Will walk for coffee

I love my job! Actually, I’m talking about my day job, as I’m also doing the dual candle end thing most evenings with the writing and publishing.

The day job provides enough variety, diversity and challenges and I’m never bored. Many days, I get to travel to exotic Maine destinations like Augusta, Waterville, Skowhegan and Rumford. Other days, I am forced to spend my day tucked away in my cubicle, answering emails, returning calls and following up with my business partners. On those particulars day, I tend to feel a bit logy around 2 o’clock. Maybe it’s my habit of eating an early PM lunch and being sedentary most of the day. I'm sure my early rise at 4:30 am also has something to do with it. I wouldn’t trade my early hours, however, as I’m a subscriber to Ben Franklin’s axiom, at least the part that says early risers are “healthy, wealthy and wise.” On the first and third counts, I can say that while I need to shed a bit of excess baggage, regular exercise and good genes help contribute to success in this area; I like to think I am acquiring wisdom, if for no other reason than growing older and grayer, while paying attention to life’s experiences helps in that department. As far as wealth is concerned, I must say I missed that class when it was offered.

Yesterday, rather than hop in my car and drive to my local Dunkin’ Donuts, two miles away, I heeded Al Gore’s call to save the planet, opting to walk about ½ mile to the local convenience mart and buy a 16 oz. afternoon pep-me-up, aka, cup o’ joe.

Any time you decide to forego the internal combustion route for travel, you are bound to encounter issues. Maine, with the exception of maybe Portland, is like many other places—it isn’t geared to pedestrian-friendly modes of getting around.

While the end of town where I work at least has a sidewalk, it runs right along the busy Main Street, with cars and trucks ripping by at 45 to 50 miles per hour. It's not an overstatement to say it's a bit scary to see drivers coming at you, talking on their cell phones, when you have nothing to shield you, but your wits, from this hulk of synthetic material hurtling your way.

Whenever you decide to strike out on foot in most places, you immediately recognize that you are a rare bird—in a car-based culture, walking immediately pegs you as odd, eccentric, or too big of a loser to own a car. Add to the equation, someone walking, with business attire on and it really throws off the equilibrium of passers-by.

While the 25 minute walk was invigorating, the number of curb cuts, in and out of various business establishments, made a direct line near impossible, as cars trying to pull out into heavy traffic volume rarely see you, so a proactive walker knows to walk around the back of the exiting auto, so that they won’t accelerate towards a gap in traffic flow and run over you.

Three businesses actually had sprinklers operating at this time of the afternoon, spewing irrigation all over the sidewalk, forcing me to find another alternative path, or risk spending my last three hours at work in soggy attire.

As I returned to the office, I had to cross at a busy intersection. While there was a button on the traffic light pole, to activate the crossing sign, when it indicated it was safe to pass, cars turning left from across the way, actually had a green arrow, necessitating my need to goose step across the street, to avoid being hit.

While I have an automobile and can choose to walk or ride, other members of the community don’t and I often see them walking along the very same route that I took for my afternoon coffee stroll. They also tend to be folks that don’t usually involve themselves in “causes” and “campaigns,” as they’re too busy just trying to scratch out a living. This is probably why sidewalks and pedestrian options are always thought about as ancillary, or peripheral items in any urban planning and design decision.

Maybe as talk about addressing global warming continues to ramp up, some solutions oriented towards pedestrian and bicycle travel might be added to the mix that still often centers around maintaining our dependance on the automobile.

More beach, less baseball

[Lobster boat, just offshore]

[The sound of the sea]

[Maine's characteristic rocky coastline]

[Lobster traps, washed ashore, probably during the last storm]

[Caretaker's shack on nearby, Richmond's Island]

Summer for me has always been a choice between baseball and the beach. Other than the brief time we spent in Indiana, shortly after my religious shipwreck and departure from fundamentalism, we’ve spent very little time as a family, at the beach. With Maine’s beautiful coastline, as well as an abundance of inland lakes, it seems odd that someone who used to love his time near a body of water could forsake beach time and give himself entirely over to dusty ball diamonds.

