KKKK-??: Responding to questions…

OK, I admit it. I went to the budget hearing last night, Monday, May 16th, to speak my piece, as documented here.

I did so, and after perhaps 30-40 minutes of listening to others, who as you might expect, made emotional pleas, rather than factual statements, I chose to head on home and consult with my two Springers, who are eminently more rational than those pleading for more school spending last night.  Even thought they are both virtually blind.

When I watched the rest of the meeting, I learned that our School Superintendent, Paul Perzanoski, had spoken after I left, and challenged some of my statements, but left others unchallenged.

Specifically, he did not challenge statements I made about the recently approved, but as yet undisclosed new Teachers’ Contract, and my assertion that it would consume the entire $1 million in new property taxes the school budget for next year will require.  Apparently, he agrees with this assessment.

Nor did  he challenge the percentage increases I cited in per student total spending, and per student property tax commitment. 

He did, however, laughingly refer to my reference to 300 military dependent students remaining in the system, saying he had no idea where such a claim would come from.

Actually, it’s very simple.  I just took the public statements at the joint budget workshop on Monday, May 9th. If you go go to time stamp 26:30 on the VOD recording for the joint workshop of May 9th, which you can find here, you will find exactly where I got the data.

When you watch the video, you will note that Superintendent P did not question the 300 figure mentioned by Councilor Favreau, and said that "as of May 31st, most of them will likely be gone," or words to that effect.  Councilor Favreau's use of the term 'last year' is lost in the confusion of school year vs. calendar year, but the clear implication of the Superintendent's comment about most of them being gone by May 31st is that they are in the system now.

OK; a week is a long time.  It’s easy to forget what you said, isn’t it?

Our Superintendent also took issue with my figure of $13,193 per student spending for the coming school year.  He said 'this year the figure is $10,616.'

My methodology is simple: I divide the budget for the year by the number of attending students reported to the state DOE.  I assumed the coming school year would begin with the same number of students attending as reported in April of this year, which is 2,524.  It may well be less; only time will tell.

Divide $33.3 million by 2524, and you get $13,193.  That is the dollars we, the town of Brunswick, will spend per student, in the coming school year, without any further loss of students, which is open to question.

If Mr. Perzanoski wishes to adjust these numbers because of different methods of accounting in the school system, he can come up with his own figures.  He will then have to adjust the prior year figures I gave for comparison, and it is likely the percentage growth I cited, which is the real issue, will change by very little.

As do all readers and members of the town establishment, Mr. P has access to this blog to post a response and/or clarifications.  We will patiently await his reply,and give it all due respect in our publication.

Technorati Tags: Brunswick school department,budgets

KKKK-?: “Gadfly head-banging extraordinaire…..”

Friends, countrymen, and readers: your correspondent attended the Brunswick budget public hearing tonight, May 16th, and spoke unashamedly on the subject.  Never has it been such a futile exercise, banging one’s head against a very hard wall.

As referred to earlier, those who think with their hearts instead of their brains dominated the event.  Those who examine budget details, and the conclusions they lead to, like we do, were not.  We were not amused.

In so many words, it was a very lonely night for Side.  In keeping with our full disclosure policy, we planned to pass along the content of our testimony.  To derive some small measure of benefit from the otherwise futile effort, we decided to transform the text into another xtranormal ‘movie’ to hone our skill set in the art.

We will be posting more specific comments on the meeting soon, so stay engaged; there will be no extra charge for the content.

Technorati Tags: Brunswick,budgets

Teachers Unions Explained: The XTRA Normal version.

I’m publishing this item as a little bonus for the troubles of the last day or two.  I’m not considering it an item in the ‘KKKK-X’ series, although that might be an ‘arbitrary and capricious’ decision.  I love words like that, don’t you?

I’ve had this in the files for a few months and resisted the temptation to publish it.  But now that I’ve been ruminating on the specifics of school budgets for a week or so, resistance is futile.

(Just to be clear, this is not Side’s work; but it is the way we found out about xtranormal.)

Technorati Tags: teachers unions,school budgets

KKKK-3: “Unexpected shortfalls”

Technorati Tags: Brunswick school department,budgets

KKKK-2: Status Update as of Thursday, 12 May

(As you can see, this post was published on Thursday, but was also among the missing once problems began; this is a reposting to restore things.)

