We now know what’s to blame for the decrepit condition of Maine’s economy.
It’s not taxes, energy prices, unions, welfare or our forefathers’ lack of forethought in locating the state in a remote corner of the nation far from financial, industrial and cultural centers.
You’d think they’d have realized how difficult that was going to make it for their descendants to get high-speed Internet.
No matter. Such errors in judgment are of little consequence when compared to our real problem. Fortunately, Republican Gov. Paul LePage has identified the culprit.
On March 20, LePage was the keynote speaker at the Environmental and Energy Technology Council of Maine’s convention in Hallowell. According to news reports, the governor said a couple of sensible things – and I write those words without the slightest hint of irony.
He reiterated his belief that wind power is driving up electricity costs in the state, both because producing energy from huge turbines on formerly pristine mountaintops is inherently inefficient, and also because of the big subsidies the developers of these projects always require.
LePage also explained why legislative term limits – forcing members of the state House and Senate to call it quits after eight consecutive years in office – have created a gridlocked Legislature filled with clunkheads with no institutional memory.
In both cases, the governor was dead right. But, as has so often happened, LePage’s brief interaction with accuracy was followed by another of his attempts to drive the train where nobody has bothered to lay any tracks.
According to the governor, the Legislature is riddled with “young people with firm agendas,” who are “hurting us in the long haul.”
I’m not one of those given to knee-jerk criticism of every ridiculous statement LePage makes. Sometimes, among the mangled syntax, muddled facts and thoughtless smears, he makes valid points that can, with the proper equipment employed by trained professionals, be extracted from the wreckage.
For all I knew, his claim about “young people” could be true. I decided to check it out.
I didn’t have to look far to find a youthful legislator who meets LePage’s criteria. A mere 25 years old this week, he has established an agenda every bit as firm as LePage’s faith in his inept commissioner of the dysfunctional Department of Health and Human Services. So committed is this fellow to his platform that his colleagues made him the youngest member of legislative leadership in the country.
His name is Alexander Willette of Mapleton, and he’s the assistant Republican leader in the Maine House.
Oddly enough, Willette – who, by virtue of being barely out of his formative years, must be “hurting us in the long haul” – agrees with LePage on virtually every major issue.
OK, maybe that’s not who the governor had in mind.
Let’s check out state Sen. Garrett Mason of Lisbon Falls. This misbegotten young person has yet to see his 30th birthday, and his ratings from special interest groups have been remarkably consistent (100 percent from the National Federation of Independent Businesses, 0 percent from the Maine State Employees Association), so he probably totes around one of those “firm agendas.”
Which is the same one LePage has. No surprise, since Mason is a member of the GOP’s Tea Party wing.
State Rep. Ellie Espling of New Gloucester doesn’t list her age on her website, but the second-term legislator doesn’t look old enough to remember rotary phones. Likewise, state Rep. Stacey Guerin of Glenburn, state Rep. Aaron Libby of North Waterboro, state Rep. Matthew Pouliot of Augusta, state Rep. Corey Wilson of Augusta and state Sen. Michael Thibodeau of Winterport are all on the south side of 50, and all are Republicans. In fact, Thibodeau is the GOP leader in the Senate.
It’s to LePage’s credit that he’s exposed these wet-behind-the-ears subversives before they do more damage. Of course, without them in the State House, Democrats would run rampant, but that’s a small price to pay for freeing ourselves from the “firm agendas” of adolescence and their long-term consequences.
Actually, it’s remarkable there are so many young Republicans in office, since among voters 18 to 25 years old, just 19 percent are registered in the GOP, while 33 percent signed on with the Dems. Given LePage’s attitude, I don’t imagine the Republican figure will be seeing much improvement in the near future.
Just to be fair (for once), I should consider an alternative possibility. Perhaps the trouble with Maine isn’t young people, but rather rigid ideologues of any age. As one critic of the current system put it, “Maine keeps doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Let’s do something different this time.”
That’s from an op-ed written earlier this year by the aforementioned Alexander Willette.
Indeed, young whippersnapper, lead on.
If we replaced all the young people with old coots, wouldn’t the Legislature smell funny? Email answers to aldiamon@herniahill.net.
re: If we replaced all the young people with old coots, wouldn’t the Legislature smell funny?
