The icy snow in the air was freezing to my windshield before my defroster and windshield wipers could do anything about it. I was driving at a snail’s pace. In fact, my speedometer doesn’t register the speed I was going it was so slow. 
Tags: project365, photoaday, oneaday, photo blogging, driving, snowstorm, Maine
Looks like a we might finally have got a sign that Winter might be coming to Maine…maybe…
Tags: project365, photoaday, oneaday, photo blogging, Winter, Maine, leaf, snow
There was this guy on Route 115 today. All decked out in snow gear including those snow pole things…on roller blades.
Maine is really suffering for snow this year.
Tags: Maine, snow, roller blades, camera
As promised here are some pictures of today’s snow fall around my new house.
Here’s the Little Red House. I wonder if someone can Photoshop those powerlines out so that can be made into a Christmas card or is the shot too blurry, do you think?
The view from my front window:
The view from my kitchen window:
The view from my Dining Room:
Tags: snow, Maine, little red house, photo blogging
Those of us in the Little Red House woke up this morning to discover that a blanket of snow had covered our yard overnight. (Pictures to follow tonight when I get home.) How we discovered it is that I woke up to take little Pugly out for his morning pee-pee, put my Crocs and coat on and led him on the leash to the backdoor, which when opened revealed a great white cold from the back steps to the pine trees.
I blinked.
Pugly blinked and took a few tentative steps onto the snow covered stoop.
You must recall that little Pugly was only born last March.
He just stood there looking at this bizarre transformation of the backyard. He seemed reluctant to proceed.
I led him down the steps and he just stood at the bottom staring at this vast whiteness like “What the hell?”
Eventually I convinced him that he had to pee-pee after much prodding. However, this experience apparently was distasteful and no amount of convincing would lead to a poo-poo in the snow moment as well, which unfortunately led to a spanking immediately after we went inside and he poo-poo’d on my music room rug.
Poor little Pugly. It’s going to be a long, cold, wet Winter.
Tags: Pug, the puppy, snow, little red house
Over the weekend my mom and I got on the subject of politics. That doesn’t really happen often. Usually if I’m going to chat politics with anyone it’s my dad. It’s not that I don’t think my mom knows anything about politics, it’s just that I think she tends to be more of a follower and less of a thinker. She’s definitely a liberal but she’s more of a follow-the-leader liberal though she doesn’t know it. She scoffed at my grandmother’s follow-the-leader Republicanism but she does tend to say “Well your father thinks…” more than she should where politics are concerned, which is why I prefer to go straight to the source.
Anyway, it’s really not her politics I want to talk about anyway (thought that sort of “follow-the-leader” mentality is a big pet peeve of mine). I want to talk about my politics or at least my point-of-view this year.
At first, at the beginning of the year, I was thinking that this would be a good year to back a third party. In fact, it may still be; I just don’t know if enough dissatisfied Dems and Reps could be convinced to jump their parties ships to do the same. It’s easier to get Independents like myself to vote for third party candidates because we don’t feel party loyalty or guilt and we don’t feel our hands drawn to check off the party candidate on the Diebold machine or the paper ballot. We haven’t been to any of the secret brainwashing meetings where we sold our souls and signed in blood or promised our first borns or anything. 
So, if we choose to vote Green Party this year, we can do so and walk away relatively unscathed.
I still think that now is the time to think about a third party. I think the days of the Republicans and the Democrats controlling the government have got to end. Obviously they’ve become complacent and they are feeding each other the power rather than doing their jobs — you know, their jobs, right? We elected them to take care of us, protect us, govern us, ensure our safety, provide for us, etc. Mostly they seem to bicker and struggle and fight for power and ignore the people who need help.
However, I think that the general public isn’t ready to consider a third party yet. At least not seriously. That’s the impression I’ve gotten the last few months.
So…where does that leave me? How am I going to vote in November? Well, it turns out that Olympia Snowe is up for re-election. She’s a republican and I was thinking of voting for her actually. I have enjoyed our letter exchanges and she and Susan Collins have been big supporters of the environment and the Katrina victims. However, Snowe has voted the party line consistantly even on issues where she claimed she did not want to vote for the issue — she always followed up in an interview stating that she “held her nose while doing it.” This is inappropriate. If you don’t thing you should vote for something, you don’t vote for it. This is exactly what has been wrong with the Bush Republican Congress.