In a word, the teachers’ union wins, you lose

Children?  What children?  It’s been too long since we last posted this gem, so let’s refresh our memories:

“When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children.”

Albert Shanker - President of the United Federation of Teachers [1964-1984] & the American Federation of Teachers [1974-1997]

You might have had some friends in college, or other acquaintances, who majored in “poly sci,” or political science, although I’m at a loss to understand how anything in politics is scientific.

Based on what we’re seeing in town this year, the major should be renamed “poly psy,” for political psychology.  The School Board, led by the School Superintendent, has conducted a masterful psychological operations campaign this budget season, reflecting their creation of a Political Action and Media Committee.  This is what defense and intelligence agencies refer to as “psy-ops,” and the budget campaign has rolled out with military precision.

This year’s psy-ops built on the success last year, when the teachers’ union convinced the town they wanted to ‘help’ with the budget challenge.  Early word from the School Department was that the contract would be re-negotiated by the first of this year, but somehow, that didn’t happen.  We have written on this more than once.

Coincidence?  I don’t think so; the timing of re-negotiations was clearly calculated to make it through the public airing of the budget without any details being publicized.  In other words, the less we knew, the more pliable we’d be.

Reviewing latest news:

Now, let’s get to recent events, in brief and pithy form:

- Before the School Board meeting on May 4th, that Political Action and Media Committee was very effective: Channel 13 news splash, Tuesday April 12.  Radio spots on the 14th.  Numerous ‘sky is falling’ news reports in local and regional print media.  All outlets not returning calls offering ‘other side’ commentary with supporting facts.  Surprise, surprise. 

- In subsequent public meetings of the Board and Council, exactly as planned, devoted parents stepped right up and put on their black hats and provided air cover for the Super and the Board to raise taxes because “the public is demanding it.”  With several darling and gifted children added in as pawns of the Union grown-ups for good measure.  Getting used at such an early age is so enriching and educational.  Could it have been any more predictable, or executed with any greater precision???

- And so we entered the last 10 days or so with the Union holding the School Board, the Town Council, and town citizens hostage.  Contract settlement was discussed nowhere, and inquiries for information yielded nothing but stonewalls.

- The School Board approved a $33.3 million budget, unanimously of course, on Wednesday, May 4th.  It included a dedicated amount for union contract settlement, but neither the School Board or the Super would say how much that was.

- They presented their budget to the Town Council at a ‘joint workshop’ on Monday, May 9th.  It included the amount for Union contract settlement, but the Super barely touched on the subject.  Rather, the presentation focused on ‘painful’ and tear-provoking cuts to all sorts of distracting areas of the budget, and played up revenue ‘losses’ to great effect.

- The twin elephants in the room that night were wearing dark glasses, so no one saw them.  Your correspondent knew they were there, and could see them at home. The first was ‘teacher contract demands,’ and the second was ‘per student cost growth.’

- The Town Council was submissive and compliant in the hands of the Super and Board, folding like the front section of a small town newspaper that doesn’t pay its property taxes. They approved the budget as presented with nary a whimper.  Comments about “great challenges you had this year,” “unexpected revenue losses,” and other shopworn platitudes abounded.  No request to knock out $100,000 just for show, or threats to cut the number of tubas in the BJHS band.  As a result, the Council successfully inoculated itself against arrogant (“sell your home if you can’t afford the taxes”) parents and charges that they “don’t care about the children.”

- As soon as the meeting was over, you could hear the cheers from the teachers’ union: we won!  We got it all!  Not a dollar in reductions by the Town Council!  How easy was that!  And nobody noticed the elephants!  Wait till next year!

- Now this update as of today:  It is reported that the School Department has approved the contract with the teachers, and why wouldn’t they?  They won big time on Monday.  The safe presumption is that the Board accepted the Union’s position.  Word is details of the contract settlement will not be available for at least a week, because the teachers have not yet voted on it.  This means that the public hearing on the budget, this Monday the 16th, will take place without any knowledge of what the Board has given the Union, and how it effects our taxes.  All we know is the Schools want another $1 million in revenue from the town, which is an increase of 6.3% in their property tax support from residents.  The psy-ops aren’t over yet.

