Hurricane Irene and the Aftermath

Last weekend we all prepared to be blown away by Hurricane Irene. The weather forecasters told us that this time there was little to no chance of the storm veering out to sea as the last couple close storms have. New York City was said to be in the path of the storm and potential devastation could take place. The storm itself while powerful with winds in the one hundred mile an hour range was certainly not a monstrous storm in terms of wind speed but any storm that hits New York the right way can cause a diaster of epic proportions.

Now as we sit here a few days out from the event we know that New York City was for the most part spared. However criticism of the media and weather forecasters is not fair. Should they have missed a potentially dangerous storm or downplayed it they would be crucified. Surely weathermen in Maine know that the one way to boost ratings in the winter is to talk about a large storm approaching later in the week. If it does not happen you still have had people watching.

Here in Maine there are still forty thousand people without power. That is not a large number unless you are one of those forty thousand and then it is a very serious thing to be without power three days later. Surprisingly the wind and rain on the backside of the storm caused widespread devastation in landlocked Vermont. There are still many communities in Vermont that are stranded without power and unable to be accessed. They are literally airlifting food in. Like Berlin. Consider this before you criticize too heavily the forecasts from last week.

Michelle Bachman has said that this was God warning us to be prepared or Glenn Beck or both but I think God probably has bigger issues on his mind than if we have bottled water and canned food in the cellar.

We should be prepared, the weather is getting wackier and wackier and though here in Maine we are protected from much of it one never knows that the next event will be. I know this, if the weatherman told me there was a 1 in 5 chance of a direct hit of a hurricane I would be glad to have the warning, I would not complain when it did not.

Perhaps only in America would we complain about having a means to know about storms long before they arrived and then complain about being warned too often and too much. I suspect the folks in Galveston would have liked to have known when they woke up that there was a storm approaching.

Thank You at The Shop and Save

Has anybody noticed that we do not get thanked for our business anymore. The next time you go through the line at the Shop and Save or McDonald's or anywhere else see what is said to you at the end of your transaction. Here is what I think you will here" " Your all set " or even more likely " There you go or here you go". Your natural inclination will be to say " Thank you" It will be rare for you to hear a your welcome.

Why is this important. I suppose it is not. It seems however that as each year goes by we become more and more accepting of if not rudeness than a clear decline in simple manners.

As we all should know they should be thanking us. Thanks for coming in today, thanks for your business. Maybe the people who manage the stores know that they can barely get them to ask if we found everything we were looking for. Perhaps at the end of the sale we are no longer worth money. I am not sure. It just seems to me that in a world of competition it is the little things that will make a difference.

You Have To Go The Speed Limit

The other day my son and I were driving on the interstate and with it being quite traffic laden I said you know you do not have to go so fast. He said " I am not speeding Dad, I am just going the speed limit." After advising him that if the conditions do not warrant it you do not have to go the speed limit he told me that " You are supposed to go the speed limit."

I do not know who to blame here. Is it being 16 years old and having a predetermined need to do everything fast or is that our childrens English vocabulary lessons has somewhere not explained the difference between a limit and a minimum. Maybe I should blame the driver education school I sent him to with $450 of my dollars for not teaching him the difference.

However on more thought perhaps it is just indicative of the problems we all face. I have told children just because you can do something does not mean you should and this is a lesson that is more significant than I knew when I said it.

It is cute and a bit funny although also scary that my son thought that you were supposed to do the speed limit as a minumum but it is the way too many of us live our lives. We went to Florida for a vacation a couple of years ago. We did the whole Disney thing and it was great but in the end I am not sure how much of a vacation it was for my wife as in her desire to see everything and more importantly for the kids to see and do everything she had not a moments peace. I would see her get back from the park at 1030, exhausted to the bone and want to sleep but instead turn over and take the kids to the pool for one last swim.