For eight years, summer has always been about Mark’s baseball, first with American Legion games and then for the past four, the Twilight League occupied more than my fare share of my “spare” time. And then, if there wasn’t a game to be going to, I spent evenings watching games, or one of my weekend days lolling in front of the television set, giving away three hours to the Red Sox.

Yesterday, I spent a part of the morning and most of the afternoon at Crescent Beach State Park, in Cape Elizabeth, with Mary, who truly loves the beach more than anyone I’ve known. I can’t believe we haven’t spent more time, together at the beach, over the past two decades. I spent time reading a great book, about Gary, Indiana—can you believe it! We walked down the beach and climbed over the rocky jetty, where we had great views of Richmond’s Island and I thoroughly enjoyed the perfect weather and sights and sounds of the Maine coast.

It appears the Red Sox are doing fine without me and with my recent resignation as Twilight League president, I have discovered that I can carve out a block of time, a few times a month, to enjoy the beach and all that goes along with it.

Campaign stop, Gary, Indiana

[U.S. Steel plant in distance, viewed from the West Beach, in Miller]

[One of a number of "gentlemen's" clubs on Dunes Highway, U.S. 12/20, near Gary]

[Apparently there is some sort of celebration, although I had trouble finding it]

[This building sits at a major intersection, at 5th and Broadway and symbolizes present-day Gary]

[Gary's former "sugar daddy"]

I've posted some accompanying images that go along with my political parable, below. The idea for this fictitious campaign stop, came from my recent trip to Indiana and the incredulity that I'm still experiencing, after witnessing much of what passes for Gary, Indiana, a city of over 100,000 people, in a major metropolitan area (the Chicagoland area has a population in excess of 8 million people], yet Gary feels like a place that time and certainly anyone of any influence, has long ago forgotten, or better, written off.

I wrote this piece over the weekend and decided to send it off to several progressive news sites, which I thought might have an interest in posting it, online.

I'm thrilled that Counterpunch, one of my favorite progressive sites, chose to run it. Jeffery St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn self-identify as muckrakers, doing battle with the corporate-driven war machine, a business community bereft of a soul and those who would rape and pillage the natural environment. It's an honor to have my writing stand alongside many of their regular contributors, most of whom wage a lonely battle to keep the flame of journalism lit.

Speaking about Counterpunch, Barbara Ehhrenreich is quoted as saying that, "CounterPunch makes me think. It makes me laugh. Above all it tells me things I didn't know."

Campaign 2008, Gary,Indiana-style
By, Jim Baumer

I’ve just returned from a week in Northwest Indiana, America’s post-industrial wasteland, known affectionately by locals as “the region.” I am still trying to process all I’ve seen, particularly my time driving around Gary. It occurred to me, last Sunday morning, trying to remain inconspicuous, with my rental car plates, three-piece suit and camera dangling from my neck that solving Gary’s many problems would go far in solving many of our urban problems elsewhere.

Earlier in the week, I read an article about Michelle Obama and her desire to campaign “off script,” creating a persona sans spin and lacking the usual campaign-speak. Barak’s wife seemed to want to speak from the heart, foregoing talking points created by professional PR people. Thinking about this, I wondered if a campaign rooted in reality and focused primarily on the people on the ground would still work in 2008. For all the talk about the issues and political pandering, particularly to issues of poverty, it appears to an outsider like me that most, if not all of this is just talk—nothing more. We all know that the obscene amounts of money required to purchase TV time and other advertising gives politicians, even newcomers like Obama, a convenient excuse to go right to the corporate till and load up.

Maybe I was downwind from the towering smokestacks of U.S. Steel and the fumes had fouled my thinking, but I began envisioning a scenario about a campaign stop in Gary. I had an idea for an event in America’s very own version of a war zone city, like Bagdhad, would help dispel much of the cynicism most voters feel toward politicians, as more often then not, they get whisked from photo op to photo op, nary a hair out of place and too often, in front of carefully selected supporters and donors.