Prediction: The entire $1 million in new property taxes to support the schools will go straight into the pockets of the teachers remaining after those too junior get terminated to benefit those more senior.  The highest paid from this year’s teaching staff will make out best, and the average teacher salary will go up several notches as a result.

Those terminated will get a free lesson in Union principles, those immortalized in such classic mottos as:

“Stronger together.”  “We stick together.”  “Solidarity forever”

How’s that working for you, young teachers? 

And take that, you “for the children” and “smaller class zealots.”

And for those who plan to attend Monday’s upcoming budget hearing, be sure to bring your white flags along.  The council is asking that we do so in a show of solidarity with them.

Technorati Tags: Brunswick school department,Brunswick,budgets

PS on “You’ll have to read it…..”

(Ditto on this one; posted earlier and then disappeared.)

A few days ago we posted on the crocodile tears over the health insurance legislation under consideration in Maine.  If you missed it, you can read it here.  It included this passage:

During the House debate leading up to the roll-call vote, more than a dozen Democrats registered their opposition to the provisions of the bill as well as to its fast-track progress through the legislative process.

As fate would have it, a nice couple I’ve never met, other than on the opinion pages of The Ostrich, had a recent letter on this very subject. I won’t name them, but if I did, their names would remind you of Prairie Home Companion and Lake Wobegone.

The letter reads, in part:

Nothing is more important than adequate insurance and nothing should be considered more carefully than changes to the insurance safety nets we now have in place.

Yet, LD 1333 — An Act To Modify Rating Practices for Individual and Small Group Health Plans and To Encourage Value-based Purchasing of Health Care Services — was introduced as a four-page bill, grew to 29 pages in one work session and is now 45 pages and has had no public hearing in its present form.

Few legislators have even had time to do a careful reading, put forth questions and get reliable answers.

The haste with which this is being pushed makes us very uncomfortable and fearful of  unintended consequences and  collateral damage.

Now we could be wrong, but I’d bet you a dozen Frosty’s Donuts (if I could ever catch them when they’re open) that this couple hailed the 2000 page plus Obama-care bill as a long-needed and brilliant solution to all our health care ills.  And never for a moment worried about ‘unintended consequences and collateral damage.’  Funny how that works, isn’t it?

And in case you’re worried that the Bondo patching hadn’t even had a chance to dry, as Rep. Sharon Treat claimed, here’s an update:

• After the first vote in the house, a second ‘reading’ and vote was taken, and the bill passed again.
• Yesterday, the senate debated the bill, proposed amendments, and passed the bill in amended form.
• Now the bill goes back to the house in its new form to see if that chamber will go along with the changes.

Hopefully, Sharon and her friends will have had a chance to read it by now.  But you never know; she may not read it until it passes.

Or not even then.

Technorati Tags: Maine,health insurance legislation

KKKK-1: “Selling” Brunswick

(Note: this is an attempt to get things back on track in the midst of Blogger’s continued struggle.  This post had been published earlier and then disappeared.)

A well known and very successful real estate broker in Brunswick has recently weighed in on school budget discussions in a very public way.  Her premise is that keeping school budgets growing is vital to the overall success of our town, because ‘excellent schools’ are the main reason why people come to Brunswick.

You know real estate sales agents; they’re the folks who never saw a property that wasn’t ‘the fulfillment of all your dreams.’  If you’ve ever read the ads they create, you know they use language like this:

- Great possibilities for the creative do-it-yourselfer…

- Sparkling floors, period trim, light streaming in…

- Floor to ceiling walls, wall to wall floors and ceilings, and plenty of options to expand…

- See through windows, hard to find period details, and rare and unique fixtures…

- Cozy, charming, and awaiting your personal touches…

- Rustic, country style kitchen will bring your family and friends ‘closer together’ and help you rediscover traditional food preparation methods….

- A blank palette for your landscaping artistry…

- Sure to delight…

- Close to everything…

Just imagine if we had had someone like this involved in marketing the old High School for redevelopment as follows:

- One of a kind, historic, and much loved structure…

- Seemingly infinite possibilities for the creative visionary…

- An eclectic mix of architectural paradigms…

- Huge classic windows, high ceilings, spacious hallways, original wood flooring, and other touches of a bygone era…

- Stately anchor of an established in town neighborhood…

- Ample grounds for endless expansion possibilities…

- Small town New England gem of the finest sort….

