Arguably So

2009-02-01T22:06:00.013-05:00

The Farnsworth: History or Her Story?

I found this 1950s Saturday Evening Post article in an Searsport antique store. Quite a tale. Certainly, not out of character from everything else I've read about the history of the city of rocks.

2009-02-01T12:35:00.002-05:00

Homage to the Weasel (his lordship)

2008-05-15T23:16:00.005-05:00

Concerts in Zen Part III
Coming Clean …

Phish
July 3, 1994
The Ballpark, Old Orchard Beach, Maine

Setlist

1. My Friend My Friend
2 Poor Heart
3 Down With Disease
4 Fee
5 NICU
6 Horn
7 The Old Home Place
8 Reba
9 Axilla Pt. III – David Bowie
10 Split Open and Melt
11 Lizards
12 Bouncing Around the Room
13 Its Ice
14 The Horse-Silent in the Morning
15 Julius
16 The Squirming Coil
17 Run Like An Antelope
18 Suzy Greenberg
19 Crowd
20 Fire

So, here's an interesting one. Interesting, primarily because I have long declared myself not a Phish fan. It's just one of those things – kind of inscrutable, but so obvious that I never took any effort to attempt an explanation.

With such a plain reputation for over-explaining, this has confounded some in the past. One such time involved an acquaintance from the Damariscotta era, Bittersweet Bartender Dave. Guy had one of the most unnerving, yet funny, bartender games – upon delivering of a credit card slip back to its owner, he'd say, "… got some bad news … your card was accepted." More than one close-to-his-limit cardholder turned white at such moments.

Anyway, Dave one night reached that moment that all Phish fans reach when challenged about the purported brilliance / perfection of the Vermonsters, to the effect of "What can you say about Phish … they're amazing musicians, they put on a great live show … what? In 30 words or less, tell me why you don't like Phish."

And yet, I only needed three:

"Because they suck."

Hyperbole? Perhaps. After all, they are all fine musicians, and as this post attests, I saw them live and they did, in fact, present a thoroughly enjoyable show.

But there has always been something … I don't know … creepy about Phish fans and they way they always seem to be pushing their band upon the unwilling like door-to-door missionaries pushing their religious awakening upon those unlucky enough to open their doors.

"Just listen … the vacuum cleaner solo is coming up … Trey … so amazing!"

But alas, I yield that for an Independence Day Eve, 1994, in the buggy surrounds of Inner Old Orchard Beach, Phish provided a thoroughly enjoyable evening's worth of music, fireworks, and entertainment. Two words: The Ballpark.

For Phish fans, Maine is more memorable in their band's annals for their series of summer festivals in The County, on the decommissioned Loring Air Force Base. And yet, the more discriminating fans seem to suggest that something special occurred on that summer evening at a woods-encircled swamp where I took in my first several professional baseball experience a decade earlier.

I'll refer you to blogger Chad Finn for his sharp recollection of the semi-storied history of the Maine Guides. Here's another nice Guides-centered post. For a truly disheartening photo journey through the park as it looks today, see this website.

Otis Nixon … not a Phish fan

Alas … I won't try to recount the specifics of the show, other than my recollection of the aforementioned fireworks. Here's the version offered by one fan who provided this review of the show on a site with the subheading By Phish Fans For Phish Fans:

By this time, I noticed that it was dark outside, the stadium was packed with about three thousand people, and everyone was baked. They then played Run Like an Antelope, which was a great jam, as always. In the middle of the jam, before the vocals came on, fireworks started going off outside the show, to celebrate the fourth of July, which was the next day. When a big Phish firework exploded, the audience also exploded. Everyone was going nuts, screaming, dancing, and the band was really getting into it. They closed the second set with Suzy Greenberg, which was phat because everyone sang along with the chorus, and it was like we were all linked by this music, and the band was like a transmitter to our souls.

Well, I won't go that far, but the fireworks display, seemingly in time with the rhythm of the jam, was pretty amazing. And perhaps most amazing was that I was there at all … at a much maligned Triple A baseball stadium, cum Seashore Performing Arts Center, cum municipal tax base liability for the poor folks of Old Orchards.

This was The Ballpark. A venue not 20 minutes from my boyhood home by car, and perhaps 45 by bike. The Ballpark that paid witness to my first professional baseball games in the early 1980s, where the Maine Guides for three seasons, and Maine Phillies for one, played their home games. It later served as the venue where I would collect for free in the parking lot to hear Bob Dylan and James Taylor, and where I would inexplicably pay good money to see Europe open for Def Leppard. Yeah … The Final Countdown … Pour Some Sugar on Me … the whole bit.

Europe-ean w/ Much Hair ... not a Phish fan

Portland Press Herald columnist Bill Nemitz, in 1996, offered this bit of pondering about the stadium gone wrong:

The drone from Tommy Bill's weed whacker bounced off the center field wall and echoed back to the empty grandstand Thursday morning. Then he clicked off the machine - and The Ballpark fell silent.

''I grew up just beyond those trees,'' said Tommy, pointing through a gaping hole in the left-field fence. ''I was in seventh or eighth grade when they played the first game here. And when I was in high school in 1989, I played five games here.''

Tommy's 24 now. He's young enough to remember climbing the pine trees overlooking The Ballpark's outfield to watch Maine Guides baseball for free.

But he's old enough to know that what he saw from his perch turned out to be an illusion: The jewel Sports Illustrated once dubbed ''maybe the prettiest ballpark in creation'' has decayed into the ugliest municipal mistake in Maine - if not the most costly.

While town officials spent Thursday futilely begging the Finance Authority of Maine to forgive the $ 1.4 million they still owe on The Ballpark, Tommy went about his depressing duties inside the cavernous complex: Mow the weed-infested ''turf,'' clean up after the vandals who smash the windows and smear the knotty-pine press box with lurid obscenities, and do whatever else a young man can to keep the place from falling completely apart.

''I work for Archie St. Hilaire - I'm his cousin,'' Tommy said, referring to the promoter who now pays the town $ 75,000 a year to stage concerts and other shows at the park. Last year, it was The Horde Festival and The Royal Lipizzaner Stallions; this year, it's James Taylor, Hootie and the Blowfish and, on Saturday, a dog show.

Baseball, however, is long gone. And Tommy, who spent many a sunny day jockeying for position by the chain-link fence with a ball in one hand and a pen in the other, knows it.

''After the dog show this weekend, we're going to seed the whole field with grass,'' he said, staring glumly at the muddy infield. ''That'll be it.''

How, you wonder, could such a good thing go so bad?

And yet, it was Phish that turned in the most satisfying performance I ever took in at The Ballpark, with apologies to former Maine Guides pitcher Steve Farr, who finished 1984 with a stellar 4-0 records and 2.60 ERA before an ill-fated bump up to the big club in Cleveland.

And to think that I went, essentially against my will, courtesy of a friend who paid my way, threw me into her car, and later forced me to admit that I had a good time.

They're can steer toward annoying, their fans can be insufferable, and the vacuum thing is asinine … but they don't suck, and I'll say it again – they put on a fine live show.

2008-04-23T07:34:00.000-05:00

Spring A-Ling

A real quick one today, just to keep my streak of one post per three months alive and well …

I'm really serious about putting up the next in the Concerts series … or at least, serious about getting ready to think about putting up the next one. Naw, I ain't jokin'. I'm pondering the options – likely one of the following:

• Nirvana, Live at Fitchburg State (11.12.1993);
• Phish, Live at the Ballpark, Old Orchard Beach (7.02.1993);
• Morphine– at Granny Killams (defunct Portland club) in (??.1994) and Black Cat, D.C. 4.14.1996);
• U2 Zoo TV Outside Broadcast, Foxborough (8.22.1992);
• Pearl Jam, Live at the Orpheum (4.XX.1994) or
• Bob Mould, Live at the 9:30 Club (10.10.1996)

That said, options are like … uhh, oh well, whatever, nevermind …

Yah, yah, yah … Pennsylvania comes and goes, and what we gots? Nobody knows … that includes the Christian Science Monitor, whose editorial today described the ever-dreaded "Superdelegates' Superdilemma":

Their campaign styles are telling of what kind of president each might be. For superdelegates caught on the fence of interpreting primary results, they must ask if the party wants a nominee whose tactics will carry over to the general election against Mr. McCain, then the White House, and ultimately to creating a different America.

Clinton won this primary squarely, but 68 percent of voters thought that she had "attacked unfairly." With mixed messages like that, the 300 will need Solomonic wisdom.

Meanwhile, Joe Klein writes in Time Magazine … well, wrote a bit, about a month ago, about the prospect that just won't die. Only he who sees things in Primary Colors has the gall to project a bit outside of the horserace, suggesting that perhaps "the answer to the Democratic Party's dilemma may turn out to be Al Gore:

Which brings us back to Al Gore. Pish-tosh, you say, and you're probably right. But let's play a little. Let's say the elders of the Democratic Party decide, when the primaries end, that neither Obama nor Clinton is viable. Let's also assume—and this may be a real stretch—that such elders are strong and smart enough to act. All they'd have to do would be to convince a significant fraction of their superdelegate friends, maybe fewer than 100, to announce that they were taking a pass on the first ballot at the Denver convention, which would deny the 2,025 votes necessary to Obama or Clinton. What if they then approached Gore and asked him to be the nominee, for the good of the party—and suggested that he take Obama as his running mate? Of course, Obama would have to be a party to the deal and bring his 1,900 or so delegates along.

I played out that scenario with about a dozen prominent Democrats recently, from various sectors of the party, including both Obama and Clinton partisans. Most said it was extremely unlikely ... and a pretty interesting idea. A prominent fund raiser told me, "Gore-Obama is the ticket a lot of people wanted in the first place." A congressional Democrat told me, "This could be our way out of a mess." Others suggested Gore was painfully aware of his limitations as a candidate. "I don't know that he'd be interested, even if you handed it to him," said a Gore friend. Chances are, no one will hand it to him. The Democratic Party would have to be monumentally desperate come June. And yet ... is this scenario any more preposterous than the one that gave John McCain the Republican nomination? Yes, it's silly season. But this has been an exceptionally "silly" year.

The folks at New York Magazine have taken a more cutsy tack toward the question, with a screenplay-as-article titled "Four Days in Denver." The April 9 piece, by 'West Wing' writer Lawrence O'Donnell Jr, provides a vision into an imminent "Showdown at the Democratic National Convention."

The writer ponders a Hollywood answer to the question that has become all the more bandied about among Democrats as we fall into the jetwash of Hillary's victory in Pennsylvania yesterday. Fading in and out of screenplay style, he offers mini-scenarios like:

CUT TO:
Harold Ickes hanging up the phone in his hotel suite, the Clinton delegate-counting center.

Ickes: Hey, I just got the lieutenant governor of—
Howard Wolfson: Have you seen Gore? (Grabs a remote, flips on CNN’s live coverage of Al Gore arriving at Denver airport.)
Ickes (shocked): Holy shit!
Wolfson: He’s lost, what, 30 pounds?
Ickes (still can’t believe his eyes): He looks like …
Wolfson: A fucking candidate!

CUT TO:
Al Gore passes through a hotel lobby and is swarmed by fans and delegates. The fat man from the sex scene fights his way close to Gore. A Gore aide whispers the fat man’s name to Gore.

Fat man: Hey, Al, remember me? I’m the lieutenant govern—
Gore: Hey, Pete, great to see you. Are you committed?
Fat man: Well, actually, I just said yes to Hillary, but if you throw your hat in the—
Gore: Hey, I’m just here to help any way I can.
Fat man: You look just unbelievable.

Another excerpt:

Hillary has never seen this kind of ruthlessness outside of her family. For the first time ever, the thought flashes through her mind that this guy could maybe turn out to be a good president, maybe he could stare down the Putins of the world.

Barack: When you walk out of here I’m going straight to a press conference and announce that when I get the nomination, my choice for VP will be Wesley Clark, and—
Hillary (laughs): Not gonna happen. Wes has been with my campaign from the start.
Barack (continuing): —and on the next ballot, the possible Obama-Clark ticket’s gonna get me the Arkansas delegation and another—what do you think—200 superdelegates at least?
Hillary: I’m not gonna let you have Wes for a phony unity ticket.
Barack: Too late. Michelle is meeting with him right now.
Barack’s iPhone buzzes. He checks it.
Hillary: He won’t accept anything without my—
Barack holds up the iPhone. close on text message: CLARK DEAL DONE. LUV U, M. Hillary looks pained—as much by the Clark deal as by the love in the Obama marriage. Barack gives her a moment to process the shock, then …

Barack (softly): I want you to come with me to the press conference.
Hillary: No way.
Barack: I need—
Hillary (bitterly): You don’t need me. You’ve got my biggest supporter as your VP. He’s got you covered now on foreign-policy credentials, military experience.
Barack: It’s not a unity ticket unless you say it’s a unity ticket. I want to tell the press that I asked you to be VP, you turned it down and suggested General Clark. I want to give you credit for saving the day, saving the party. I want you leaving Denver with your head held high.
Hillary: I, uh, I …

Barack: Wes has already agreed to that story.
CLOSE on Hillary, thinking about it …
Barack: I can win the nomination without you, but I can’t win the election without you. I need you, Hillary

Etc.

2008-01-10T05:58:00.000-05:00

The Long Road of Silence

I feel it appropriate to at least check in with a post, although I cannot guarantee that what follows will rise to the level of greatness that my legion of readers have come to expect.

The near-irrelevance of my last post to our current posture in this here Americanish place requires that this post either:

1) delve to the heart of everything that's happened in sport, politics, our legal landscape, and the world of fine draperies over the past six months or so, or
2) shoddily skim the tops of any or all of these great sequoia-like topics in such a cursory fashion that good taste is entirely tossed out the window.

Uhhh ... so I choose #2

One - Red Sox - Aww Yeah!

Two - Patriots - That's right! No Quarter!

Three -- Bill Richardson - shucks

Four -- Al Gore -- Anybody … Bueller???

Five -- Clarence Thomas -- guffaw!

Six -- Rudy Guiliani -- actually, no opinion, but I love this photo - symbolic of his New Hampshire campaign:

Seven -- The new Law & Order --- jury is still out

Seven and a Half -- -- The new Asst. D.A. on Law & Order - Yes please

Seven & some fraction bigger than one-half -- The old Law and Order - Whoomp there it is!

Eight -- Eight? I forgot what Eight Was For .... ohh yeah ... takin' a wide stance

Nine -- Ted Leo & The Pharmacists -- Listen Up!

Ten -- Time -- ... of the essence. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.

That's all for now. Hopefully, more substance will follow ... But don't hold your breathe

Same as it ever was.

Cheer up, son!

2007-09-13T09:58:00.000-05:00

Limited Thought Update-Variety Post

I feel the need to post something, despite my apparent blogging paralysis, so here is an article that fits within my ongoing Gore-a-phobic series.

It ran in the August issue of Vanity Fair and chronicles the lasting impact of the political media's coverage of Al Gore's 2000 Presidential run. Here's the nut, as it were:

Eight years ago, in the bastions of the "liberal media" that were supposed to love Gore — The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, CNN — he was variously described as "repellent," "delusional," a vote-rigger, a man who "lies like a rug," "Pinocchio." Eric Pooley, who covered him for Time magazine, says, "He brought out the creative-writing student in so many reporters.… Everybody kind of let loose on the guy."

How did this happen? Was the right-wing attack machine so effective that it overwhelmed all competing messages? Was Gore's communications team outrageously inept? Were the liberal elite bending over backward to prove they weren't so liberal?

Eight years later, journalists, at the prompting of Vanity Fair, are engaging in some self-examination over how they treated Gore. As for Gore himself, for the first time, in this article, he talks about the 2000 campaign and the effect the press had on him and the election. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that my father, Martin Peretz, was his teacher at Harvard and is an ardent, vocal Gore backer. I contributed to his campaign in February 1999. Before reporting this article, however, I'd had maybe two passing exchanges with Gore in my life.) Gore wasn't eager to talk about this. He doesn't blame the media for his loss in 2000. Yet he does believe that his words were distorted and that certain major reporters and outlets were often unfair.

A little late, I'd say ... but if this analysis keeps the Gore in 2008 fires burning, then I'll nod in approval.

If nothing else, it's also worth linking to this piece because it provides a nice sidebar link to a photo spread featuring the caratin-deficient, yet ever-lovely Nicole Kidman.

Ever-lovely, despite paleness

2007-08-07T01:34:00.002-05:00

MtTomPhoto photo

Concerts in Zen. Pt II
Rustic Overtones

at the Maine Lobster Festival

Many thanks in advance to the following Flickr photographers for the use of their great Rustic pix:
MtTomPhoto
William Thibault
Justin Russell
Kimberly Nicol Natural Focus

Perhaps this ought to be listed with some kind of an asterisk … or three. I provide it mostly because:
1. I was able to walk to and fro the event,
2. it was the first outdoor music venue I've attended that was within view of the shoreline,
3. it represented a serious break from the typical musical act booked to play the CrustaceanFest, and
4. Canada Mike was good enough to capture a good chunk of the show on video.

Without further ado …

Rustic Overtones – Rockland, Maine – Maine Lobster Festival – August 1, 2007

Try to let that one sink in a bit. Fresh off a reportedly explosive first swing of reunion shows in and around Portland, the funky-fresh, four-man horn-sectioned, and biggest pop cultural phenomenon thing, like … ever to come out of Portland either since Henry W. Longfeller or Judd Nelson braved the Wiscasset bridge in August in order to bear their musical souls for the people of Knox County.

Don't get me wrong. The Lobster Festival is surely a big draw, as the Knox Co Village Soup reports. But, as this story notes, the headliner of the festival was some country singer named Terri Clark, while this one is a bit more representative of what is considered news at Bug A Go-Go.

Well, lightning didn't impede the Rustic septet from getting ridiculous before a pretty inspired crowd assembled in Rockland's Harbor Park. The band played through a set that seems to have primarily focused on newer songs, excluding the act's most familiar tracks "Simple Song" and "Check" in favor of others apparently designed to highlight the newly-added strings section … err … violinist. So, while I registered some measure of disappointment over not being able to play sing-along with the "… you ain't got funk …" business, there was little with which anyone attending had any legitimate right to be disappointed. Quite simply – they are a great band to see live, wherever and whenever.

I've had a hard time finding review-type press of the event, but I'll refer you to a "my so-called life …" type blog entry by "Entity" here. She notes

:… Afterward when Maggie and I were trying to find Leila and Issac, (I was very wound up, hot, a little tipsy, and very very dehydrated) I was yelling "I can't believe it was Rustic and none of the fucktards were dancing! No one even knows who they are! No one appreciates awesomeness of this night! All these fucking idiots think they're soooo cool, but they weren't even dancing!"

Well, Entity, I hear you knocking, and I hopefully you kept right on a-dancin' anyway, fucktards-be-damned.

Thankfully, Canada Mike was good enough to play cameraman for the show, which I present to you here. Thanks Mickey:

http://vimeo.com/260879 from Mike and Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/260879 from Mike and Vimeo.

If the video above doesn't open, here's a direct link to Canada Mike's fine filmography. The shots that include the ferris wheel in the background are wild ... like, mad wild. But I'll have to talk with your soundman ... "Kris" ... tell her she's fired.

For those of you who have never lived within the 207 area code, Rustic Overtones were pretty much the biggest act to come out of Portland during the grunge and post-grunge eras. They were reportedly "this close" to following through with a big label record deal before circumstances supposedly converged to prevent things from fully materializing. The band's wikipedia page notes:

After the release of their 1998 album Rooms by the Hour, major record label Arista expressed interest in signing the group, much to the excitement of fans and the band members. Arista produced a one-million dollar record deal with the band, opening the door for the one chance at the big times the band had always been waiting for. However, after hearing the new, heavier, grittier material that the band had been working on, Arista was not pleased and eventually pulled out of the deal, leaving the Rustic Overtones without a record label. According to the band, the label sent back a demo tape of Rustic Overtones material dubbed over with keyboard bass parts and fake drums, and notifying the band that they would release the album only if it included the changes made. They were shortly afterwards picked up by Tommy Boy, and released Viva Nueva! in 2001. However, Tommy Boy dissolved shortly after the release of the album, once again leaving the Overtones without a record label. The disappointment of two major record deals falling through proved too much for the band members, and they went their separate ways in 2002. Their "final" preformance was a three-hour show at the State Theater on May 11th, 2002. … The Rustic Overtones remain arguably the most successful band to come out of Portland, Maine.

More pointedly, BDN artsblogger Emily Burnham observes that:

Unless you lived under a rock in the late ’90s and early part of this century, if you’re from Maine, you knew about Rustic. Quite possibly, you saw the band live, since it played all over the state. At one point, it was arguably the biggest band in the 207.

The 2002 State Theatre show is available for free and fully sanctioned download at Archive dot org. I must express some hesitation about posting the songs that follow, as I recall that the pages for this show used to feature requests by the poster not to share MP3s converted from the shorten files he posted. However, that warning no longer appears to be in effect, and the band now seems to encourage such sharing. To all who might be affected, please alert me if I have this wrong and I will immediately take the MP3s off this page with all appropriate apologies, etc.

That said …

I highly recommend what one bandmate dubbed "the anthem," Simple Song, as well as Check, which received a fair bit of WCYY airplay back in the band's heyday, and the extended jam of Smoke featuring some great farewell shout-out raps from several pals from a handful of other Portland acts.

Also, check this this fansite Rock Like War and this one too for more current band info. Rock Like War has all kinds of goodies at its media thread if you're a serious fan or a budding fan, so check it out. Finally, linkage-wise, here's a link to the band's Myspace page, which provides a few tracks from throughout the career.

If you're up to the downloading, also check out this show from 1999 at Stonecoast Brewing Co - a sadly defunct Portland venue that burned out before it faded away or something. I could link to some Press Herald story describing it's implosion but really, what's the point. The version of Huey Lewis & Das Zeit's '80s hit I Want a New Drug is a fine cover that warrants some listening. Do it.