Since the legislature is fairly odoriferous as it is, I expect you mean different. The new bouquet would be redolent of wisdom and experience. Now I don’t know what wisdom smells like, having met with little of it, but experience smells a bit like a burnt over field made all the more fertile for having the dead weeds and old burdock scorched off it. Wisdom, I suppose, might resemble something like fresh air.
Now, questions like the one you asked are usually rhetorical and you’re probably fishing for something. Certainly it seems we need new ground and fresh air in our political processes, but could the old coots provide it? Depends on the coots we back, I suppose, but if I have to choose between the self-assured passions of raw youth and the experience of old coots, I’d choose the coots.
Let’s think back, (figuratively) to the formation of our national government. There was a good mix of old and young.
Benjamin Franklin was a senior. Thomas Jefferson was young. Washington was on the downhill side of middle age.
Madison, Hamilton, Adams, ranged in age from young to approaching middle age.
I don’t recall the biographic details of the rest but I think It’s a fair statement that the people who created our nation were a mix of ages.
As to the pristine mountain tops:
Sugarloaf mountain was once pristine. Now it’s been cut with hundreds of ski trails, covered with pipes, hoses and electrical wires, ski lifts running up it’s sides. Access roads link hundreds of condominiums, hotels and restaurants.
It consumes massive amounts of power, has a huge carbon footprint- yet offers very few full time jobs with good pay and benefits. It also benefits from tax breaks. No sales tax on ski passes, among other state perks.
So, how come nobody complains about that, the way they do about windmills?
Don’t get me wrong- I like Sugarloaf. I also like windmills. In fact, I would like to see some on Sugarloaf!
“young people with firm agendas,” who are “hurting us in the long haul.” -If you don’t know what he means I don’t know what to tell you. So far it appears your not close.
you – you are – you’re, your – your’s.
Their- there they’re- they are-
where- ware, were -we’re- we are
two- too- to
Can we please not let autocorrect take over? or, learn grammar?
Now, let’s see…..young people with agendas. Some barely out of college. Can run a smart phone, but can’t balance a checkbook. Think education should be free. Also question an 8 hour work day – think a work week should be 2 1/2 days. Think anyone who doesn’t have a college education is an idiot. Spend too many hours a day using technology. Have no idea what a hammer or rake is for. And they’re spending my tax dollars giving it away to others with the same philosophy. Yessah…
Snowman: Can we please not let autocorrect take over? or, learn grammar?
Whose going to teach proper grammer to them young people? Once a young people gets thru there teens, the mistakes have been cast in concrete by teachers who grew up on the same mistakes, but their two afraid to try too correct they’re students for fear of lowering self-esteem.
Frostproof: First time you ever made me laugh. Not that I necessarily agree, but nevertheless
One will hear “If I would’ve known” instead of “If I had known” ,
“Her & me” as the subject of a sentence, “between you and I”, etc.
Sorry, folks, but this comes from not studying GRAMMAR and it has become pervasive in spoken English. Educated people say these things. That’s the sad part.
Heard a TV reporter at the site of the Washington State slide disaster say, “and today they found no more survivors alive”. Cringe-making…
It’s not the young people’s fault. The problem for young people is that they are brainwashed by an educational system K-12 and college, and news media, both of which are about 93% left-wing, and an entertainment business that is about the same or pretends to be because it makes most of its money from people under 30, (which is about the age when they have jobs, families, mortgages, taxes, etc., when the koolaid wears off.) While young people are still under that left-wing brainwashing, the entertainers find it to be in their own best interest to be seen as in agreement with young people’s politics. Democrats are more than happy to take advantage of young people’s gullibility for as long as they can.
Arnold P:
One has only to listen to Rush Limbaugh and or Glenn Beck to know that brainwashing takes place on the right as well. The goal of our education system should be to teach and improve the students critical thinking skills. Then they have the ability to sort out the truth for themselves.
I believe that overall, we have more and better educated young people today than ever before. There are some amazingly bright, creative and hard working young people doing some very good work and making progress towards improving the human condition.
I have often wished the Bulldog had a way to let me edit my statements before the world got to see them. My proofreading skills are a bit rusty. I have cringed more than once when I re-read what I wrote.