- Ready to accommodate a theater room beyond your dreams…

- Exercise space you could only dream about…

- Just waiting for you to bring it to its full potential…

- Saving it from extinction will prevent the construction of an architectural nightmare in its place…..

Oh, well; we can dream, can’t we?

At any rate, this broker

said schools are the primary reason families choose Brunswick. She said education "is the key to the economic vitality of this community," and without excellent schools, she believes business development efforts downtown and at Brunswick Landing would suffer.

To begin with, whatever our schools are, they have not led to ‘economic vitality of this community.’  A survey of Cooks Corner, Pleasant Street, and Maine Street properties shows a distressing lack of economic vitality, and that is true of surrounding regions and Maine overall.  Various national rankings show that Maine overall is at a huge disadvantage in this regard, and local schools have little to do with it.

Next, calling Brunswick Schools ‘excellent’ assumes facts not in evidence.  As reported by a school board member on Monday night, Brunswick High ‘is on the failing schools list.’  And publicized testing results show nothing that would cause anyone to rate our schools as certifiably superior to any other community.

The same person recently wrote the following:

For the 36 years that I have been a real estate broker in the Brunswick market area, the No. 1 reason people have cited for moving to Brunswick has been the excellent schools.

Once again, ‘excellent schools’ assumes facts not in evidence.  The School Department scrupulously avoids evaluating and rating the teacher corps.  They similarly argue that ‘standardized testing’ is not a valid way of evaluating staff and the schools.  And then there’s that ‘failing school’ rating of the High School.  And regardless of anything else, whatever testing results have been publicized are, in a word, ‘undistinguished.’

So we must ask how people conclude that Brunswick has ‘excellent schools’ as a discriminator for moving here.  Since there is no objective and standardized data upon which to reach that conclusion, we assume that those who do so base it on ‘word of mouth’, if not real estate ads.

We submit that the likelihood of finding a town resident who will declare they send their children to mediocre or even failing schools is about the same as the likelihood of finding a real estate agent who will say that a listing is a clunker, and that the town has economic problems that are not being confronted with any conviction and foresight.

But that’s just us.  We favor facts over emotion, as unpopular and ‘inconvenient’ as such a perspective might be.

Especially in the town of Perfect.

Technorati Tags: Brunswick school department,budgets

Test Post: is Blogger back?

As you may have already concluded, Blogger has been ‘under the weather’ for the last 24 hours or so.

This post is a test to see if it is functioning again.

Apparently it is.

Kabuki Korners and the Koolaid Keggers

Oh the agony; the so-called mind of this “gadfly and blogger extraordinaire” (thank you, Councilor Pols) reels with the opportunities for literary mischief presented by the theatrics of the current Brunswick budget process, and in particular, the Schools component of this spectacle of local governance.

As we’ve said before, you should never mess with the schoolies and the bookies, but the temptation is just too great after reading about and watching the annual Kabuki pageant, which features copious amounts of public Koolaid konsumption.  No GUI citations (Governing under the influence) have been issued that we know of, but citizens are warned to stand clear of those with pitchers of a red liquid, offering free pours, and during sappy hours, Koolaid shooters.

As for us, sleep has been lost, notes have been made, and the task before us has grown to the overwhelming stage.  So we’ve decided on a way to make things manageable.  Rather than write and publish one very lengthy essay, we are going to break things down to manageable segments, and post several shorter works as they come out of the hopper.  We’re thinking about titling these works “KKKK-X,” where X is a chapter number, in a manner of speaking.

The purpose of this particular post, then, is to set the ‘thematic’ stage for what will follow, so let’s begin.  You might think of this as the overture for the melodramatics that follow.

We read this passage recently, and it’s apropos the subject here:

… are masters in getting Americans to think with their hearts instead of their brains.  After all, emotions are easier to manipulate than facts.  And many truths are easier to ignore than acknowledge.  But not acknowledging reality doesn't change the reality.  And we ignore reality at our own peril, as we are now finding out on a daily basis.

Then, this all-time favorite:

“When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children.”

Albert Shanker - President of the United Federation of Teachers [1964-1984] & the American Federation of Teachers [1974-1997]

Something a bit more philosophical:

The Law of the Infinite Cornucopia, put forth by Polish philosopher Leszek Kołakowski suggests that for any given doctrine one wants to believe, there is never a shortage of arguments by which one can support it.