Sometimes we as parents need to remember that we are the speed limits. I always compared the structure we give our kids to being an electric fence that keeps the cow in the pasture where it is safe. The cow may not like it but she has a harrowing tale to tell her mates when gets loose beyond the fence and has to be rescued. Trips beyond the electric fence are dangerous and exciting. Hopefully the cows and your kids make it home safe. However living beyond the electric fence is dangerous.

Driving the speed limit in all cases is not a good thing either. Even if you do not get hurt you miss alot. You miss the moments that often matter most, those where you slow down and take stock of what you see and feel.

When I was a child when we came to the big city the interstate was marked with a minimum speed and a maximum speed. In our times a minumum is not neccesary as everyone goes to the max. If I can teach my children to know it is ok sometimes to slow down and not go the maximum limit at all times I will be improving their lives.

Dressing Well at Livermore Falls

The Bangor Daily ran a feature story this week stating that the new principal at Livermore Falls High School has instituted a strict dress code. Of course all schools have a dress code, it is just a question of how seriously it is taken or if it is enforced.

At Livermore Falls they evidently are taking it serious, having a round of public discussions to make sure all are on the same page. The usual ban on profanity, alcohol, drug references and illegal acts are verboten on all clothing.

Midriffs, cleavage, shoulders have been named as enemies of the state. I have to say that when dropping off my kids to the high school I see kids dressed in a way that sometimes shocks me. Boys may dress like slobs but girls dress like hoochies. Short shorts are the least of the worries.

The principal states he wants kids to think of their time in school as their job. I endorse his thinking. My son will wear sweatpants to school. Now I admit I have a never ending battle with sweatpants in any public places, including my living room and I myself feel uncomfortable without a collar on my shirt. So I have issues but we are not teaching our young people to take themselves seriously. I had to make my son understand that you have to look like you are serious when you apply for a job. He said well clearly I would not wear shorts to work, I told him he needed to present himself in the best possible light.

I think one of the things I have seen from kids is a lack of understanding how much first impressions matter and even more importantly a lack of understanding that we very rarely can control when a first impression happens.

I do not know what level of success they will have at Livermore Falls. I know that I support thier effort and would myself consider going further and put in school uniform policies. I think that the way that clothes can distinguish between haves and have nots and cause stress among an already self concious group could be diminished with a uniform policy.

Would I have felt that way when I was a kid. Probably not. As an adult however I have come to understand that the truth is, more and more every year, young people including teenagers have a pretty serious deficiency in knowing what is good for them. This gets worse every year. Is it me getting older or them being left in their young persons cocoon for longer and longer. Perhaps a little of both.

I think it was Wooden who said Discipline yourself and others will not need to. Clothes require discipline too. I must end this now and get my middle son to turn his hat around the right way.

What Do You Think About Mike Vick

About a year ago a friend of mine who coaches basketball at the high school level had a fundraiser foe his program which involved buying subscriptions to ESPN magazine. It was a worthy cause so I did not expecting much from the magazine. For the last year I have been correct, it was not a great magazine, it surely was written for a younger audience. This last issue featured several articles about Micheal Vick. Vick is one of the most polarizing people in the culture today.

There are those that say he should not be allows to play football after what he did. He cannot appear anywhere without PETA protesting him. I am not a big football fan. I am not a Vick fan. I love dogs, we have two and if my wife would let me I would get more. The Mike Vick story is in some ways a showcase for what is wrong with sports, the perils of success as a young minority athlete and the ever present chasm between black and white America.

Vick raised poor in a tough, to put it gently area of Newport News, Virginia made his way out of hardship on the strength of his arm. Blessed with raw physical gifts unmatched he was good, at times great, but as time went on everything came so easy there were doubts about his work ethic.

DOgfighting and his involvement in it brought him down. It was cruel and some terribly inhumane practices took place. Vick cannot deny culpability and knowledge of what was going on. Still it is easy to see wjy black Americans think his 18 months in jail was a little extreme. I would tend to ageee that was a bit much but still a crime was committed.