Still, it’s good to have a public discourse and exchange of ideas in a free democracy- even if we sometimes get our grammar and spelling wrong.
Arnold P.: You’re so mired in your right-wing talking points that you dismiss any other discourse as “brainwashing”.
Study of a FOREIGN language often enhances the understanding of the grammar in one’s own native language. Young people are ripe for learning almost anything, given the opportunity. But first feed them, help them have healthful diets, good access to medical care and a safe place to grow up, both at home and in school.
Snowman,I usually agree with you but you must be awfully young. This current crop is the FIRST American generation to be LESS educated than their parents. Unless you count video game prowess.
Actual News: You’re so mired in your right-wing talking points that you dismiss any other discourse as “brainwashing”.
Oh, Mr. News, were you listening the other day to the non-right-wing “news” outlets as they waxed orgasmic about the 7 million sign-ups that magically appeared just in time? The directive came down from on high (the DNC) to use the phrase “victory lap”, and every dutiful bobble-head, throughout the left-wing media machine, snapped to attention, saluted, and comically repeated the phrase ad nauseam.
Frostproof, must I repeat myself?. Guess so…You’re so mired in your right-wing talking points that you dismiss any other discourse as “brainwashing”.
Your latest post confirms my assertion. And I visualize you sputtering
your vitriol. So be it. Continue to listen to Rush (who was also sputtering!)
and you’ll think you know something.
EME: Study of a FOREIGN language often enhances the understanding of the grammar in one’s own native language.
I agree completely, and recommend studying Latin. Most European languages are descended from it. Even the Germanic languages received much of their vocabulary from it, ultimately giving birth to English. Many Latin phrases survive intact to this day.
One such phrase is ad hominem, as in ad hominem attack. If you don’t like the message, shoot the messenger. You can see several instances of this in the comments above, the ones that side-step the content and focus on the author or on the author’s assumed sources.
“I had become too accustomed to the pseudo-Left new style, whereby if your opponent thought he had identified your lowest possible motive, he was quite certain that he had isolated the only real one. This vulgar method, which is now the norm and the standard in much non-Left journalism as well, is designed to have the effect of making any noisy moron into a master analyst.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir
I’ll have you know that FOX News is America’s most popular news program. In a related story; Brittany Spears and Justin Beiber are America’s most popular ‘musicians”. Mc Donald’s is our most popular “restaurant”. This does not bode well for us.
Study of Latin seems very scholarly, which is fine, but is hard for children to appreciate. Can’t sing songs in Latin (or can we?). An appreciation of Latin could certainly be incorporated into the study of many languages.
For those with an interest in studying law or medicine would make Latin more “alive”. But for most of us and our kids, Spanish, French, Italian, German, etc., would fit the bill nicely.
Christopher Hitchens, R.I.P. Your wit and intellect are greatly missed.
The study of calculus is also rather scholarly, and it’s usually not accompanied by singing. And, like Latin, calculus is usually not taught to children until they’re mature enough to appreciate it on its own. Teach the yard-apes to appreciate the study for itself, not because you can sing about it.
When you learn Spanish, you learn almost nothing about French. When you learn Latin, you learn the roots of Spanish and French … and Italian, Portuguese, …
Frostproof ~
What exactly is a yard-ape?
Study of other languages is also important because it enhances the understanding of other cultures. Songs and music of other cultures enrich our lives, too. Children are not “yard apes”; they should have joy in their lives along with the other necessary courses.
Laura, a yard-ape is a human child a few years older than a rug-rat.
Calculus is useful to use to DO something; predict how far something will go, or how long it will take, how quickly it can accelerate. You see these crazy kids doing aerial stunts on their snowboards and skis and snowmobiles? Lots of physics being applied there and it takes calculus to compute the physics. The ones that don’t have the brains to equal their courage don’t survive for long.
I studied a bit of latin. I have forgotten most of it, but I can look at something written in a Romance language and usually get a fair idea of what it’s about. I always read the directions in another language first and see if I can figure it out from that.
There is a fuzziness in meanings when we don’t read the original works of a thinker and rely instead on someone else to explain it. The meanings of words and the context of what was said can be lost over time.
