Wednesday, December 23, 2015

VOD of 12/21 is on line and available….

OK, Brunswick fun seekers and students of all ages; the on demand video for Monday night’s town council meeting is ON THE AIR!

Cable 21 Dec VOD

Here’s the link: http://tv3hd.brunswickme.org/Cablecast/Public/Show.aspx?ChannelID=1&ShowID=3302

The discussion of the Brayman proposal for a Race and Gender Task Force begins just a minute or two before the 1:30 mark on the time slider at the bottom of the video.

We’ve watched only a few minutes of it so far; too busy making pie crusts and other holiday specials with family.  But we’re confident the video, once word gets around, will eat into the record-breaking box office for the latest Star Wars saga.

Our local governing stars may not have light sabers, but their thoughts, words, and actions can be just as worthy of outer space.

Merry Christmas, one and all.  Even the Eddy's of the world.

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Brunswick, Bowdoin; Race, Gender, Rape, Social Constructs; and Sound and Fury…..signifying nothing.

“Recently a young woman at Dartmouth College, having had sex for the first time with a man, reflected that she had “lost her virginity.” Then she put that thought on hold: “Virginity is just a total social construct,” she told her interviewer. Her story appeared in the college’s student newspaper.”
(You can read the rest of the rather academic treatise from which this is excerpted here: http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-meaning-of-sex/article/928461   You’ll even find Bowdoin College mentioned prominently)


We could say we told you so…but why bother.  It’s way too easy; Brunswick and it’s ruling class are so predictable.



Published reports on the town council meeting this past Monday evening, which we gave you some heads up about, lived up to our expectations.  While food per se’ may not have been involved, the atmospherics approached a food fight for dignity and decorum befitting the proceedings.




                        TR race gender council b

We can only imagine what the audience in council chambers looked like.  And we can’t wait to watch the VOD recording of the meeting.  From what we’ve read so far, council members generally comported themselves in keeping with their established reputations.  Johnny Protocols even stepped up to try out for the role we included in our draft script.

  

Borrowing some literary imagery, we could say that Brunswick is but a stage, and the council just actors, strutting out their parts, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Except for digging holes, that is, fiscal and otherwise.

            

You can find more coverage on the meeting here, written by a Bowdoin grad no less:
http://www.theforecaster.net/brunswick-council-forms-task-force-resolves-to-oppose-bias/

It should be clear by now that our councilors have an expansive view of their own abilities, and more-so, their jurisdiction.  Recall them engaging in “Citizens United” resolution making.  Now they’re moving on to Human Rights.

And we couldn’t even get the weighty issue of economic benefits of the Downeaster brought to the table for discussion.  Why?  Because some of the councilors mentioned prominently in the articles wanted no part of making it an agenda item simply for discussion, let alone a motion.

Nice to see that Chair Brayman, as a ‘reward’ for her no vote on Monday’s motion, appointed Councilor Millet to the Race and Gender Task Force.  Take that, Jane!

Next time, do as you’re told, or you’ll be sent to the hell of a can’t win council Task Force.  Talk about knots.  Should be interesting to see how Jane manages the ‘do something’ imperative against the ‘Brunswick is the perfect place to live’ town branding.  Shorts and more could easily get tangled in a Catch 22.  Wonder if Task Force meetings will be televised?

As for us, we’re expecting we’ll see a budget increase to cover the cost of putting up “Slur Free Zone” and “Slur Watch Neighborhood” signs all over town.  Not to mention the 20 hours of training  on race and gender issues that each grade in “the best schools” will be required to impose annually.

Sooner or later, readers, you’ll figure out why we use “P.C. Poppycock” as our Nom de Side.

Monday, December 21, 2015

Brunswicks’s Polar Bears, Coming Home to Roost??

  

Well, just in time for Christmas, the Brunswick Town Council will tonight take up the issue of establishing a Race and Gender Task Force at the request of Chair Brayman, responding to an all hands meeting on such issues held earlier this month.
          
                


Given what’s going on nationally, and on the local campus, this should come as no surprise.
But there is some irony to be appreciated.  Does anyone deny that Bowdoin, as a member of a small set of elite, small, highly selective liberal arts colleges, cherishes it’s exclusiveness?  Remember “what is Brunswick without Bowdoin  -- nothing!”?  How fitting then that inclusiveness is one of the primary cudgels used to demand something…anything…to show we all care.

