical changes:
“... in other news, the legislature has passed an emergency supplemental heating bill that requires all cremation to occur in the state house lobby...”
Is Baldacci the man to turn things upside down? True, he's not afraid to be just a teeny bit unpopular. According to a recent poll of likely voters in my area (my area is the living room), the governor's approval rating is close to 50%, but his annoying little pipsqueak rating has skyrocketed to almost 90%.
In short, it's hard to imagine him with a menacing grimace, pointing his .44 magnum at the legislature, and asking, “Do you feel lucky, punk?”
He's more likely to do things the general population finds moderately irritating (SAT initiative, Sunday hunting, consolidation, telling that restaurant story again), but not bothersome enough to divert attention and resources.
Switching school vacation to the wintertime is a move too gutsy for the likes of our current governor. It would cause severe problems for huge numbers of Mainers, the most obvious of which is that summer jobs would have to become winter jobs.
Teenagers who save up for college (“college” is a popular euphemism for “first car”) by landscaping or by serving ice cream would have to start doing apprenticeships or job shadowing for the actual careers they might have some day.
The many teachers who earn second incomes by prostituting their dignity to the tourism industry would be especially put out. The would have to (ouch) get paid more from their regular jobs.
And it's hard to motivate students as they bake in the 90-degree heat, staring wistfully out the window at the beckoning sunshine, wishing they could burst outside and run home to their air-conditioned rooms to play video games.
Meanwhile, families who like to spend their summers “up to camp” would instead have to vacation “down to Florida,” or maybe even (gasp!) “over to Europe.”
Obviously, these circumstances are intolerable. Therefore, the $44 zillion it costs to keep our drafty old schools open while our end of the Earth tilts away from the sun is clearly well spent.
Never mind that the CEO of the second largest oil company in the world (Shell) has now admitted that in seven years, global oil supply will no longer be able to meet demand.
No big deal. We'll just install wood stoves in all our classrooms.
See, regardless about what the environmentalists say or what happens to your tax bill, we can keep our society running pretty much exactly the way it is forever and ever.
Or at least until the next election.
Message to Gov. Baldacci:
Go ahead. Make my day.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Friday, January 18, 2008
A Poor Example
Congratulations to the Bangor Daily News for showing us the human face of poverty.
Sure, it may have been a cartoon caricature face, but at least it was a face.
Reporter Diana Bowley described one family's courageous struggle to afford heating oil along with medical expenses, food, home repairs, pet food, cigarettes, lottery tickets, exotic dancers, and fine imported ales.
The article, titled “Milo Family Struggles to Keep Warm,” appeared on the BDN website January 15.
“When Darlene Cook and her daughter, Renee Baillargeon, are not busy working to support their pornography addictions,” Bowley writes, “they roam the neighborhood looking for swarthy men to have sex with so they can get wealthy off the state by having as many children as possible.”
Okay, actually, the article did not say any of those things. I made them up.
The folks at the BDN would have no problem with this. Their “reader comments” section on this article is filled with malicious, unverified information.
“Give up the cigarettes!” writes one “Be from Milo,” even though the article does not mention if anyone in the house smokes. “Renee, stop having children, the state doesn't assist people so they can get rich!”
This informed citizen apparently “knows the family,” which could mean anything from:
1)“is in the family,” to
2)“saw them once at the grocery store, I think, on the same day I noticed the Virgin Mary's face on an Alpo label.”
A photo of the family's house showed a shingle that had fallen from the roof. “Be” suggested picking it up because “God helps those who help themselves.”
Cool beans! I had no idea that if I only neatened up my yard, God would send me 100 free gallons of heating oil! Thanks for the tip!
I wish I could say this was one isolated lunatic, but many of the “reader comments” featured similar themes.
“Get a wood stove, cut some wood,” said another person who is apparently lucky enough to own both a chainsaw and a forested lot. “How in the world has mankind survived for thousands of years without LIHEAP?”