So … what's all this about the Rustic Overtones playing at the Lobster Festival? Well, I'll tell ya. In the interests of full disclosure, I wasn't really on the Rustic bandwagon when they first ruled Portland. I sorta maintained a healthy distance from the G Love & Special Sauce-styled funk/rap with horns, occasionally careening into the ska-core world representing a kinder and gentler Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Plus, I was in the full throes of indie rock snobbery and couldn't yield any hint of interest in something as obviously fun as what Rustic was putting out. Yet, I couldn't help but get into their act when I was finally prodded into seeing them live.

The dumbest thing is that I can't tell you exactly when it was that I finally saw them. I'm pretty sure it was at Stonecoast in, probably, 1996, but who knows? I know it was fun and that when I returned to Maine from a spell away from my beloved home state, they were no mas.

While I'll not likely hold my breathe for a return visit to the Greater Rockland region in the near future, I do hope this find local band makes an honest go of it this second time around. Based on the impression left with the local 15-25 year olds who were smart enough to be down front while the Rustic Overtones blasted their guitars and horns across the harborfront, I think the waters might be right for the ride.

2007-07-19T17:34:00.000-05:00

The Spaceman Cometh to Waterville

Former Red Sox pitching great, or at least, pitching pretty good, Bill "Spaceman" Lee appeared in Waterville last night for the premier of a new movie about his life. This photo and two articles appeared in the Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal today, recounting the event. Here's the tag line from the staff photographer Jeff Pouland's pic:

SOX APPEAL: Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Bill ``Spaceman'' Lee acknowledges the crowd after arriving at the Waterville Opera House for the showing of his film ``High & Outside'' on Wednesday evening. His film is part of the Maine International Film Festival.

Some key excerpts of his comments from the Q&A, per the MS article:

Bill Lee is standing in front of the stage at the Waterville Opera House, signing autographs, when a fan brings up the fight.

Yankee Stadium, 1976. Before Pedro dropped Zimmer in the 2003 American League Championship Series and Jason Varitek made A-Rod eat his catcher's mitt in 2004, this was the brawl by which all Boston Red Sox and New York Yankee brawls were measured.

"I'll show you something. Watch this," Lee says to the fan as he reaches into his wallet. Out comes the Graig Nettles card. The Yankee who punched Lee in the fight that ended with Lee hobbling off the field with a separated left shoulder. His throwing shoulder.

"I'll have Graig Nettles right against my (butt) for eternity," Lee says, laughing.

Lee was in Waterville for the world premiere of the documentary "High And Outside." The film chronicles Lee's career in baseball, including his run-ins with management in Boston and Montreal, his social commentaries, as well as his life in Craftsbury, Vt.

...

On Don Zimmer ending up as a coach with the Yankees: "You know why (Zimmer) got that job? Because he threw the '78 season. I'm No. 3 lifetime winning percentage against the Yankees. We lost nine straight games to the Yankees ... I did not pitch," Lee says. "Bobby Sprowl (pitched). How many games did Bobby Sprowl win in the big leagues folks? Zero."

On Manny Ramirez: "I've watched (Ramirez) approach the game. He does not think. A guy comes up to me, 'I know my problem.' That's your problem. Don't think Tiger, you'll hurt the ballclub."

Right on, just as usual.

2007-07-17T07:13:00.000-05:00

photo courtesy of Bryan Whitson

Concerts in Zen series, pt. I
Fugazi – Three Times Live

I've been milling about how to begin this series, wondering if I should place some significance upon the first live show I recount in blog form. Such milling is the stuff of delay, which is partly why it's taken me three weeks to get this far. I figured I'd take the first one on the list of songs I've been able to assemble, with implied permission from the artists.

I've seen Fugazi three times in three very different venues. And, for the sake of history, I'll reference with an "honorable mention" a fourth show that I should have seen except I was too stupid to realize what I was missing in 1993. The shows were:

USM Sullivan Gym, Portland, Maine, April 8, 1995
Malcolm X (Meridian Hills) Park, Washington D.C., September 29, 1996
The Asylum, Portland, Maine, July 27, 1998
and
The Fore St. Warehouse, Portland, Maine, September 14, 1993 (Hon. Mention)

By way of background, Fugazi is/was Ian MacKaye on vocals and guitar, Guy Picciotto similarly on vocals and guitar; Joe Lally on bass; and Brendan Canty on drums. I say "was" because MacKaye has apparently thrown his energy into touring as half of a duo called The Evens.

The Evens performed at at Space in Portland last month. BDN Blog Artist Emily B chatted up the Evens show >here.

photo courtesy of Bryan Whitson

But I digress …

I'll spare you any spin on the Minor Threat-Fugazi-Evens lineage, as I suspect that I cannot say anything that isn't posted on either this official the Dischord band page or World of Fugazi, a pretty complete fan page.

It should suffice to say that Fugazi is a high-energy punkish quartet from Washington D.C. that formed out of the detritus of MacKaye's 1980s hardcore punk troupe, Minor Threat. Emily B aptly labels MacKaye's music, evolving from Minor Threat through Fugazi, as "socially conscious and full of righteous anger."

This all manifested as DIY/ do it yerselph, which is only now such a junky phrase because of its hugeness more than a decade ago. The idea that artists could control their own creative license, protect their own musical freedom and property interests merely required them to run their own labels. Enter Dischord Records, which along withSST Records and Sub-Pop, spearheaded the Indie Label movement that pushed so many now-legendary acts out of obscurity and into the pop landscape.

photo courtesy of Steven W

Or something …

So Fugazi exercised this DIY mantra partly by holding to a policy of pricing concert tickets and CDs as low as would still permit a fair dividend for the band and critical support folks. I believe I paid $5 for tickets to both of the paid shows noted, and recall paying $10 at Bull Moose for both
Repeater Plus 3 songs and
13 Songs, many moons ago. I mean, why buy used?

And, as for their live performances, I'll refer you to this description offered by some English guy:

For those of you not familiar with the Fugazi live ethos – I shall briefly fill you in: Fugazi never use a setlist – having over 90 songs to their repertoire, they feed off the vibe of the crowd, playing which songs fit the moment. Second guitarist/singer, Guy Picciotto has a condition known as Red Mist Syndrome causing the sufferer to get lost in the music, throwing themselves around uncontrollably as if possessed – quite a spectacle I should imagine. Fugazi believe that everyone should enjoy the show equally, so woe betide anyone who crowd-surfs/moshes/stage-dives. Ian MacKaye (singer/guitarist) has been known to hike offenders out the audience and make them apologise to the crowd. I find this somewhat refreshing as I hate nothing more than when I'm trying to watch a band, a Size 11 DM boot comes crashing into the back of my head from some fat bastard who thought it would be a good idea to see if people could support his weight …

photo courtesy of Steven W

Discord has commercially released several Fugazi's performances for purchase through Fugazi Live Series. Check it out. I think I might pick up one of the Fort Reno Park shows, as those seem more likely to be like the Malcolm X park performance than anything else I can find. Sure, there's none of the strange irony underlying the remarks by the NORML activists who got to play promoters for the day, but no matter …

First: the NORML show ….

I found scant archival internet information about this show … or at least, consistent information. I note the contradiction that first struck me when I read about the upcoming free benefit performance in the newspaper. The notoriously straight edge MacKaye and Co. signed on to play a summertime Saturday afternoon set in support of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, in its "Rally to End the Drug War." And that's how I remembered it, as memorialized here:

NOTICE: THERE WILL BE A "RALLY TO END THE DRUG WAR" IN WASHINGTON D.C. AT MERIDIAN HILL PARK THIS SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, AT 2 P.M. SPEAKERS FROM THE DRUG POLICY FOUNDATION (DPF), AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION (ACLU), AND OTHER REFORM ORGANIZATIONS ARE SCHEDULED TO ATTEND. MUSICAL ACT FUGAZI WILL BE ON HAND TO PERFORM. PLEASE CONTACT (703) 276-9768 FOR MORE INFORMATION.

And yet, most band archives of the performance list the show as a "Welfare Bill Protest." Hmmm … sounds like a straight-edge, revisionist historian plot to me.

Good thing the city's paper of record don't lie. From:

The Washington Post
September 27, 1996, Friday
THE CIRCUIT
By Eric Brace
….
Fugazi puts their muscle where their morals are with a concert Sunday at 2 at Malcolm X/Meridian Hill Park. They're the musical part of a "Rally to End the Drug War" that also features speakers from the ACLU, the Coalition to End Gun Violence and other groups (703/276-9768).

It was a decent show … especially considering the price and the brilliant experience of seeing a band you love, outdoors, in a city park just a short jaunt from a subway stop. So urban. So progressive. The only songs that stand out in memory are Facet Squared and Smallpox Champion, both of which from the 1993 In on the Kill Taker CD.

I have no recordings to share from the NORML show, but I found an outdoor, live version of Song Number One, recorded at Washington D.C.'s Fort Reno Park, on July 1, 2002. More information and songs from the 2002 Fort Reno Park show can be accessed here.

Regarding the Portland shows …

Of the three shows, I only found a review of the USM Portland Gym show. I looked for more through the CBW and Portland Press Herald archives, but found nothing more than a passing reference to the 1998 Asylum show. However, the June 1995 review/interview was published in the now-defunct online music site Addicted to Noise. It includes some nice bits, such as:

It is a moon-lit night in Portland, Maine, on 9 April 1995. The doors to the University of Southern Maine gym, where Fugazi is set to play, are still locked. A huge crowd spreads out into the parking lot, spilling over onto the grass. The full moon above casts moving shadows of masses of expectant people over the ground.

Inside the gym, a few people milling about. It is quiet. The proverbial eye of the tornado. Soon this room will be full of over fifteen hundred fans; the walls and floors will literally be quaking to the sound of Fugazi.

If the spirit of rock & roll still lives, breathes, and kicks ass, it definitely rides shotgun with Fugazi. A live show by Fugazi is an emotionally powerful, hard-core tour de force; and the audience, who crowd up against the stage once they are let in, know it. And then they are there, taking over the stage the stage, exploding into their set with remarkable fervor and power. The electricity courses through the air. I experience the impact first hand from inside the line of a roll of crepe paper that stretches from each side of the stacks to the wall and serves as an extemporaneous crowd barrier, a reminder to the fans to leave a little air between themselves and the stage.

And note this interview excerpt, which references the 1993 Fore Street Warehouse show, which I was too ig'nint to attend:

Ian MacKaye: Maine is a very fucking extreme place man. These kids are just amped. It makes me nervous because the stage is not very stable, the stacks definitely aren't very stable. The stage can move back like 10 feet so. I'm a little nervous about that. Last time we were here we had problems with some particular thugs. Well, the kids don't look very thuggish this time.

I don't know if you were at that warehouse gig [Fugazi's last performance in the area, about a year ago, at the Warehouse].
ATN: No. I know it was out near the Eastern promenade. You sold that show out.
…
MacKaye: I don't remember [if we sold out that show]; it was a lot of people. …

Well, neither do I … 'cause I wasn't there. Naw, I ain't angry. Just sad. Luckily, I did settle in for the booby prize two years later, catching them on in a gym on my little heralded college Portland campus – a gym so small and unadorned that the college's division III basketball teams don't even play there. Didn't way back then, either. The fact that some booking agent thought this sweat-stunk dungeon was the best place to display these acts defies logic … much like everything else happening in Portland in the mid-90s.

So then, the music …

I haven't acquired any recordings from the USM Gym show in 1995, but this version of Facet Squared was recorded at NYC's Irving Plaza four days earlier on April 5, 1995. For more on the Irving Plaza show, see here.

Nor I have anything that commemorates the setlist from the Asylum snow. This version of Repeater at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia, recorded on May 3, 1997, is pretty strong, though. For more on the Philly show, see here.

I do recall from the Asylum show a driving version of Merchandise (not that there is such a thing as a limp version of that song). Yet, it stands out in part because I underwent the humbling experience of realizing that the lyric is "You are not what you owe," rather than "You are not what you own …." This isn't the most egregious example of the "Excuse me while I kiss this guy" phenomenon, as described. here, but as humbling as the realization that I shared with my buddy Andy (in green) that we were about 10 years older than anyone else moshing around in front of the stage …

That is, anyone other than Ian and Co.

2007-06-22T23:22:00.000-05:00

Music History 101

I think it's as good a time as any to break from the politics and other nonsense that I've so far used this blog space to spew forth.

I'll tread into background on another day, but for now, it will suffice to say that live music played a pretty important role in my life for many moons. I saw many great bands at many great venues, mostly during the mid 1990s, and those experiences many pretty seminal despite my burgeoning elderhood.

The Cumberland County Civic Center: A not-so-great venue

So, I've discovered that this, here, internet thing provides many venues through which a person situated such as I am can locate folks who own recorded copies of many of the shows that I attended. Most of these sites appear to be sanctioned by the artists themselves, including the Live Music Archive and the ETREE traders database.

D.C.'s The 9:30 Club: A Great Venue

The former provided a window through which I have been able to acquire some fine live music a la mp3, but a mite bit of which came from the list of shows I actually attended. And many of those few were Grateful Dead shows, which sorta cuts into any attempt to broaden the horizons. Roll away … the dew, if you will ….

So, for whatever it's worth, I plan to recall many of the shows I have attended, and where possible, provide some kind of media to paint some colors that might better describe the event than any words might do.

Bear with me. I'll try to get the first concert-specific post up soon.

The Orpheum Theatre: A Great Venue

Yes, indeed.

Oxford Plains Speedway: based on GD fans and metal/Monsters of Rock fans, circa' 88 reports – not a Great venue.

2007-06-12T18:16:00.000-05:00

Good News Tuesday

Jiminney Christmas ... this story makes you feel all warm and cozy about things, doesn't it?

The Portland Press Herald reported today about a report issued by the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine that documents the wealth of fine chemicals we Mainers are able to accumulate merely by frolicking within our state's natural splendor:

On paper, the high school senior, the Republican state senator and the operating room nurse appear to have little in common.
But test their hair, urine and blood, and a potentially toxic bond begins to emerge, according to a study of 13 Mainers being released today.
All harbor a surprising array of chemicals from household and personal care products that may seem innocuous but could have the capacity to cause problems such as cancer and damage to the reproductive system, says the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine, a coalition of organizations concerned about the environment.
"People in Maine are not immune to chemical exposures even though we think we have a pristine and healthy environment," said Dr. Rick Donahue, a visiting scientist with the Harvard School of Public Health who collaborated with the University of Southern Maine on the study.
The study stresses that toxins are everywhere, from the televisions we watch to the shampoo we use to the foods we eat. Donahue said two participants with the highest levels of mercury, a neurotoxin that builds up in fish, were regular sushi eaters. The person with the most arsenic had built a garden using pressure-treated wood, which leached arsenic into the soil.

The Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine is a coalition of other organizations including the Natural Resources Council of Maine, which posted a press release about the study here.

In a related story, The Onion reports that "Seven-Year-Old Enjoys Fun Toxic-Spill Evacuation":

Lucky second-grader Donny White, 7, enjoyed the thrill of a lifetime Monday, when a full-scale emergency evacuation of his small southern Ohio town was ordered following what EPA officials are calling one of the most disastrous toxic-chemical spills in U.S. history.

White, who reportedly giggled and clapped his hands with glee during his big adventure, was relocated along with 15,000 other Pleasant residents after a transport train derailed while pulling into the loading dock of a Global Tetrahedron chemical plant near the town's perimeter, colliding with the facility. The impact ruptured three of the building's five massive storage tanks, releasing an estimated 3.5 million cubic feet of concentrated Zardozichlorate-3 gas into the surrounding countryside.

"It was so fun!" the wide-eyed White said of his potentially fatal exposure to the toxic substance, which killed nearly $200 million in crops and livestock in a 20-mile-wide area downwind of the accident site. "We got to get out of school, and there was helicopters, and then we got to ride in an Army truck to go see Mommy and Daddy!"

Quoth Mr. Reed: "And the colored girls sing...

2007-06-04T17:40:00.000-05:00

Being Tempted

Bear with me here. This might be a slipshod re-entry into the blogosphere, but I need to put something up here. For America, and for common decency. Especially, as it appears that the Al Gore train is moving again, despite the former vice president's assertions to the contrary.

So, it's June 2007 – nearly a year before the two major parties will formally announce their standard bearers for the 2008 Presidential election. Nonetheless, the news coverage of New Hampshire debates and candidacy travails would have the casual observer think that the general election will take place in five months, rather than 17.

And yet, one looming story remains so vitrious that the horse race commentators will not formally annoit a frontrunner – either for the Democrats alone, or between the two parties.

Time Magazine, whose website I too-often forget to check, captured whatever the few solid points that exist for this story in its May 16 cover story titled, "The Last Temptation of Al Gore."

The story carries on for many pages, but the basic theme is erected upon the foundation so obvious to anyone who might be reading that it's almost not worth reading. Rolling Stone published the same story in January here, under the less guised headline Why Al Gore Should run and How He Can Win. Even still, play along with me and the Time reporter anyway:

Let's say you were dreaming up the perfect stealth candidate for 2008, a Democrat who could step into the presidential race when the party confronts its inevitable doubts about the front-runners. You would want a candidate with the grassroots appeal of Barack Obama—someone with a message that transcends politics, someone who spoke out loud and clear and early against the war in Iraq. But you would also want a candidate with the operational toughness of Hillary Clinton—someone with experience and credibility on the world stage.

In other words, you would want someone like Al Gore—the improbably charismatic, Academy Award–winning, Nobel Prize–nominated environmental prophet with an army of followers and huge reserves of political and cultural capital at his command. There's only one problem. The former Vice President just doesn't seem interested. He says he has "fallen out of love with politics," which is shorthand for both his general disgust with the process and the pain he still feels over the hard blow of the 2000 election, when he became only the fourth man in U.S. history to win the popular vote but lose a presidential election. In the face of wrenching disappointment, he showed enormous discipline—waking up every day knowing he came so close, believing the Supreme Court was dead wrong to shut down the Florida recount but never talking about it publicly because he didn't want Americans to lose faith in their system. That changes a man forever.

And yet, the Time reporter does pinpoint the one piece of news that keeps the Gore candidacy story current today, in June 2007. The former veep has published a book
entitled "The Assault on Reason." The New York Times has a review here. The Times' piece observes of the book:

But Mr. Gore writes not just as a former vice president and the man who won the popular vote in the 2000 election, but also as a possible future candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 race for the White House, and the vehemence of his language and his arguments make statements about the Bush administration by already announced candidates like Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton seem polite and mild-mannered in contrast.

The tenor of the discussion would suggest that a Gore candidacy is inevitable and, generally speaking, welcomed with exuberance. First, Mr. Gore remains front and center in the limelight of the "global" global warming conversation, playing a latter day Bob Geldof for the Live Earth benefit concerts scheduled for July 7.

Washington Post's Eugene Robinson seems to agree, if by means of veiled and backhanded support. He urges voters to "go out and get ourselves the smartest president we can find. We need a brainiac president, a regular Mister or Miss Smarty-Pants. We need to elect the kid you hated in high school, the teacher's pet with perfect grades."

And in his absence, several websites, led by two –
Draft Gore and Al Gore 2008 – are soliciting support for his candidacy in spite of his apparent reluctance to declare for 2008.

The inevitability, moreover, seems supported by history. I've long thought that a Gore ascendancy would mirror the rebound of Richard Nixon in 1968, but some are beginning to hint to another historical analogy – including, perhaps, the former veep in his book himself. At least, that's according to the Time reporter's view:

Gore often compares the climate crisis to the gathering storm of fascism in the 1930s, and he quotes Winston Churchill's warning that "the era of procrastination" is giving way to "a period of consequences." To his followers, Gore is Churchill—the leader who sounds the alarm. And if no declared candidate steps up to lead on this issue, many of them believe he will have a "moral obligation"—you hear the phrase over and over—to jump in.

By my read, the logical comparison need not be made to a former leader of another country, but to the American who stepped up against the Fascist tide.

Today won't be another backrub for historian Stephen Skowronek, such as which I was guilty here and
here.

But I get the sense that a President Gore from 2008-2016 could be another FDR. There I said it. More pressingly, if he doesn't get the Democratic nod, the GOP will win with its version of Jimmy Carter – a loosely affiliated party member who generally takes stands that oppose the mainstream of his party but who can take the November contest by virtue of his promises to tinker with the failing mechanisms of his own party. For what it's worth, a recent poll indicates that Gore beats the Republican Jimmy Carter in a heads-up contest:

Former Vice President Al Gore, who has not declared his candidacy for the 2008 presidential nomination, runs better in Pennsylvania than any Democrat against the Republican front runner, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Gore has 45 percent to Giuliani's 44 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Giuliani leads New York Sen. Hillary Clinton 47 - 43 percent and tops Illinois Sen. Barack Obama 45 - 40 percent, the independent Quinnipiac University poll finds.

So there you have it – it's either draft Gore, and usher in the next wave of American Constitutional ascendancy, or get stuck with Guiliani or McCain and their descent into the abyss of trying to revive Reagan-Bush New Federalism as it goes into cardiac arrest.

Seems like an easy enough choice by my read.

2007-04-10T07:00:00.000-05:00

Revenge Served Jersey-style (over easy)

The Washington Post ran this guest column by former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman on Monday, in response to the Supreme Court's ruling in EPA v Massachusetts.

The Whitman column, as a gesture, should be read as a particularly tasty slap at the Bush White House for its scorn-worthy global warming policies since the 2000 inauguration. Whitman resigned from the post in 2003 after Bush politicos forced EPA to remove all global warming references from the agency's regulatory agenda for , as Whitman related in her 2004 book, Its My Party Too. She spoke with NPR's Terry Gross about the book in 2005. Audio is available here. For the nerdiest among you, there is this January 2007 article in Foreign Policy, titled "Seven Questions: Christine Todd Whitman on Global Warming."

Sadly, she backs away from the more forthright stance she maintained in her book, offering:

Back when he was governor of Texas, President Bush enacted mandatory caps on carbon emissions in his state. During the 2000 presidential campaign, he promised to regulate carbon emissions nationwide. Shortly after taking office, though, he backed away from that pledge. There were good domestic reasons at the time, but those reasons are no longer valid.