Humans are able to quite easily adapt their concepts of morality to fit the circumstance. The holocaust, the inquisitions, the genocide of native americans; all was done as being perfectly acceptable behavior by the perpetrators. The only way to try and steer humanity in a direction of peace and tolerance is to promote the ability to think critically for oneself and to do it with conscience.
OK, OK. By all means, let’s fill the little urchins with a heaping plate of joy and culture. But for dessert, give them a slice of reality pie. The world after childhood and academia is a competitive place with no guaranteed outcomes, in spite of what politicians say. Given the likelihood that joy and culture alone won’t pay the bills, and given that DC is running the country into the ground, children should indeed study other languages: Chinese, Russian, and Arabic. They should learn a few key words and phrases from each, starting with:
Yes, boss.
No, boss.
Thank you, boss.
Just because you don’t like the present governments that happen to speak Chinese, Russian or Arabic is no reason to disparage those languages or the people who speak them. Many children today, especially those living in difficult economic conditions, have a heap “reality” on their backs every day.
Frostproof kicks butt this time; debate over!
Hmmm…. the conservatives don’t believe in planned parenthood. They oppose abortion. They oppose including contraceptive medications and devices with healthcare. They oppose tax dollars being spent for education.
Yet, it seems that Frostproof and his buddies lament the exploding numbers of illiterate, ignorant youth- who are also unable to obtain jobs that support them and make them contributors to the tax base.
They don’t even want to spend tax dollars on recreational parks and enjoyments that might be considered (ahem) alternatives to natural, hormone driven, instinctive procreative activities. They also oppose those who’s sexual proclivities do not lead to procreation.
My suggestion is this: give them an I.Q. test, coupled with a examination of their parents income. Then give all the poor and stupid people one-way tickets to Texas.
I didn’t disparage those languages or peoples. I’m suggesting that your children will be working for those people in the near future, and their well being will depend on their ability to communicate with their masters.
snowman:
I oppose Planned Parenthood (capitalized) because it was founded by Margaret Sanger, the most vicious racist this country has ever produced. She began the practice of using abortion for .. ahem .. racial cleansing, and it continues today. PP has killed more black people than the KKK ever dreamed of.
I don’t oppose including contraceptive medications and devices in “healthcare”. I oppose forcing any employers to foot the bill, especially employers with religious objections to those items. In fact, I oppose forcing employers to foot any of the bill for medical insurance, because it just perpetuates the fraud that you’re getting something for nothing.
I don’t oppose spending tax dollars on education. I vigorously oppose wasting tax dollars on useless aspects of the education industry, like the federal Dept. of Education, and like the mind-numbing “common core” program.
I can’t speak for my buddies, but I do indeed lament the exploding numbers of illiterate, ignorant youth. And I point out, yet again, they are illiterate and ignorant because aforesaid education industry puts the 3 R’s at the bottom of the priority list, concentrating instead on self-esteem, making the kiddies feel good about their mediocrity.
I don’t mind spending some tax dollars dollars on public recreation facilities. After all, the Republican Teddy Roosevelt started the national park system. I oppose spending tax dollars on programs to make parents even more irrelevant, expanding the nanny state to take over their responsibilities.
You picked the wrong state, snowman. Texas’ economy is booming, with plenty of jobs. But it does have two major problems. (1) TX has a long border with Mexico and DC won’t allow them to defend themselves, and (2) they have a significant influx of liberals from California and the northeast trying to escape high taxes, while at the same time demanding their new home provide the same level of touchy-feely perks that they left behind.
Your suggestion proves you have the IQ test backwards.
Frostproof ~
Your hateful comments are offensive in so many ways. Calling young people yard-apes is just another example. Shame on you.
Texas has a massive problem brewing with an exploding population; not of immigrants legal or otherwise, but of residents of hispanic origin. Remember, Texas was Hispanic long before it was a state, or even it’s own little country.
That segment of the population is poor and undereducated and the state lawmakers will not approve adequate funding for education. Within a very few years, Texas will have a white minority and a a burgeoning population of poor. And then, it be blue.
We have more people now than ever before. So while yes, we have more young people who lag behind in knowledge, we also have more with amazing smarts. There is so much more information available now, easily available and free than there was a few decades ago. With a computer and a internet connection, or even a smart phone, virtually all the information ever gleaned throughout human history is available 24/7 to anyone.