As we showed in a recent post….it’s all about muscle, or more succinctly, power.



Anyone with even a modest amount of awareness of the politics in our perfect little town knows that Bowdoin plays a subtle and not so subtle role in our local governance.  From any number of perspectives, including tax exemptions, various benevolent deals, etc.

Well now the student body is about to expand its influence in an anything but subtle way, as they demand appeasement from us all to respond to whatever grievances they can concoct, real or not.  After all, it’s not the facts that matter, it’s the seriousness of the charges.
   


Here the learners on campus are show pleading with now former President Barry Mills on an issue near and dear to them, and which Mills, coming from Wall Street roots as he did, and in consideration of the super high-performing Bowdoin Endowment, pretty much stone-walled.

Now a new man, President Clayton Rose, is barely unpacked, and has to face something far more basic.  If things work out right, the Polar Cubs may demand he do a Polar Bear dip on his way out of office.

On Pages 49 & 50 of the town council packet…http://www.brunswickme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Agenda-Packet-Dec-21-2015.pdf….you’ll find the material inserted below.

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Seems to us the trap is now set.  Do you really think a group like this will be able to conclude that nothing needs to be done, and that the town is not part of the problem?

Who are we kidding?  If the town, acting through this Race and Gender Task Force, does not take ‘decisive, corrective action,’ it will be derided as a symbol of macro-aggression, paternalism, gender blindness, sexism, and white-privilege.  We’ll be considered clueless and lacking in fundamental human self-awareness. 

Marches should soon follow, led, we suppose, by the more sensitive members of Bowdoin’s faculty.

Eldridge, Rizzo, Brayman and other symbols of Brunswick’s privileged establishment need to watch their words and their six.  Safe spaces need to be allocated to every in-town block, and those mentioned will soon be looking for political safe-space.

The way we see it, a mis-step or two here, and there could be demands for their resignation, if only to show proper respect and fealty, and repentance for their leading roles in historic, systemic oppression and insensitivity.  They’ll have to be the sacrificial lambs acting as symbols of the thousands of the rest of us.

This is going to be such fun to watch.  Squirming, running for cover, political posturing, word-smithing, etc.

Who knows, the council might even call Johnny Protocols back into service; he comes as close as anyone in this town to having the right skills for this job.

                 

He’s a bit of a Houdini when it comes to such things.  Though considering he plans to run for State Senate next year, it may be more of a gamble than he’s willing to take.

Some “light reading” for Councilor K. Wilson and the other environmentally sensitive passenger rail lovers in our midst.



You can read the “rest of the story” here: http://www.lungchicago.org/diesel-pollution-trains/  And try to imagine what ‘more than 25 million cars’ looks like.

Interesting, isn’t it, that they’re talking about Chicago, home base of the infamous “Center for Neighborhood Technoloby (CNT)”, about whom we’ve recently posted.  They’re one of NNEPRA’s go to shops for getting the answers they want, wrapped up in tissue paper with the words ‘professional experts’ stamped on it.

One of the reports linked to in the above item contains this passage in it’s Executive Summary:

                                      

This is exactly the circumstances that have been related to the adoring rail foamers for some years here in Brunswick.  It’s comforting, isn’t it, that the Federal Government is adept at exempting itself from the regulations it imposes on everyone else with the power of law.  I guess that’s why ‘we’re from the Government, and we’re here to help you” is such a timeless favorite.

You can read this second item here: http://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/5736_SmokestacksOnRails.pdf

Not to mention their steam-rollering over local zoning regulations, which would have prevented them from building the industrial monstrosity now being erected with no basis in any aspect of rational thought.

We hope that Kathy will update her bio on the town web site to remove this passage:
Kathy Wilson was born in Brunswick and raised in the home where she now lives and works.
We’re sure that she, like all the other councilors, is totally committed to honesty and integrity in her relationship to all of us.

And we hope that reading the items referenced above doesn’t make her think about moving again.  Since she’s at large, she can move anywhere within town limits and retain her spot as an up-and-comer in the ruling class.




With a strong, strong devotion to doing what’s right for the environment.  Along Maine’s coast.