Calling Big Oil and Karl Rove's … err, I mean Bush's motivations for backing away from his campaign pledge to regulate CO2 "good policy reasons" is a poor joke and a cynical political statement. The record indicates that Bush's people recognized that CO2 regulation would be an inevitability, but to help the pollution lobby maximize the value of its investments in unclean industrial technology, the few extra years without such regulation would pay-off amply. Such has been the case. Now, Gov. Whitman wants to praise Duke Energy and its ilk for expressing a willingness to come around.

A few years too late, if you ask me.

In Related News …

A trial started today in Burlington, Vermont, in the first dispute following EPA v. Massachusetts addressing whether states are preempted by the federal government from regulating carbon dioxide emissions from cars.
Here's another story looking at the link between the state and federal cases, while here's another that looks at Vermont's rule from the carmaker point of view. Another NY Times article, here, looks at the serendipitously-timed New York International Auto Show. It notes, optimistically, that:

No matter what is instituted, however, carmakers are getting the message that fuel economy is going to go up as part of the fight against global warming, even if government action is still several years away.

Given that, carmakers said at the New York show that they want to be included in the dialogue, not shunted aside because of their past resistance.

“We very much want to work with Congress,” said Derrick M. Kuzak, group vice president for global product development at the Ford Motor Company, echoing the official stance of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an industry trade group.

Mr. Kuzak went on, “We recognize that CO2 is an issue and we want to be part of the solution, but it has to be technology-based, and affordable.”

We'll see, I guess.

2007-04-09T22:09:00.000-05:00

April Fool Me No More, Senor Vivaldi

I'm waiting for the Four Seasons to crack into everybody's favorite – La Primavera ... Allegro even. But for some reason, the record is skipping, and we're stuck with this long, not so lively piece about the drudgery of winter. Allegro non molto is right.

This sucks. It's mid-April, and snow from last weeks storm remains, crusty and thick. I remain steadfast in my vow not to shovel again this season, presenting a bit of a challenge for my newspaper deliverer and mailman.

Spring is hardly Maine's finest season, as this BDN columnist observes. From the frost heaves, to the mud, to the black flies, spring in Maine takes a certain resilience and creativity of spirit to be bearable. What's the alternative? Rughooking in Rumford?

The only slam dunks are maple syrup and baseball. This April continues to be lean on both. A tree-tapping friend of mine told me his taps have largely frozen to a standstill.

As for baseball, the Portland SeaDogs' opening day was reportedly a success despite the snow and cold, perhaps inspired by fans throughout the country who endured truly ridiculous weather to catch a game this week – from Cleveland to Texas.

Apparently, the local high school athletes won't be so lucky to have guys melt the snow on their fields. They face pretty grim short term prospects, according to Rockland Village Soup. With the regular season for softball and baseball scheduled for next week, teams will have missed the entire preseason and will likely miss a game or two off the top.

At least we have Dice K. Kinecheewaaa!!!!

At this point, I'll take ankle deep mud in a heartbeat. It's time to get out of the house and onto the trails – mud and blackflies be damned.

2007-04-02T22:33:00.000-05:00

Haitus Interruptus

Hear ye, hear ye ...

In case you've been monitoring the level of inaction on this site (and odds are, you haven't), you'd notice it's err ... high.

Newborn child has brought much joy and taken most spare energy & time. But these are excuses and we all know plenty about their worth.

However, I have to chime in with at least a token mention of this bit of news.

The topic was central to this blog's creation, so I'd be negligent to ... umm ... neglect it. Done it before here, here, here (I liked this one ... perhaps the moment my HTML jumped the shark ... or my Waterloo ... pick your cliche), and here (scroll down).

So, it's fair to say, I'm pleased with the result. I guess now we'll see what this kind of decision can force the Bushies to do. At the very least, it's a kick in the pants of Congress to enact something that forces W's hand. No longer can the august body declare any kind of ambiguity about whether or not CO2 is legally speaking, a pollutant. Hmmm. And the beat goes on ...

Hooray!

2007-02-06T20:40:00.000-05:00

Ridin' Down the Hill
and Flirtin' With Disaster

Let me begin with a nod of respect to fine work hithertofore assembled by the wise and wonderful weasel. Weasel and three other fine local boys, allegedly including your humble narrator, participated in last weekend's National Toboggan Championships at the Camden Snow Bowl.

Here's a bit Channel 6 put together about the event. Here's the local Village Soup coverage.

I took some time out during our focused preparation to snap a few pictures that might supplement the chronicle assembled by Weasel. Hopefully, between the two, the public can begin to understand the wild and wooly escapade endured by the local team, the Allen's Coffee Dandies.

For what it's worth, as Weasel noted here earlier, we did not secure the sponsorship we so coveted. We figured - it's already the official beverage of Oxford Plains Speedway -- why not annoit our team the honorary mascots of Maines Deadliest Drug, as it were? Presumably, our performance merely vindicates that decision by the folk who bring you Maine's top selling liquor. Maybe next year ... Fat Ass in a Glass, indeed.

Anyway, here is the action as it went off on Day 2:

Tobogganeers gather around the scoreboard to compare their times from Day One.

Canada Mike and Weasel argue the merits of the many available (read: broken or flawed) toboggans made available by the fine folks at Camden Snow Bowl.

The Long Road to the Top, as taken by Canada Mike and the Weasel

Da Chute ....

Pirate Brian and Canada Mike apply a thick layer of Pledge ™ to the bottom of our borrowed sled. In short, it didn't work.

The Pirate and The Pledge™

Some other team heads toward pay dirt ... or pay ice, I guess.

That's me with team mascot, Fluffy, getting a feel for the conditions.

The Weasel, reflecting on toboggan glory past and entertaining various strategies for 2008.

Epilogue:

I think we've emerged from the "exhibition division" in fine form, despite barely cracking the 9.10 threshold. With a better sled, these poor carpenters hope to craft their way to a better finish in 2008. Take that junk to Vegas. You have been forewarned.

2007-01-27T00:05:00.000-05:00

It's Frickin' Cold Out There

The Associated Press sticks its neck out on this one. I guess it hit minus-teens in the County, but I have no reservation complaining about the single-digit negative readings we're seeing around Penobscot Bay. In shortest terms available, as this site notes., it's "(-1)" and "feels like (-20)."

The Village Soup's Holly Anderson helps us out with the details and some nice frost photos.

When I defrost, maybe I'll post something about the Brent Pitcher trial, and perhaps some commentary on why this story is a fine piece of trial coverage, and why the reporting and writing quality of this story causes me to rethink the value of my subscription to the Courier-Gazette.

We'll see.

2007-01-19T18:00:00.000-05:00

Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

Before I proceed with a more traditional sports event-related post, let me begin by marking for posterity the following back-and-forth I enjoyed with a good friend of mine who is probably the most ardent Colts fan I had the pleasure to know during my tenure in Indianapolis. Call him BigSlick.

He sent along an article appearing at CBS Sportsline dot com, that … well … disparages the character of a particular NFL Quarterback while trumpeting the supremacy of another. The article's author appears to be that CBS Sportsline's answer to ESPN's BostonSportsGuy, who tends to be loved by Boston sports fans and disdained by everyone else. Incidentally, Sportsguy provides a nice piece which appears to account for Mr. Travis' recent work, asking When Did Hate Take Over Sports?

Back to Travis, though. He thinks it necessary to lump together every anti-Tom Brady rant ever published – i.e. metrosexual, overrated, hip facial hair-donning poseur, etc. – and adds a few new ones that most Patriots fans would be surprised to know were out there, i.e. that Brady runs "effortlessly" as some kinda mobile quarterback type.

The author, some guy from Tennessee named Clay Travis, proceeds to cast all Patriots' fans as "those extremely deadly vampires from Coppola's Dracula," which will not die until you "climb into the casket, chop off their heads and burn their bodies while chanting incantations." In doing so, he establishes this asinine Red State Blue State analogy, hinting that Peyton Manning is the savior of Republican America.

The author also apparently misses the irony of his own claims to being some standard bearer for The American Redneck. This from 1) a writer, 2) who employs the communist-sounding/Frenchie term "apropos of nothing," 3) talks knowingly about Cashmere sweaters, and 4) himself, muses ponderously about irony. Sounds like somebody has something to work out on his own before he starts casting stones from the heartland.

But I disgress …

The article put a little jaunt in my step, inspiring me to respond with a minor diatribe of sorts to my Colts Fan buddy. Because it includes so much of the stuff that I would otherwise be forced to distill and/or condense, and that means work, I figured it might be more appropriate merely to post it as a Point Counterpoint – a model employed so well by The Onion that it's long been a favorite of mine in that austere publication.

One more tangent. The Onion provided two fine pieces this week related to the Colts versus Patriots match-up. The Manning hatchet job is pretty predictable, but the shot at Belichick was truly solid – "So-Called Genius Bill Belichick Stumped By Non-Football-Related Question." For instance, this bit about a non-football question throwing the coach off balance:
… Belichick, obviously attempting to dodge the question in what onlookers called a "humiliating moment of mere mortality for the acknowledged genius."

"I don't know if Keynesian theory is what I want here, but … A football game is a service, I guess, in terms of Keynesian market concepts … No, wait, I think I'm thinking of Thorstein Veblen. You know what? Any questions on how we're planning for the Colts' passing game?"

Nice.

Now then, in the words of Mr Doggy Dogg sayeth, back to the lecture at hand …

1. Initial Salvo – BigSlick represents:

Here is something that is really getting under my skin, and I would like to hear your take. I do not dispute that Brady has the ability to perform well under pressure, that he has been involved in a remarkable number of playoff wins and that he is the leader of a team that is on the type of dominating run that wasn’t supposed to be possible after the salary cap. However, the guy has a horrible game over the weekend and was extremely lucky that, among other things, one of his interceptions was fumbled to set up a Patriots score (not mentioning all the other SD turnovers, the foolish challenge by Marty, the foolish 3 yard pass by Rivers with about 40 seconds left and no timeouts, and ultimately a missed kick by SD), yet all I hear on TV is how Brady always finds a way to win, and what a great clutch player he is.

Then you have Manning who goes 30 of 38 against KC for 300 yards and plays an extremely patient and conservative (some would say smart) game, but throws 3 interceptions (2 of which were clear miscommunications between Manning and Harrison, and Ron Jaworski and Chris Collinsworth both say that after watching the film it was Harrison that made the wrong read), yet the Colts win "despite another poor playoff performance from Manning." Again this week against Baltimore, I must admit Manning looked as bad as I have seen him in the last 2 years, but he has 2 interceptions to Brady’s 3 and he made big plays to get Indy from their own 1 all the way to field goal range, and also to keep a drive alive that basically sealed the game. Yet there is no talk about doing enough to win, making key plays at important times, consistently moving the ball against the best defense in the NFL, etc.

I know you have to win big games to be considered a big game QB and Brady has earned that. It just sickens me that not only does Brady always get a free pass, but is actually glorified every time the Pats win, even when it was in spite of him and not because of him. I don’t know if sportswriters are just so intent on developing story lines, or if they are just lazy and only interpret new information in a way that is consistent with their prior perceptions or what, but it is amazing how differently they report similar performances.

To a large extent I wouldn’t care, but not only does it annoy me, but I think Peyton may get caught up in it a little bit. I am very concerned that he is going to be so scared to make a mistake that he plays too conservatively and gives up the chance to make big plays. I am the first to tip my hat at what our defense has done the last 2 games, but I am the last to feel comfortable calling a conservative game and relying on them to win a third for us!

2. Response – Rikki kinda agrees

I agree with you, and most discerning fans do too. Your only mistake is listening to national pundits. Everyone out here has been writing and saying what you said -- that Brady had a sketchy game yet fortune shined on him and his team. And moreover, the smarter talkees up here maintain that Manning is the most gifted and most explosive quarterback in the game. The only positive that remains attached to Brady, despite the picks and the average numbers, is that he performed on the most important drives of the game. For some reason, he has this uncanny knack for closing out every first half he plays in with a touchdown. Read the box scores. I haven't but I feel confident saying that he wins every key game in which he leads his team to a score in the waning seconds of the first half. And then, he does the same thing -- performs best -- during the last 7 minutes of the game.

And let's not forget to take this weekend's performances by both QBs with a grain of salt. Peyton played the number 1 ranked defense while Brady played the number 2 (I think). Moreover, how much worse would both be if they didn't play behind such great offensive lines? But for Matt Light (hold for Boilermakers to "Boiler-up" as it were), Brady would have suffered countless sacks on Sunday. With Light, Shawn Merriman became an afterthought.

What's my point? I almost wish the Pats will lose this weekend just because it kills me to hear this all the time from other Colts fans who don't think their way through it the way you do and just knee jerk, "Brady sucks," etc. Stop comparing Manning to Brady. He's better pure player in so many ways, and comparable in all of the glorified ones. Just so happens that the details of certain games happened to favor the other team.

And ESPN only writes that crap because they're too lazy to write good Xs and Os stuff. Other than Jaworski, those clowns are mailing it in and will continue to mail it in. The easiest piece to mail-in is the same one that's been written to death -- who's the better QB?

That said, I blogged some of these same thoughts the other day. Brady's history is rife with game where he seems to be underperforming as the game goes along – INTs, 3 and outs, etc. Yet, as I typed, "he seemingly always drives to a touchdown in the waning minutes/seconds of the first half, leads to 1-2 key touchdowns in the middle of the second half, and takes advantage of golden opportunities teed-up by the opposing side.

True to form, Brady threw two picks as the clock ticked-along, missed Ben Watson on a sure score opportunity, and seemed unable to get anything going for long stretches, while Philip Rivers and LaDanian Tomlinson seemed to be moving the ball continuously. All the while, the Patriots' defense bent without breaking. A few scores eeked through, but all while San Diego appeared to lose all of the composure they displayed in amassing 14 regular season wins.

3. Upping the Ante – BigSlick Forwards Hatchet-Job Article

Since you have spent so much time in Indy, you will definitely appreciate this.

http://www.sportsline.com/spin/story/9937011/1

4. Return of the Rikki or The Rikki Gripes Back (in three movements)

You know, the thing that makes me shake my head while reading this is that every Pats fan I know – all of whom do indeed think that Brady walks on water – think that Manning is pretty damned good, too. I don't know anyone who rips him. They only say that, if given the choice, they'd take Brady because he continues to pull rabbits out of hats and you never turn down a sure thing.

Ask the Yankees and their fans if they still think Jason Giambi, A-Rod, and Randy Johnson are better performers than Tino Martinez, Scott Brosius, and Andy Pettite. Bottom line is they haven't won since they dispatched the latter three in favor of the former three.

Granted, I'm the extreme exception ... as I continue to proclaim that "I root for the Colts in every situation where they aren't playing the Patriots."

But I am not alone among Pats fans – including the northern rednecks heavily populating my area – who, while they wouldn't give up Brady for anybody, think Peyton Manning is both an amazing quarterback and likely as good of a guy as somebody could be while earning crazy cash and being as good on the field as he is.

I was even listening to Boston's nitwit radio – WEEI, 850 am – the other day and all but the most asinine of the four guys who host the most asinine of the station's call-in shows agreed that Peyton is something special, and the only reason he has failed in the past is because of some weird cocktail of Belichick scheming and Peyton's lack of a supporting cast.

And don't EVER suggest that a Pats fan would EVER rip Adam Vinatieri. That guy will always own the hearts of NE fans. Kinda like when Bobby Orr played his last season, constantly limping, in a Chicago Blackhawks uniform. When the hawks played the Garden, Orr was reportedly cheered more loudly than any Bruin on the ice or off the ice.

Oh yeah ... according to the Tennessee writer, Peyton fans probably don't understand what this means because it involves ice skating. Just take it on faith. No one in New England, with the sad exception of the Connecticut residents who were dumb enough to be born to New York leaning fans, would ever or will ever do anything but cheer Adam Vinatieri.

And I like the Manning commercials ... except the one where he wears the dumb wig and p0rno mustache. That's got to go . . .

Incidentally, the more I think about this the more I suspect this is one of those blue state/red state arguments -- just dumb, and probably ignores the 45% in applicable states who strongly resent being lumped into the category of those who make up the opposite 55%. Read: the comment in the article about people from Ann Arbor. He might as well have added "Bloomington, Madison, Champaign-Urbana, Minneapolis-St. Paul," and ...god forbid, "Chicago."

Then again, I'm not sure why rednecks would rip Brady. Because he wears weird clothes sometimes and (shares lovemaking moments with) movie stars and models? (you see the Giselle thing? Nice upgrade, eh?)

What does that have to do with how he performs on the field? He's tough as hell, never avoids a hit when he can pick up extra yards, and performs as an on-field leader by leading by example (i.e. don't rip your boys in the media, dish off credit when you can, and take the blame when you can). This seems like exactly the kind of ideal that redneck guys would find creditworthy, i.e. "guyish"

I guess the bottom line is the very thing the article's author is trying to incite – the idea that, if you think Peyton Manning is cool, then you have to hate Tom Brady. And that's stupid.

Both players are the kind of athletes who play the game right, who take care of their teammates, and avoid doing all the kinds of things that put their teams' ability to win at risk. There is no rational reason to rip Brady if you respect Manning for these reasons. And maybe that's the crux of it -- it's irrational. It's about fan resentment . . . which, I'd bet if you asked Peyton, he'd say was stupid and to get over it. . . .

Oh yeah, and just to feed into the guy's characterization of Brady … here's his new girlfriend. I find it hard to question his taste, or her tastes for that matter.

5. BigSlick Recoils or Finding Common Ground

Truthfully, I only skimmed the article. I thought you would mostly find some of
the Manning fan stereotypes funny… like that they obviously never pay more than $10 for a haircut.

I think I am in the majority in the way Colts fans feel about Brady. We all acknowledge that he is definitely a great QB, and I think most of us really appreciate anyone who approaches the game the way he does.

The few thuggish Colts or Pacers there have been are quickly run out of town. Brady always says the right thing, prepares and works hard, and doesn’t appear to have a huge ego. If I [held the hand of] even one as hot as his typical woman, or if I had even one Super Bowl ring, I would probably be so full of myself that even my Mother would hate me…so we all do recognize that.

The reason we seem so bitter and hateful is because Brady and company have won 3 Super Bowls that we think we could have won. I won’t even go as far as to say that the Patriots weren’t the better TEAM in those years. However, I think the teams were much more evenly matched than history and the media remember it, and that if we switched defenses then Manning has the rings. I firmly believe that in 2 of those years the Colts would have won if playing in the Dome instead of on a snowy, windy field. I also recognize that the Pats EARNED that right to play at home (even if one was because the Colts couldn’t score on first and goal from the 2, and Fat Willie faked an injury to stop the clock and get the D settled). That said, it isn’t that we are truly bitter and hateful of Brady, it is more frustration and jealousy. The pathetic fools in the media really add fuel to our fires with all of their extreme statements and worship of Brady. I also realize that we are hyper-sensitive to criticism of Manning, but to hear endless babble about how Manning can’t win the big game (even at Tennessee, who will never have the recruiting advantages that Florida has), it was Peyton’s fault because HE couldn’t win the big game against Florida.

Football is truly more of a team sport than basketball or baseball, yet everyone wants to put all of the blame or credit on one or a few individuals, typically on the offensive side of the ball.

I think a good analogy is if some nice, likeable guy "steals" your girlfriend. Although it isn’t truly rational, it takes a huge man not to have bitter feelings toward that guy, and not to project bad characteristics on that guy. It is easier to think bad thoughts about the ex, or the guy that stole her than it is to look in the mirror and realize that there were probably many opportunities to have listened more, been more concerned with her needs and desires, or to have done countless other things that would have prevented her from going to a guy who likely did nothing wrong toward you.

Similarly, it takes a unique Colts fan to admit that the Patriots have continually made more plays than us. They have adjusted to the way the game is being called, the elements, the other teams’ game plan, etc. better than we have. Further, the Pats took care of business better than we did during those regular seasons and didn’t think the better team could automatically show up and win.

Being rational, I know the Patriots and Brady deserve all of those rings and deserve to get the increased adulation and the benefits of all doubts that come with being the Champion. I get very frustrated by the media and on the record, I will continue to say that Brady gets more credit than he deserves and that there are 20 QB’s that could have done what he has done. But then again the SOB has stole many of my girlfriends and has consistently whacked the Colts!!!!

6. Afterthought

As I told BigSlick, soon after I shipped off my three missives last night, I opened some spam from a fool up this way named Fuggaboski. It was a dumb-arsed joke about Peyton that deserves to be ignored. Anyway, sufficed to say, I spoke too soon in saying that everyone up here respects his ability. Let me revise that to "everyone except the dummies" thinks that Peyton is pretty damned good, too.

Ultimately, it's fair to assume that whoever wins Sunday, it won't quell the urge of writers like Tennessee Clay to write things like the CBS Sportsline piece. After all. the Red Sox 2004 World Series victory hasn't done a thing to cut into the Red Sox writing cottage industry. Let's just hope that what follows is an improvement over Tennessee Clay's output.

2007-01-16T22:33:00.000-05:00

Trimming the fat or
cutting out the heart?

Snazzy headline, eh? Permit me the hyperbole and an opportunity to break-up the sports-obsession for a bit, whilst I notch a measure of back self-scratchery for a moment …

The Rockland Courier-Gazette, of which I am a subscriber, published this story last week about Governor Baldacci's proposal to pare the State's bloated district level administration bureaucracy as a means of cutting state spending.

Anyway, I got a furrow in my brow and submitted a letter to the editor, which the Courier was gracious enough to publish here. The letter follows below, but first …

The Courier has since followed up with this lead editorial and this authored column by Editor and reporter of the original story Stephen Betts. Both pieces more plainly addressed the guts of the Governor's proposal and Mr. Betts' recalcitrance toward the plan than a non-critical eye might have detected from the first go-round.

A bit of background on the proposal and the whatnot: The Rockland Free Press provides a compilation of the press releases here. The Portland Press Herald provided many stories, of which one lies here. And, here lies a Lewiston Sun Journal's overview story, mixed with a bit of analysis.