I do think te PETA folks need to get a life however. Vick served his time. He deserves a chance like anyone else to start anew. He certainly received no benefits from his atletic ability in the court system and thus to me shuld not be faced with more now. I think Mike Vick has done his time. I hopemhe does not fall again. He says all the right things and has made real efforts to be a better person. I hope he succeeds. If the folks at PETA think they are doing anything to help the cause of animals by chasing vick around two years later they are sadly mistaken.

Obama the Appeaser in Chief?

I read an article on Newsweek.com yesterday by William Broyles. In it he remarks that Obama came into office with plans of being like Roosevelt, instead he counters that Obama most resembles Chamberlain. The author takes great pains to stress that he is not comparing Republicans to the Nazi's that Chamberlain had to deal with but he does feel that time and again Obama bargains from strength but does not use it, gives into Republicans in the interest of appearing Presidential and ends up losing his own party and not gaining any support from the other side.

We can recite case after case. The stimulus that was too small but had to be filibuster proof. This alone set the stage. After a momentous election where Obama won handily he did not bypass the Republicans and go the American people telling them what he wanted to do and stating why he could not. Later we had the health care debate, he gave the project to Congress and told them to come up with a plan. In the end he sold out the public option, he explained himself poorly and lost ground with everyone.

I saw an analyst on MSNBC state that Obama had drawn a line in the sand on the Debt Ceiling and then quipped the only issue was it was in the Republican tent. After stating over and over he would not do a deal without revenue increases to match any cuts but of course he gave up on that.

In short Obama is a man with apparently nothing he will fight for. During the labor struggles in the Midwest this last spring Obama stood on the sidelines. Obama's whole strategy seems to be to offend no one and disappoint everyone.

In my lifetime I have never been more disappointed in a political figure. The whole reelection strategy seems based on the Democrats have to vote for me so lets try to get a few Independents who might be turned off by an extreme Republican candidate. It is a dangerous strategy.

In the article a reference is made to Chamberlain realizing he is not up to the job and stepping down which gave us Churchill. He wishes for Obama to do the same allowing Hillary Clinton to run. Of course this will not happen but the frustration and disappointment with Obama is palpable from all sides.

Someone give him a backbone. Maybe he has Low T? We do not know but it is going to be hard to take seriously the Obama who will soon appear on the campaign trail promising to fight for us and refusing to budge. It will be very very hard to not turn away in disgust.

What is a Good Friend Worth

We all have had friends our whole life. In grade school our friends can change overnight. By the time junior high comes around often the friendships become a huge part of our lives. Sleepovers and summers spent as being inseperable become the norm.

In high school friendships can change. People go different ways. Friends become different people, interested in different things. Some go the wrong way. Still the friends you have in high school often are the friends you will remember fondly your whole life.

Some folks stay close with high school friends their entire lives. My wife has friends from high school that she still sees if not regularly at least occasionally. High school friends however can be stagnating as they see you one way and can hold you as a person you no longer are or wish to be.

College brings more friends. My wife has friends from every level of her life, she is like glue with her friends. For me while I have had great friends in life I am by nature a person with many solitary interests.

Having a friend that you can trust at anytime in your life is a treasure. Having a friend you admire is a bigger blessing. I have a friend, my best friend if you will, who I do not see as much as I would like. We used to work together. We grew up in the same town but did not have a relationship when younger though I did know his brother. Still growing up in the same place affected us both, we have the same background and same sense of moral and ethics.

We had lunch the other day having not seen each other for a couple of months. We used to have lunch together everyday and the conversation was always great. It is the same now. We talked about our problems, our concerns, politics, reiigon, sports and anything else that came about. We do not always agree he is a Republican and I am a Democrat but we can see things in the middle. Perhaps we could run the country together.

A good friend is worth his weight in gold. We all need to be careful of finding fools gold however. When you have a real gold nugget however life is good. Thanks for being my best friend.

The Iowa Straw Poll Results

It is a bit strange that part of the process to electing a President is a poll where people pay money to vote in a non binding forum six months prior to the actual election. The Republican straw poll which took place yesterday in Iowa has already served to knock former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty out of the race. Pawlenty at one time was considered a viable candidate but in a crowded field he did nothing to make himself stand out and when Michelle Bachman entered the race he became the other candidate from Minnesota.