Gary, Indiana, a once proud city that symbolized America’s industrial prowess, has fallen on hard times over the last three decades. Situated along the southern shore of Lake Michigan and only a short commute from Chicago, is a place that many non-residents and travelers have come to avoid like the plague, fearing it like no other place in America. Just read some of the comments sometime on various travel websites and you’ll get a quick sense that Gary isn’t a place you want to stop in, even for gas, or a quick bite. Worse, when you actually spend time driving around its various neighborhoods, in the shadow of dilapidated buildings designed by legendary architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright, you grasp how far the place has fallen, bypassed by economic policies benefiting America’s rich, ravaged by drugs and gangbangers and plagued by corruption at all levels.

If the field of presidential hopefuls want Americans to embrace them as legitimate, then staging a political debate, in downtown Gary, at the Genesis Convention Center, opening it up to anyone who wants to come, would help promote some real hope in a city that’s had precious little for nearly 30 years. Maybe Oprah Winfrey could make the trek from Chicago, via the Skyway and be seated in the VIP section down front. Other notable politicians and community leaders from the area should also be invited. I suggest that the candidates and some of the dignitaries arrive mid-afternoon and load onto a bus and spend time riding through Gary’s once majestic and now crumbling neighborhoods. Of course, security is always an issue in certain areas of town, so doing in daylight would be a much safer option and I’d suggest a police escort, even though I didn’t have one on my recent visit.

Since soul food and in particular, southern BBQ is one element that Gary does right, maybe the bus could find a rib joint near downtown, where the candidates could break bread over some authentic local cuisine, before heading over the convention center. If there was one close enough, maybe the entourage could walk off their chicken, pulled pork, corn bread, cole slaw and beans, with a short jaunt over to the center, to prep a bit before the TV lights and moderator brought them back to reality.

I think this event would favor certain candidates, particularly in light of Gary’s demographic makeup. According to the 2000 census figures, Gary’s racial makeup is nearly 85 percent African-American. One out of every four residents live below the federal poverty line, including nearly 40 percent of those who are below 18. The per capita income of Gary’s residents is just over $14,000 a year. If candidates want voters to believe they represent all voters, not just the uber wealthy, then Gary might be a campaign stop worth making.

Here’s my handicap of the night by candidate:

Barak Obama: As the great hope for African-Americans and in light of his political credentials having been forged in neighboring Illinois, Obama would be considered the “home town favorite” and possessing a solid advantage going in. He could use Gary as an opportunity to dispel the charges against him by some leaders in the black community that’s he’s an “Uncle Tom” and just another political opportunist.

Of all the candidates, Obama probably is the only one that even has a sense about some of Gary’s difficulties, given its close proximity to Chicago.

Hillary Clinton: Don’t dismiss her, as she has some “cred,” being married to Bill, who some dubbed “America’s first black president.” Hillary has the ability to connect with her audiences and as someone who knows her way around the inside of a black church, she wouldn’t be outside her element in Gary. Also, I’m sure she knows here BBQ, from her days in Arkansas.

John Edwards: Talks a good game when it comes to playing to the working class. With his roots in North Carolina and a dad who was a textile mill worker, he wouldn’t be lost in terms of understanding Gary’s industrial heritage. However, with his $400 haircuts and pretty boy good looks, he might not connect with most in Gary, who probably are lucky to own a $400 car. Still, Gary would be a good place for Edwards to fully grasp issues of poverty, up close and personal, not just from the perspective of a wonk, or an author.

Dennis Kucinich: Actually spent time in an American city similar to Gary, when he was mayor of Cleveland. Having been homeless as a youngster, Kucinich probably comes closest of all the candidates to knowing poverty firsthand. Of all the candidates, his policies might be the most functional in addressing some of the deep-rooted issues of hopelessness that plague many in Gary. Unfortunately, Kucinich, who connects in person, doesn’t project well enough via electronic media to have a chance.

As for the Republican field, African-Americans traditionally vote Democrat, but I’ll at least give my thoughts on the three front-runners.

Mitt Romney: How does someone named “Mitt” carry any credibility with people living in a city resembling a war zone? I suppose as governor of Massachusetts, he had some sense of urban issues, like drugs, gang activity and devastating poverty. However, his law and order agenda probably wouldn’t sit well with many in Gary, who already know someone, either family member, or close friend, doing time in jail, due to America’s failed “war on drugs.”