Also, I made a decision the day the Patriot Act was renewed. I truly and honestly believe that anyone in Congress who voted to renew the Patriot Act should not be re-elected to Congress — that includes Democrats, especially John Kerry. I have begun my own personal campaign to remove the Patriot Act renewers from Congress. I could almost forgive them for voting for it in the first place because of how the Bush Administration manipulated the situation originally, but the renewal was completely different and most of them, like John Kerry, had spoken out against it. They can no longer be trusted to look out for the best interests of American citizens.
My mom thought this was very practical of me…of course she thought my father might agree with me.
Anyway, while I was thinking this over, I couldn’t help but remember the movie Brewster’s Millions with Richard Pryor, where he has to spend a fortune in 30 days to inherit so much more. One of the ways he does this is by running for office in New York, when he starts winning, he drops out and instead starts running the campaign encouraging everyone to vote “None of the Above”.
What would happen if this November 2nd we all spoke out and voted “None of the Above”? Would they get the message that we’re tired of all the crap? We want them to stop playing games and start running the government. We want them to stop thinking just about themselves and their bank accounts and start thinking about our growing lower and middle classes and the number of starving children right here in the United States. We want the to actually keep their campaign promises.
Tags: vote, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, politics, Green Party, Patriot Act
Well, this is a little disturbing. Remember when Bush and his adminstration promised to help rebuild the Gulf Coast, including it’s economy? Remember how “reconstruction” was going to boost the Gulf Coasts local economy?
Companies outside the three states most affected by Hurricane Katrina have received more than 90 percent of the money from prime federal contracts for recovery and reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, according to an analysis of available government data. [“Gulf Firms Losing Contracts (Washington Post)”]
Among the contracts analyzed, 3.8 percent of the money went to companies that listed an Alabama address, 2.8 percent to firms in Louisiana and just 1.8 percent went for Mississippi contractors. Taken together, that amounts to less than $200 million. [“Gulf Firms Losing Contracts (Washington Post)”]
It’s not surprising that locals and local officials are unhappy with this raw deal. They rightfuly fear that most of the money will flow out of state and out of an area that was already economically suffering before Hurricane Katrina.
The Department of Homeland Security estimates that as of early last week, 72 percent of the $1.6 billion that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had committed so far to contracts for Hurricane Katrina relief went to small firms nationwide in either prime or subcontracts, said department spokesman Larry Orluskie. But he said only 6 percent of the funds have gone to companies in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama — a region where small firms make up a disproportionately large share of the economy. [“Gulf Firms Losing Contracts (Washington Post)”]
I keep thinking of the old saying about how if you give a man a fish, he’ll be hungry tomorrow but if you teach a man to fish, he’ll feed himself. The Gulf Coast needs help rebuilding but it shouldn’t be done for them by outside businesses that will take the money away and then abandon the area. The Gulf Coast needs to rebuild it’s own structure and the government needs to help them do that, not by providing overpriced contractors who underpay locals and take the profits somewhere else, but by giving local companies the chance to survive — plus, I’m willing to bet that local companies are more interested in doing things right because at the end of it all, they’ll still be there in the community.
Meanwhile, many local firms that want to work with the government say they continue to meet with frustration. Kendall Prewett said he has been trying for weeks to get government subcontracting work for his Mississippi-based debris removal firm, B & P Enterprises, but that neither the government nor the prime contractor, Florida-based AshBritt Inc., is returning his calls. “I don’t understand why all these people not from here are working, and the Mississippi contractors aren’t,” he said.
AshBritt referred requests for comment to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which said it is encouraging the award of subcontracting work to local companies. [“Gulf Firms Losing Contracts (Washington Post)”]
Hmmmm…so it’s not like people can just say all of those Southern people are all lazy and want everything done for them and handed to them by the government like I’ve been hearing/reading of late. There are people who want to work, want to help their communities, and want to get on with their lives, but the government is ignoring them in favor of bigger, more expensive, outside companies…makes a lot of sense really when you consider how much money FEMA spent driving all that ice around the country only to part it in New England.
Even so, the overall small percentage of contracts with local firms “suggests a lack of advance planning to tap local small business partners in an effective disaster response strategy,” Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), who chairs the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said in a statement. [“Gulf Firms Losing Contracts (Washington Post)”]
Have I mentioned lately how much I like Olympia Snowe?
Tags: Gulf Coast, Hurricane Katrina, economy, Homeland Security, Olympia Snowe
Well, it seems like more and more Congressional Republicans have been breaking away from the straight party vote — Maine’s Olympia Snowe comes to mind; she’s repeatedly shown she can make up her own mind no matter how her party if voting.