The Portland Press Herald reported Sunday that Two Other Consolidation Plans are brewing in the Legislature. The Bangor Daily News provided this editorial on the Re-redistricting here, and this opinion column reflected on previous experience with public resistance to school consolidation. Also of note, syndicated statehouse reporter Victoria Wallack reports the same here. The story notes, of the two plans:

One calls for using the 26 districts referenced in Baldacci’s proposal — currently the state’s vocational/technical school regions — as planning districts, where locals can come together and propose what school administrative functions should be consolidated.

The other calls for collapsing the current 290 districts, with their 290 school committees and 152 superintendents, into slightly fewer than 65 districts, with 3,000 to 4,000 students each. Districts currently about that size would be left alone.

Here are one, two, and three weekend Press Herald opinion pieces on the topic, the last of which being Saturday's lead editorial.

But all this sort of gives away the story I tried to provide to Courier readers who might have been confused by reading that only superintendents had worthy opinions on the Governor's plan. Long story short, here was my letter to the Courier:

To the editor:

I eagerly read your Jan. 9 lead story, focusing on Gov. Baldacci's plan to consolidate Maine's 152 school districts into 26. Yet, I found the story's narrow scope troubling. You quoted nobody but area superintendents and school board chairs. In the first major debate over taxes and public spending since the Taxpayer Bill of Rights failed, readers require a far broader view of the debate.

Any school administration cuts that result will surely impact the folks you quoted. But what about the other obvious stakeholders? Where were the voices of teachers? Students? Other taxpayers?

You quoted SAD 50 Superintendent Judy Harvey's feeling that "it just seems too extreme" to consolidate Maine's 152 school districts into 26.

There is a stunner.

Ms. Harvey's job stands to be one of the first eliminated. It's no doubt she finds it "too extreme" to give-up her $105,000 salary and then compete to head-up one of the newly consolidated school districts.

What about the purported benefits of the plan, or reasons it was generated? The governor's proposal tracks the findings of three 2006 studies. The Maine Children's Alliance, the Maine Board of Education, and the Brookings Institute each explored ways Maine can trim taxes, while maintaining programs that protect cherished resources.

All three studies reached the same conclusion: Maine pays too many school district-level administrators too much money, pays its teachers too little and taxes its citizens too much.

The Brookings report, "Charting Maine's Future," spelled-out how Maine policymakers can pare administration costs without hurting student achievement. The report is available free at www.brookings.edu/metro/maine.

Maine citizens generally tout their high per-student payout (higher than all but 10 states) and similarly high-ranked 1:11 teacher-to-student ratio. But how proud are we to pay our teachers salaries so poorly that the average ranks 35th among states? Or how we pay one administrator per 11 underpaid teachers, the ninth slimmest ratio in the nation?

The Brookings report mused that, "Maine is at least as much “Administrationland” as “Vacationland,” given the large number of especially state and school district administrative personnel that seem to populate the state's expensive bureaucracies."

Now, would you expect a superintendent to happily agree with this conclusion? How about three of them?

The governor announced in January that, "The Brookings study has given us not just a blueprint to improve our economy, but a way to lift the extensive pessimism that permeates this state."

Yet, I read nothing about Brookings' research in The Courier's story. I read nothing from teachers, students, parents or their neighbors about how it's about time to more wisely fund education. Instead, I read only about superintendents who want to keep their jobs and their budgets.

The Courier-Gazette regularly honors its duty to describe in good faith how deeply state decisions impact our lives. The risk of a half-told story is that it feeds pessimism, like that which the governor claims his plan will help abate. Strive to breed optimism among your readers by consistently providing the broadest possible perspective on our most challenging policy issues.

2007-01-16T19:40:00.000-05:00

I lifted this from the Rockland Free Press, but wanted to permanently post it as the FP doesn't archive its material … or I haven't figured out how it does so.

The reason: because its two parts -- the Gov's inaugural address on the budget and the following press release by the Dept. of Education provide some background for my next post.

Inaugural Address
Governor John Baldacci
January 3, 2007

“After all, this is my last Inaugural Address and the last elective office I will hold.”

…As we gather here, 365 Maine men and women of the National Guard are serving their state and nation in Iraq and Afghanistan. I call your attention to the vacant row of seats to my right in honor of their absence. We remember and honor their families who sacrifice so much while their loved ones are deployed. We pause to remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice and their families.

This Inauguration of Maine’s Governor signifies the end of a long campaign that highlighted many of Maine’s challenges. It also signifies the beginning of a term in which all of us, together, must get to work and address those challenges and improve the quality of life for Maine’s children and families.

First, though, I want to say thank you.

Thank you to the people of Maine for having faith in me to finish the job I started four years ago.
Thank you to my opponents — and there were many of them — for waging a spirited but principled campaign of issues and ideas. While we disagreed on many things, we all agree on working to make Maine a better place than it already is. This goal has brought us here tonight and will guide us in the days ahead.

I’ve learned a lot in the last four years — about government, about Maine people, and about Maine’s place in the world.

Maine has become a very different place than it was when I began serving on the Bangor City Council or representing the Second District in Washington.

Maine remains a beautiful place to live, work and raise a family — the best place in the world!

But Maine, like many areas of the country, is more and more influenced by outside forces that have given way to a different brand of politics than we’re used to — more partisan, more divisive and, ultimately, more detrimental to our democracy.

We recently witnessed this divisive atmosphere in the lengthy and expensive campaign over the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights, a property-tax reform proposal that had its origins outside of Maine.

Maine voters rejected this idea.

But I’ve heard what Maine people are saying — loud and clear — and the debate over property taxes won’t end there.

The time has come to enact a property-tax relief policy that is by Maine people for Maine people!

But before I talk more about that, there are a few other things I want to say. After all, this is my last Inaugural Address and the last elective office I will hold.

The political campaigns that were just completed served many important purposes, the most important of which is giving the voters clear choices on how their state will be governed and managed in the years ahead.

But in the age of 10-second sound-bytes and carefully crafted TV commercials, these campaigns have a downside. All you hear are claims about what’s wrong with Maine. You hear about its high tax burden, its ailing economy. You hear about out-of-control government spending, about young people leaving Maine in droves, about Maine’s inability to compete with other states and other countries. All of this has the effect of making us more pessimistic about our future. It zaps our can-do spirit and makes Maine seem a much gloomier place than it really is.

I know this may shock you, but not everything you hear in a political campaign is 100% accurate.

This was clear from the recently completed independent Brookings Institution report that exploded many myths about Maine. The Brookings study has given us not just a blueprint to improve our economy, but a way to lift the extensive pessimism that permeates this state.

You might have heard that people are leaving Maine, but in fact we have the fifth-highest rate of any state in the country of people moving into our state. Who are these people moving to Maine? Many are highly educated, upper-income individuals looking for all the things that Maine has to offer that they can’t find anywhere else. And where are they coming from? More than half of them are coming from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, two states that are often held up as states Maine needs to emulate.

But if that’s true, why are so many people leaving those states and choosing to come to Maine? Because Maine has what the world wants: quality of life; a “gold standard” workforce. And we can compete globally.

We are the eighth-fastest growing state in exports in the United States. Foreign Direct Investment magazine ranked Maine’s quality of life as the best in the nation. And Inc. Magazine included Portland, Lewiston-Auburn and Bangor in its listing of the top cities for doing business and attracting entrepreneurs in America.

Large international companies competing on a global scale have located here and are thriving. TD Banknorth, National Semiconductor, and others employ thousands of hard-working Mainers. Their entrepreneurial spirit is mirrored in our home-grown small businesses criss-crossing the state: Oxford Aviation in Sanford; Sea Run Holdings of Eastport; and Maine Mutual Insurance Group of Presque Isle.

You’ve heard about Maine’s high tax burden — the amount of taxes Maine people pay relative to their incomes. But you probably didn’t hear that Maine’s tax burden is coming down while incomes are on the way up. In fact, Maine’s average income is at an all-time high, and our goal is to keep it going higher. If we can raise the average Maine income just a few thousand dollars while keeping taxes in check, our tax burden will fall to somewhere in the middle of the 50 states, and we wouldn’t be having this debate at all.

So it’s not enough to simply address our high taxes. We’re going to have to address growing our incomes, too. I’ll discuss how we intend to do both in a minute.

You might have heard that state spending is out of control. But in fact, over the past four years, we have established the lowest average spending rate increase in the last 30 years. We’ve capped government spending at all levels. We’ve put $140 million in our rainy-day fund and paid off a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar credit line.

You might have heard that we sorely lag behind in jobs, but resident employment has grown by 32,000 workers in the past four years. There are more Maine people working now than ever in our state’s history.

You may have heard that there is no strategic plan for growing Maine’s jobs, but we recently competed for and won a $15 million federal grant to support and expand Maine’s leadership in the boat-building industry, adding over 2,000 jobs in seven years.

Does all of this mean that we really don’t have to worry about taxes and spending, or the state of our economy? Absolutely not! But it doesn’t mean that everything is bad, or that we’re not doing anything right. The fact is we are doing a lot of things right. But we must do more. And Maine can do it.

To accomplish this will take our coordinated efforts. I look to work with the people of Maine to help us along our path. I recently reached out to the president of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, Dana Connors, and its members to work together to promote Maine businesses, workers and job growth. Thank you, Dana, for your help and commitment. Together, we will succeed in bringing more business to Maine, and in putting more quality Maine workers in good-paying jobs.

Maine can do it. We can solve our problems and face our challenges. We need to celebrate our accomplishments, celebrate our achievements. We need to lift the cloud of pessimism that hangs over our state.

Maine is a leader once again on energy. Businesses are now flocking to Maine to harness our clean renewable energy resources: our wind, our tides, and our wood and wood wastes. Development of these energy resources will put money into the pockets of Mainers rather than exporting them out-of-state and overseas. We have come a long way on the road to energy independence, and I will continue to move us in that direction.

We’ve protected our environment. This year we completed the vision of Percival Baxter by adding Katahdin Lake to Baxter State Park. We continue to protect traditional land uses — like hunting and fishing — and have added three-quarters of a million acres of land to preserve Maine’s way of life for the future.

When we in Maine look back at the first years of this new century — an era driven by technology and innovation and a knowledge-based economy — one critically important action will stand out: the creation of Maine’s Community College System. In just four years, thousands of citizens — hardworking Maine people displaced from traditional manufacturing jobs, young high school graduates unsure of their future, underemployed adults struggling to make ends meet — have flooded our community colleges. Enrollment has soared by 47%. Our community colleges are building new skills for a new economy, and a brighter economic future for our entire state.

The University of Maine system enrolls 34,000 students. The vast majority of these are Maine people: your sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, friends and neighbors. Most of these students build their careers in Maine. By focusing on quality education, and pursuing R&D to create private-sector jobs, the University has an important impact on Maine’s future.

And the fact is we’ve provided property-tax relief to over 200,000 Maine households by doubling the individual Property Tax and Rent Refund Program, and tax relief to all Maine homeowners by increasing the homestead exempt valuation up to $13,000. And we increased the amount of state aid to education by replacing local property-tax dollars with $800 million in new state funding and putting spending caps on state, county and local government. But more must be done.

The people of Maine have spoken again and again of our collective need to stop the skyrocketing costs of property taxes.

At the state level, we can — and we must — do something. It must be bold and it must send a strong signal that we cannot continue doing business as usual.

We must support excellence in education, not excess administration. Maine has twice the number of school district officials per student than the national average. We spend $2,000 more per student than the national average, and pay our teachers $7,000 less. We can and we will do better.

My plan will reduce the number of superintendents from 152 to 26, establishing 26 regional centers similar to the technology centers that now serve the state. We will save a quarter of a billion dollars in the first three years of operation alone.

With the budget I will be submitting Friday, the State will have met the commitment that the people of Maine voted for — to have the State pay 55% of local education costs.

But this year I am going to insist that the savings available from increased funding be directly passed on to taxpayers for immediate property-tax relief. If it’s not guaranteed, I will veto the legislation.

But I believe that’s still not enough.

After listening to thousands of people all over the state, I am insisting that we move forward to freeze property valuations on homes of permanent Maine residents for tax purposes. This must be done to prevent people from being tax valued out of their homes. Permanent Maine residents will have their property-tax valuations frozen until such time as they sell their property, then the valuations on that property can and should rise.

This freeze is a vital component of our overall tax and spending priorities.

Of course there will be opposition to this. I expect it. I welcome it.

Change is always threatening but it is time we put the needs of permanent Maine residents ahead of all the special-interest groups and ahead of those who benefit from the ever-rising property-tax burden.

Enough is enough.

Here is where I stand. I ask Maine people to stand with me if they believe, as I do, that we need to look out for year-round permanent Maine residents.

The people of Maine require a bold initiative, and the package I am presenting — reducing state and school administrative costs; fulfilling the promise of state funding of local education to 55%; guaranteeing savings be passed along to residents; and freezing permanent residents’ property valuations for tax purposes — achieves this. We cannot continue the status quo, and I won’t stand for it!

But we can’t stop there.

We must raise the average income of Mainers to reduce the tax burden, too. It takes both sides of the ledger.

We will raise incomes by making investments in key areas to prepare Maine people for good-paying private-sector jobs. I want to thank Karen Gordon Mills for chairing the Council on Jobs, Innovation and the Economy and jump-starting this effort. Our people can compete anywhere in the world, but we need to build our capacity and our competitive edge in the global marketplace. We will do this by committing to investments in innovation and research and development that fuel private-sector jobs and economic growth.

We will expand Pine Tree Zones, enabling companies in Maine to have a level playing field and attract new business to this state.

We will do this by making commitments in education through 50% tuition reimbursement, at community-college rates, for those students who couldn’t afford to go on otherwise and who attend a state college or university. We will open the doors to higher education wider than ever before, so students are ready to learn and ready to succeed here in Maine.

We must change the status-quo in Augusta. We must look at things from a different perspective. And tonight I want to challenge Maine people to have the courage to change as well, in your own communities, whether that means partnering with other communities, sharing services, or joint purchasing. We have to use our God-given Yankee ingenuity — something no one else possesses, to accomplish this change.

Maine is truly at a crossroads.

Our people are experiencing the transition from an old economy to a new one. In the past our economy relied heavily on manufacturing to create wealth. Today we are moving to a new focus on innovative products and knowledge-based services. This change has brought pain and dislocation but it also heralds the possibility of a prosperous future for all Mainers.

In this new economy, Maine stands head and shoulders above any state in the nation. Our good people and strong communities, along with our natural beauty and small-town character, have become scarce resources in a crowded world. The Maine brand represents quality, pride, integrity, innovation and craftsmanship — things that the world today needs and wants more of. These are Maine’s competitive assets in the new 21st-century economy.

If we preserve and enhance these unique assets, if we can develop and attract the right kinds of businesses — from biotechnology to alternative energy, from new forest products to specialty foods — it will offer a truly sustainable prosperity.

This means high-quality, high-paying jobs for our generation and the next. It means a thriving and innovative business climate, so that our young people want to stay here and raise their own families. It means that if we make the right choices, the 21st century is Maine’s century. It means: Our time has come.

God bless Maine, and may her and your spirit together provide the light around the world for a brighter future for all.

Governor’s Budget Includes Plan to Consolidate School Districts

On Monday, January 8, Education Commissioner Susan Gendron outlined the details of Governor Baldacci’s proposal to reduce the number of school administrative units and central offices in Maine from 152 to 26. The proposal is part of a broad effort by the governor to reorganize central office administration to save money, gain efficiencies and to improve education at local schools.

The Local Schools, Regional Support (LSRS) Initiative, unveiled by Baldacci last Friday, is a comprehensive education funding and reform package that includes more than $170 million in direct tax relief in the first two years, as well as a quarter-billion dollars in state and local savings in the first three years of implementation, starting July 1, 2008.

According to Gendron, the LSRS Initiative would close no schools and result in no teacher layoffs. Rather, its focus is on streamlining central office administration.

“We are talking about shifting resources from central office administration to the classroom to achieve excellence in education for every student in every classroom in every local school,” Gendron said.

Gendron said the LSRS Initiative is the culmination of years of reports and commissions, including the Brookings Institution report and one from the Maine Children’s Alliance, that have hit home with the same recurring theme: Maine’s educational system is top-heavy with administration due in large part to the multiple small school districts throughout the state.

Several of those commissions, including the Governor’s Task Force on Increasing Efficiency and Equality in the Use of K-12 Resources created by Baldacci in 2003, and the more recent Select Panel created by the State Board of Education, included membership representing all the key stakeholders: school administrators, municipal officials, business people, parents, and others.

“I don’t think the people of Maine want to wait any longer; I don’t think they want another study commission,” Gendron said. “They’ve spoken loudly about reducing spending, and they’ve spoken loudly about the need for improved outcomes in the classroom.”

“This is one of those times when spending less will actually get us more,” she added. Gendron said more centralized administration will result in a more cohesive and consistent approach to instructional methods and understanding of the Maine Learning Results standards. It will allow a smaller group of superintendents to meet regularly with the commissioner and better coordinate efforts like professional development.

In addition to local property-tax relief, the savings generated by the administrative restructuring will allow for reinvestment in students and teachers, says Gendron. The laptop program in grades 7 and 8 would be expanded through to 12th grade; professional development will be better coordinated; and more than 15,000 students over four years who are eligible for Pell grants will now receive an additional scholarship, averaging $2,000, to any public college or other post-secondary school in Maine.

Speaking to the new governance structure, Gendron said regional school boards that look a lot like existing School Administrative District boards would oversee educational policy in each of the 26 regions. The existing 290 school boards across the state would remain for a transition period in an advisory capacity. Each region would determine a structure for local advisory councils, either at the existing school board level, or at each school, to serve in a supporting role for education at each school, and as a voice for school-specific concerns.

According to Gendron’s office, the LSRS Initiative includes two significant sources of savings. The first is more than $170 million of new state money in the next two years going to local education in order to achieve the 55-percent goal for the state’s share of local education costs. Baldacci has pledged to veto any legislation that does not include a requirement for that money to go back to local property taxpayers as was originally intended with the passage of the Property Tax Reduction Law (LD1) two years ago.

The second source of savings is the administrative restructuring itself. Those savings would start in the fiscal year that starts July 1, 2008, when the new regional centers would be up and running. In the first three years of implementation, the restructuring is expected to save almost a quarter billion dollars — $109 million in local savings and $132 million in state savings, representing the locals’ 45-percent share of education costs and the state’s 55-percent share.

Some of the state savings would be rolled into programs such as the laptops expansion and the post-secondary tuition scholarships. Local savings would be expected to go back to taxpayers.

Another feature of the LSRS Initiative is an increase in the student:teacher ratio at middle schools and high schools to 17:1 to match the existing elementary-school ratio. That shift would result in the loss of about 650 teaching positions, but no teacher layoffs. That’s because roughly 1,500 teachers are lost each year to voluntary attrition.

“Districts will hire fewer new teachers in the first year of the initiative, but no layoffs will be necessary,” Gendron said.

Under Baldacci’s plan, the three Regional Administrative Centers in the midcoast would include the following towns:

Region # 11 Belfast: Troy, Thorndike, Jackson, Monroe, Frankfort, Knox, Brooks, Freedom, Montville, Waldo, Searsport, Stockton Springs, Belfast, Swanville, Liberty, Morrill, Searsmont, Belmont, Northport, Unity.

Region # 12 Rockland: Washington, Appleton, Hope, Lincolnville, Islesboro, Camden, North Haven, Vinalhaven, Waldoboro, Warren, Union, Rockport, Rockland, Cushing, Thomaston, Owls Head, Friendship, Saint George, Matinicus Isle Plt., Criehaven Twp., Monhegan Island Plt., South Thomaston.

Region # 16 Bath: Dresden, Alna, Nobleboro, Damariscotta, Bremen, Bristol, Edgecomb, Wiscasset, Woolwich, South Bristol, Bath, West Bath, Arrowsic, Newcastle, Phippsburg, Georgetown, Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor, Southport, Westport, Monhegan Plt.

As of now Maine has 152 district administrations and nearly twice that many school districts. Governor Baldacci wants to consolidate school administration in Maine into 26 “Regional Centers,” each with one superintendent and one regional school board supporting schools in several cities and towns.

Why the consolidation of administration?

In brief, this is how the Maine Department of Education explains the Why:

The State of Maine spends more per student than the national average, while paying the lowest teacher salaries in New England. Meanwhile, student achievement, while above national averages, can be even better.

Around the state, we have seen examples of school districts working together to find efficiencies — sharing a specialist, making joint supply purchases to save money, jointly hiring a superintendent.

The Local School, Regional Support (LSRS) Initiative does that on a much larger scale by creating substantial regional efficiencies, and saves approximately $250 million in the first three years of implementation, while focusing on strengthening local leadership of local schools.

The LSRS Initiative centralizes administration, but does not consolidate schools. Education funding continues under the same formula, only with a smaller amount for administration, and larger amounts for various instructional services, including increased teacher salaries to attract the best teachers, laptops in grades 7 through 12, and college tuition scholarships for many students.

Transitioning to this new model will require us to move beyond our traditional view of focusing on town-by-town school governance and instead recognize that we all have a responsibility to provide excellence in education for all children in our state and provide them with the best opportunities and classroom experiences. Together, we can achieve equity of opportunity in every school in every classroom for every student.

How it works—

And, in brief, this is how the Maine Department of Education explains the How:

• Close no schools.

• Maine has 152 district administrations and nearly twice that many districts.

• The Local Schools, Regional Support Initiative merges those into 26 Regional Centers, each with one superintendent and one regional school board supporting schools in several cities and towns. The boards will be governed by representatives from the communities they serve, guaranteeing every parent, teacher and community member a voice in how their schools are governed.

• Streamline purchasing, back office functions, curriculum coordination, transportation, and other administrative duties at existing school districts into 26 Regional Centers (those centers are being based on the geography of the existing Career Technical Centers, which were designed for easy commutability).

• Determine the organizational structure that works best for each region through regional decision-making by a regional school board. Each superintendent will report to a regional board with representatives from member communities.

• Support principals with a local advisory council that includes parents and community members. Retain existing school boards during a transition period to work with schools on creating an advisory structure to strengthen community participation in local schools.

