Is Tech Place at Brunswick Landing on the level?

Side is an old geezer of advancing years at this point.  Now that we think about it, our years have been advancing since the day we were born.  So to be more accurate, we should say instead that we are an old geezer of nealy four score years.  Which sounds scary, if you don’t mind us saying so.

We’re fairly certain that we were genetically pre-disposed to pursue Engineering as the focus of our college education, including post-graduate degrees.  Engineering deals with the realities of the physical world in all its varied expressions.

Most of us who have done so end up instinctively becoming “handy around the house,” which in our case means a bull-headed conviction that we can fix most anything that goes wrong with our house or its contents.  Not to mention our cars and our mowers and anything else we use regularly.

Just ask Mrs. Side, or anyone else married to or closely related to an engineer.
 
We usually act on that assumption until it becomes clear that we are in over our head.  So along the way, we tend to accumulate quite a collection of hand held tools, and depending on our predelictions, a goodly number of power tools and larger and more complex and expensive powered devices like miter saws, routers, sanders, and various other drills, routers and cutting tools.

               
One of the most basic hand tools, besides hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, and pliers is the level.  And related to that is the plumb bob.

A level is that thing shown above, and in it’s most basic form it includes a “bubble” encased in a clear viewing tube.  It is intended to help one make something “level”, which is to say parallel to the distant horizon, or exactly perpendicular to the gravitational force that attracts all things to the center of the earth, including our bodies.  Note that we use levels to tell if something is “horizontal,” which is a variation on the word horizon.

Plumb bobs are related in that they show the direction of the gravitational force, which is exactly 90 degrees from “level.”

Levels are very useful, and indeed necessary, for any number of tasks “around the house.”  They help put a fine touch on getting things aligned accurately.  Those that build houses and larger buildings rely on them for fundamental alignment of all surfaces, walls, and every other element of building construction.

As we advanced in our “seat of the pants” education and grasp of all things physical, one of the lessons we learned is that while the purchased tool called a level is an invaluable aid, nothing beats “the eye” at determining when something is “level.”

This is especially true in situations where you are erecting something in an environment which is decidedly not level, such as a sloping piece of property.

We became extremely aware of this decades ago when we were erecting a gym set for our children in our back yard, which had the typically sloped profile of a housing tract development.
 
(“If you can’t relate to any of this, just ignore it until we get to the punch line of our essay, when you may suddenly “get it.”)

We thought we had set the gym set up correctly with our level, but when we stepped back to eyeball it, it just didn’t “look right.”  So we adjusted things until it did, and were happy ever after, until the kids outgrew it and we removed it.

The lesson we learned was just how fine a device the eye is for leveling things.  Our mind and our eyes and our body integrate every other input in our field of view into a complete picture and from that, establish what is level for any individual elements.

This is why just about anyone can walk into a room and say that a hanging picture is “crooked,” meaning it needs a slight nudge to become level.  You don’t need a tool to figure this out; your eye and your mind and your body do it for you.  Such is the wonder of gravity, the human body, the human mind, and the human eye.

           

You should rightly ask at this point why we’ve dragged you (if you are still with us) through this tedious narrative.  The main reason is because we‘re an engineer, and “it’s in our nature.”  The more important reason is shown in the picture just above.

We wanted to give you “the predicate” for our main point here.  “Tech Place” is a major bragging item for the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, the State sanctioned entity charged with converting the former Brunswick Naval Air Station into productive civilian use.  It is considered to be an “incubator” for all sorts of emerging and promising technology concepts, and is the recipient of  funding from various sources who dole out taxpayer provided monies in hopes they will eventually provide a return on those “investments.”  Or as we like to call them, speculation.

As a focus for new, emerging high technolgy, we’d like to think the face the place shows to the paying public would be worthy of their support, and an element of pride for the enterprise.

We couldn’t help but notice every time we passed the entrance to the place that something seemed out of whack, to use a precise engineering term.

Our eye told us this was so.  And if you look at the photo above and compare the various horizontal lines with each other, it should be apparent that they are not parallel.  If that doesn’t jump right out at you, don’t worry.  Your talents probably lie in other areas.  Like writing, or painting, or poetry; things we will never be known for.

Such differences aside, we can’t help but wonder who is responsible for the caddy-wampus image the entrance to “Tech Place”  presents, and why anyone in the chain of management for Brunswick Landing facilities didn’t notice the problem when they set the facility up.

Even more, why didn’t they realize the contradiction in terms the image embodies?