Anyway, now Iowa Congressman Jim Leach, a member of the House International Relations Committee, is taking things a step further from the party line. He’s co-sponsoring California Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s (D) Resolution of Inquiry into Bush Administration communications with the U.K. about Iraq. So far only Democrats have been involved in requesting an investigation and cosponsoring the Resolution (H. Res 375). The Resolution apparently must be brought to a vote in the House International Relations Committee by September 16th, or Lee is permitted to demand a vote of the full House.
The International Relations Committee has 27 Republican members and 23 Democratic members. Thus far 10 of the Democrats have co-sponsored the Resolution. If the other 13 vote for it as well, then along with Leach, one more Republican vote will be needed for a tie, or two more for passage.
Leach has questioned Bush’s war policies for years and was one of five Republicans in May to vote for Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey’s amendment requiring an exit strategy. Another of those five, Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, also serves on the International Relations Committee. [“Republican Congressman Breaks Ranks, Joins Demand for Documents on Downing Street Memos” (Political Affairs Magazine)]
It’s nice to know that not all our our Congressmen have sold their souls to the party line. I like to think our Congressmen, whatever the party, will act in the best interest of their constituents and the American public and not just follow blindly along as party leaders instruct them to do. I mean, if I expect the average person to vote intelligently and not just vote the way someone told them to, I should expect my political representatives to do the same — do their own research and vote based on their own opinion and what they think is right.
As for the resolution, personally, I believe we deserve to know the truth and if the White House has nothing to hide, what would it hurt to hand over the information asked for? After all, I’ve been told that if I have nothing to hide, I shouldn’t care if the FBI can look at my library records. It seems only fair.
Be sure to contact your Congressional representatives and ask them to support the Resolution! You can even do it via web. (I got a nice letter from one of my Senators regarding my email on The Patriot Act.)
Tags: Republicans, Olympia Snowe, HR375, Iraq, UK, Democrats, Jim Leach
So, the story begins this morning when I awoke to find that a power outage had messed up my alarm. I soon found out that it didn’t really matter that I had overslept because the hip-high snow outside had blockaded me into my apartment. I was unable to open the storm door to get out. In fact, I couldn’t leave by the backdoor because the weight of the snow had brought down a tree in my “backyard” (read: woods).
I also quickly discovered I could not email work to let them know I was going to be late because the internet connection was down. My digital phone goes through the same modem and my cel phone has been dead for a week because I can’t find the power charger.
So, I took my time getting dressed, took pictures of the downed snow-covered tree in my back yard and my snow covered Jeep from my windows, and began making my lunch.
When the guy with the snowblower came and finally rescued me, I donned my winter-wear and headed out to free my Jeep. An hour and four people later, my Jeep was free from the snow and backed into a plowed area. Mind you, by this time I had fallen into a snowbank and was so wet that there is ice in my parka pockets and the change there was frozen together. Also, I was suffering from a caffiene withdrawl headache and had not yet had breakfast.
Despite all of that, I set off an hour late for work. I was going 25mph on 295 southbound when suddenly I was facing north on 295 southbound and two lanes of cars were stopped and facing me. What amazed me were the people who stopped and then were in such a hurry that they drove around me rather than let me get out of the way.
I did finally make it to work, walked in the door and announced that I was ready to go home.
But that’s not the end of it.
It turns out that sometime yesterday the communications people screwed up my pager and I wasn’t getting pages, despite being on call and having been paged with an emergency which luckily Fred answered by accident. This took hours and three people to fix.
My work email is screwed up and I didn’t get important email on several other issues that needed to be resolved in a timely manner.
In other bad news, MD’s brother-in-law was painting MD’s hall when the ceiling fell in on him and a co-worker’s wife was taken to the ER after a snow-related car accident.
And as I was telling my mother about my horrible day, she informed me that my gramma that lives with them fell and busted up her eye, while my gramma in Ohio is in the hospital with pneumonia.
But that’s not even the worst of it.
My cube-neighbor’s house burnt down this morning. Only one of her nine pets made it out and she lost everything but her sewing machine, apparently. All I can think about is how she’s lost everything and how devestated she must feel. The loss of the pets just makes me sick.
I came home and hugged both cats and told them how much I love them and would miss them if they weren’t in my life.
Please keep her family in your thoughts and/or prayers and remember that no matter what happens, even if you’re going the wrong way on the interstate by accident, it could be worse.
Tags: tragedy, snow storm, fire
The Naked Truth
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of a displaced Southerner in New England -- from just daily annoyances to conspiracy theories to political views.
The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe
The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
Marley and Me by John Grogan
The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby
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