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For the next few weeks, we’ll hear about the Virginia Tech shootings. The professional news readers, sitting in their seats of importance, less for their journalistic credentials than for their ability to sell units of consumer items, will determine the arc of this story. They’ll question the school officials, the police, the parents and anyone else that they can possibly impugn for a crime that has no real explanation. Is it possible to rationally come to terms with an irrational act?
We’ll read about the details, about the killer and how his life, actions, words, screamed “warning,” “warning,” “warning!!” Interestingly, for all those supposed signs of trouble, no one saw fit to intervene—that’s just not something we do.
On the day when lives came to a standstill for the families with college students enrolled at the school, media sycophants began swarming the Blacksburg, Virginia campus, like hound dogs after a scent, interviewing students still reeling from the shock of staring down the barrel of a 9mm handgun. Trying to make sense of it all, these young adults became painfully aware that this something more than a video game, or an exercise in virtual reality.
Like Columbine, some eight years earlier, almost to the day, mayhem was visited like some Old Testament act of vengeance upon a school campus. No longer a refuge where youth retreated to experience the life of the mind, the cracks in American higher learning were fractured by the “pop, pop, pop” of semi-automatic gunfire.
Since I dropped a biblical reference above, what gives at NPR, yesterday morning? Why did this supposed bastion of “hard news” and journalistic integrity have to resort to the faith-based angle of this story, involving an evangelical youth pastor, Matt Rogers. I realize that the majority of Americans self-identify as religious, but how often will people go to the well of faith, only to have their faith shat upon by a supposed loving God? Since the topic of mental illness and insanity are being discussed in terms of motive, why not talk about the insanity of trying to paper over this tragedy with an empty veneer of faith, at least the superficial kind of faith featured by NPR?
It’s difficult to process any event in our current media-saturated culture. As hard as we try to step outside the vortex of the 24/7 news cycle, it keeps pulling us back towards its core, shredding any attempts at objectivity and reaching our own conclusions. Americans feel most comfortable running in packs and we’ll seek our own comfort group on this event, like any other.
Cataclysmic events require some element of context. In trying to frame the killings of young people who had futures brimming with hope to look forward to, we’ll be bombarded with multiple rationales and none will bring any sense of satisfaction or modicum of comfort.
Like most issues involving loss of life, sides will get chosen and the polarization will begin. One side will demand that we take guns out of the hands of killers and the other will posture that we need more guns to protect us from cold-blooded killers that maim and murder. The Rambo choir will puff out their macho chests and insist that if they were there, they’d have shot the killer before he had a chance to squeeze off his first shot.
The sad premise of this position, in my way of thinking at least, is holding to this line of thought that we need guns to protect ourselves, invalidates the notion that we have still an implied social contract and that we can live our lives, not bother anyone and live to see another day, not being concerned with being shot up by some crazy, with easy access to a lethal weapon.
Familiarity with Neil Postman’s critiques of media and communication, at least helps me understand my own morning news experience today, at 5:30 am. While having my first cup of coffee of the morning, the CNN/American Morning team of John Roberts and Kiran Chetry were seen on location, with a set that somehow reminded me of the sets that ESPN and Fox use for Sunday afternoon football.
These two meticulously groomed, good-looking and well put together news hosts were blathering on about motives, the killer’s background, the way that the Virginia Tech campus had come together during a spectacular candlelight vigil, replete with chants of “Hokie, Hokie.” Then, we were treated to a cutaway, which Postman, in his inimitable way, would have been wowed by. As he wrote about in Amusing Ourselves to Death (I’m paraphrasing), …news items are stripped from local context, commodified, and given to the viewer in bit-sized chunks, separated by the "now.... this!" phenomenon, which serves to make the viewer dismiss it all as meaningless candy he or she can do nothing about. The "now... this!" phenomenon can be tried on any news broadcast. Tonight, for example, and update on the Iraq will be followed by ("now.... this!") Britney Spears' (or insert any vapid cultural reference here) latest escapades. Postman indicated that this serves to reduce it all to meaningless trivia.