John McCain: McCain wouldn’t play well, either. Is it just me, or has McCain’s label as a “maverick” worn thin? If McCain’s a maverick, with his support of all things Republican, then I hate to see what being a supporter of the status quo means.

Rudy Giuliani: Another strong proponent of “lock ‘em up and throwing away the key” brand of law and order, his agenda for Gary would probably consist of armed patrols, driving around the streets of Gary in vehicles reminiscent of RoboCop, rounding up drug dealers and others and shipping them 30 miles to the east, to the Supermax in Westville.

Well, that’s my little fantasy, campaign-style, 2008. While it’s offered somewhat tongue-in-cheek, there is a part of me that sees a place like Gary as symbolic for the rest of America. While urban areas nationwide have problems, it’s rare that you come face to face with an urban hell like Gary, within the continental U.S.

Gary represents a great opportunity for a political reality check for politicians who have become too detached and removed from the masses to understand the issues on a personal level that they need to, in order to know how to represent all Americans, not just their corporate donors. A candidate’s event in Gary would at least give them one night of reality and maybe, just maybe, it might make a difference, although I don’t hold out any hope that this would ever happen.

Can Maine move away from defense profits?

It’s dicey to criticize shipbuilding when you live near Maine’s Mid-coast region. For those readers from away, this area of Maine is where you’ll find one of the nation’s largest shipbuilders, Bath Iron Works, BIW for short, or “the yard,” to locals.

In a state that has a paucity of living wage, benefit rich occupations and employers, criticizing BIW is akin to looking a “gift horse in the mouth” to many a resident of this region. Regardless of jobs and economic benefit however, BIW builds destroyers and these ships are used to kill.

Bruce Gagnon, who is the coordinator of Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, writes about the recent christening of another destroyer at Bath and his subsequent, regular protest of another BIW “christening.” (Anyone else see the irony in calling it a “christening?”)

Gagnon also writes about the local media’s coverage and spin regarding the launch of the USS Sterett, which oddly, is how I perceived the coverage, when I saw it broadcast on my local TV affiliate. My first thought was why they were spending so much time talking about the rescue mission of the ship’s namesake, an event that happened more than two decades prior, if not to “spin” it.

As Gagnon notes, “these Navy Aegis destroyers are the ships that launched the first cruise missile volley in the U.S. "shock and awe" attack on Iraq in 2003. I know this because Mary Beth and I have made friends with a former Naval officer who was the officer on the deck of the very Aegis ship that fired the first cruise missile in that attack. This officer now suffers from PTSD.We know that these same Aegis destroyers are now being deployed in the Persian Gulf in anticipation of a U.S. attack on Iran. We know that U.S. naval officers, in charge of cruise missile targeting, met with Israel military officials last summer to select targets for a U.S.-Israel attack on Iran.

These Naval destroyers are also now being outfitted with "theatre missile defense" (TMD) systems and are being deployed just off the coast of China. The military mission of these ships is to hit Chinese nuclear missiles after they have been fired in response to a U.S. first strike attack on China.

Oh, you say, the U.S. would never launch a pre-emptive first strike attack on another nation! That would be in violation of international law.

But in fact the U.S. Space Command has been war gaming such a first strike attack on China for the past several years. Set in the year 2016 the Pentagon initiates the attack on China using the military space plane, now under development. The role of the Aegis destroyer, outfitted with the TMD interceptors, is to knock out any remaining Chinese nukes that could still get off the ground after the initial U.S. attack. (Remember that today the Chinese military only has 20 nuclear missiles capable of hitting the continental U.S.) So the Aegis ships would not have to "destroy" very many of China's missiles to make it a successful operation.

These Aegis naval ships are now being sold to, or deployed, in Japan, South Korea, Australia and eventually Taiwan as the U.S. attempts to "contain" China. This aggressive, and provocative, military operation will create a new arms race in the region. Japanese and South Korean peace groups are very concerned about these plans and frequently protest the presence of these ships in their ports.”