Well, I wouldn't be surprised if, over the vast expanse of human history, some members of mankind did, in fact, freeze to death. Some may have shivered like wet chihuahuas for weeks at a time before the advent of federal heating assistance.
“George of Lagrange” advises the young lady featured in the article to “close her legs.” She has two children.
All of you out there with more than one child who are having trouble paying your heating bills should be ashamed of yourselves.
This is why most newspapers don't print anonymous letters to the editor. Why the same standard does not apply on the Web is beyond me.
BDN Managing Editor Mike Dowd says the paper screens comments for profanity and libel. “Basically, we eliminate those that accuse someone of illegal activity.”
But they don't edit the comments or try to ascertain how much truth is in them.
So I can use their site to call someone a promiscuous, midget-wrestling transvestite, even if it's not true.
Dowd points out that lots of other newspapers around the world and in Maine provide this type of forum.
In other words, it's legal, and all the other sleazeballs are doing it, too, so it must be okay.
And why not? Jerry Springer-style spewing probably generates more reader traffic and more ad revenue.
Newspapers were once considered gatekeepers who would publish only reliable information.
Now, the gate is a revolving door, and the press is doing its best to transform itself into an overpaid bellhop.
Sure, it may have been a cartoon caricature face, but at least it was a face.
Reporter Diana Bowley described one family's courageous struggle to afford heating oil along with medical expenses, food, home repairs, pet food, cigarettes, lottery tickets, exotic dancers, and fine imported ales.
The article, titled “Milo Family Struggles to Keep Warm,” appeared on the BDN website January 15.
“When Darlene Cook and her daughter, Renee Baillargeon, are not busy working to support their pornography addictions,” Bowley writes, “they roam the neighborhood looking for swarthy men to have sex with so they can get wealthy off the state by having as many children as possible.”
Okay, actually, the article did not say any of those things. I made them up.
The folks at the BDN would have no problem with this. Their “reader comments” section on this article is filled with malicious, unverified information.
“Give up the cigarettes!” writes one “Be from Milo,” even though the article does not mention if anyone in the house smokes. “Renee, stop having children, the state doesn't assist people so they can get rich!”
This informed citizen apparently “knows the family,” which could mean anything from:
1)“is in the family,” to
2)“saw them once at the grocery store, I think, on the same day I noticed the Virgin Mary's face on an Alpo label.”
A photo of the family's house showed a shingle that had fallen from the roof. “Be” suggested picking it up because “God helps those who help themselves.”
Cool beans! I had no idea that if I only neatened up my yard, God would send me 100 free gallons of heating oil! Thanks for the tip!
I wish I could say this was one isolated lunatic, but many of the “reader comments” featured similar themes.
“Get a wood stove, cut some wood,” said another person who is apparently lucky enough to own both a chainsaw and a forested lot. “How in the world has mankind survived for thousands of years without LIHEAP?”
Well, I wouldn't be surprised if, over the vast expanse of human history, some members of mankind did, in fact, freeze to death. Some may have shivered like wet chihuahuas for weeks at a time before the advent of federal heating assistance.
“George of Lagrange” advises the young lady featured in the article to “close her legs.” She has two children.
All of you out there with more than one child who are having trouble paying your heating bills should be ashamed of yourselves.
This is why most newspapers don't print anonymous letters to the editor. Why the same standard does not apply on the Web is beyond me.
BDN Managing Editor Mike Dowd says the paper screens comments for profanity and libel. “Basically, we eliminate those that accuse someone of illegal activity.”
But they don't edit the comments or try to ascertain how much truth is in them.
So I can use their site to call someone a promiscuous, midget-wrestling transvestite, even if it's not true.
Dowd points out that lots of other newspapers around the world and in Maine provide this type of forum.
In other words, it's legal, and all the other sleazeballs are doing it, too, so it must be okay.
And why not? Jerry Springer-style spewing probably generates more reader traffic and more ad revenue.
Newspapers were once considered gatekeepers who would publish only reliable information.
Now, the gate is a revolving door, and the press is doing its best to transform itself into an overpaid bellhop.
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