This morning’s cutaway was of a 50-ish boomer, washing his classic automobile, while his wife sashays provocatively by, with her bedroom eyes and the poor sap is faced with the choice of finishing rinsing the soap of his expensive piece of machinery (with all its own psychological ramifications and what it says about his virility) and going upstairs for a roll in the hay with his well-preserved wife. Well, of course, he positions the sprinkler to rinse away the soap, while he is seen going through the door and then the camera shows the shot of the upstairs window, with the shades being pulled and the final camera shot of the water hitting the side of his Stingray, with the white soap dripping off the gleaming metal—what was the product? Of course: Viagra! Guns, carnage and hours of ample erections—good Lord!
There are certainly discussions that events like this one at Virginia Tech ought to promote. Unfortunately, meaningful dialogue will instead be superseded by psychobabble, politicos seeking to score points and garner support for their latest run for office.
I hope the administration and the community at large in Blacksburg have some real leaders. They’ll need some to get through the tragedy and maybe even more difficult in the short run, the damage that will be done by the media feeding frenzy that is now the norm when tragedies like this occur.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
The enemy is not Don Imus
Don Imus apparently crossed the Rubicon, regarding matters of what’s tolerable, or not, on syndicated radio. Last Wednesday, Imus referred to members of the Rutgers women’s basketball team as “nappy headed hos,” sparking a fire of outrage that led to his firing, on Thursday.
Imus has made a career of making remarks about blacks, women, fat people and others that various groups have deemed offensive. The fact of his firing wasn’t particularly surprising, given the nature of today’s media environment, where today’s star can easily become persona non grata on the basis of an ill-informed and “insensitive” remark.
It’s not surprising that two of the people yelling the loudest for Imus’ removal were Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the apparent spokesmen for all black Americans. Both of these men have made careers of cherry-picking causes to champion, flashing the race card whenever the possibility of face time in front of the camera became available.
Since I’m not black, I won’t try to speak about issues pertinent to black people. I will, however, highlight black spokespeople that I think have something relevant to say on the matter. One such person is Jason Whitlock, a sportswriter from Kansas City, who I think has the ability to cut through the smoke regularly, writing about sports, but on occasion, he also has something to say about society in a much larger context than the narrow parameters of his sports beat.
Whitlock points out the hypocrisy of equal-opportunity race pandering. While I’ve never been a fan of the I-man and his posse of tired, middle-aged cranks that made up his morning drive team, I also recognize that he’s not the only person who has ever uttered an untoward remark about women, blacks, or any other member of America’s protected classes. Interestingly, white men, poor whites from the south, or divorced fathers desiring custody of their children don’t seem to fall under that umbrella.
As Whitlock deftly delineates, black comedians, like Dave Chappelle, routinely use racially insensitive material, all in the service of humor, yet he’s rewarded with $50 million (from Comedy Central) for his schtick. Apparently, it all depends on who’s doing the routine, whether it gets deemed racist, or not.
Whitlock writes,
“I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer (the Rutgers coach) rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.
Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.
But an hour long press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.”
I agree with Whitlock’s points about where the real enemies of black people are; they certainly don’t reside on the air with Don Imus.
In keeping with the spirit of Whitock’s commentary, I’d go even further and say, as I have at other times that the real issue in America is less about race and much more about class. The Imus episode is just another case of media white noise, getting us to take our eyes of the real enemies of everyday Americans.
For those who hold the power in America, they’d much rather we focused on Don Imus and his poorly chosen remarks about a women’s college basketball team, than the issues of economic injustice and the widening gap in our country between the obscenely rich and the rest of us. As long as our attention is diverted from those things that are truly dangerous, those making the important decisions can keep on keeping on, while the rest of us find it exceedingly difficult to garner attention for issues that matter.
Imus has made a career of making remarks about blacks, women, fat people and others that various groups have deemed offensive. The fact of his firing wasn’t particularly surprising, given the nature of today’s media environment, where today’s star can easily become persona non grata on the basis of an ill-informed and “insensitive” remark.
It’s not surprising that two of the people yelling the loudest for Imus’ removal were Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the apparent spokesmen for all black Americans. Both of these men have made careers of cherry-picking causes to champion, flashing the race card whenever the possibility of face time in front of the camera became available.
Since I’m not black, I won’t try to speak about issues pertinent to black people. I will, however, highlight black spokespeople that I think have something relevant to say on the matter. One such person is Jason Whitlock, a sportswriter from Kansas City, who I think has the ability to cut through the smoke regularly, writing about sports, but on occasion, he also has something to say about society in a much larger context than the narrow parameters of his sports beat.