The question, we suppose, answers itself.  This is what you get when you have career bureaucrats spending other peoples’ money, with no sense of accountability for the results.  Sometimes the simplest things become emblematic of larger pathologies at play.

You might say we’re being judgmental and that we’re criticizing those who did this work and oversaw it.

You should know this was exactly our intent in drafting this treatise.  Someone somewhere needs to point these things out, don’t they?

Technorati Tags: MRRA,Brunswick Landing,taxpayers,bureaucrats

Are you kidding me? BHS New Track story……

Before we get to the “heart” of this story, take a look at this passage from a document authored by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy:

What belongs to you, you tend to take care of;
what belongs to no one or everyone tends to fall into disrepair.

This essentially illuminates the magic of private property. It explains so much about the failure of socialized economies the world over.

Read it over and over.  Recognize that “public schools” are a socialized economic entity.

It’s closely related to this passage from the same document:

Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own.

Ever wonder about those stories of $600 hammers and $800 toilet seats that the government sometimes buys? You could walk the length and breadth of this land and not find a soul who would say he’d gladly spend his own money that way. And yet this waste often occurs in government and occasionally in other walks of life, too. Why? Because invariably, the spender is spending somebody else’s money.

Economist Milton Friedman elaborated on this some time ago when he pointed out that there are only four ways to spend money. When you spend your own money on yourself, you make occasional mistakes, but they’re few and far between. The connection between the one who is earning the money, the one who is spending it and the one who is reaping the final benefit is pretty strong, direct and immediate.

When you use your money to buy someone else a gift, you have some incentive to get your money’s worth, but you might not end up getting something the intended recipient really needs or values.

When you use somebody else’s money to buy something for yourself, such as lunch on an expense account, you have some incentive to get the right thing but little reason to economize.

Finally, when you spend other people’s money to buy something for someone else, the connection between the earner, the spender and the recipient is the most remote — and the potential for mischief and waste is the greatest. Think about it — somebody spending somebody else’s money on yet somebody else. That’s what government does all the time.

Now, let’s get to “the rest of the story,” which is this recent item in The Ostrich.

https://www.timesrecord.com/articles/front-page/brunswicks-1-million-track-nearing-completion/

Is Side the only one who reads the words of The Ostrich critically?  In the learned sense of that word?  Does its editor actually review article content before going to press?

“Fake news” is a term we hear often in today’s discourse.  We can disagree on the reality of that epithet, but it looks for all the world like the press works overtime to court the image.

Check this passage:

“…..the Brunswick High School Cross Country team hosted a home meet at the high school, starting and ending on the newly finished track, on Sept. 26 — the first home meet the team has hosted in 25 years.”

And then read this one:

“The old track, built in 1994 and resurfaced around 10 years ago, was in dire need of a replacement.”

So in other words, the track recently replaced was built new 25 years ago, and resurfaced 10 years ago, yet it was never used to host a “home meet?”

Now take a look at the photo above, which is presented, obviously to evoke public sympathy for the poor students who were expected to face the reality of such sub-standard school facilities.  Open up the checkbooks!  “I’ll gladly pay higher taxes if it will solve these problems” comes to mind for those who have watched the town play into taxpayer sympathies over the years.

The sad fact is that we HAVE BEEN paying HIGHER TAXES, yet these conditions have been allowed to fester under the watchful eyes of our very well compensated professional staffs.  In this case, obviously, the School Department is responsible.

Who, we might ask, is the individual who allowed this situation to come about?  Who is it that couldn’t tend to weed abatement before it compromised the underlying structure of the track surface?  Who is directly responsible and accountable for the maintenance and condition of this track facility?  Do they and did they have any idea what they were doing, and did they have any qualifications for being given this role?

We could presuppose the answers to these questions, but why bother?

This is the standard school establishment story.  Get the taxpayers to cough up the bucks to build something new.  Then don’t maintain it properly to keep it functional and in good repair, so you can declare it can’t be saved and throw yourself on the mercy of the taxpayers once again to pay for your mistakes and dereliciton of duty by giving you a new whatever.   One thinks of Jordan Acres, once a beloved “neighborhood elementary school.”

That’s the story of most new schools these days, and obviously, the track built for what was once the “New High School.”  How long will it be before the crocodile tears about the crumbling condition of that High School come into the annual budget kabuki theater?

How long will it be before the “New High School,” at least to some of us, becomes the “Old High School,” just like the one at McKeen and Spring became?  How long will it be before the stories about it being less expensive to build a new one instead of repairing the current one come to pass?