Also Saturday and surely of more long term import Texas Governor Rick Perry declared himself a candidate for the race. Perry, brings much firepower and much baggage into the race. Michelle Bachman wins the Iowa primary but on the same day the candidate the Conservative Christians who are her base pine for, Rick Perry, jumps in the race. This is the perfect good news/bad news day for Bachman.

As expected she wins the straw poll but for most people the fact that Rick Perry is in the race puts her in the position of being an afterthought. On Friday Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe said that if Iowa let Bachman win they would again prove the irrelevance of their opening caucus. He stated that Bachman is a joke. Well the joke won on Saturday but with Perry's entry she is a joke no one will remember.

The race appears to be for all intents and purposes a two man race. A race that is clearly defined and should be a good one. Mitt Romney has amassed a huge lead in fundraising but will never inspire a grassroots movement built on enthusiasm. A pragmatic he is the best man for the job vote perhaps but not a dancing in the streets enthusiasm. Perry is the opposite. He will have a core group of followers that would be willing to knock on a thousand doors a day. Perry's problem will be in getting non conservatives and if he is successful in the primary Independents to support him in the National Election.

As I think about it Obama might be better served by a Perry nomination in getting his vote out as Perry will energize the Democratic base like Obama cannot. However Perry will energize his own base as well. Turnout will be much higher in a Perry/Obama race.

If Romney wins the base of both party will not be energized as Romney, ever dutiful will try to energize the right but fail to do so. He might win enough independents to win the election but it is unlikely his firebreathing efforts will catch hold.

In the end Romney will have enough money to withstand Perry's success in the early Conservative states. If Romney decides to go all in and stay in he should be able to withstand Perry. One might think that the longer Perry is in the race the more likely it is he will have an implosion of his own making.

Still were I to have to place a bet I would go with Perry. The darling of the Tea Party and it seems apparent that The Tea Party is driving the bus. A Perry/Obama race will be polarizing and nasty. It will be scary for both sides who would view the opposite party as winning as a scary thing.

It would however be an election of very stark differences. No McCain pretending to be a Conservative this would be a true Conservative against a solid, however getting less solid, liberal.

There is a long way to go but that is the view from this perspective for now.

Waterfront Concerts in Bangor

A big topic of conversation in the Bangor area this summer has been the Waterfront Concert Series. It is hard to know if the shows taken overall have been successful. Some of the shows have had good crowds but without knowing the cost of each individual act we are unable to assess if a profit is to be made.

A few observations can be made however. The site at times can be very nice. Last evening as My Morning Jacket played to end the Kah Bang festival the full moon offered it's blessing over the site. It was very picturesque. Most outdoor concert areas are either well away from a residential area or enclosed or remote enough not to be a bother to their neighborhoods.

We are told that next year the stage will be set up on the opposite end, thus pushing the noise away from the residential neighborhood. This might help. I think however that the noise issue is overblown. In any neighborhood you live in their may be times that events are bothersome. The Bangor Auditorium events are stresful perhaps for Buck Street residents. Those who live on Stillwater might wish that the Bangor Mall did not induce such traffic. On the West Side of Bangor many are familiar with the sound of planes at all hours of the night. When you live in a city sometimes things are not quiet. In my neighborhood we have a set of neighbors who hate dogs. we have two, and other families surround this poor couple with canines. Dogs it must be pointed out bark. We try to keep it to a minimum but it happens. Kids make noise in the yard. These things happen.

We had neighbors move in behind us this summer. Before they were in we saw a sandbox and swing set erected. My wife told me and I said we are not going to be those people who have any negative feelings about that. Not with our sons playing basketball until dark, hitting whiffle balls into the neighbors yards, and the dogs barking at dogs as they go by.