Whitlock points out the hypocrisy of equal-opportunity race pandering. While I’ve never been a fan of the I-man and his posse of tired, middle-aged cranks that made up his morning drive team, I also recognize that he’s not the only person who has ever uttered an untoward remark about women, blacks, or any other member of America’s protected classes. Interestingly, white men, poor whites from the south, or divorced fathers desiring custody of their children don’t seem to fall under that umbrella.
As Whitlock deftly delineates, black comedians, like Dave Chappelle, routinely use racially insensitive material, all in the service of humor, yet he’s rewarded with $50 million (from Comedy Central) for his schtick. Apparently, it all depends on who’s doing the routine, whether it gets deemed racist, or not.
Whitlock writes,
“I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer (the Rutgers coach) rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.
Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.
But an hour long press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.”
I agree with Whitlock’s points about where the real enemies of black people are; they certainly don’t reside on the air with Don Imus.
In keeping with the spirit of Whitock’s commentary, I’d go even further and say, as I have at other times that the real issue in America is less about race and much more about class. The Imus episode is just another case of media white noise, getting us to take our eyes of the real enemies of everyday Americans.
For those who hold the power in America, they’d much rather we focused on Don Imus and his poorly chosen remarks about a women’s college basketball team, than the issues of economic injustice and the widening gap in our country between the obscenely rich and the rest of us. As long as our attention is diverted from those things that are truly dangerous, those making the important decisions can keep on keeping on, while the rest of us find it exceedingly difficult to garner attention for issues that matter.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Kurt Vonnegut passes on
Vonnegut, dead at 84
NEW YORK (AP) -- Kurt Vonnegut, the satirical novelist who captured the absurdity of war and questioned the advances of science in darkly humorous works such as "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Cat's Cradle," died Wednesday. He was 84.
Vonnegut, who often marveled that he had lived so long despite his lifelong smoking habit, had suffered brain injuries after a fall at his Manhattan home weeks ago, said his wife, photographer Jill Krementz.
The author of at least 19 novels, many of them best-sellers, as well as dozens of short stories, essays and plays, Vonnegut relished the role of a social critic. He lectured regularly, exhorting audiences to think for themselves and delighting in barbed commentary against the institutions he felt were dehumanizing people.
"I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations," Vonnegut, whose watery, heavy-lidded eyes and unruly hair made him seem to be in existential pain, once told a gathering of psychiatrists.
A self-described religious skeptic and freethinking humanist, Vonnegut used protagonists such as Billy Pilgrim and Eliot Rosewater as transparent vehicles for his points of view. He also filled his novels with satirical commentary and even drawings that were only loosely connected to the plot. In "Slaughterhouse-Five," he drew a headstone with the epitaph: "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.
"But much in his life was traumatic, and left him in pain.
Despite his commercial success, Vonnegut battled depression throughout his life, and in 1984, he attempted suicide with pills and alcohol, joking later about how he botched the job.
His mother had succeeded in killing herself just before he left for Germany during World War II, where he was quickly taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge. He was being held in Dresden when Allied bombs created a firestorm that killed an estimated 135,000 people in the city."The firebombing of Dresden explains absolutely nothing about why I write what I write and am what I am," Vonnegut wrote in "Fates Worse Than Death," his 1991 autobiography of sorts.
But he spent 23 years struggling to write about the ordeal, which he survived by huddling with other POW's inside an underground meat locker labeled slaughterhouse-five.
The novel, in which Pvt. Pilgrim is transported from Dresden by time-traveling aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, was published at the height of the Vietnam War, and solidified his reputation as an iconoclast.
"He was sort of like nobody else," said Gore Vidal, who noted that he, Vonnegut and Norman Mailer were among the last writers around who served in World War II."He was imaginative; our generation of writers didn't go in for imagination very much. Literary realism was the general style. Those of us who came out of the war in the 1940s made sort of the official American prose, and it was often a bit on the dull side. Kurt was never dull.
"Vonnegut was born on Nov. 11, 1922, in Indianapolis, a "fourth-generation German-American religious skeptic Freethinker," and studied chemistry at Cornell University before joining the Army.
When he returned, he reported for Chicago's City News Bureau, then did public relations for General Electric, a job he loathed. He wrote his first novel, "Player Piano," in 1951, followed by "The Sirens of Titan," "Canary in a Cat House" and "Mother Night," making ends meet by selling Saabs on Cape Cod.