2007-01-15T15:33:00.000-05:00

Dis-Charged? Re-Patri-ated? Etc.

Wow. What a game. I'm still shaking my head when I recall the give and take … a bit more take, from the Pats' point of view, thankfully. So many subplots that will surely be parsed out, dissected, and hyper-analyzed today … until the heads pick back-up on the Belichick v. Peyton Manning thread. So much so that I find myself stuck coming up with adequate headlines for today's posting. I ask for your forgiveness on this day of days.

Peter King, from SI dot com, apparently feels the same way today. While I won't provide an even 20 reasons why the Patriots won, I have plenty of thoughts now that I'm beginning to gather my wits.

For one, Tom Brady had one of those games that come to define his career … the stats appear to paint the performance as borderline-poor as the game goes along, buttressed by a couple of turnovers and many 4-and-outs. Yet, he seemingly always drives to a touchdown in the waning minutes/seconds of the first half, leads to 1-2 key touchdowns in the middle of the second half, and takes advantage of golden opportunities teed-up by the opposing side.

True to form, Brady threw two picks as the clock ticked-along, missed Ben Watson on a sure score opportunity, and seemed unable to get anything going for long stretches, while Philip Rivers and LaDanian Tomlinson seemed to be moving the ball continuously. All the while, the Patriots' defense bent without breaking. A few scores eeked through, but all while San Diego appeared to lose all of the composure they displayed in amassing 14 regular season wins.

The game was remarkably lean on penalties, but San Diego seemed to be called for a large number of personal fouls all the same.

And for every play like punt returner Eric Parker's botched fair-catch, coach Marty Schottenheimer provided an equally botched coaching decision. The Boston Herald's Karen Guregian took note, but suggested this loss was about more than the failures of MartyBall.

Yet, it's hard to ignore a single decision when trying to locate the game's fulcrum. Nick Kaeding missed a game-tying field goal with mere seconds on the clock. That was a 54-yard try – no gimme by any stretch. Rivers completed a pass over the middle that pushed the Chargers close to the Patriots' 40 yard line, only to realize he didn't have time to get Kaeding any closer. Why not? Coach Marty wasted the Chargers' last time-out challenging a fumble-call that stood no change of being overturned. Do you wholly blame a kicker for missing a 54 yarder?

And when the Chargers had a chance to break it open, they fell a few steps short of executing the death blow. For instance, receiver Vincent Jackson beat Ellis Hobbs on a deep route but Rivers underthrew it just enough. Hobbs was able to save face after getting beat by batting down the underthrown pass on the goalline. A bit more ummph on the pass, however, and it's a different story altogether. A quarter or so later, Jackson beat Artrell Hawkins on a similar pattern, but River led him a bit too far for Jackson to make the catch and get too feet down.

In contrast, a game's worth of offensive futility disappeared as Brady hit a streaking Reche Caldwell for 49 yards late in the fourth quarter.

And then there was the play the Herald aptly deems the play of the game:

Trailing 21-13 with 6:25 to play in the game last night, the Patriots decided to go for it on fourth-and-5 from the Chargers’ 41-yard line. Attempting to connect with wide receiver Reche Caldwell , Pats quarterback Tom Brady instead was picked off by safety Marlon McCree at the Chargers’ 31, apparently sealing the team’s fate. Remarkably, Pats veteran Troy Brown effectively picked up the first down anyway.

Transformed from receiver to defender, Brown locked on to McCree and forced a fumble by stripping the ball from him. Caldwell subsequently fell on the loose ball for what turned out to be a 9-yard New England gain, giving the Pats a first down at the San Diego 32.

Five plays later, Brady connected with Caldwell on a 4-yard touchdown pass. The Pats followed that up with a Kevin Faulk [stats] conversion rush, tying the score at 21, and paving the way for Stephen Gostowski’s game-winning field goal a few minutes later.

That serves as prelude to the media circus that's likely to ensue on Tuesday. Patriots' rookie kicker Gostkowski lined-up for the go-ahead 31-yard field goal with barely a minute left – the kind of kick made seemingly every time his predecessor, Adam Vinitieri, lined-up to clinch victory for the Patriots in previous years' playoff runs. Fortune shined, and a region collectively let out a huge sigh as the ball sailed through the uprights. The Boston Herald's Tony Mazz starts the circus today by dubbing Gostkowski the new king of clutch, noting:

Eighteen weeks, 58 minutes and 55 seconds.

That was the precise time required for Stephen Gostkowski to come of age.

Like I said, hard to believe.

Here's what the other usual commentators are saying:

Boston Globe's Bob Ryan says of the Patriots, In Brady We Trust. The Herald's Steve Buckley echoes the sentiment.

The Lawrence Eagle Tribune's Hector Longo writes that the Patriots outhit and outwit the Chargers. Ron Borges says of the Xs and Os, It Was Quite a Display, while Michael Felger simplies it further: "The Patriots did the things winners do. The Chargers did the things losers do. It’s why the Pats are on their way to Indianapolis for the AFC Championship Game."

That's pretty much the same conclusion Peter King reached too:

There's a reason New England has been a feared Super Bowl contender for the last
six years. You know what it is? The little things. All the little things. Not
just the greatness of Tom Brady and the brain of Bill Belichick. In football,
the Patriots have made all the little things add up to some very big things. In
this case, a stunning 24-21 win over the AFC's No. 1 seed, San Diego, at
Qualcomm Stadium on Sunday.

Mike Reiss excerpted Belichick's opening at his Press Conference, which led off with Wow, what a game. I’m really speechless. The Herald's Karen Guregian comments on what ticked LT off. California writer Kevin Modesti leans hard on the lack of class accusation, noting:

Patriots stomped on the lightning-bolt helmet at the 50-yard line at Qualcomm Stadium. Linebacker Rosevelt Colvin flashed the choke sign toward the home sideline. Nose tackle Vince Wilfork imitated Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman's "Lights Out" dance. A few players pointed up at the scoreboard, which registered the 24-21 final score that meant the Chargers are one-and-done in the NFL playoffs and Coach Marty Schottenheimer's hard luck continues.

…

Last week, Patriots coach Bill Belichick celebrated a win over the New York Jets in the wild-card round by yanking a photographer out of his way by the throat.
Now, his players, supposedly the models of professionalism as the franchise has won three of the past five Super Bowls, thumb their noses at the old rule about end-zone manners, which says to behave as if you've been there before and expect to be back.

Probably some good points in there. I suppose it's a matter of degree, but this isn't too different than Terrell Owens prancing out to the middle of Texas Stadium's star and rubbing in a 49er victory. I didn't see it, but I wish whatever happened hadn't happened. It rubs exactly the way the California guy wrote it.

Anyway. Colts are next. But that's for tomorrow.

2007-01-09T17:30:00.000-05:00

The Case for Jim Rice

I'm going to break my own rule here and discuss baseball when the NFL playoffs should stand alone in the spotlight. I had to rush to get this one in under the wire today, as I didn't realize until this morning that baseball writers were voting today on the next class of players to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Another year, another snub for former Red Sox star Jim Rice. The slugger failed to reach the 75% target for yet another year, leaving just two more shots at Hall entry through the traditional door before he's bumped from eligibility.

The chorus of Rice supporters continues to chime loudly, this year taking on some new timbre, as described in this Nick Cafardo piece in Today's Globe written in advance of today's vote.

The gist is that this year's ballot, and all of its furor surrounding the first time eligible Mark McGwire, raised new prospects for the steroid-free Rice's candidacy. Jeff Horrigan described the same movement in light of the anti-Mark McGwire mob, noting:

Rice hit 382 home runs, and maintained a .298 career batting average over 14-plus seasons. However, his status as one of baseball's most feared power hitters really dried-up after his MVP-worthy 1986 season. 31 home runs over his last three seasons, while he struggled to keep a batting average over .270.

Other Rice factors:

-Won A.L. MVP in 1978, hitting 46 home runs, 139 RBI, and .315 avg.
- Eight All Star appearances in 14 seasons
- finished 2nd in Rookie of the Year and 3rd in MVP balloting in 1975, losing out on both to teammate Fred Lynn. He hit 22 HR, 102 RBI, .309 AVG.
- Finished 3rd in MVP balloting in 1986 (39 HR, 110 RBI, .324 AVG)
- Finished 4th in MVP balloting in 1977 (39 HR, 114 RBI, .320 AVG) and 1983 (39 HR, 126 RBI, .305 AVG)
- Finished 5th in MVP balloting in 1979 (39 HR, 130 RBI, .329 AVG)

Cafardo wrote hopefully of Rice's chances this year, despite the sentiment of most writers that the hitters' best shot was last year when he stood as tall as any of the other average candidates in the field. Alas, no 75% came his way. With a 2007 ballot that included the likes of Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn, 2007 didn't look quite as promising at the outset. However, some observed a buzz generating in favor of Rice due to the slugger's eminence in an era far more free of steroids and before expansion brought in far thinner pitching staffs. Cafardo noted:

Rice, though his candidacy has picked up steam, is still struggling for the elusive honor, which might came today when the latest voting results are announced, though competing with Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken might prolong his wait another year.

A reason Rice is picking up steam is that this is the first year voters are faced with an otherwise strong candidate suspected of using steroids, Mark McGwire. Rice might have gotten votes that would have gone to McGwire. Polls by ESPN and the Associated Press indicate McGwire won't garner more than 25-30 percent, far short of the 75 percent required for induction.

Interestingly, Rice submitted to Cafardo, "If you cheated, you don't belong in the Hall of Fame."

If Rice doesn’t garner the necessary support of 75% of the writers, he’ll have two more years before he is pushed into the Veterans Committee, which considers the worthiness of snubbed players every other year.

Describing their votes, Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci gives Ripken and Gwynn backrubs; some guy from Chicago apparently submitted an entirely blank ballot in protest or something; NY Daily News Bill Madden focuses on the McGwire matter. Washington Post's Dave Sheinin gives one more rubdown to Ripken while chiding the steroid users. Regular Ripken fellator Thomas Boswell was good enough to spare us one more act of service, focusing instead on his McGwire snub.

Apparently, Sports Illustrated's Jon Heyman was among the converted on Rice, as he observed here:

The one player I've changed my mind on. His six top-five MVP finishes reflect that he was one of the game's best players for a decade. He was fairly one dimensional and didn't play long enough to crack 400 home runs, but I'll give him a "yes" for the second time.

ESPN's Jayson Stark also backed Rice, as well as his equivalent in the pitching world, Jack Morris. Stark observed:

This is about more than just Game 7, 1991. Jack Morris pitched a no-hitter. He started three All-Star Games. He was a huge figure on three World Series pitching staffs. He always started Opening Day. And consider this: From 1979 to '92, when Morris and Nolan Ryan were both doing their thing, Morris had 65 more wins than Ryan (233-168). I've voted for him eight years in a row, and never once felt I'd overinflated what he was in his day.

Of Rice, Stark is "grateful to all the readers who did so much research on this guy to help me see the light on him," adding:

The biggest reason I vote for him: The fear factor. In the 11 seasons from 1975 to '85, American League pitchers would have been happier to see Jack the Ripper heading up their driveway than Jim Rice heading toward home plate.

In those 11 seasons, Rice led the AL in home runs, RBI, runs scored, slugging and extra-base hits. And the only hitter even in the same neighborhood in most of those departments was George Brett.

I yield that Morris is even more deserving than Rice, largely due to his seminal performance and anchor roles in helping deliver three World Series crowns. Yet, another year has passed and neither will be called to the Hall.

FoxSports' Ken Rosenthal also lined up in favor of Rice, a position he fully explained in 2006. If it were only up to the national writers, like Rosenthal and the ESPN staff, it appeared that Rice would make it this year.

Not to be, I guess.

2007-01-04T22:32:00.000-05:00

Footing the Bill

The Playoffs have arrived and that's got to be worth a mention. I'll try to start with some arguably thoughtful football coverage, but today won't stray too far from the football topic.

CBS Sportsline's Clark Judge opines on the Coach of the Year candidates, and dares to include within the deserving a few that the mainstream seems all too bored to consider, namely, Philadelphia's Andy Reid and Bill Belichick – both of whom have taken the honor in past seasons. Of Belichick's merit in 2006, he notes:

… All I know about Belichick is that he lost offensive and defensive coordinators, offensive linemen, wide receivers and defensive backs ... yet continued to dominate the AFC East. In fact, until this season he hadn't lost consecutive regular-season games in nearly four years. Magnificent. So is this: He knocked off Chicago. He hammered Jacksonville in Jacksonville. He buried Cincinnati in Cincinnati. OK, so this isn't his best record. So the schedule isn't his most demanding, either. But this isn't his deepest or most talented team – not by a long shot – and Belichick has it behind only Chicago, San Diego and Baltimore in overall record. That tells you the job he's done.

Well, the likely to-be-ignored New England head coach has gotten plenty of media attention this week – particularly in the Boston and New York media markets – as he prepares to square-off against the New York Jets, coached by his former defensive coordinator and protégé Eric Mangini.

First, though, here's one more thoughtful piece. ESPN's Len Pasquarelli attempts to identify the locus of the AFC's continuing dominance over the NFC. He quotes several sources who observe that they cannot pinpoint the reason, but finally observes:

But here are two potential reasons for the superiority: Statistics aside, the AFC has the better quarterbacks, in terms of performance and longevity. Second, even in an era when the shelf life for head coaches has been reduced, the sideline bosses in the AFC enjoy more tenure.

Seems reasonable enough. As much as any other argument. All I know is that it is so. One need look no further than the 2006 Bears, whose arse Dennis Green implored you to crown in October, but which lost their glossy sheen once they started playing AFC teams.

Dennis Green provides the You Tube moment of the season

The NFC's best teams are good teams, but the second tier is a significant drop-off. The AFC's 3rd and 4th tiers are better than the NFC's top tier, and the AFC's 2nd tier teams are often just as good as the best the NFC can offer. Witness every Super Bowl since the Rams beat the Titans. It ain't even worth arguing.

Anyway, Pasquarelli's nerdy ESPN colleague John Clayton tries to augment the QB experience argument by counting up wins, noting:

There is virtually no playoff experience in the NFC. Rex Grossman of the Bears, Drew Brees of the Saints and Eli Manning of the Giants are each 0-1 in playoff games. Who would have ever thought Jeff Garcia of the Eagles would be the second-most experienced playoff quarterback in the NFC? He's won one of three playoff games. Tony Romo of the Cowboys will be seeing his first playoff action. The most experienced and most dangerous quarterback in the NFC is Matt Hasselbeck of the Seahawks. He's 2-3 in the postseason, including a trip to the Super Bowl last year.

The AFC is loaded at quarterback. Philip Rivers of the Chargers is the only AFC quarterback making his playoff debut. Tom Brady is 10-1 in the playoffs. Steve McNair has a 5-4 postseason record. Peyton Manning is 3-6. Chad Pennington is 2-2. Trent Green is 0-1. The AFC has a clear edge at quarterback.

Hmm … insightful (?) SI dot com's Peter King does better. Of the Patriots-Jets match-up on Sunday, in Foxborough, King says:

The Jets' 17-14 win in Foxboro on Nov. 12 caused the Patriots to install FieldTurf at Gillette Stadium because the field was all muck. Will that matter much here? It could – for the Jets as well as New England. Leon Washington, who has emerged as a Dave Meggettish threat for the Jets, carried it only 10 times against the Patriots this season, but he could be New York's mystery key in Revenge Bowl III on the fast track of the FieldTurf. The Patriots scored only 38 points in eight quarters against the Jets this year and will need to do better here. Luckily for them, Tom Brady is getting in sync with his receivers and seems poised to have a strong postseason.

Right ... the Sunday Pats v. Jets game ….

A friend of mine who tends to visit Las Vegas a few times a year asked me what I thought about the Pats' third bout of the season against their increasingly un-liked division rival to the south. Presently, the boys in Vegas have the Pats giving 8 ½ points to the Jets, which to me sounds way too big of a spread. Still, I told said buddy that I wouldn't touch this game if the spread was a field goal. While I hope and expect that the Pats will show up, the Jets are always a risk.

Classic Belichick was in force this week, as Newsday reported in a Thursday story headlined Taking high road: Feud? What feud? Belichick and Mangini exchange compliments. After responding coldly to his former protégé in the division rivals' two regular season match-ups, Belichick said on Monday of his former defensive protégé:

"I think Eric and his staff have done a great job down there," Belichick said. "They've got them playing very well. It's one of the best teams in football. They're very hot right now."

NY Daily News Jets beat writer Rich Cimini puts an exclamation point on the first name gesture, with the lead: "Eric. Eric. Eric. Eric. There, Bill Belichick said it. He said it four times, in fact."

Newsday columnist Wallace Matthews suggests that there was little sincerity to Belichick's gesture, and that the Pats coach's refusal to further elucidate his feelings about Mangini's departure is merely one more affirmation of his status as a "sniveling rat." Thank the Cosmos for the New York media … and especially the grumps out on Long Island. As for New York proper, the NY Post's Mark Cannizzaro sheds more light on Belichick's Wednesday conference call:

So on yesterday's conference call there was a clear-and-present agenda to Belichick's madness.

It was a call that Belichick seemingly prepared for with the same verve that he uses when putting together his infamous Sunday defensive gameplans. He came to the phone as prepped as he would have been standing on the sidelines to face Peyton Manning and the Colts.

Belichick was universally ridiculed for the way he disrespected Mangini in that November conference call and in his "dead-fish" postgame handshake after the Jets beat the Patriots, including raising the ire of some of his own players who like and respect Mangini.

So yesterday, in beginning the conference call with a rare opening statement, he quickly referred to Mangini as "Eric" with some bland praise.

From there, Belichick called Mangini by name four times during the call.

Most of his praise was phrased like this: "Eric and his staff have done a great job with their team."

When asked specifically where his relationship with Mangini "soured," there was such a long pause that reporters could have left the room, cooked a three-course meal, done the dishes and returned in time to hear the answer.

"I made comments about Eric when he was hired and I still feel that way; nothing has changed there," Belichick said after the interminable pause. "This game is about these two teams this week playing to keep their season alive. That's really what my focus is and that's what our team's focus is."

Asked why he was so cold to Mangini during the postgame handshake in November, Belichick repeated three times, "I never said anything negative."

True, he never said anything negative. The man don't lie.

Dan Shaughnessy brings out one of his patented cutesy columns, including among other eye-rollers:

The animosity was obvious when the rivals met twice during the 2006 regular season. Getting Belichick to say Mangini's name became a parlor game with media members in Boston and New York. The perfunctory postgame handshakes were downright hilarious. Remember the look on the face of German Chancellor Angela Merkel when President Bush gave her an impromptu back-rub? Remember Nancy Kerrigan on the podium with Oksana Baiul? That's what Belichick looked like when he shook Mangini's hand. The soundtrack for that video should be Dylan's "Positively 4th Street."

"You say, 'How are you? Good luck.' But you don't mean it."

Actually Dan, I don't remember Nancy Kerrigan on the podium with Oksana Baiul … but … anyway … For reference sake, I send you to BYOB who apparently knows what the Curly Haired Boyfriend is typing about … But I still don't get the Dylan reference ... Sooo ... moving on.

Not to be outdone by CHB, the Herald's Gerry Callahan cross references Animal House and Seinfeld in his Mangini story.

Believe it or not, some writers are actually focusing on the game itself … you know, with the players who run around the field and such. NY Post's Mike Vaccaro focuses the importance of Jets QB Chad Pennington. Cannizarro wrote about former Jet, present Pat cornerback Ray Mickensyesterday. The Globe's Mike Reiss provides this compendium of views of other coaches on both sides of the ball.

Globe columnist Jackie MacMullen focuses on the absence of Patriot safety Rodney Harrison, who was declared "out" for Sunday after suffering a knee injury against the Titans last Sunday. NYDN columnist Mike Lupica tells the story of the Sunday playoff match-up in the "My buddy, the GM, told me …" formula.

Herald beat writer John Tomase looks at Tom Brady and observes that the QB has been closely analyzing the Jets' defensive success in the second regular season game between the two teams. Comparing them to the Dolphins, who beat up on Brady "when his offensive line was overwhelmed by the physical skills of defensive end Jason Taylor," Tomase observes:

The Jets did it not with athleticism, but their game plan. On the simplest level, they disguised their intentions, holding their ground while Brady made protection calls at the line of scrimmage, then shifting at the snap.

Whatever blocking adjustments the Patriots had made were suddenly moot and blitzers like safety Kerry Rhodes consistently came free. Every team aims for such defensive subterfuge, but the Jets actually pulled it off. It’s the approach the Patriots themselves used with so much success against Peyton Manning during their Super Bowl run.

One last thing Patriots

Patriots back-up QB Vinnie Testaverde, with friends

Whoever says Belichick isn't a softy needs to rethink the proposition after last week's decision to substitute Vinnie Testaverde for number-two QB Matt Cassel late in the Fourth Quarter. Testaverde stood poised to end his streak of successive seasons in which he threw a touchdown pass at 19 seasons. So, with the Patriots handily in front on the Titans, Belichick inserted the veteran QB, who took all of five plays before finding Troy Brown in the end zone for his first touchdown in this, his 20th straight season with one.

It harkened back almost exactly one year ago, when Belichick inexplicably removed Cassel in favor of Doug Flutie, in what was likely going to be his last NFL game. On fourth down, the 43 year old QB assumed a regular shotgun formation, but just before the snap, retreated several more steps, caught the ball, bounced it into the grass and nailed the first dropkick extra point in the NFL since 1940, thus ending his career on a memorable note. NuttyaboutSportsBlog makes the same observation here.

Nothing wrong with a little sentimentality, now.

2006-12-27T06:48:00.000-05:00

Art for Statistics' Sake

So, I was offered a wonderfully welcomed gift for Christmas -- long-desired framing for any two of the handful of unhung/unframed prints I have stacked into piles since we moved into a house filled with walls requiring plaster and paint before anything else is done. The offer reminded me of a painting, or series of paintings I had read about and always wanted to acquire in print form. Some time back, I was flipping through some schmucky artsy magazine that somehow seemed the most desirable thing to read among the pile of Cosmopolitan, Country Living, and Highlights for Children that provided the alternatives. I stumbled upon an article about two Russian artists named Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid.