                    

Here’s a prediction: it will happen a lot sooner than anyone might think.  Because just as scorpions have to sting and kill the frog trying to help them cross the river, it’s “in the nature” of the school establishment to let things decay so they can have a new one, rather than take care of the one they’ve already been given.

                     

You see, that’s how you get lovely new things like the track pictured above.  And you don’t even have to take good care of it!  What’s not to like?

Technorati Tags: Schools,OPM,taxpayers,scorpions and frogs,tracks

Learning through play...a WSJ item

To Really Learn, Our Children Need the Power of Play

The U.S. can learn a big lesson from Finland’s education system: Instead of stress and standardized testing, schools should focus on well-being and joy

This past weekend the Wall Street Journal carried an interesting essay on variations in educational theory.   I commend it to you for the striking comparisons it raises between children's education in Finland and the U.S. 

You can find the entire essay here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-really-learn-our-children-need-the-power-of-play-11565262002

Here's a snippet to tempt you:

Pasi was flummoxed by the bizarre education concept of “preschool readiness.” Compounding the culture shock was the stunning price tag: $25,000 a year for preschool, compared with the basically free, government-funded daycare-through-university programs that the boy would have enjoyed back in Finland. 

A Poppycock Pop-up!

It's widely accepted that Academia, for purposes of this discussion, in the form of small, elite, highly selective private colleges, plays a leadership role in defining correctness in all things political; justice in every stitch of our social fabric; variations of expression and companion language in all things gender related; and most of all, providing safe spaces and places of refuge to all who set foot on their campuses.

In the latter case, we've actually seen a sign marking a "Place of Refuge" in the Moulton Union on the Bowdoin Campus.

Inspired by these realities, we went out on a limb and submitted a brief Letter to the Editor to The Ostrich.  Surprise of surprises, they published it today.



The text of the letter is as follows:

Bowdoin College, here in Brunswick, is surely among the wealthiest institutions in Maine. Its capital assets, combined with its endowment, total well over $2 billion, and conversely, its non-profit status subjects it to very little in tax obligations at all levels. 

Bowdoin prizes its stature as a paragon of diversity, inclusion and multiculturalism. It seeks to infuse its students with a lifelong commitment to advancing the common good and a devotion to service to others. 

Its facilities are expansive and ever-growing. Housing, food services, field houses, gyms, ice rinks, common/social spaces, museums, arts rehearsal spaces (remember Longfellow Elementary?) and others too many to list define the luxurious accommodations on campus. Medical and counseling services are part of the basics on campus, as are focus centers serving various minorities. 

Given the above, shouldn’t it be expected that Bowdoin will publicly step up to the challenge of welcoming and providing for the needs of refugees and asylum seekers now arriving in Maine from other U. S. locations? The College has the expressed mission, the financial wherewithal, and the spacious and varied facilities to take this challenge on with grace and aplomb.

In the same vein, Colby and Bates should be stepping up to the pressing needs as well. Perhaps the office of Governor Janet Mills could call upon leaders of all three to inspire them, seek their help, and convince them that others need them like never before. Wouldn’t it be something to see these three historic, mission-oriented colleges practice serving the common good as they have long preached?

We're delighted they consider us a legitimate purveyor of local journalism.  Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

Chasing “likes”– but at what cost?

We imagine many of you are hooked on the various ‘social media’ addictions of our day….sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and who knows how many more.

Here at Side, we’ve steadfastly avoided even creating accounts on such sites, and we regret it not one bit.

You don’t have to look very far or wide to see just how much damage these attention traps have visited upon our culture and our social graces, in spite of the advantages many claim they offer. 

One of the traps they suck users into, as we understand it, is the constant search for “likes.”  Try to find a web site for a new restaurant to check out their menu, and you’re almost always going to find a Facebook page instead, and a request to “like us on Facebook!”

We were recently reminded, however, that there is more than one type of “like.”  Including, we suppose, many we haven’t thought of.

The one at the top of our mind at the moment, though, comes to us compliments of the Bowdoin Orient….the campus newspaper operated by students.  It seems a campus ethnic group invited an “edgy” comedian to entertain on campus, and said comedian violated many of the modern day taboos held sacred by fragile elite college students.  You know, micro-agressions, triggering, oppression and all the rest are always ready to show up when thin lines are crossed.