Critics ignored him at first, then denigrated his deliberately bizarre stories and disjointed plots as haphazardly written science fiction. But his novels became cult classics, especially "Cat's Cradle" in 1963, in which scientists create "ice-nine," a crystal that turns water solid and destroys the earth.
Many of his novels were best-sellers. Some also were banned and burned for suspected obscenity. Vonnegut took on censorship as an active member of the PEN writers' aid group and the American Civil Liberties Union. The American Humanist Association, which promotes individual freedom, rational thought and scientific skepticism, made him its honorary president.
His characters tended to be miserable anti-heroes with little control over their fate. Pilgrim was an ungainly, lonely goof. The hero of "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" was a sniveling, obese volunteer fireman.Vonnegut said the villains in his books were never individuals, but culture, society and history, which he said were making a mess of the planet."
We probably could have saved ourselves, but we were too damned lazy to try very hard ... and too damn cheap," he once suggested carving into a wall on the Grand Canyon, as a message for flying-saucer creatures.
He retired from novel writing in his later years, but continued to publish short articles. He had a best-seller in 2005 with "A Man Without a Country," a collection of his nonfiction, including jabs at the Bush administration ("upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography") and the uncertain future of the planet.
He called the book's success "a nice glass of champagne at the end of a life.
"Vonnegut, who had homes in Manhattan and the Hamptons in New York, adopted his sister's three young children after she died. He also had three children of his own with his first wife, Ann Cox, and later adopted a daughter, Lily, with his second wife, the noted photographer Jill Krementz.
Vonnegut once said that of all the ways to die, he'd prefer to go out in an airplane crash on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. He often joked about the difficulties of old age.
"When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon," Vonnegut told The Associated Press in 2005."My father, like Hemingway, was a gun nut and was very unhappy late in life. But he was proud of not committing suicide. And I'll do the same, so as not to set a bad example for my children.
[Associated Press writers Michael Warren, Hillel Italie and Chelsea Carter contributed to this report.]
NEW YORK (AP) -- Kurt Vonnegut, the satirical novelist who captured the absurdity of war and questioned the advances of science in darkly humorous works such as "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Cat's Cradle," died Wednesday. He was 84.
Vonnegut, who often marveled that he had lived so long despite his lifelong smoking habit, had suffered brain injuries after a fall at his Manhattan home weeks ago, said his wife, photographer Jill Krementz.
The author of at least 19 novels, many of them best-sellers, as well as dozens of short stories, essays and plays, Vonnegut relished the role of a social critic. He lectured regularly, exhorting audiences to think for themselves and delighting in barbed commentary against the institutions he felt were dehumanizing people.
"I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations," Vonnegut, whose watery, heavy-lidded eyes and unruly hair made him seem to be in existential pain, once told a gathering of psychiatrists.
A self-described religious skeptic and freethinking humanist, Vonnegut used protagonists such as Billy Pilgrim and Eliot Rosewater as transparent vehicles for his points of view. He also filled his novels with satirical commentary and even drawings that were only loosely connected to the plot. In "Slaughterhouse-Five," he drew a headstone with the epitaph: "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.
"But much in his life was traumatic, and left him in pain.
Despite his commercial success, Vonnegut battled depression throughout his life, and in 1984, he attempted suicide with pills and alcohol, joking later about how he botched the job.
His mother had succeeded in killing herself just before he left for Germany during World War II, where he was quickly taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge. He was being held in Dresden when Allied bombs created a firestorm that killed an estimated 135,000 people in the city."The firebombing of Dresden explains absolutely nothing about why I write what I write and am what I am," Vonnegut wrote in "Fates Worse Than Death," his 1991 autobiography of sorts.
But he spent 23 years struggling to write about the ordeal, which he survived by huddling with other POW's inside an underground meat locker labeled slaughterhouse-five.
The novel, in which Pvt. Pilgrim is transported from Dresden by time-traveling aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, was published at the height of the Vietnam War, and solidified his reputation as an iconoclast.
"He was sort of like nobody else," said Gore Vidal, who noted that he, Vonnegut and Norman Mailer were among the last writers around who served in World War II."He was imaginative; our generation of writers didn't go in for imagination very much. Literary realism was the general style. Those of us who came out of the war in the 1940s made sort of the official American prose, and it was often a bit on the dull side. Kurt was never dull.