Quick sidenote: My relationship with paintings – i.e. the thing that causes me to like certain works of art – is pretty much exactly backwards, based on what the art world and artists want you to think when looking at art. Generally speaking, I like paintings based on what and how much I learn about the painters, their lives, and their times.

For example, Jackson Pollock and the other abstract expressionists probably wouldn't have interested me much had I not been first exposed to them through this very cool exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery some time ago, which focused less on the art itself and more on the personalities of the painters. Also, because the exhibit paired the artists with the Beat Poets and Be-Bop Jazz Musicians of the late 1940s and early 1950s, I could contextualize the work and consider the connections between the visual, the aural, and verbal media that the exhibitor was suggesting. Once I had that frame of reference – historical and cultural – I could then see the paintings for what they were and personally connect with them.

One more quick tangent: Check out this interesting site, which is apparently dedicated, sort of, to the legacy of Jackson Pollock. I feel like an artist or something …

Right.

So then, I mention all this as prologue to the point about Komar and Melamid. I'm reading this article about a project they had undertaken called the Most Wanted Series, described in an interview with the artists in this article in The Nation. The paintings in this series were produced after the artists polled citizens throughout the world about their likes and dislikes with respect to paintings. The surveys conducted asked an array of questions, from "Do you prefer modern or traditional art?" to "Would you say that you prefer seeing paintings of wild animals, like lions, giraffes, or deer, or that you prefer seeing paintings of domestic animals, like dogs, cats or other pets?" The USA survey asked what sized paintings Americans preferred, revealing:

- dishwasher size: 67%
- full-size refrigerator: 17%
- full wall: 11%
- 19" television": 69%
- a magazine: 24%
- paperback book: 40%

The results were staggering, amusing, and oddly pleasing. Not to be confused with the similarly titled Ice T CD), here was what they came up with for their painting:

"America's Most Wanted (dishwasher sized)"

"America's Most Unwanted (paperback sized)"

They conquered America, turned to a greater world conquest, and observed finally that "regardless of sex, race, education, or income, in paintings, the majority of people preferred landscapes and the color blue." More precisely, as was reported in the New Republic:

Komar and Melamid found, amazingly enough, that the majority of Americans preferred the same painting. Americans overwhelmingly preferred the color blue. They wanted a landscape with mountains, a river, a bit of forest, and a single tree in the foreground. They desired to see George Washington in the painting, as well as three anonymous figures and two deer. What the majority of people did not want was a painting that was abstract. Even more incredible is that, when Komar and Melamid conducted the poll in countries throughout the world, everyone else wanted the exact same kind of painting, with local variations.

So, Russia's most wanted looks just like America's Most Wanted, only Jesus stands in place of George Washington, and there is a family of bears frolicking in the woods rather than a family of deer drinking from the lake.

While the artists toured Canada, an Alberta Report reporter took the highroad and succumbed to the possibility that "the Komar and Melamid project raises, in earnest, a real paradox in the arts:

Modern art was supposed to be transnational in its appeal to the working classes, but it has united average viewers of different countries only in their contempt for it. It turns out that people in Turkey and Russia and Kenya want more or less what Canadians want: representational painting, preferably landscapes with mountains, lakes and trees. Although in Kenya there's a hippo where the deer are meant to be.

Kenya's Most Wanted:
"A hippo where the deer are meant to be."

Here's another good overview of the project:

"The People's Choice" is not, of course, an attempt to produce populist art. Like the market-research apparatus that it utilizes, its first aim is to produce a public dialogue--or the appearance of one. In light of the poll's banal conclusions, and the wretched art that issued from it, the higher purpose might be seen as dialectical: to begin to imagine an outcome something like the opposite of the one actually achieved. Whatever a real "people's art" might be, it would not look like this. And yet, in a society where public communication and popular taste seem stage-managed by a vast machinery of statistical smoke and mirrors, this is what you get. Or do you?

And they didn't stop at national preferences, as American Prospect observed in 2000:

Komar and Melamid are still at it: Their latest commission – St. Paul, Minnesota's "most wanted" (elk, lighthouse) – was installed this past November at the Minnesota Museum of American Art. The viewer response? "There are a lot of other things I'd prefer to put in my living room," museum-goer Adele Binning told the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

American Prospect also recounted Melamid's acknowledgment to Jim Lehrer of "the comedy of creating anything based on the fragmentary preferences of aggregate poll respondents:

"It was our idea to visualize this view of the new kind of dictator, because we grew up in a condition of dictatorship, Lenin, Stalin, et cetera. And when we came to United States, we recognized that another dictator here is the so-called majority."

Some other commentators got really earnest about the project and its implications, noting for instance that "the universality of basic visual tastes" identified by Komar and Melamid fit into some evolutionary framework. New Yorker critic Louis Menand thought twice about it:

Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, in 1993, surveyed people's artistic preferences for color, subject matter, style, and so on. They proceeded to make a painting that incorporated all of the top-rated elements: it was a nineteenth-century realist landscape featuring children, deer, and the figure of George Washington. … exemplify[ying] the kind of landscape that had been characterized as optimal for our species by researchers in evolutionary aesthetics. …
[yet] Komar and Melamid are satirists. They set out to find the visual lowest common denominator, and the work they produced … is preposterous even as kitsch.

Maybe that's the joy of it. If it wasn't preposterous, would we be able to stand it?
After all, we know what happens when an opportunist gets a hold of the same thesis, wipes away any remains of a smirk, and opens a kiosk in the middle of every mall in America. Were they not avowed Communists, Komar and Melamid could probably stand to recover some of the 10s of millions earned by Thomas Kinkade, in part by taking their preposterous idea and selling it as the real deal.

There is no shortage of opinions on the Kinkade empire, as critic Shaila Dewan observed in her 1999 article in Houston Press, "Study in Green: People love Thomas Kinkade, the Painter of Light. Is that a problem?" (see below for the full article)

However, I highlight one of the many readable points made by Ms. Dewan – just because something is "beautiful" in the eyes of many does not mean that it should be celebrated or emulated. Through art, she suggests, artists should seek to convey their own new ideas and convey them in the most beautiful fashion. As observers, we should seek to be challenged beyond our preexisting, aesthetic comfort-zone, while still demanding from artists the "beautiful."

She notes that:

Left in Kinkade's hands, the subversive potential of beauty drains away instantly. … Kinkade uses [beauty] to persuade his viewers of the glory of singsong family values – not a challenging task … and therein lies its weakness. It doesn't persuade anyone of anything new.

One way or another, beauty or no beauty, a little part of me still strives to find – by eBay or whatever – a framed print of America's Most Wanted … if only to hang in my basement guy's lair alongside my other pieces of guy art, to be enjoyed passively and sardonically in glances between foozball points or hands of poker.

Study in Green:
People love Thomas Kinkade, the Painter of Light. Is that a problem?

By Shaila Dewan
Houston Press
May 27, 1999

It was a certain morbid curiosity that drew us, two artists and me, to the Westin Galleria one afternoon in late March to witness a personal appearance by California painter Thomas Kinkade, variously known as America's most collected artist, the only artist traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and the Painter of Light*. Here was an artist who has five galleries devoted solely to his work in the Houston area alone, whose fans own three, ten, 20 of his paintings (at around $1,000 a pop), and who – here's the kicker – advertises on television. Yet until two days before, I had never heard of the guy.

The three of us, having successfully infiltrated the Laura Ashley set, were soon casting politely inscrutable glances at each other, the message of which boiled down to this: As much scorn as we could easily heap on Kinkade's treacly little paintings, never had more than 600 people paid $15 a head to get my autograph, and never had my friends received a standing ovation the minute they walked on a stage to talk about their art.

Thomas Kinkade makes the ultimate Republican paintings. Unlike Norman Rockwell, to whom Kinkade compares himself, he depicts the world as he would like it to be rather than as it is, steeping everything in a pickling fluid of hazy golden light. His cozy cottages glow with hearthfire (his galleries are equipped with dimmers so you can see how the paintings seem to light up in the darkness). His gardens bloom lavishly. Trellises dangle above clear rivers, dew-coated stone bridges span twinkling streams. Mountains, untrammeled by timber companies or pollutants, rise in salute of America the Beautiful in all its God-fearing glory.

Like his paintings, Kinkade's rehearsed version of his life story seemed too idyllic to be true: He married his childhood sweetheart, taught himself to paint, risked his life savings to do his first print (which sold out and is now worth a lot of money), had four daughters and inscribes the first initial of his wife, Nanette, in secret places on his paintings in acknowledgment of her contribution to his life. His collectors and dealers believe that Kinkade is close to the Lord, and he encourages the notion that his business is actually a ministry: When you buy one of his paintings, he told the crowd, you "light a candle."

Which is not to say that his work appeals only to Christians. Media Arts Group, Inc., the company that has made Thomas Kinkade's name into a "lifestyle brand" a la Martha Stewart, has deals with Avon, Hallmark, La-Z-Boy and most recently, U.S. Home (which will build houses based on those in Kinkade's paintings). His collectors are women (79 percent), homeowners (87 percent), empty nesters (66 percent) and rich (46 percent average $80,000 annually). The company trades on Kinkade's appeal for "just about everyone"; every American wall is a sales opportunity, and national trends toward "nesting" and "cocooning" are viewed as favorable to Media Arts's business climate.

It didn't take much for Kinkade to sustain his audience's conviction that he's the real thing. His cute daughter dispensed chintzy prizes (Beanie Babies she decorated herself) to the couple who had been married the longest and the couple who had the most kids. I was surprised she didn't also give a prize to the person who owned the most Kinkades, although the artist did ask for a show of hands on that issue too. Kinkade made a small (I think it was $2,000) donation to a local charity in the form of one of those giant, camera-friendly checks.

Kinkade's success irked me, the way it irks me that the Alley Theatre's schmaltz-laden musical Jekyll & Hyde could go on to enjoy a critic-defying success on Broadway (not to mention the way it irks me that the Alley spells theatre as if that were somehow better than theater). Yet it also humbled me. Here was an artist whose work real people craved, people who saved their money to buy the latest limited edition (Kinkade's originals, apparently worth a few hundred thousand dollars apiece, are not for sale; instead, they are reprinted on canvases and highlighted by hand). I felt like an art snob. I thought about buying stock.

Of course, much of the credit for Kinkade's success goes to his efficient marketing machine, which works overtime to assure the collector that she is getting something important. Unlike installations, ephemeral art, site-specific works, tubs of Jell-O, naked people coated in liquid latex, and other contemporary art statements that have made appearances in Houston of late, Kinkade's paintings have clear monetary value and a strict hierarchy of price. In a marketing scheme whose pretension is akin to theatre, Kinkade has standard numbered prints, artist proofs, gallery proofs, publisher proofs, international proofs, atelier national and international editions, renaissance editions and studio proofs. Kinkade understands that Walter Benjamin was wrong when he predicted that mechanical reproduction would decrease an image's value: He's got calendars and address books, Hallmark cards and tapestries. One in 20 American homes, according to the company's Web site, is graced by a Thomas Kinkade image.

This doesn't mean, of course, that artists should start watching reruns of The Joy of Painting and setting up their easels en masse on misty mornings. The idea that art should, as Kinkade so cleverly does, give the public what they want has already been made mincemeat of by Komar and Melamid, the Soviet emigres who poll viewers to find out what colors, scenes and elements they want in their art and make paintings such as America's Most Wanted, which features a lot of blue, a nature scene and a portrait of George Washington. It's a really ugly painting.

While I didn't see Kinkade's landscapes, homes and (for the adventurous) "impressionistic plein-air works" as particularly interesting in and of themselves, I was interested in how his work related to contemporary art's much-lamented "failure" to reach a "mainstream" audience. (The presumption is, of course, that art should reach a mainstream audience, which I'm not so sure about.) According to critic Dave Hickey, who has been at one end of the debate over this issue for several years, the problem has been contemporary art's rejection of the beautiful in favor of the virtuous. Since beauty sells, Hickey wrote in 1993, ridiculing the art world for its horror of commercialism, beauty is suspect. The network of museums and nonprofit art spaces – "therapeutic institutions," Hickey calls them – fails to avail itself of "the subversive potential of visual pleasure."

Of course, to carry Hickey's love of mass culture and commercialism to its very extreme (which I don't think Hickey really wants to do) is to get stuck with Thomas Kinkade. Left in Kinkade's hands, the subversive potential of beauty drains away instantly. If, as Hickey argues, Robert Mapplethorpe used beauty to persuade viewers of the glory of gay sex, then Kinkade uses it to persuade his viewers of the glory of singsong family values – not a challenging task. If beauty is a rhetorical tool, Hickey says, one can distinguish among "the most beautiful image," which simply appeals to the most people, "the most effective beautiful image," which makes the most extreme set of values palatable to the most people, and the "most efficient beautiful image," which sneaks transgressive content into the homes of the elite and influential. Kinkade's work falls under the first category, and therein lies its weakness. It doesn't persuade anyone of anything new.

Hickey's beauty juggernaut has gone on long enough, and been influential enough, to have given rise to a backlash. In the extended multicultural symposium that was the art world of the late '80s and early '90s, Hickey's theories could be used as an excuse to go home early. Because of that, they've recently been attacked (wrongly, I think) as patriarchal and exclusionary. Although Hickey never has to my knowledge advocated a universal beauty – to him, visual pleasure is a tool artists forgot to use rather than an absolute measure of quality – he has been assailed both for asserting white, male privilege in resuscitating beauty and for pandering to the masses. The former charge rings hollow; the latter somewhat true. Writing in a Los Angeles art magazine whose latest issue was primarily devoted to beauty-bashing, Peter Lunenfeld called Hickey's position defeatist: "If you can't beat the middlebrow, why not join it."

Hickey attacks the fact that artists decline to give the market what it demands as a petulant refusal to acknowledge the audience, and accuses the nonprofits set up to handle this nonmarketable art of neutering art's power – and in both cases he is providing a valuable service. The resentment comes, I suppose, because Hickey has not critiqued the market itself in terms of the escapist, Republican pablum that can gain ascendancy there. Is it really fair for Hickey to champion the tastes of the people and ignore Thomas Kinkade? It's true that the market has room for many, many opinions, but market forces tend to push product in one direction. Hickey may use the market as a whip for an art world that depends in no small part on market-free but agenda-laden charity funds. But he can't claim that all that sells is good.

2006-12-20T19:00:00.000-05:00

Opening to the Future?

The Rockland Free Press reports that energy magnate Matthew Simmons has assembled a group that plans to buy the former MBNA complex on the South End of Rockland's waterfront. Simmons, who has already contributed to Rockland's rebirth by injecting millions of dollars into the rehabilitation of the Strand Theater , now plans to use the waterfront facility to site a Water Institute, which he describes as a place:

where research scientists could work in a collaborative environment on energy issues related to fresh and salt water, may take two to three years to come to fruition. “The idea was on hold until we got the building.… Now I can gear up and spend more time on it. In the meantime we can make the building a viable commercial success. It will be good for the midcoast.”

The Courier Gazette provides this account of the planned agreement.

In a case of interesting timing, last Sunday's NY Times Magazine included a cover story that posed the philosophical question following its headline, What Should A Billionaire Give -- namely, "Why should a billionaire give?"

Pondering the author's self-interest v. altruism conundrum is all well and good, but in the end, I won't worry about Mr. Simmons' motives so long as the ends provide Rockland with reasonably open access to its harborside and a good faith effort to use the property as a means of injecting an economic development ethos into the city's imagination.

Out with the old

It appears that last summer's Matinicus Lobster War has achieved a measure of finality, at least for the time. The matter, which I addressed some time back, involved one lobsterman's territorial battle with a group of lobstermen over the privilege to fish waters off the island of Matinicus. It appears that shotguns and cut lines have yielded no more than a $300 fine for the 74 year old fisherman.

In a follow-up to a previously mentioned story, it also appears that CC prosecutors and celebrity lawyer Tom Connolly have agreed to erase the stain of terrorism charges from Connolly's record in exchange for community service and a public apology. Maine Things Considered had this audio report. The lawyer, who gained fame for taking up the cause of convicted murderer Dennis Dechaine in the late 1980s and for revealing details about President Bush's DUI conviction during the 2000 presidential campaign, apparently will make amends by undertaking community service in the name of toy gun safety and donating $500 to the Bruce Roberts Christmas Fund.

In With The New

Looks like the lawyer charged with drafting a Winthrop couple's pre-nup may not get a Christmas card from his deceased client's family this year. Not to mention the sa-weet deal on a used Grenada they had lined up for him …

The little I recall from Family Law I tells me that Courts generally aren't too fond of prenuptial agreements and will strictly pour through them when their enforceability is challenged. As with employment non-compete agreements, anyone who wants to deprive another party of rights that Americans generally regard as sacrosanct better get a good lawyer if she wants to emerge from a court's inquiry with their intended meanness intact.

Permit me to cross reference a piece blogged over at Words Matter, suggesting that Lewiston stands on the verge of the rebirth so long predicted for it. I guess that the years of TIF creation, mill rehabbing-as-office/retail/restaurant space, and PR spending a-go-go, are starting to pay dividends -- in part due to the advent of Portland commuters into the city's social scene. Interesting related note that I sadly can only reference in passing, as The New Yorker featured a story about Somalis living in Lewiston but carrying on the difficult clan-tensions that divided their homeland. The link only goes to an online exclusive slideshow, as the magazine opted against posting the whole story on the website. I guess I'll have to search out a Dec. 11 issue or wait for Lexis to post it next week.

Scarborough appears poised to become the host of Maine's first large-scale Smart Growth development, after years of struggling through a referendum and a lawsuit. The Press Herald provided this editorial on Wednesday, recognizing:

One of the hard lessons of Dunstan Corner is that fighting sprawl will require trade-offs. Density in already-populated areas will have an impact on neighborhood traffic conditions. It will bring more students to certain schools. It could even affect property values.

If developers are going to be able to do these kinds of projects, they need towns and cities to have clear zoning rules and to stick by their approvals -- even if that means limiting citizen petition rights.

The payoff will be development that occurs where it makes sense, near existing sewer, water, school and police and fire services. Every dense development in an already populated area will mean less demand for houses in the countryside, preserving open space.

All that is good public policy, but it won't be to everyone's liking. Making the kind of fundamental changes required to alter the existing pattern of development in Maine means big changes.

If sprawl is to be stopped, people have to live differently than they do in other parts of the country. But then again, isn't that what we're trying to preserve in Maine?

Here's a provocative piece by Doug Most in last Sunday's Boston Globe Magazine that questions Tom Brady and David Ortiz for their practice of sharing tips with their counterparts on other teams. Taking a hardline, Most opines:

Helping a Little Leaguer who’s struggling to throw strikes is admirable. Helping an opponent in the pros is not. Obviously, players today are friends. They share the same agents, same endorsements, same colleges, same tax brackets, and they go out to dinner when they visit for games. They might have even played for the same team at some point, thanks to free agency. That’s all fine. But their friendship mustn’t weaken their competitiveness. It’s called Sports, not Games, and it’s big business. Winning and losing do matter. The difference between the Patriots finishing second instead of first means millions of dollars to the team and the city, not to mention heartache to the loyal fans.

Now, that's not very sporting, is it?

The Christian Science Monitor features a piece headlined New Hampshires Live Free or Die spirit turns less prickly.

Congressional Democrats have apparently drafted a manifesto of sorts describing their plan for fixing America.

The Boston Herald's Michael Felger provides a decent feature on Vinnie Testaverde and his impact on Tom Brady.

BH columnist Howie Carr gets cutesy about Mitt Romney and his apparent capitulation to the PC police.

A South Bristol story involving a summer resident and tree removal from another person's property within the town's Shoreland Zone continues to fester.

Final thought

The American Prospect highlights Massachusetts Governor-elect Deval Patrick as a rising star within the party. The article suggests that a new wave of aggressive trial lawyers-types turned Governors, including Patrick, New York's Eliot Spitzer, and Ohio's Ted Strickland, are going to create a Progressive backlash to the New Federalist revolution of the 1980s-2000 where states exercising their power free of Congressional efforts to stymie, yield results that Republicans will find a bit unpalatable:

The action in government has been in the states for a while now. “The federal government has increasingly devolved decision-making to the governors,” says Peter Dreier, the E.P Clapp distinguished professor of politics at Occidental College in Los Angeles. This was, in part, an ideological shift: The Gingrich Revolution trumpeted its renewed federalism, enhancing state authority over everything from welfare to Medicaid. States can’t deficit spend, so handing them once-federal responsibilities under the rubric of a restored federalism promised to shrink the expansiveness, generosity, and responsiveness of government services. Federalist lipstick? Meet small-government pig.

Reminds me of a book I read about called Redefining Federalism, which, like the Prospect article, harkens back to Justice Louis Brandeis' note that "It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." The book's jacket copy notes:

If federalism is about protecting the states, why not listen to them? In the last decade, the Supreme Court has reworked significant areas of constitutional law with the professed purpose of protecting the dignity and authority of the states, while frequently disregarding the states' views as to what federalism is all about. The Court, according to the states, is protecting federalism too much and too little. Too much, in striking down federal law where even the states recognize that a federal role is necessary to address a national problem. Too little, in inappropriately limiting state experimentation.

Fine points.

2006-12-19T19:53:00.000-05:00

To Be Filed Under "Ill Conceived"

Hopefully, this is apt on only one level. But ... I found myself so inspired by Wisdom Weasel in his recent reflection upon Brit Rockers and Christmas that I've decided to open a new door in bloggery.

In what may prove to be the first in a series of installments, I present (apologies or thanks to Craig Kilborn -- you choose): Your moment of zen

2006-12-19T07:15:00.000-05:00

Fanning the Flames ...

Thanks to AP photographer Jeff Chiu for this pic of Al Gore gesturing to the audience at the American Geophysical Convention in San Francisco, on Dec. 14. Might as well be a collection of everyone who's tried to push him into the ring for the 2008 Presidential election.