In short I think we all need to relax. Did the people who live in this neighborhood adjacent to the concert stage know that concerts would take place when they purchased thier homes. No they did not. Unlike those of us on the west side who knew their was an airport and an interstate that could be noisy or a person who purchases a home next to a park they did not have the foreknowledge of this activity. Still, any neighborhood in Bangor will at times be noisy. Complaints about children going to bed are overblown. Turning a fan on will negate 90 percent of the noise. These neighborhoods are near Main Street, noise is not a rarity. The only justifiable complaint is that perhaps it is hard to sit out on the porch or in the yard and have the same level of peace and quiet.

This is a viable complaint. However in a society such as ours at times there is the greater good. If thousands of people can enjoy an evening and lets not forget provide some revenue for the city, at the cost of a small minority's imagined tranquility being disturbed for a few nights a summer then the trade off is viable.

We have enjoyed a couple shows this year, Ray Lamontagne and Peter Wolf thus far and will be attending Bob Dylan next weekend. Last night I must confess my wife and I went downtown about ten to hear the closing set from My Morning Jacket. We were not paying members but did listen to the show. It was loud, there is no doubt. It was not crazy loud. I have a hard time believing that inside a house with some kind of background noise that this would be life affecting.

The curfew that has been imposed for noise is reasonable in the sense that is an effort made to appease a vocal minority. Still a curfew of 10:30 on weeknights is arbitrary and is serving to cut the enjoyment of the paying customers. The J Geils Band for one would have played longer and did not get to their full encore and for a festival such as Kah Bang My Morning Jacket too were rushed off the stage. The acts still get paid but again it makes our town fathers seems silly and a bit from the movie Footloose.

In short you cannot please everybody. Folks who like to complain will complain about something. The city needs to decide to embrace the concerts or not.

I am sure that on a practical level the compromise reached thus far is a good one. For my part though I think the curfew is unneccesary and limiting.

The Tea Party

After the Debt Limit talks last week came to an agreement much talk has been made in regards to the Tea Party and how successful they were in the debate. Some feel anger of the power they have held. Certainly as difficult as they have made life for Democrats they have made life tougher still for Majority Leader John Boehner.

Last November's elections made clear that for some Americans the Tea Party is the voice they want speaking for them. We can argue about how much of the vote they actually received and if those voting for them knew how extreme their agenda was but in the end they succeeded far beyond their original visions.

For me personally the Tea Party is wrong headed. However I believe that most people in the Tea Party have a strong belief in their country, want to see it strong and healthy and perhaps more than most are ready to sacrifice some benefits in their own lifetime to make these goals happen. Their message however is clouded with much finger pointing at others. This makes the tone of their message less than well received by Independents and certainly Democrats.

The larger concern however for me is that most of the efforts of the Tea Party is being financed by those that are using them to pursue their own agenda which is decidedly not in America's best interest.

Talking about cutting entitlement programs in the aim of improving the economic health of the country is a valid thought, but not when it is being financed by the Koch brothers who have one goal, that is cutting their taxes and government regulation of their actions.

In a move more deft with sleight of hand than Houdini the right wing agenda of no new taxes has been adopted by the tea party, a move that does not benefit them. This of course is no new thing for Republicans who have made a habit of using cultural issues to get people to vote against there own economic self interest.

Still one thing is clear. These folks are not going away and they are involved in the process, more involved than most. Only voter turnout can nullify the enthusiasm of the Tea Party folks and that would be turnout like we saw in 2008 with the election of Obama. With the way Obama has treated his base there is no reason to think that he will gain turnout like that again.

It is not a national election it is a series of fifty state elections. Obama needs to figure out what states in the Midwest he can get an energetic vote from or he will have a significant problem getting reelected.

Get Out of Afghanistan

Trying hard not to be an alarmist but thirty six soldiers died in Afghanistan yesterday. We have been fighting in Afghanistan for ten years and I defy anyone to show me how we have made a measurable difference. Do a few kids go to school that did not before, inevitably that might be so, but for the loss of life in American soldiers and Afghani citizens caught in the middle there is no justification for this effort.