"Vonnegut was born on Nov. 11, 1922, in Indianapolis, a "fourth-generation German-American religious skeptic Freethinker," and studied chemistry at Cornell University before joining the Army.
When he returned, he reported for Chicago's City News Bureau, then did public relations for General Electric, a job he loathed. He wrote his first novel, "Player Piano," in 1951, followed by "The Sirens of Titan," "Canary in a Cat House" and "Mother Night," making ends meet by selling Saabs on Cape Cod.
Critics ignored him at first, then denigrated his deliberately bizarre stories and disjointed plots as haphazardly written science fiction. But his novels became cult classics, especially "Cat's Cradle" in 1963, in which scientists create "ice-nine," a crystal that turns water solid and destroys the earth.
Many of his novels were best-sellers. Some also were banned and burned for suspected obscenity. Vonnegut took on censorship as an active member of the PEN writers' aid group and the American Civil Liberties Union. The American Humanist Association, which promotes individual freedom, rational thought and scientific skepticism, made him its honorary president.
His characters tended to be miserable anti-heroes with little control over their fate. Pilgrim was an ungainly, lonely goof. The hero of "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" was a sniveling, obese volunteer fireman.Vonnegut said the villains in his books were never individuals, but culture, society and history, which he said were making a mess of the planet."
We probably could have saved ourselves, but we were too damned lazy to try very hard ... and too damn cheap," he once suggested carving into a wall on the Grand Canyon, as a message for flying-saucer creatures.
He retired from novel writing in his later years, but continued to publish short articles. He had a best-seller in 2005 with "A Man Without a Country," a collection of his nonfiction, including jabs at the Bush administration ("upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography") and the uncertain future of the planet.
He called the book's success "a nice glass of champagne at the end of a life.
"Vonnegut, who had homes in Manhattan and the Hamptons in New York, adopted his sister's three young children after she died. He also had three children of his own with his first wife, Ann Cox, and later adopted a daughter, Lily, with his second wife, the noted photographer Jill Krementz.
Vonnegut once said that of all the ways to die, he'd prefer to go out in an airplane crash on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. He often joked about the difficulties of old age.
"When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon," Vonnegut told The Associated Press in 2005."My father, like Hemingway, was a gun nut and was very unhappy late in life. But he was proud of not committing suicide. And I'll do the same, so as not to set a bad example for my children.
[Associated Press writers Michael Warren, Hillel Italie and Chelsea Carter contributed to this report.]
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
(Maine) Roads and bridges redux
[Here are a couple of accompanying pieces of information, which ties into yesterday’s post regarding the need in Maine (as well as other rural areas of the U.S.) to address aging infrastructure, which includes roads and bridges. Not as “sexy” as say talking about the Red Sox (if crotch-grabbing and spitting is your idea of sexy), or the latest 15-minute celebrity poseur, but important, nonetheless, IMHO.]
From today’s Daily Mainebiz. (If you’re not getting this email, you’re missing a convenient way to get daily updates about Maine business, tourism and other related information.)
DOT unveils $10B plan
The Maine Department of Transportation yesterday unveiled a $10.6 billion, 20-year draft plan to address the state’s transportation infrastructure needs.
The plan addresses improvements for roads, bridges, rails, ports and air service in Maine, but allocates most of its funds to maintenance, improvements and modernization of the state’s highway and secondary highway system, according to the Bangor Daily News. The plan also includes $2 billion to replace bridges in the state, which DOT officials said need to be replaced at a rate of 32 per year.
The plan, however, still outlines a $4 billion shortfall in necessary funds over the next 20 years if revenue sources remain the same, the paper said.
Then, in this month’s Working Waterfront, essential reading for anyone wanting to know about coastal issues in Maine, comes Sandra Dinsmore’s article about the new Waldo-Hancock Bridge, including funding issues and the eminent domain controversy involving the Dyers and the Sail Inn Restaurant.
Oh, and don't forget to check out Colin Woodard's Parallel 44 column; Colin is a helluva' writer, author of The Lobster Coast, a must read for anyone who wants to understand life here in the northern reaches of New England.