You can read the entire article here:

https://bowdoinorient.com/2019/04/19/asian-heritage-month-guest-comedian-criticized-for-offensive-language/

In case you don’t care to, which wouldn’t surprise us, we give you this brief excerpt:

“David Zhou ‘21 said any commedian should be better about knowing the audience.  He should have known that if you come to a liberal arts college and start making like offhand jokes about like sex, race, gender, like, you’re going to get slapped,” Zhou said.

How’s that for “likes?”  Three in one sentence!  So David, a Bowdoin sophomore, is already up in the like stats before posting anywhere.

The overarching point in all this for us, however, is the apparent fact that a second year student at an elite, highly selective liberal arts college speaks with all the linguistic polish of valley girls from Southern California. 

Given that his higher education has a price tag of more than one-quarter million dollars for a Bachelor’s degree, isn’t it reasonable to expect he could utter such a brief thought without using conversational crutches?

While the editors of The Orient didn’t seem concerned enough to edit his words on his behalf, we have to wonder how the faculty and administration of the Ivory Tower will deal with this reflection on their English curriculum and teaching rigor.

Perhaps they’ll have to set up a program of “Like-aversion Therapy” for those so-afflicted, similar to the stuttering problem many of us saw in our youth.

We can’t wait to see, like, how they deal with this, like.

Technorati Tags: Bowdoin,likes

Calling Interested Students!

Don’t know if there are any interested students left out there, but if there are, here are a few homework questions for you.

1)  Where do  you stand on corporate welfare?  As you ponder your answer on this, ask yourself what “corporate welfare” is.

2)  How much do you think taxpayers should spend to build a hangar for a Gulfstream  G650 type private aircraft?

3)  If you had to guess, how many takeoffs and landings take place on an average day at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station?  As you decide on your number, think of how many you’ve seen doing so as you traverse down Bath Road past the runways.

Technorati Tags: Questions

Local journalism and fake news??

Remember the old campus  hijinx known as “panty raids?”  Well, the idea has ‘evolved,’ and apparently the focus has become more on helping others instead of scoring boola-boola points on campus.
 
Just when you’re suffering from a lack of inspiration to post something, someone else often comes to the rescue.  To whit:

 http://www.theforecaster.net/portland-wayside-to-open-food-panties-for-federal-workers/

Keep in mind that this snip was taken from The Forecaster web site at 7pm on Friday, January 25th well after the paper had gone to print and was distributed around the Maine coast.

It provides ample proof of the editorial acumen of the paper, as well as reader participation in notifying them to correct errors on their web site.  We can’t wait to see if the print edition has the same gaffe.  If so, it will become a real collector’s edition.


Note: it turns out that the print edition did not carry the item, so collectors will have to wait for another gem, which we're sure will appear.  The website was eventually corrected to show the correct spelling.  We apologize for the late posting, but our blog software seems to have swallowed various bugs, which we didn't discover until we hit the publish key.

Technorati Tags: Forecaster,food panties

Follow-up on “The Full Alexandria”

We happened to visit Leo’s Organic Barber Shop on a recent rainy day.  His reading selections are pretty sparse, other than the Press Herald, and previous editions of the Wall Street Journal.  We enjoy the latter since they priced themselves out of our range for regular delivery. 

    

For a number of years, we got the Weekend Edition for $1 a week.  We loved it, and usually found enough wide-ranging material to last us for several reading sessions.  Before you knew it, they jacked the price up to $200 a year for that one edition per week, and we just couldn’t justify that expense. 

No matter; we keep getting mailings marked “Welcome Back.”  Which in itself is a commentary on how modern marketing approaches dive off the deep end of common sense.

Enough with the mindless distraction.  Looking for something different, we happened upon “The Week,” a publication we hadn’t seen before.  And we came across an item that caught our interest:

https://theweek.com/articles/786937/rise-democratic-socialists

It dovetails ever so nicely with out recent piece on The Full Anastasia.  That would be this one: 

http://othersideofbrunswick.blogspot.com/2018/11/maine-wire-full-alexandria.html

If you’re the type who follows up on links, you’ll find that “Democratic Socialism” is a formalized and organized movement among us. 

Democratic Socialist v. Social Democrat; it’s a difference without distinction in our mind.  Eddie Beem, the lead opinion writer in The Forecaster, clings to the latter term because in his mind it portrays him as something other than a pure and committed socialist.  It gives him a clear conscience about his socialist inclinations.

If you read the item I linked to along with its referenced sources, you’ll find that the inevitable outcome for the policies espoused is socialism.  Unless you believe that entities like auto manufacturers can survive as “cooperatives” or “worker run” enterprises.  Go ahead if that’s your desire, but don’t expect any support from us.