Gagnon, who along with his significant other, Mary Beth and members of Maine Veterans for Peace, are unsung heroes, regularly bearing witness to the profits resulting from the death of others that defense contractors like BIW promote.

I’m sure that I’ll be called to task for daring to criticize BIW, Bath’s sacred cow. However, as this article clearly delineates, now is the time to begin moving away from defense-oriented industries. In fact, we should have done this decades ago, as we are now paying a steep price in many ways for our short-sightedness and corporate greed.

It is possible to imagine a sustainable economy, built upon non-defense jobs. Many currently believe that and work towards that end. I hope more of you will join in envisioning a more humane and just way of making a living.

Pilfering public assets

While traffic flow in Maine continues to increase and sprawl has only acerbated the issue, there is no comparison between driving in Maine and driving in the Chicagoland area.

Not only are the roads of northwestern Indiana and the greater Chicago area choked with cars and Big Scary Trucks (BST’s), but road construction, exorbitant tolls and in a case that hearkens back to the highwaymen of yesteryear, Governor Mitch Daniels (a supporter of President Bush) has privatized the Indiana Toll Road (I-80/90), which runs east/west across the northern part of the state. Indiana isn’t alone in selling off its public assets to private investors. The Chicago Skyway, once considered a white elephant by politicians in Springfield, is now considered a valuable enough asset that a foreign consortium spent $1.8 billion for the eight-mile stretch of pavement that is considered a shortcut to Chicago’s Loop.

Initially, the bid offered by the Cintra-Macquerie consortium, was considered extravagant by experts in the transportation community. However, when depreciation benefits of $300-400 million associated with the 99-year lease are factored in, as well as the recent refinancing of the Skyway for $1.4 billion, it appears that Cintra-Macquerie had done their homework.

"It's like putting a huge down payment on your house to secure the deal quickly so you can get in. Then you go and refinance it, so you can pull some money out," said Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation, a public policy group that promotes libertarian principles, including individual liberty, free markets, and the rule of law. (according to their website)

While Reason publicizes their work as non-partisan, their primary purpose seems to be the dismantling of government by promoting the privatization of public assets. They are fans of the privatization policies of “pioneers” such as Margaret Thatcher and the right-wing Daniels, who from what I can see, has turned the Hoosier State entirely over to business interests without much regard to people, or place.

My return to Indiana was predicated by my own involvement with fundamentalist Xianity, some 20 years prior. Interestingly, much of what I experienced firsthand in Hoosierville was still being dictated by a fundamentalist mindset—the ideology of “free market fundamentalism.”

We are living in a time when the drumbeat of the free market crowd drowns out any other discussion when it comes to public assets. Just like the fundamentalists of the religious persuasion, these economic fundamentalists hold up privatization in the same way that the right-wing Xian crowd hold up the virgin birth and the inerrancy of scripture. Question it and you shut down any hope of meaningful dialogue.

It is a rare opportunity to hear any contrary opinions and thoughts from the other side and most Americans no longer recognize that men of wisdom, people like noted author and journalist, the late Walter Lippmann, issued caveats to the market fundamentalists of his own day, when he reminding them that there is a need for both private and public enterprise in our country. For men like Lippman, wisdom always consisted in finding the right balance between the two.

More and more, ordinary Americans, far removed from the corridors of power, see firsthand, the emptiness and economic fallout that free market fanatics and their gospel of privatization wreak. While corporate America tries to extract maximum profit from every enterprise, at the peril of the people that live in the communities being paved over, and corporatized, it’s high time the inhabitants of these places begin to fight back, before all of their assets are stolen from them.

Here is a good article about how ordinary citizens can step up to the plate and make sure that they have a say in the well-being of their communities.

One area where citizens can make some "noise" is in the arena of local broadband, an increasingly important public asset, making sure this isn’t high jacked by corporate interests. Municipal broadband is an option for many communities and could be a viable alternative for rural areas of Maine that are underserved by Verizon and other communication giants.

Additionally, the BusinessWeek article, “Roads to Riches” is a good place to start for an understanding of why the investment community views public assets as the next place to put their money and why we all need to pay closer attention to attempts by our so-called public servants to privatize public services.