From today’s Daily Mainebiz. (If you’re not getting this email, you’re missing a convenient way to get daily updates about Maine business, tourism and other related information.)
DOT unveils $10B plan
The Maine Department of Transportation yesterday unveiled a $10.6 billion, 20-year draft plan to address the state’s transportation infrastructure needs.
The plan addresses improvements for roads, bridges, rails, ports and air service in Maine, but allocates most of its funds to maintenance, improvements and modernization of the state’s highway and secondary highway system, according to the Bangor Daily News. The plan also includes $2 billion to replace bridges in the state, which DOT officials said need to be replaced at a rate of 32 per year.
The plan, however, still outlines a $4 billion shortfall in necessary funds over the next 20 years if revenue sources remain the same, the paper said.
Then, in this month’s Working Waterfront, essential reading for anyone wanting to know about coastal issues in Maine, comes Sandra Dinsmore’s article about the new Waldo-Hancock Bridge, including funding issues and the eminent domain controversy involving the Dyers and the Sail Inn Restaurant.
Oh, and don't forget to check out Colin Woodard's Parallel 44 column; Colin is a helluva' writer, author of The Lobster Coast, a must read for anyone who wants to understand life here in the northern reaches of New England.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Roads and infrastructure should be priorities
While there is considerable debate about the role of the U.S. in Iraq and whether, in fact, we should bring the troops home now (my position), or begin a gradual deployment, eventually turning control of Iraq back over to the Iraqis, the cost of U.S. involvement in the country can no longer be discounted, or ignored. If you doubt what role our “war on terrah” is having on the domestic agenda and the well-being of ordinary Americans, you haven’t spent any time reviewing the current FY budget sent forth by the Bush administration. Domestic programs for the marginalized, working poor and middle classes (most of us) have taken not a back seat, but are stashed in the trunk, while the beneficiaries of military spending, namely Haliburton, Carlyle and other instruments of the minority elite, receive additional funding every time a request is put forth. What did Eisenhower warn us about back in the 50s?
While there are a myriad of negatives associated with the $415 Billion ($415,863,980,562 at this moment—it’s already risen dramatically) that we’ve spent in Iraq to date, with arguably little, or no measurable success, after we’ve come in and destroyed much of that countries infrastructure, the entire debacle seems counter-intuitive on a good day and sheer madness and lunacy at its worst.
Back in 1992, Jerry Brown spoke at the First Parish Church in Portland. At the time, he was running as a Democratic contender for president. While the press was given to caricaturing Brown, calling him “Governor Moonbeam” and other pet names, for what they perceived as Brown’s different way of conducting his affairs, both political and personal, he came across as reasoned, articulate and probably the scariest trait for a modern politician—intelligent.
He spoke a great deal on this particular night about the need for a nationwide program of infrastructure rebuilding and refurbishment, similar to FDR’s programs during the 1930s. As Brown mentioned at the time, which was nearly 15 years ago, our roads, bridges and railways have not seen major upgrades for nearly 60 years (and now, closer to 70).
In rural states, like Maine, maintaining the integrity of our roadways is particularly crucial. Since 85 percent of all our freight and 95 percent of all passengers move by truck and passenger vehicle, infrastructure maintenance and bridge upgrades should be regular and proactive in approach. Interestingly, while many clamor for lower taxes, often citing the neighboring New Hampshire, as our model for taxation, New Hampshire has condiderably less pavement to maintain, compared to Maine. Maine has 1.5 times New Hampshire’s road mileage, with 22,748 miles, to the Granite State’s 15,627. Maintaining roads costs money.
Not only does Maine have more roads, but Mainers are now moving to the suburbs, leaving the service centers of our state like a pack of lemmings. Over the past 40 or so years, the percentage of Mainers living outside service centers have grown from 37 percent, to just over 50 percent. Currently the average commute for Mainers is now roughly 44 minutes per day.
Here’s where it gets interesting: With Mainers driving more, driving longer and fully dependent on our roadways for our livelihoods, not to mention public safety concerns, the maintenance of our roadways should be of major concern to our state and local leaders and even our federal delegation. According to the Maine Development Foundation’s Measures of Growth report, 31 percent of the major roads in the Pine Tree State are in poor, or mediocre condition. The report calculates that the cost factor associated with these bad roads at $263 million dollars, statewide, or $282 per motorist. Not only are our bad roads costly, but they are also dangerous. Poor road design is a factor in a third of all crashes on Maine roadways, with the estimated cost of these crashes for 2005 coming in at $1.1 billion.