And finally, at least for now, this recent inspirational gem, to remind us of the principles that guide education professionals and their leaders:

It's not about kids, it’s about power  NEA General Counsel Bob Chanin Tells How It REALLY Is during his farewell Speech:

 

For more interesting follow-up, you can click on the underlined link just above the video and read the comments posted on that site.

That’s it for the moment; stand by for incoming, in more ways than one!

Technorati Tags: Brunswick school department,budgets,koolaid

So what’s going on?

It’s been something like three weeks since we’ve posted.  And we knew when the phone didn’t ring to ask why, that it wasn’t you, to borrow a thought from a great country music song.

Here’s the run-down, and you can judge for yourself how worthy our explanation is.

The week before Easter found us hosting our son and his family, including our two gorgeous grand-daughters, here at Chez Poppycock.  We knew from the start that we would not be paying attention to our obligations here.

Around the same time, our subscription renewal for The Ostrich (aka The Times Record) came due.  You may recall that we had discussed this subject earlier in this post.

The payment was ‘due’ by April 14, and we did not remit it.  The paper continued to arrive in our delivery tube until exactly two weeks later, April 28th.  Delivery then summarily stopped.

So, our excuse for not posting is that we were so verklempt over the loss of our daily dose of mis-information and hoo-hoo news reporting that we simply were unable to think clearly and deliver the clarity you have come to expect.  Rather than lower our standards, to match those of The Ostrich, we elected to take a sabbatical.

We want you to know that we contacted The Ostrich Publisher and subscription office, reminding them how generous the residents of Brunswick have been in continuing to provide vital public services to them even as they have failed to pay their property taxes, for more than a year, according to the public record.

And we asked them, as we said we would, to continue to deliver ‘vital news services’ even though we are in arrears on our account, and we promised to bring our account current, with 5% interest, once they caught up on their property taxes.

Surprise, surprise.  We got no response to our earnest and equitable request; not so much as a reply.  So here we are, weeks later, surviving without our daily delivery.

If you haven’t already done it, we suggest you give it a try.

And now you know ‘the rest of the story.’

Technorati Tags: Ostrich,Brunswick,property taxes

You’ll have to read it to find out what’s in it…

How soon they forget…

Don’t know whether you’ve been following the news regarding ‘health care reform’ here in Maine.  A bill has been working its way through the legislative process that would restructure some of the relevant regulations in our state, regulations that have arguably given us amongst the highest, if not THE highest insurance premiums in the country.

Here’s a recent report on the progress of that legislation:

During the House debate leading up to the roll-call vote, more than a dozen Democrats registered their opposition to the provisions of the bill as well as to its fast-track progress through the legislative process.

Rep. Sharon Treat, D-Hallowell, a member of the Insurance and Financial Services Committee, compared the bill to a used car “rushed off the lot so fast that the Bondo patching wasn’t even dry.”

The complex bill was “rushed out of committee” after an April 29 work session and approved along party lines without an opportunity for lawmakers to read it or have their questions answered, Treat said in her comments before the vote. The final language of the bill was posted online at about 10 p.m. Wednesday, she said, leaving lawmakers little opportunity to review it before voting on Thursday.

Treat urged legislative newcomers to resist the bill’s “hard sell” by GOP leadership and take the time to understand its impact on long-standing consumer protections and on the insurance industry.

As it turns out, this was just the first of many votes on the legislation.  None the less, we can’t help but reminisce about the current circumstances vis-a-vis Obama-care legislation.

We read that the bill currently working it’s way through Maine’s law making process is 26 pages.  That compares to what we recall was a 2600 page document at the federal level, or 100 times longer on paper than the Maine proposal.

We also recall the incredibly arrogant statement by then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi that ‘we’ll have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.’

If only we had a good memory of the ‘Dirigo Health Care’ process, we could probably come up with even better examples.

We don’t need to however, to make it clear just how whiny and duplicitous the new minority is, now that their 35 year plus strangle-hold on Maine governance is no more.

Technorati Tags: Maine,health care reform

Bowdoin being Bowdoin, Part II

It’s been some time since the original post in this series, which you can find here.  As it turns out, we aren’t the only ones who find this subject ‘interesting.’  As you can see in what follows.