We don’t know if you know the difference between “static analysis” and “dynamic analysis.”  The former is what utopians and dreamers use when they propose some sweeping economic change like doubling taxes or Medicare for all.  They assume that when their idea is implemented, nothing else outside that realm will change; people and companies will not change their behavior to compensate and preserve their interests as best they can. 

Hence, everything that follows becomes an “unexpected” or “unintended” consequence.  Failure was not foreseen, because they didn’t look beyond their idealism.

Dynamic analysis is what realists use to weigh policy proposals.  It requires that you consider the consequences; will higher taxes drive people out of state?  Will more generous welfare attract people from elsewhere and disincentivize work?

Along these very lines, these citations in The Week article jumped out at us, and in our minds, clearly demonstrated the utter lack of critical thought on the part of socialist thinkers.

One of Sanders' supporters, 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, stunned the political world last month by winning her New York City district's Democratic primary on a platform of "Medicare for All," free public college, the abolition of ICE, and guaranteed work and housing. "In a modern, moral, and wealthy society, no person should be too poor to live," Ocasio-Cortez says. Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez has called Ocasio-Cortez and other democratic socialist candidates "the future of our party."

To pay for a similar safety net in the U.S., including free medical care and college education for all, Sanders would raise more than $1 trillion a year through higher taxes on most individuals and corporations. But the new guard of democratic socialists, organized under the banner of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), would go much further. Ocasio-Cortez, for example, has said she believes capitalism "will not always exist in the world."

Sanders, it seems obvious, doesn’t think that levying a trillion or more in new taxes will change the economic behavior of individuals and corporations.  And Ocasio-Cortez, drinking the Kool-Aid shooters he passes around, doesn’t see capitalism as the source of our economic wealth:

"In a modern, moral, and wealthy society, no person should be too poor to live," Ocasio-Cortez says.

The critical point here, which she fails to see through her rose-colored glasses, is that without capitalism and the economic vitality we currently enjoy, we will no longer be A WEALTHY SOCIETY, and hence the means to provide for all the free things like health care and college educations will cease to exist. 

         

As most of us realize, government can only provide that which it first takes from others.  And when there is nothing left to take, there will be nothing it can provide.  But many of us don’t know.

            

Reality can be such a bummer.  Like snow before Thanksgiving.

If you haven’t yet accepted that there is a real and organized thrust to completely undo the underpinnings of our society and its economic engine, you better study up, pilgrim.

Technorati Tags: socialism,realism

Maine Wire: The Full Alexandria

    

The current widespread fascination with all things socialist was too much for us to ignore, so we couldn’t resist submitting this sardonic riff on the subject.  The Maine Wire was kind enough to publish it on their web site:

http://www.themainewire.com/2018/11/full-alexandria/

We worry that too many in this day may not take it in the manner intended, but will instead see it as an argument for their beloved social justice revolution.

Here’s an excerpt to tempt you:

For a hardcore, lifelong conservative like myself, the mere mention of socialism, or it’s drag persona—social democracy—is enough to send me to the bunker with a small batch bourbon. The celebration in recent years of Bernie Sanders, followed more recently by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Kirsten Gillibrand, Andrew Gillum, and innumerable others is a movie made in hell. Add hordes of gullible, supposedly well-educated millennials, and the nation seems on a collision course of voluntary self-destruction.

Yet as the winds of change continue blowing in my face, ably reported and abetted by the usual suspects, the widespread fascination of pre-senility adults and our newest generations with certifiably destructive ideology gave me pause. Could millions of newly minted voters be so wrong, and so easily led astray by those who’ve been around long enough to know better?

Enjoy; and we mean that in a troubled way.  There are all too many signs of the majority looking to repeat the doomed social failures of history.  Largely because no one tells them about it.  Postmodernism demands nothing less because of its core principle that there is no such thing as objective truth.

That pretty much trashes history and anything else that gets in the way of nirvana.  And reality.

Technorati Tags: Utopia,dystopia,post-modernism

Where would we be without local journalism?

    

“Journalism” is one of those charged words employed by any number of sources either in support or opposition.  Most often in our experience is the case where those working in various forms of media use the term in an attempt to elevate themselves above the little people who populate their audience.  They call themselves journalists to lend a certainty and loftiness to their efforts.

A perfect example in the local media mix is Edgar Allen Beem, the featured opinion journalist for The Forecaster.  Eddie has labeled himself a “journalist” innumerable times in his columns, which are in most cases nothing but personal screeds about the politics of the day, and in most cases, shrill and harshly partisan opinions at that. 