As I have known since college you cannot impose American style government on a tribal people. We are not wanted there by a great a majority of the people. The man we have put in power is corrupt at best, criminal at worst.

The violence is escalating and if American foreign policy is going to be engulfed by politicians playing chicken with the lives of soldiers for the profit of Haliburton and other war by proxy businesses we are hurting ourselves.

Again the obvious point, if these men were not volunteers or guardsmen but draftees people would have been in the street years ago and we would have left the country years ago. We should leave tomorrow.

Enough is Enough

A Visit to Frenchboro

Over the July 4th weekend my family and I took a trip to Long Island, Maine. On Long Island, Maine you will find Frenchboro, Maine.

We traveled to Bass Harbor to join some family that was staying there for a week and took a tour boat on an island tour. After the requisite Gilligan jokes about a three hour tour we left along with about 25 other folks joining our 14 person entourage.

The day was socked in with fog which while limiting visibility offered a touch of realism to the information being shared with us about the coastal fisheries and trades including of course lobstering.

We stopped and looked at Black Island and the seals and saw the still inhabited summer colony of Great Gott Island but then went to Frenchboro, our destination. Years ago I had read a book about Frenchboro and the Lunts and much of the information our tour guide gave us was somewhat familiar.

As we arrived we stopped at what must be the marina and its restaraunt where I had, of course, a lobster roll. It was packed, it was fresh and it was delicious. After dining we had an hour or so and took a walk around the island or at least Lunts Harbor which is the inhabited part.

Realizing I would pay dearly for the walking but doing it anyway we walked a bit around town, stopping at the Historical Society where I saw the book I had read years ago.

It was a lovely day and an enjoyable one and of course we all wondered if we would like to live on an island. The romantic answer is yes but the realistic answer is it takes a unique kind of person in todays world to do so.

On the way back the sun broke through and in less than a half hour I fried my neck and nose , the sun off the ocean is a powerful thing.

As I lay at home the next day unable to walk I resolved to again look at the book I was familiar with. Called Hauling by Hand by Dean Lunt it is a history of Long Island. It is not a novel, it is more a reference book. Parts of the book are pretty dry but there are sections that shine.

Lunt who grew up on the island is close enough to the material to be genuine in his desire to tell of the specialness of his upbringing. A chapter devoted to the diaries of his great great uncles and such tells the existence of day to day in the 1800's. A chapter called Island Voices lets us hear about some of the characters that Lunt knew and came in contact with that bring in an originality to the life experience.

I come from a large family. Most of my Aunts and Uncles are deceased. They too were characters all with different stories and tales they could share. I wish that I had got more of the stories they could have told.

For most of us that are 50 and over we could probably have written a book about our forebears and ancestors. Lunt has done so and at least for me much of what he talks about rings true.

An interesting book. Worth the read. Someday drive to Bass Harbor and take the tour as well.

The Borders Paradox

Borders is closing. The news came about 10 days ago and many of the stores loyal customers are naturally quite upset. The problems with Borders are easily explainable and easily understandable. A couple of days ago when Borders increased their discounts to up to forty percent off my wife and I stopped by. Easily apparent is the problem with Borders and their business model, the prices even at this discount level are more than what one would pay with Amazon.

I consider myself a labor fellow. My daughter wanted to use the auto check out at the Shop and Save when we had just one item and we did so, but as I told her I do not like to do anything that might lead to automation and people losing their jobs.

That said it is hard for me to feel much sympathy for the Borders corporation as when they came to all the towns they now are in they destroyed the business for a great deal of small bookstores. The pattern is set. Over the last twenty years a new more successful business model has appeared very frequently, and Borders and perhaps soon to follow Barnes and Noble, are the latest victims of this.

Amazon is a company that I endorse. Their service works, it is customer friendly and their prices work. Still I do understand the feeling of loss that people who enjoy the bookstore experience feel.

If I could I would do away with the last thirty years of inventions based on the computer. I use them, but I would rid the world of them in a heartbeat.