Many, many people, young and old, avail themselves of this resource.
Negative news gets more notice. To it’s credit, the Bulldog does a better job than most in publishing positive news, but it’s still the kids who get in trouble that get the most attention. For every young person busted for drugs, or who gets caught stealing, there are many more quietly studying and doing good.
Frost proof in right. My folks affectionately called us yard apes,house monkeys,etc. They meant no harm. Some folks really test my liberal sensibilities. STOP BEING SO THIN SKINNED! We have larger problems.
@ Planet. No one who is too cowardly to sign his or her name to a letter has ever “kicked butt.”
David, I don’t think it’s thin skinned to object when a group of people – any group – is denigrated by name calling. I don’t call people names, let alone call entire groups of people names, and I brought up my children not to. My parents never called me a yard ape or any other name that I can recall. I would have been shocked if they had. By the way, objecting to name calling doesn’t preclude my considering other problems.
Employers get a Fed. tax deduction for the expense of employees’ health insurance.
Employer-paid health insurance was a benefit originally created to lure employees.
25% of children in Texas are not covered by health insurance.
These are facts, not “re-imagined history” such as comments above about Planned Parenthood, etc.
@ david firsching: I just scrolled through the responses here. Your – excuse me – you’re the only only posting under a full name. I congratulate you on your courage, but that doesn’t convey authority to call all the rest of us cowards. Be careful about expressing your opinion in public. You might lose your job. See Bendan Eich.
@ Actual: Employer-paid health insurance began during WWII, after FDR imposed wage and price controls, to lure the best employees into industries supporting the war. It was not the invention of evil, greedy Republican CEOs.
Regarding history, see the Wikipedia page on Sanger, and this little ditty:
As part of her efforts to promote birth control, Sanger found common cause with proponents of eugenics, believing that they both sought to “assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit.” Sanger was a proponent of negative eugenics, which aims to improve human hereditary traits through social intervention by reducing the reproduction of those who were considered unfit.
This could be a comment on the page for Heinrich Himmler who, along with his boss A. Hitler, acknowledged the important earlier work of Ms. Sanger.
Re-imagined?
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
~ George Santayana
Frostproof: Look AGAIN at wikipedia (if that’s a convenient source).
Margaret Sanger was all about CONTRACEPTION preventing pregnancy, not abortion.
Martin Luther King, Jr. received the Margaret Sanger Award.
W.E.B. DuBois hailed her creation of a clinic in Harlem, NYC.
Planned Parenthood began support women’s abortion rights in the 1960’s after Sanger’s death.
Your earlier assertion that she had killed more black people than the KKK is outrageous and false. Too much Glen Beck as a news source?
C’mon Frostproof, what this Sanger woman thought back in the early part of the 20th century has little to do with supplying contraceptives, condoms, reproductive education and health info.
There are many reasons a woman may seek an abortion, some bad some appropriate and the determinant of that is her’s and her’s alone. Kellogg, the creator of breakfast cereal, was driven to do so with the intention that the masses would procreate less if fed what was felt to be inferior food. Does that mean we should ban corn flakes?
Actual News: Too much Glen Beck as a news source?
So we come almost full circle. Your ad-hominem is showing again, but don’t take it personally. The Left’s arguments are usually so weak, they have to resort to personal attacks.
By the way, I didn’t say Sanger had killed all those people – PP did, following the philosophy of its beloved founder.
I looked up Beck’s website – no, I don’t have a shortcut to it – and discovered it’s Glenn with two N-s. So now we’ve come completely full circle, to the illiterate and ignorant, to whom spelling is irrelevant.
I don’t have a shortcut, but a good many on the Left do – and to Fox News, Limbaugh, … and they devour that stuff 24/7. They must, since they seem to know everything that’s being said there – or they rely on hearsay. Me, I prefer to express my own opinions, not to repeat someone else’s.
Whether we like it or not, right-wing talk radio is about all that’s available around here. So it’s not necessary to go online to anybody’s website soak up the tripe that is supposed to pass for “facts”. Only about 6 hours of NPR to dilute the diatribes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, GLENN Beck and the rest of the hate mongers.
Frostproof: As for your “own opinions”, I guess Limbaugh and Beck are copying YOU?