Recently he’s been drawn to weepy mourning over the incivility and partisan divides of our times, all while using language that only adds to the problem.  Calling “99% of Trump voters white trash Americans” is a classic example of how he reaches out to us all to calm the waters of political discord.

Which may explain why reader evaluations of his column have been increasingly negative in recent months.  Not only that, the comments posted by readers have lately been almost totally in opposition to his columns, as compared to past years where he drew upon a loyal cadre of adoring groupies to defend and praise anything he wrote, no matter how divisive, snotty, and condescending it was.

Which suits us just fine; we’ve jousted with him regularly, and driven him to fits of distraction and flights of incoherence in a number of cases.  In the process, we’ve amused ourselves no end.

Eddie often uses dictionary definitions of a term of interest to build his arguments on a given subject.  We thought we’d try the same by looking up the word journalism….and we found this:

journalism  (noun)

1. the occupation of reporting, writing, editing, photographing, or broadcasting news or of conducting any news organization as a business.
2. press¹(def 31).
3. a course of study preparing students for careers in reporting, writing, and editing for newspapers and magazines.
4. writing that reflects superficial thought and research, a popular slant, and hurried composition, conceived of as exemplifying topical newspaper or popular magazine writing as distinguished from scholarly writing: He calls himself a historian, but his books are mere journalism.

We find definitions 1 and 4 the most interesting.  Note the words news and superficial, and the absence of the word “opinion.”

Which brings us to another recent instance of “journalism” that caught our attention.  Our friends at The Ostrich use this graphic at the top of their web page and print editions.

Based on our years of following them, we could and would take issue with all three terms in their self-aggrandizing self-labeling.  Calling yourself legitimate is revealing; it’s like a politician saying “you can trust me on this, because I’m not like all the others.”  When you come right down to it, just exactly what does the term “legitimate” mean in this context?  For that matter, what do the words local and journalism mean in the same context?

We cannot think of an instance in recent memory where TR reporting (journalism) goes beyond the level of parroting press releases and perhaps talking to a local source or two.  The concept of investigative reporting is completely foreign to them.  Their coverage is 3 inches deep and 2 feet wide.  They carry the party line of whoever and whatever they are covering.  And for those who pay attention, they clearly make their coverage choices based on the overall editorial slant of whomever controls the content.  Increasingly, of course, that is shared content with other media outlets in Maine, almost all of which are owned by a single individual.

Under the circumstances, expecting a broad and balanced view of the events that occur on a daily basis is a fool’s errand.  And given the skimpiness of the staffs at these outlets, expecting a look below the first level or two of the onion skin is similarly ill advised.

But couldn’t we at least expect a fairly high degree of language skills from those who claim to be “legitimate” in informing us with their “journalism” efforts?  One of the challenges of running a media operation, especially a print operation, is that you put yourself out there for examination, and in the process you expose yourself and the skill sets inherent in your leadership.

Let’s take a recent example.  Jon Crimmins, a local resident with an every other week slot on the opinion page of The Ostrich, had this column run:

https://www.timesrecord.com/articles/opinion/jonathan-crimmins-does-the-times-record-still-value-local-journalism/

It ran with this appendage from the editors:

Editor’s note:

We agree with Mr. Crimmins’ ascertation that “a diversity of thought is important.” We would further argue that since the paper’s acquisition by Reade Brower, we have been able to provide a greater diversity of local and state coverage, thanks to partnerships with not only the Portland Press Herald, but with the Kennebec Journal, The Forecaster, Coastal Journal and others. Our Local and Maine pages are more robust and carry far more indepth stories that, prior to the acquisition, were out of our reach. Rather than supplant our own stories, this sharing agreement supplements our coverage, while allowing our own, admittedly small staff to take deeper dives into the stories that matter most. Local journalism matters at The Times Record. It always will.

Aside from the “deeper dives” comment, we learned two things in this add on note.  First, we gained a new word for our vocabulary; we didn't realize Jon had ascertated anything in particular in this column.  On the other hand, maybe one of these days The Ostrich will acquire a spell checker....or a copy reader with a vocabulary.

Secondly, no one is in a position to ascertate the sentiment in the last two sentences.

In a nutshell, this brief little editorial note tells us more about the supposed professionals who manage the Times Record than they could ever have imagined.

And it pretty much blows the claims of “local. legitimate. journalism” right out of the shallow water they were doggy paddling in.

Technorati Tags: The Ostrich,journalism