While I’m a proponent of developing light rail for a variety of uses, particularly pertaining to commuting, Maine is still a decade or more from that becoming a reality and it's the same in many other rural sections of the country.
This is a serious issue here and nationwide. I haven't even touched on food security issues in this post. While Maine should certainly approve pending transportation bonds for road improvements and upgrades, this matter is of national importance and needs to begin showing up on the radar screens of politicians in the Beltway. While its easy to lose site of reality in D.C., many of our elected officials come home to rural parts of the country, which are wholly dependent on automobiles and trucks for our survival. We need to begin to hold them accountable in order to have them address the infrastructure issue.
[I am indebted to the Maine Development Foundation for much of my information in this post, in particular, the Spring 2007 issue of The Catyalyst, their monthly newsletter. which is where my stats on Maine’s roadways came from.]
While there are a myriad of negatives associated with the $415 Billion ($415,863,980,562 at this moment—it’s already risen dramatically) that we’ve spent in Iraq to date, with arguably little, or no measurable success, after we’ve come in and destroyed much of that countries infrastructure, the entire debacle seems counter-intuitive on a good day and sheer madness and lunacy at its worst.
Back in 1992, Jerry Brown spoke at the First Parish Church in Portland. At the time, he was running as a Democratic contender for president. While the press was given to caricaturing Brown, calling him “Governor Moonbeam” and other pet names, for what they perceived as Brown’s different way of conducting his affairs, both political and personal, he came across as reasoned, articulate and probably the scariest trait for a modern politician—intelligent.
He spoke a great deal on this particular night about the need for a nationwide program of infrastructure rebuilding and refurbishment, similar to FDR’s programs during the 1930s. As Brown mentioned at the time, which was nearly 15 years ago, our roads, bridges and railways have not seen major upgrades for nearly 60 years (and now, closer to 70).
In rural states, like Maine, maintaining the integrity of our roadways is particularly crucial. Since 85 percent of all our freight and 95 percent of all passengers move by truck and passenger vehicle, infrastructure maintenance and bridge upgrades should be regular and proactive in approach. Interestingly, while many clamor for lower taxes, often citing the neighboring New Hampshire, as our model for taxation, New Hampshire has condiderably less pavement to maintain, compared to Maine. Maine has 1.5 times New Hampshire’s road mileage, with 22,748 miles, to the Granite State’s 15,627. Maintaining roads costs money.
Not only does Maine have more roads, but Mainers are now moving to the suburbs, leaving the service centers of our state like a pack of lemmings. Over the past 40 or so years, the percentage of Mainers living outside service centers have grown from 37 percent, to just over 50 percent. Currently the average commute for Mainers is now roughly 44 minutes per day.
Here’s where it gets interesting: With Mainers driving more, driving longer and fully dependent on our roadways for our livelihoods, not to mention public safety concerns, the maintenance of our roadways should be of major concern to our state and local leaders and even our federal delegation. According to the Maine Development Foundation’s Measures of Growth report, 31 percent of the major roads in the Pine Tree State are in poor, or mediocre condition. The report calculates that the cost factor associated with these bad roads at $263 million dollars, statewide, or $282 per motorist. Not only are our bad roads costly, but they are also dangerous. Poor road design is a factor in a third of all crashes on Maine roadways, with the estimated cost of these crashes for 2005 coming in at $1.1 billion.
While I’m a proponent of developing light rail for a variety of uses, particularly pertaining to commuting, Maine is still a decade or more from that becoming a reality and it's the same in many other rural sections of the country.
This is a serious issue here and nationwide. I haven't even touched on food security issues in this post. While Maine should certainly approve pending transportation bonds for road improvements and upgrades, this matter is of national importance and needs to begin showing up on the radar screens of politicians in the Beltway. While its easy to lose site of reality in D.C., many of our elected officials come home to rural parts of the country, which are wholly dependent on automobiles and trucks for our survival. We need to begin to hold them accountable in order to have them address the infrastructure issue.
[I am indebted to the Maine Development Foundation for much of my information in this post, in particular, the Spring 2007 issue of The Catyalyst, their monthly newsletter. which is where my stats on Maine’s roadways came from.]
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