The Washington Post provides the first story I've seen in some time that considers Gore, the non-candidate, as a candidate. The story observes, quoting the former veep:

"I am not planning to run for president again," Gore said last week, arguing that his focus is raising public awareness about global warming and its dire effects. Then, he added: "I haven't completely ruled it out."

Those words make Gore the 800-pound non-candidate of the Democratic field. The
possibility of another presidential bid delights many Democrats still steamed over the disputed 2000 election, in which they argue a few more votes, a state other than Florida and a different Supreme Court could have put Gore, not George W. Bush, in the White House.

The Post article also provides a few other interesting points in quoting a prominent Democratic organizer from 2004:

Despite his protestations to the contrary, some Democratic strategists believe
Gore could be persuaded to enter the race and will wait to see how the field
shakes out before making a final decision.

Joe Trippi, who managed Howard Dean's Internet-fueled presidential campaign in 2004, said Gore would be a formidable candidate and could probably wait longer than others to enter the field.

"If anything, he's more relevant than anyone in the race because of his positions on the war and global warming," Trippi said. "And that's really tough to do in the Democratic Party, which treats its failed presidential candidates like members of leper colony."

I've said it numerous times before, but let me repeat it – Al Gore is best situated among the likely contenders to win the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination. I note this on the heals of last week's nod to the recent spell of Obama v Hillary hype.

In the words of the sages, Don't Believe the Hype!

Sure, his non-candidacy is about the most buried 2008 Dem story about any in the field, most presently amidst the news that Evan Bayh won't run, but Gore's former running mate John Edwards will. M/M Edwards were on Hardball themselves last week, sending whatever remaining obvious flags were needed to signal the candidacy was imminent.

But, history suggests that Gore is positioning himself. Political animal Dick Morris clearly knows something about it. The February Academy Awards will surely focus on An Inconvenient Truth, thus providing Gore with another round of free, feel-good, pre-candidacy press.

In early 1967, Richard Nixon's campaign for the 1968 nomination was still equivocal. He spent late 1966 successfully campaigning for Republican House candidates and thereafter declared a six-month moratorium on any discussions of his own political future. As this February 1967 piece from Time Magazine observes, while Nixon stayed out, he allowed the press's new darling, George Romney to self-destruct:

As some of Romney's support began to erode, Richard Nixon, the G.O.P.'s perennial workhorse, began to shape up as its potential dark horse as well. Clearing the Track. The former Vice President had supposedly disavowed politics for six months following the G.O.P.'s election victories last November. Nonetheless, his backers came out in the open to promote the notion that Nixon, a dedicated party performer of proven ability, was preferable to the unknown quantity that Romney continues to be. On the eve of the G.O.P. meeting, Nebraska's Fred Seaton, Interior Secretary under President Eisenhower, sent letters to all committeemen and state chairmen eulogizing Nixon as "the single Republican with the stature, the requisite abilities and the qualities of leadership essential to unite us and maintain our current momentum." More discreetly, Nixon fanciers were hard at work clearing the track for their steed.

(note: big props to Time for free archiving some of its articles of old and arranging with Google for prominent search result listings).

Again thanks to Time, Nixon didn't formally announce until January 1968. By then, he appeared as the reliable veteran politically centered between liberal Republican Nelson Rockerfeller and conservative dogmatist Ronald Reagan. Once Reagan was out of the picture by June, Nixon merely needed to tow the line against Rockerfeller while rallying the base against LBJ's failing Vietnam strategy from the hawkish position.

Witness: Obama, excites many as untested newcomer who seeks to recast ideas owned by the other party (family values) in the vernacular of a new vision of liberalism. That was George Romney's campaign in 1967. Sen. Clinton is the odds-on favorite, who is recognized as politically untrustworthy by liberal loyalists and still raises doubts about "electability" among the moderates whose politics most closely mirror those on which she will run. Reagan, maybe? And John Edwards ... well, it doesn't line up that perfectly, but I guess somebody has to be Rockerfeller, so why not him.

My point is that Gore, assuming he has been running for the nomination all along, has been playing the same hand that Nixon played in 1967 as he moved toward clinching the 1968 nomination.

Still, time seems to pass more quickly in 2007 than it did in 1967. That
is the spirit of what Post Media Notes Columnist
Howard Kurtz observed midweek, in a column that symbolically led with a discussion of the Obama craze – that Gore is "still a possible candidate, whose luster dims the longer he remains indecisive on the sidelines."

While here, nice bit of smirkiness by this NY Post columnist, who calls Obama the semi-official Rorschach Candidate of 2008, as he:

is the one who provokes enthusiasm not because of the positions he takes but because of who he is. He doesn't seem like a politician; he seems to be better than a politician -- fresh, new, different . . .

And we all know how long that can dissipate. Newsweek is already ready to pounce.

Despite all of his protests, the former Veep cannot escape endorsements. Former President Jimmy Carter, who has also been in the my thoughts of late, seems to be pushing for a Gore candidacy as evidenced by his comments on Hardball in late November. Carter said:

I encouraged him so much in 2004 to run that he finally said, 'Mr. President, please do not bother me about this any more. My family and I have decided I'm not going to run.' He almost got angry with me. But I don't have that much doubt, first of all, that Al Gore was elected president by votes in Florida and throughout the nation in the year 2000. And I think, had he run in the year 2004 he would have won. And if I had to choose now a candidate out of all the ones that exist, at this point, at least, Al Gore would still be my preference.

A contributor to Huffington Post provides this plea, observing:

Never in the history of either political party can I think of any potential candidate or potential President as commander-in-chief qualified as you are, today.

After eight years of a catastrophic President so uninterested in world affairs that he did not even travel the world as a student, tourist or Governor before assuming the most powerful job on earth I believe that qualifications, experience, judgment and knowledge will be the hallmark qualities needed in our next President.

The

Instant update: My Yahoo mail update just revealed a MoveOnDotOrg message from ... guess who? Here's some of the text:

Dear MoveOn member,

I want to thank you for being a part of the See the Truth movie parties this past Saturday and for helping make them such a huge success. Tens of thousands of us came together to start mobilizing to take on the climate crisis.

I know from personal experience that the only thing which will move Washington to action is the sight of millions of people coming together and pushing for change—and we can't afford to wait any longer. That's why I'm asking you to sign this online petition to your representative, demanding immediate action to stop global warming. If you sign it, I'll personally deliver your comments to Congress in the new year.

After you've signed on, please take a moment to pass this on to your friends and family and ask them to sign on. We've bought the DVD, seen the movie and spread the word about global warming. Now we have to organize to stop it. I'm ready to push for real solutions, but I need your help.

MoveOn members have been an incredible force for good in the last few years, and you should be very proud of what you've accomplished. The challenges we face are enormous, and we know that we can't trust Washington to do the right thing without intense pressure from good folks around the country. But you've shown everyone that political will truly is a renewable resource.

I look forward to working together. Thanks for all you do, Big Al

Well there you go. The fight goes on, and so does the media coverage. At some point, the former Veep is going to have to decide and come out from behind the global warming message. If it works, it will be marked-down as one of the most brilliant political campaign strategies in history. If it fails, and it was always his intention to seek the nomination, it will go down as one of the most ill conceived strategies. As with 1967, I guess we'll have to watch to see how things play out between now and next January.

2006-12-13T19:07:00.000-05:00

Proof that Europeans have it Right

It's the philanthropy that really makes it nice.

Thanks to our friends at the AP for this fine photo of Miss Universe, Alexandra Rosenfeld, Miss France 2006, as she plays foosball with children at a Boys and Girls Club in Burbank, Calif., on Monday, July 10, 2006.

Foozball has re-entered my consciousness of late, and not merely due to Ms. Rosenfeld's philanthropic effect. More importantly, I offer thanks to Canada Mike who recently set-up his Million Dollar Game table and welcomed me to rechristen it a few weeks back.

Today, disagreement ensued as to the proper spelling of the game, which I learned at the fine institution of finer learning where I spent my salad days. Canada Mike observed:

Foos (it's "S" man - "S"):
Results 1 - 10 of about 862,000 for foos.
Results 1 - 10 of about 94,700 for fooz

He added that he "just re-perfected my off-the-back-of-the-keeper-into-the-net-through-the-air shot of awesomeness."

I'll withhold the full bluster of my reply, but sufficed to say, I disagreed with his insistence on the European usage and barred him from using it until he could beat me. And silly-arsed novelty shot or no silly-arsed novelty shot, that isn't happening anytime soon so long as my push is as effective as it was last week. I be frat guy, hear me boast.

Upon viewing Ms. Rosenfeld's mad skills, I might be inclined to at least permit limited, or dual usage of "foos" along with my preferred spelling. You know, like in Quebec.

2006-12-11T22:41:00.000-05:00

Floating adrift through December

Offering one last image of the Fall as we lower our helmets and press on into the winter.

The first snows have fallen, and the holiday season is imminent. Also imminent is the birth of Bambino Secundo. All the ladies in the house sing woo woo.

I dunno. There's probably all kinds of stuff happening out there, but it's been a little difficult to focus of late.

There's the matter of the Augusta Memorial Bridge, which crews have been busily de-glorifying over the past two weeks by attaching the suicide-prevention fence I mentioned some time back. On the matter of the bridge, I found a Flickr user page which stands as a beautiful homage to Augusta - the city to which nobody ever thinks to pay homage. I was discussing this element of Flickr with the Mrs. last night, observing that Flickr provides a great medium for folks to honor the places that make them happiest. In the process, those places receive the otherwise non-public treatment that tends to show them at their most splendid. Anyway, what follows below is one in a series of pix recently posted by the fella capturing the bridge at its most mystical and lovely.

Speaking of mystical and lovely ...

In my earlier vintages, I used to take great joy in making an annual Columbus Day pilgrimage through the White Mountains National Forest along New Hampshire's Kancamagus Highway. One of the more peculiar and charming resources available to folks like me was this radio station, maintained by some governmental agency (National Forest Service? NH D.O.T.?) at the far left of the radio dial (cue: Replacements Song of the same name)

Anyway, the Guvhah announced last week that he would not be outdone by anything put forth by the free livin' & dyin' neighbors to the West by christening a Maine radio station, hearable at 1640 AM anywhere near Maine State Police truck weigh-stations. While it sounds a bit different-in-focus than the poor-man's Thoreau stuff put out over the NH station, it merits a mention nonetheless.

Context Free Quick Hits

The Patriots are in trouble. Big Trouble and it could get worse.

The Red Sox are confounding.

While I don't think I'm dying like the folks described in this Village Soup article, I think I've been beset by whatever is causing it and it ain't no fun.

Washington Post's EJ Dionne projects ahead to the impending Hillary-Obama battle for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination. Makes for a nice follow-up to this cover story in November's Atlantic Monthly titled, "Take Two: How Hillary Clinton turned herself into the consummate Washington player." The gist is that Hillary has brilliantly evolved into one of the most effective Senators on the Hill, but by doing so, she might be hurting her chances of becoming a strong Presidential candidate -- i.e. she reaches across the aisle too much to be the kind of hating partisan that the Democrats need to rally the troops in 2008. Nice excerpt:

But few in the Senate today would deny that, whatever her motives, Clinton is
diligent about her work there, and successful in ways that have moderated her
image. Her deft touch with conservative colleagues has thus far neutralized the
Republican National Committee’s strategy of getting people to put her in the
same mental category as bumbling liberals like Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean.
She’s no easy target. Her partnerships were deemed so successful in moderating
her image that Karl Rove, according to a source close to him, sent word last
year to halt Republican cooperation with her—an edict that has been ignored. As
the atmosphere in Washington has deteriorated, Clinton has emerged within the
Senate as the unlikeliest of figures: she, not George W. Bush, has turned out to
be a uniter, not a divider.

What she might do next vexes many in the Democratic Party. As Hillary Clinton has worked to establish her place in the Senate, she has also been central in the effort to build up a new party infrastructure. Democrats now seem poised for a comeback—perhaps as soon as this month’s elections. But many worry that Clinton will soon go further and decide to seek the presidency. Should she win the nomination but lose the election, they believe, the party could suffer incalculable damage.

Over the last six months, Clinton has given a series of important policy speeches designed to fortify her national profile. Most people, including her closest advisers,
believe this to be the groundwork for a presidential bid. Clinton has become a
vocal critic of the president and, gingerly, of the war she voted to support—even as that vote has begun to eclipse everything else she has done.

The story of Clinton’s Senate career mirrors that of her political life generally: a pattern of ambition, failure, study, and advancement. It provides a showcase for her very considerable skills. But it also points up her core liabilities as she prepares to move from the New York stage and back to the national one. Maybe one way to frame the question is this: Can a woman who has made herself small enough for the Senate be big enough for the country?

Perhaps my favorite part of the Atlantic treatise is this nice bit about foreign trips Senators take together:

The story of one such trip, to Estonia, recently brought to light by The New
York Times, gives a flavor of what Clinton is like in these settings. At a
casual dinner with Senate colleagues Graham, John McCain, and Susan Collins, all
Republicans, the waiter followed local custom by bringing a bottle of vodka and
shot glasses, whereupon Clinton reached over and began pouring; a drinking
contest ensued.

McCain’s staff seemed pained by the revelation, and declined my request for an interview, because the last thing a Republican presidential hopeful wants floating around in the media is word that he’s becoming booze pals with Hillary Clinton. And McCain denied the story to Jay Leno. But when I recently intercepted him walking through the Capitol, McCain lit up at the recollection. “It’s been fifty years since I’d been in a drinking game,” said McCain, who as a former naval aviator knows whereof he speaks. He added, admiringly, “She can really hold her liquor.”

If nothing else, this point ought to convince a few of the moderates who have never embraced the former first lady.

This just in -- Generalissimo Augusto Pinochet is still dead.

The Post provides this reflection on the the pain caused to Chile by Pinochet.

Finally

There is the Israel-Palestine debate.

Or, as the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine observed with respect to college campuses a few weeks back, the lack of debate about Israel and Palestine:

The question for students and administrators at Brandeis, UC Irvine, Penn State,
and other schools is this: Why is it so hard to talk about Israel in an open,
civil, and constructive manner? After all, our college campuses have long
provided a forum for discussing the nation's most divisive and controversial
issues - including date rape, racism, abortion, and gay rights. So why, exactly,
is the subject of Israel so difficult to discuss?

Pretty timely, considering how strangely President Jimmy Carter's is being received.

Here's a recent Op/Ed Carter himself penned on the topic of criticism against his use of "apartheid" in describing Israel's treatment of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians.

President Carter in his finest Presidential moment, flanked by Egyptian Premier Anwar Sadat and Israeli P.M. Menachem Begin, who just inked the Camp David Accords settling the peace between the leaders' two countries.

This op/ed provides another reflectionin the Washington Post. Here is another piece from Newsweek.

I first heard about this matter on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, which you can hear in its entirity at the link.

Here's an NPR transcript of a discussion about the hub-bub with some longtime foreign policy heavyweights, including Carter's former National Security Advisor with the crazy name with a bunch of "z"s and "b"s and "g"s in it.

No more reflection on it today, other than to say that I think Carter is right. I hope to read his book to be able to better explain why. Sufficed to say that Carter is fully divorced from any interational politics of interest, other than those which advance the interests of international justice. And right now, justice demands that Israel change the way it treats the Palestinians.

2006-11-30T01:53:00.000-05:00

Supremes sing of Global Warming

Well, not quite … but the High Court did hear oral arguments in the case of Massachusetts v. EPA today, creating the final showdown between the Bush Administration and the coalition of states and environmental groups over everybody's favorite gas – carbon dioxide.

Brief recap: Clean Air Act …. CO2 … Global Warming …. Kittens die …

At the outset, I'm pleased to report that the Court's website has already posted a .pdf
transcript from Wednesday's oral argument. Before we get too far …

Displacer of cute native birds

This morning I received a short ride from the auto glass replacement store to my office from one of the employees – a 60s-ish local fellow who presented as a lifelong tradesman who likely never spent considerable time away from the Kennebec Valley region, except maybe to fight in a war.

After an innocent-enough comment about it being a "warm enough morning," we started to chat about the changing climate: how his dog and cat were brutalized by ticks last summer, how our area has become home for more and more cardinals and orioles than he recalled from his childhood, and how he thought he never had to worry about diseases carried by mosquitoes once malaria was officially contained.

"Any way you look at it, the climate's changing," he said to me. "I don't care what they say. Just look around."

There it is. The Democratization of Global Warming outrage … if only muffled at this point. What it means may not be clear right now, but expect that the ambiguity may begin to fade once the Democratic Congress gets crackin' and/or the Supreme Court weighs in ….

This was my driver ... like, for pretend.

A little self-refentiality here, as I've followed this sucker since before it was first brought to the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. Here is my most recent post, when the Court agreed to hear the case.

Here's an overview of the criticism brought against the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit when it rule against the states' claims.

From EPA.gov – actually titled
"Family Enjoying Clean Air"

To the Links:

New York Times' Linda Greenhouse offered her read here:

On one level, the argument was about the meaning of the Clean Air Act, which the Environmental Protection Agency maintains does not treat carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases as air pollutants and thus does not give the agency the authority to regulate them.

On another level, the argument was about whether the dozen states, three cities and many environmental groups that went to federal court to challenge the agency’s position had legal standing to pursue their lawsuit.

And on still another level, the courtroom action was an episode in a policy debate that began well before this case arrived on the Supreme Court’s docket and that will continue, in the political sphere, no matter what the justices decide.

By the end of the argument, that continuing debate appeared the only certain outcome.

Greenhouse took up the banner of those singing the Court's mantra of the Moment: What Would Kennedy Do?

By the end of the argument there appeared a strong likelihood that the court would divide 5 to 4 on the standing question, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy holding the deciding vote. His relatively few comments were ambiguous. Early in the argument he challenged the assertion by Mr. Milkey, the states’ lawyer, that the case “turns on ordinary principles of statutory interpretation and administrative law” and that there was no need for the court “to pass judgment on the science of climate change.”

That was “reassuring,” Justice Kennedy said. But, he added, “Don’t we have to do that in order to decide the standing argument, because there’s no injury if there’s not global warming?”

No question.

The Times offered this editorial, urging that:

A plain reading of the Clean Air Act shows that the states are right. The act says that the E.P.A. “shall” set standards for “any air pollutant” that in its judgment causes or contributes to air pollution that “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” The word “welfare,” the law says, includes “climate” and “weather.” The E.P.A. makes an array of specious arguments about why the act does not mean what it expressly says. But it has no right to refuse to do what Congress said it “shall” do.

Beneath the statutory and standing questions, this is a case about how seriously the
government takes global warming. The E.P.A.’s decision was based in part on its
poorly reasoned conclusion that there was too much “scientific uncertainty” about global warming to worry about it. The government’s claim that the states lack standing also scoffs at global warming, by failing to acknowledge that the states have a strong interest in protecting their land and citizens against coastal flooding and the other kinds of damage that are being projected.

NPR's Nina Totenberg provided this recap of today's oral argument, complete with Justice Scalia's sure-to-be remembered "supremely candid moment:

… Justice Scalia was questioning the Massachusetts Assistant Attorney General Milkey.

Scalia pointed to the government's assertion that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. "But," said Scalia, "You say it is, once it goes up into the stratosphere and contributes to global warming."

"Respectfully, your honor," Milkey answered, "It is not the stratosphere. It's the troposphere, from the ground up to nine miles above."

"Whatever," replied Scalia. "I'm not a scientist. That's why I don't want to have to deal with global warming, to tell you the truth."

On that question – whether the courts should be involved at all – the Supreme Court seemed closely divided, with Justice Anthony Kennedy the likely swing vote.

Dahlia Lithwick gave her take on NPR's Day to Day but her written take in Slate takes a reflective Gen-X-ee angle on the debate:

If there is anything stranger than writing up your story on global warming in a T-shirt … in late November … in the District of Columbia, I can't quite think what it is.

Another few cutsy points by Lithwick (Winona Ryder in Reality Bites or
Parker Posey):

Chief Justice John Roberts—whose distaste for the baby penguins, the polar ice caps, and anything else sought by the state of Massachusetts today knows no bounds—characterizes the scientific reports in this case as "spinning out conjecture on conjecture" about how EPA regulations might lead to technological changes and regulations by other countries.
…
Now, maybe it's because I have a toddler at home, but the EPA's argument, presented by Deputy Solicitor General Gregory Garre, quickly sounds very familiar. 1) I can't clean it up; 2) Even if I could, I don't want to clean it up; 3) You can't make me clean it up; and 4) China is making an even bigger mess. How come China never has to clean it up? When and if all that fails, the EPA, like my son, just puts its hands over its eyes and says there is no mess in the first place.

…
There's something incongruous about a Bush administration suddenly gone frantic over the possibility that its solution to a problem may not be the single, perfect one. If we were still arguing about the war on terror or child pornography, the government would be taking the "every little bit helps" approach. But since we're only talking about flash floods, hurricanes, water pollution, and rising sea levels, we hear quite the opposite today: "What difference can one little country make? We're all gonna die anyhow!"

The Other Media Heavies

Washington Post's Charles Lane.
USA Today's Joan Biskupic.
The Christian Science Monitor's Warren Richey provides a more circumspect view.
While at the CSM, seethis piece about federal-state power balance. I hate that I always forget to check in with this paper.

And a few from Mother Jones, Koshlan Mayer-Blackwell asks Whats at Stake in Massachusetts? while a colleague charges Let Them Eat CO2.

The San Francisco Chronicle provides this editorial which locates the politics of the matter:

But this case will be heard before a conservative-majority court, which bridles at the notion of judicial activism and expanded federal duties. The court could pull a surprise decision and direct the EPA to do its job in diminishing greenhouse gases. Or it could refuse this assertive role and push the loaded decision back to legislators, not judges, to decide.

Would that be a defeat for environmental sanity? With Republicans running Congress and the White House, it would be. But Democrats now have control of Congress, meaning that serious environmental lawmaking is possible.

A loss before the high court -- hardly guaranteed at this point -- would take the global warming fight to Congress. For six years, there wasn't a prayer for emission controls. That could all change now.