Diversity, adversity, schmeversity, we say.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/04/028878.php

(be sure to read the comment string)

A good talk spoiled, cont'd

April 22, 2011 Posted by Scott at 6:18 AM

Claremont Institute chairman Tom Klingenstein happened to play a round of gold with Bowdoin College Presdient Barry Mills last year. In a convocation address that he gave at the start of the school year, Mills told a story about that round of golf in the context of a call for greater intellectual diversity on campus.

Tom responds to Mills's address in the essay "A golf story," in the current issue of the Claremont Review of Books. Tom argued that Mills was not particularly serious about his call for greater intellectual diversity on campus; it is the essential point of Tom's essay. Tom seeks to shame Mills into making good on his commitment to increase intellectual diversity.

Tom's essay was inspired by Mills's blind but unflattering reference to him in the convocation address. Tom's essay revealed Mills to be something of a fabulist. The conservative interlocutor of Mill's speech is depicted none too subtly as a troglodyte and -- what else? -- a racist. As Tom points out, there seems to be some projection going on.

Tom's essay received good coverage on campus in the weekly Bowdoin Orient. The Orient reporters sought out the powers-that-be for a comment on Klingenstein's essay: "Mills told the Orient that he had seen the article, but declined to comment."

Mills left the talking to Scott Hood, the college's vice president for communications, who wrote in an email: "At Convocation in September, President Mills expressed his views on a number of subjects. Mr. Klingenstein has a different view." Yes, that is one way to put it. Hood is of the "when you're in a hole, stop digging" persuasion when it comes to public relations.

The Orient's story on Tom's speech was the most widely read story in last week's Orient. The Orient follows up today with paired op-ed columns, one by Professor Jean Yarbrough supporting Klingenstein and one by students Sean McElroy and Alex Williams criticizing him.

The students focus narrowly on Tom's critique of the Bowdoin curriculum. Professor Yarbrough -- a highly regarded and long-time member of Bowdoin's government department -- provides devastating corroboration of Tom's larger point regarding the lack of true diversity on the faculty:

This fall will mark my 23rd year of teaching political philosophy and American political thought at Bowdoin. I dearly love this college and want to do everything that I can to see Bowdoin be the best that it can be.

But love requires honesty, and Thomas Klingenstein's essay provides us with the opportunity to examine one area where we are notably deficient: intellectual and political diversity.

In his essay, Mr. Klingenstein estimates that the actual number of conservative/Republican faculty is 4 percent. I do not know how he arrived at that number, but using figures from the Bowdoin College profile at the website CollegeData, there are 177 faculty engaged in the full-time teaching of undergraduates, 4 percent of which would equal seven. I have not made a scientific study of this, but that number, small as it is, strikes me as too high.

Having recently served as chair of the government department, I know first-hand the efforts we as a college have made to recruit racial and ethnic minorities, and those efforts are bearing fruit.

It is now time to make a serious effort to foster greater intellectual and political diversity. This is a position that all those who truly care about this college should share, no matter what their political affiliation, because it will make us a far better and more effective institution of higher learning.

Professor Yarbrough asks: "Do our curriculum and our faculty represent a suitably wide range of intelligent views on the great questions of human existence and of how we should live?" She responds: "Alas, the questions answer themselves."

Professor Yarbrough calls on President Mills to follow up on his call for greater political and intellectual diversity on campus. She tactfully omits any mention of the fractured fairy tale that portrayed Tom as a right-wing troglodyte. The fabulation with which President Mills framed his call for greater diversity reflects something important about the mindset that results in the condition that he decried.

The Orient also carries a news story giving faculty reactions, ranging from neutral (Government) to haughty disdain (English), an extremely snotty letter from one Miles Pope. Bowdoin seems to have gone into a defensive crouch on the thesis that there is no such thing as an intelligent conservative.

UPDATE: A Bowdoin correspondent writes to point out this Orient article that provides an amazing contrast between Bowdoin's official concern over "diversity" with its utter indifference to the intellectual and political diversity at issue in Klingenstein's essay.

Tom Klingenstein writes to comment: "You were correct to imply that the criticisms of my essay address a side issue, the history offerings. But even those don't score points. They were all criticisms of what I did NOT say. I stand by, and reaffirm, everything I said."

Technorati Tags: Bowdoin College,Brunswick