Nuts and Bolts,
for those of you still with us

When the Clean Air Act was enacted, it imposed a duty on EPA to regulate all ambient air pollutants generated by numerous mobile or stationary sources and endanger the public health or welfare. It also permits third party suits against EPA for any failure to perform an act it is duty bound to perform.

An air pollutant is any substance emitted into the ambient air. Mobile sources are sources that move (cars, trucks, etc.) and stationary sources are all sources that don't move (factory smokestacks). Endangering public health means causing harm to the health of … well, the public. Endangering the public welfare is broadly understood to mean any affect to the human environment, which is understood to include water, crops, animals, weather, and climate.

Here's the rationale for forcing CO2 regulation offered by the states when it first petitioned EPA.

Clinton's EPA said carbon dioxide was a pollutant on three occasions, but the most important of these statements was a formal memorandum issued by then EPA General Counsel Jonathan Z. Cannon (at right, dashing with paddle)
in April 1998 to provide legal support for then Administrator Carol Browner's (at left, confident or pensive) claim that CO2 fit the bill. Finally, Cannon's successor Gary S Guzy followed-up with this testimony before a House subcommittee.

Then came Bush and with him, a replacement General Counsel who issued this memo in August 2003 renouncing any earlier recognition of CO2 as a pollutant. The Bush EPA followed sooner after with this denial of the States request to regulate automobile CO2 emissions, citing the lack of effect held by the Clinton Administration's pronouncements.

From there, it's all in the court documents … final agency actions and standing and bears, oh my! And one day, it landed on the laps of three Judges of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. A bunch more time passed and here we sit.

And there's only one way to end a tale of this kind:

The Supreme Court will issue a ruling in the case some time before its June 2007 recess.

2006-11-16T00:02:00.000-05:00

Knox Mill Goes Virtually Web-Present

Re-speck for Downeast Magazine – The Magazine of Maine – for finally breaking down and making some of its editorial content available online. The latest issue, for instance, features this piece about the future of Camden's Knox Mill. Downeast regularly publishes strong longer form news features that died with after The Maine Times went out of business many moons ago.

Perhaps the coolest thing about the new Downeast web presence is its decision to provide a browse-able archive of certain stories dating back over the past several years. Unfortunately, most like this one Reinventing Rockland from August 2005, and this one on candlepin bowling don't appear in their entirety and leave you at a frustrating dead-end. But, with some due diligence, you might find something of interest from the past in some of the front-of-the magazine musings and viewpoints sections. For instance, note Online Investigators from December 2005, describing the burgeoning Pine Tree-composed Blogosphere and Portland-based The Bollard, which it dubs the resurrection in spirit of the now-defunct and occasionally-missed
Casco Bay Weekly.

While at Downeast, check out this piece about the resurgence of Saddleback Ski Area. Playing out like a far-more-expensive version of the hobby-driven purchase of Rockland's Strand Theater. by a ridiculously rich Texas energy investor, Saddleback appears to be on a track back from oblivion thanks to some non-profit-driven investment by long-standing lover of the mountain. All that aside, I like the sound of this:

… Berry says he hopes to keep lift tickets – currently forty dollars for an adult – within a few dollars of where they are now. A similar ticket at either Sugarloaf or Sunday River this year costs sixty-seven dollars. As an added bonus for locals, Saddleback lets Maine residents ski for just twenty-five dollars on one Sunday each month."

The Fact that $40 constitutes "cheap" for a daily lift ticket is a topic for another day. That said, I'm excited to take in the to-now elusive ski mountain of the greater Rangeley region. I retain my allegience, whatever that means, to Sugarloaf, but I look forward to taking a run or two at Saddleback just to support their fine efforts. If everything identifed on this map as proposed comes to be built, no charity considerations will be necessary to draw me up there.

One More Thing ...

Google gave me this cool BDN piece about Rockland that I am surprised I missed when it was published.

2006-11-12T21:31:00.000-05:00

A Look Back at Election 2006:
Part I

Before getting to the election wrap-up, I'll open with this Boston Globe Magazine cover piece from last week about Tom Brady, the corrosion celebrity can affect upon athletes like Brady, and how he has so effectively avoided such traps and trappings.

Will Farrell donned this week's cover of New York Times Magazine, teasing an article subheadlined: "How does Will Farrell know what makes nice, normal suburban ex-frat boys so funny? He is one."

Maureen Dowd moonlights for Rolling Stone with this article about the impact of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on the American body politic. Dowd notes:

A recent Indiana University study found that The Daily Show was just as substantive as network television news during the 2004 election. I'm not surprised that young people who watch it are well- informed. I read about ten newspapers a day and three newsmagazines a week, and I have my TV tuned to cable news all day, and I still find myself taking notes from The Daily Show.

Interestingly, I read this after giving serious thought to the evolution of Stephen Colbert's on-tube persona from the guy who tore George W to shreds in his White House Correspondents' Dinner address to the (faux?) to hefty tosser of conservative seeds. Dowd suggests it's merely about lampooning the moment, identifying Colbert as an improvisational comedic actor "who makes his own fake reality defending the fake reality of a real president, and has government officials on who know the joke but are still willing to be mocked by someone fake."

Of note, while you're there, check out this recent article about Led Zeppelin and this one about this now-departing 109th Congress,
I offer both assuming that you, as I, probably missed them because you gave up reading Rolling Stone after one too many cover article about either Christina Aguilera or Boy Bands.

Right …

So, in Maine, it was Baldacci Yes! and TABOR No! In the Statehouse it was Democrats Yes!

Confused? Me, too.

This Morning Sentinel editorial pokes its index finger into the Governor's sternum and tells him to take notice of the discontent about taxes. Press Herald political reporter Paul Carrier echoes the sentiment that "TABOR defeat belies tax anger," suggesting that "margins in last Tuesday's election were close enough across the state to show that voters clearly want Gov. John Baldacci and the Legislature to rein in high taxes."

The Press Herald also offered this analysis of the vote against TABOR being "no endorsement of the status quo."

Bangor Daily News provides this nice list of all numbers in all the races.

Disappointed? Not me. Considering how it could have looked with a few different results, I'll register among the "Pleased, but not ecstatic" camp.

In that vein, the Press Herald reports in "Greens see rosy future in spite of '06 losses," the party's optimism due because its "core issues – environmental protection, human rights and universal health care – have moved into the mainstream."

Colby College Professor Joseph R. Reisert chastises the Maine GOP for squandering the chance for a takeover, noting a sentiment I believe I sounded last week:

Given these circumstances – a vulnerable incumbent and a clear, popular issue
that would attract voters from both sides of the partisan divide – the Republicans should have come together to support a socially moderate or even liberal candidate, who would have advanced their principal agenda item: reducing spending and cutting taxes.
…
Had Maine's Republicans shown the political maturity of the national Democratic party leadership, we might now be anticipating the inauguration of Peter Mills as the first Republican governor in more than a decade. Instead, Maine's Republicans will remain in the political wilderness, ideologically pure, but politically impotent.

Press Herald columnist Bill Nemitz apparently typed out the same message a few days before the election, as this column appeared on the morning after.

Finally, this letter to the editor of the Morning Sentinel, "Election results good news for the terrorists" offers a swell reminder of the red state hiding in many corners around Maine, i.e. Solon.

With this story forecasting a new era of judicial nominating and Senate confirmation under the newly Democratic leadership, including new Judiciary Committee chair Pat Leahy, D-VT (above on right). Press Herald DC correspondent Bart Jansen ponders the effect upon Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of losing their gavels and some clout in Washington.

The New York Times attributes the Democrats' success to Populism and not liberal ideology. Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Leon Panettacommands his party-kin: Govern, don't gloat.

Paul Krugman gloats a bit, observing of the Republican Party's recent era dominated by Movement Conservatives – "the potent alliance of wealthy individuals, corporate interests and the religious right:

When movement conservatism took it over, the Republican Party ceased to be the
party of Dwight Eisenhower and became the party of Karl Rove. The good news is
that Karl Rove and the political tendency he represents may both have just
self-destructed.

Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby shares this perspective, urging that this election shouldn't be read as a liberal shift as much as a call by principled conservatives to abandon those currently commanding the helm of their party's bobsled. His colleague Ellen Goodman identifies the cleavage point between winning and losing within the term "values."

Ironically, perhaps, recently repudiated Sen. Lincoln Chafee )left) – one of the few Eisenhower-esque Republicans still inhabiting the Senate – hints that voters were the ones who forced this self-destruction of Movement Conservatism. Yet, they did so by replacing the moderate Republicans like himself with Democrats, but also helping the same Movement Conservatives to solidify their control of the Republican party leadership.

Boston Globe reporter Drake Bennett describes this phenomenon as the furtherance of regional voting blocs in the USA, noting "that when the new Congress convenes in January, the regional split between the parties could be as stark as at any time since the aftermath of the Civil War."

Look back at the Local Races …. soon ….

2006-11-07T07:06:00.000-05:00

Arguably Endorsements:
The Final Chapter
Governor

(posted after I voted, but prepared before I voted. Post voting comments will follow)

Official Sites:
Pat LaMarche, Green Party
Chandler Woodcock Republican Party
Philip Morris NaPier The People's Hero Independent
John Baldacci Democratic Party
Barbara Merrill Independent

I am honestly torn about the Governor's race. It shocks me to say it, but I am ambivilent about whether or not Baldacci wins, and may be inclined toward the same feelings expressed by Village Soup Guest columnist Sarason Liebler, of Liberty vote none of the above. That won't happen, however, and my vote will come down to one of three candidates. But let me start with basic predictions.

How the Newspapers line-up:

Here is an AP overview of endorsements, noting the latest boards to go for Gov. Baldacci.

Bangor Daily News: Baldacci.
Portland Press Herald: Baldacci
Waterville Morning Sentinel / Kennebec Journal: Baldacci
Brunswick Times Record: Baldacci
Lewiston Sun-Journal: None of the Above
Camden Herald: Woodcock
Courier-Gazette: LaMarche
Portland Phoenix: LaMarche

I see the totals, from lowest to highest, as follows: Napier, less than 1%. LaMarche, 7%; Woodcock, 25%; Merrill, 30%; Baldacci, greater than 35%.

Let's start with those who have no shot for my vote, and have no shot at winning:

1. Napier (Ind.).
He's a non-factor and not worth discussing seriously. But that is a very handsome puppy. No argument from me.

2. Woodcock (Rep).
I was confident he couldn't beat Baldacci in a 1-on-1 race, well before the other two viable candidates jumped in, and far and away before the story about his past tax liens popped up. Here's why:

Why he won't get my vote:
He's a Moral/Relgious Conservative, and he seeks to enact all of the political choices that his movement supports. So he'll push that agenda on abortion/contraception, gay marriage/civil unions, civil rights protections for sexual orientation, religion in the classroom/government, etc. He's also a Republican on government power and taxation, and he seeks to do the same with those issues. So he'll seek to cut state government expenditures by cutting the revenue flow. However, government won't get cut because the lobbies are too strong and won't give into that tactic. Therefore, we'll be left with huge budget shortfalls, requiring huge borrowing and some ill-advised government spending cuts. By ill advised, I mean the funding for programs and people who aren't politically "important," and therefore expendable. The programs that need to be overhauled – welfare/Medicaid and public education –have serious lobbies that will resist the changes that need to be made. But, all of the programs that help make Maine better – from small business support/grants to the Dept. of Conservations' State Parks and other Public Lands management offices – will be disproportionately gutted, despite any efficiencies those agencies may have already incorporated on their own. And that's dumb.

Why he might get my vote: N/A

Why he won't win:
He will take the entire religious conservative wing of the Republican party. But he will split the other half -- moderate Republicans who don't like Baldacci -- with Barbara Merrill. These are the people who would have voted for Peter Mills if he won the Republican nomination in the primary but didn't because he didn't run a good campaign, the National party pushed for Woodcock, and because the religious half of the party was also uniformly behind Woodcock. So, the Religious conservatives won the battle (getting one of theirs to win the nomination) only to lose the war (no way a religious conservative could win the governorship of the entire voting population in a state so skeptical about such intrusive moral governance). Frankly, if Peter Mills was nominated, Barbara Merrill would be polling 10% or not even be running, and Peter Mills would be your next governor. But that's not even remotely relevant anymore.

Therefore, my vote comes down to one of three:

1. Gov. Baldacci (Dem)

Why he might get my vote:
He is the Democrat, and I'm a Democrat. Plus, he does advocate many programs and policies I support. He spends on conservation. He advocates progressive ideas for social programs, economic development, and regional development. And on the stump, I find myself agreeing with every policy he touts or describes when he publicly speaks.

Why he might not get my vote:
I guess ultimately, it's the simple calculus – Maine State government is sick and bloated and still often ineffectual, and as the guy in charge of all that, I shouldn't endorse the work he's done or not done to change that course. Think about it. Our state taxes are high primarily because our state government administration costs too much. I think I agree with most of the policies advocated by his state government, although I suspect we need to re-prioritize what kind and level of welfare and public health care benefits we want to provide for our poorest citizens.

Yet, the program goals and execution aren't what cost so much. It's the duplication of services – both between differing and non-communicating state agencies, and among different units of the same agency. This is because there are too many officials at the top of the administrative food chain who command too high salaries and who spend every dollar appropriated their way, because to do otherwise means you'll get less money during the next budget cycle. It's a sick and twisted model of "big government," which supposedly died a happy death in the 1990s. Instead, it is alive and well in Maine and will continue to suck our money away until administrative changes are made.

Why he might not win:
Because enough Democrats and Independents who voted for him in 2002 are displeased with the certain tangible cases of administrative ineptitude by those he put into offices and the air of corruption that seems to be lying just beneath the surface of several of those seemingly inept agency heads. Pat LaMarche might siphon off enough lefty environmentalists and socialists to jeopardize votes from him from "the base," while Barbara Merrill simultaneously siphons off enough independents and moderate Democrats who voted for him last time.

Why he will probably win:
1) too few far lefties are likely to vote for LaMarche to dent his liberal base,
2) Barbara Merrill is failing to make a compelling case for herself as a sufficiently human candidate with earnest middle-left policy goals that she can, by virtue of her personality, push into place (see "Angus King"), and
3) Chandler Woodcock presents absolutely no appeal to anyone registered as a Democrat and very little appeal to most true unenrolled independents.

2. Barbara Merrill (Ind.)

Why she might get my vote:
I am charmed by her focus on earnestly eliminating waste and corruption from state government while not cutting the programs and values that lie at the heart of its bloated self. Generally, she supports progressive government, primarily environment-based, as evidenced by her former Democratic affiliation. But, she demands that government fulfill those goals through entreprenurialism and sound fiscal policy. In short, she is a "New Democrat," a la Bill Clinton, only with an even bigger focus on economic development. Finally, in a certain light, she's kinda hot. Kinda.

Why she might not get my vote:
She doesn't have the power of personality to pull it off. Plus, you get the sense that her ego and ambition are driving her more powerfully than any idealistic core. And, people I know from Appleton don't think she's that great of a neighbor, and kind of a demogogue.

Why she might win:
She's done a good job in simultaneously chewing away at Baldacci's support/potential voters from his right, and from Woodcock's support/potential voters from his left. Think Germany, pre Stalingrad, successfully fighting two fronts until Hitler refused to bunker-in for some time to consolidate his gains in Eastern Europe before really driving to beat Russia. Fortunately, she only needs to pull this smoke-and-mirrors act for another week, whereas Hitler was fighting for time before Russia re-tooled and the U.S. realized its unstoppable warmaking power. But I digress .... Plus, she might draw a few points by mere fact that she runs as "an independent," and Maine voters' proud allegience/soft spot for the "myth of the independent Mainer."

Why she probably won't win:
Plain and simple, she needed to do better in chewing away in both directions than she needed to do before now. I think she spent enough and enjoyed a strong spell of positive media attention, but she failed to make the most of those two functions. In particular:

a). She needed to come off as unflappable, human, and polished -- basically, a female Angus King. She has appeared sensitive to criticism about her decision to quit the Democratic Party, whereas she needed to spin this as the source of her electability -- i.e. "fed up," but still "wedded to rprogressive values" fulfilled by "fiscally responsible means." Plus, she's seemed cold and spiteful in the debates and public appearances I've observed, where she needed to be just a regular, smart woman with human qualities like those few powerful women we all know in our lives and think, "Gee, why doesn't she run for office?" Finally, she isn't polished. Angus King won because he was a terrific public speaker, who both said the right things and said them confidently and charmingly enough that you couldn't not nod while listening to him. She doesn't have this thing, call it what you will.

b) She also needed to embrace the stuff laid out in the Brookings Institute's Report on Reinventing Maine Government before Baldacci could co-opt it as his own plan, which he'll claim he started in 2002 but only now is starting to manifest good results (partial B.S./spin-o-matic by Baldacci). Brookings said everything she's claimed to be fighting for, but she never grabbed the weapon and ran with it.

c) Enough Democrats/Moderates (who were/are sympathetic to the stuff she says) are scared to death of the prospect who the slight possibility that Chandler Woodcock could eek out a win because the the Middle-Left majority split its vote they will vote for Baldacci in spite of their disaffection toward him. It's the "wasted vote" phenomenon. These folks think: "I don't like Baldacci, but I've seen a lot of LaMarche signs up in yards that had "Kerry" signs in 2004 and "Gore" signs in 2000 that I wonder how many are going to abandon the Democratic incumbant. I like Barbara Merrill better than Baldacci, but if she doesn't win, Woodcock might. Fuq that! I'm voting for Baldacci."

3. Pat LaMarche (Green)

Why she might get my vote:
She is the smartest of the lot, is the most engaging speaker, and talks about all of the issues I think are important in making Maine improve. She is an articulate liberal, a fighter, and she believes in what she says.

Why she might not get my vote:
Two reasons: Policy and pragmatic. She is a little too far left for my tastes. I don't think we need to expand our social services programs any bigger than they already are. If anything, I think we need to rein in our welfare spending generally and really gauge what the State taxpayers believe should be offered for free to the poor before we establish new expanded program priorities. And I think we need to balance our policies toward natural resource stewardship a bit more than she advocates (She'd likely bar use and exploitation of certain resources that I think could be used responsibly with great economic advantage to we taxpayers without jeopardizing their inherant value/beauty/recreational values).

Why she might win:
I don't really think she has a shot. To her credit, she commands as much support from the far left as Jonathan Carter did in 1994, and she has a hell of a lot more cross-over appeal (and likeability) than Carter ever had. And he still polled more than 6%, effectively stealing enough likely "otherwise Democrat" votes from Joe Brennan to allow Angus King to prevail. However, the stars all need to align perfectly, in that her only conceivable chance to win would need to come by way of a fluke result. Some instance of mathematical perfection like this:

a. She nails the "true liberal believer vote," who decide to abandon Baldacci entirely, and even steals a decent share of moderate Democratic women who like her because of her strong woman candidate credentials. This gives her 26%

b. Chandler Woodcock draws barely any support from moderate Republicans, and sees his support limited to the religous right and true Party believers. This gives him 19%

c. Barbara Merrill draws all of the Moderate Republican and Middle-Right portion of the Unenrolled votes. This includes many Republicans who deserted Woodcock due to his religious right stances, but more importantly, those who feel like Woodcock lost all viability due to redneck support for Napier (see below) and the tax lien issue. However, she fails to draw as many registered Democrats and Middle-Left Unenrolled voters as she expected. This gives her 25%

d. Philip Morris Napier, The People's Hero, draws 4%, all of which come from the former Ross Perot voters who are normally inclined toward Republicans because they hate Clinton, but they also distrust people who wear ties and talk like businessmen or lawyers, like Woodcock does.

e. "None of the Above" -- writeins and Mickey Mouse -- poll about 2%, or whatever number is higher than usual.

f. Gov. Baldacci loses all of the "True Believers" on the liberal side to LaMarche, while losing all of the true Moderates who supported him in 2004 to Merrill. His support is strictly limited to the Party faithful, labor Democrats, teachers, unions, and party bosses/members throughout the state. He polls 25%.

In other words, she has one shot in a thousand or more.

Why she won't likely win:
Because the above scenario or one similarly sketched out is like winning a scratch off – sure the possibility of winning exists, but there are too many loser cards in the deck for any realistic hope of her scratching the one winner. And she isn't perfect enough to cut into the bad odds sufficiently to make winning more conceivable. For example, her DUI has as much chance of alienating the righteous moralists among the Democrats as it does of alluring others by way of the "she's one of us" phenomenon. Either way, it's a potential negative, and she had run with no potential negatives is she wanted to cut out a good number of the loser cards in the lottery deck.

But who knows, really? I might just as possibly sleep through next Tuesday

The Road Ahead

Final pre-vote word on the Governor's Race and my vote:

Even after writing all of this, I don't know how I am going to come down.

I'd like to think I'll vote for LaMarche out of principle, i.e. "I think she would govern over the state with the most compassion and fight the hardest to achieve equality, social justice, and responsible environmental stewardship of any governor we've had since Ken Curtis and beyond."

But I also would like to think I'd vote for Barbara Merrill because I think that all that polish and posturing stuff doesn't mean anything, and bottom line, I agree with her that our top statewide priorites need to be cutting state government waste and creating the kind of economic climate that will both attract entrepreneurial money from outside of the state to put Maine's great natural and human resources to work, and provide fertile enough soil for entreprenuers within the state to lay the foundations for their small and medium sized business ideas to germinate and flourish.

Nonetheless, a part of me thinks I'll believe that Baldacci's intentions are good enough, and take him on his word that he had an eight year plan, that we're halfway home, and that the last four years are when it all comes together. At least, just enough to keep me in fear of four years with Chandler Woodcock in the Blaine House.

As cynical as it sounds, I'll vote for Baldacci if I think Woodcock might win. If Woodcock doesn't win, that realistically means that either Baldacci will be reelected or Barbara Merrill will surprise everybody. As a result, that means I'll probably decide on the day of whether I want my vote to help put either Merrill or Baldacci over the top, or if I want to help Pat LaMarche beef up her totals and preserve both her own political viability within the state and that of the Greens, who will enjoy certain electoral advantages if she gets some percentage of the vote (10%, maybe?).

There you have it.

Now, I feel like going to take a shower and/or a nap.