Tarsal Target Practice

New Hampshire is experiencing the worst drought in 35 years. In the southern part of the state some communities instituted a ban on watering lawns. Residents were asked to take shorter showers. A number of NH dairy farms have stopped selling milk. The drought affected haying, so farmers are going into winter with little feed, and the feed growers were also hard hit by the drought.

 I drove to northern Maine over the weekend, and it was disturbing to see how low the water levels are in the top half of our state. The Androscoggin, Lake Umbagog, the Magalloway River, Richardson Lake, Rangeley Lake, Flagstaff Lake – all were low. Some swamps were dry, and ponds have become puddles. Wells are going dry in the Conway area – and still our “good neighbors” over at Poland Spring in Fryeburg are mining about 600,000 gallons a day.

Maine, too, is experiencing serious drought. According to an October 5 story in the Portland Press Herald, Poland Spring/Nestle is withdrawing less from their Hollis and Poland sites, but more from wells in Dallas Plantation and Pierce Pond Township, both near Flagstaff Lake. Flagstaff Lake is very low.

They have not changed their mining practices in Fryeburg. The big straw is still in place, sucking up the water. Does that water understand the state border?

Nestle is an international corporation with a proven record of non-existent ethics. It’s time for Maine (and NH) to stand up and protect their water, before Nestle sucks the state dry -and then sells the water back to residents at a huge profit.

You may have heard that November 8 is Election Day. You’ve already heard too much about the presidential election, plenty about the US Senate race in our state, and not much else. There is still time to research the candidates for Congress, Governor, Executive Council, the NH State House, the NH Senate, for county races, and local races. It’s important to do your homework, since the media has been in thrall to Trump and little else. My advice is this: vote from the bottom up on your ballot. The people you send to Concord and to town hall have a far greater impact on your daily life than whichever unacceptable candidate goes to the White House. 

This newspaper endorsed the so-called independent candidate running for Congress in District One. Shawn O’ Connor has had quite a metamorphosis:  from Republican, to Democrat, to independent. (Libertarian will surely be next.) The millionaire moved to NH a few years ago with the intention of running against Kelly Ayotte. It would require a lot of work from a guy with zero name recognition and there would be accusations of carpetbagging. (This was before Scott Brown) O’Connor backed off. What he didn’t do was get involved with the Democratic Party. He didn’t get to know people. He did spend a bunch of money on high priced consultants, and decided that Congress was the way to go.

Over the summer of 2015, he made a big announcement that he was gay and had been in an abusive relationship. When that didn’t get him the kind of attention he wanted, he accused Carol Shea- Porter’s campaign of waging a whisper campaign behind his back, threatened a lawsuit, threatened to sue the NH Democratic Party, and claimed there were rats in the kitchen at the Puritan Back Room in Manchester. None of the threatened lawsuits have been filed, because he lacks any proof of his preposterous claims. He jumped on the Bernie bandwagon, and became a populist when Bernie’s campaign was on fire in NH.

It’s worth noting that all of the higher ups in Bernie’s NH campaign have endorsed Shea-Porter, including the staffer that O’Connor says solicited his endorsement of Bernie. It’s also worth noting that a vote for O’Connor is a vote for Guinta – and that is exactly what he’s hoping for. He’s a mess. And he will write a letter to the editor calling me a liar.

I was at the gubernatorial debate at New England College that was televised by NECN. At that debate Chris Sununu announced that The Pledge was not enough, that it must be expanded to include all fee increases. The GOP labors under the fiction that the state can run on fumes, while making business tax cuts to ensure no money comes in. This is why you stand in line at the DMV long enough to hit retirement age. If you call in, you’re on hold for hours. I’m not exaggerating; a family member calling from out of state was on hold for 2 hours. We do not raise sufficient revenue to staff and run any of our state agencies properly, and then when complaints arise, it’s dismissed as bad gummint, and blamed on organized labor.  

There was no mention of infrastructure in the debate, though three questions were asked about guns. NH still has the 11^th worst infrastructure in the nation, and some of the least restrictive gun laws. Sununu opposes even having a minimum wage. He’s boasted of creating numerous good paying jobs at Waterville Valley Ski Area. Anyone who has ever worked at a ski area knows better. At the debate Sununu said he’d just bought some workforce housing, which means he isn’t paying workers enough so that they can afford housing.  The fact that NH has both a housing shortage and a serious affordability problem was not addressed at this debate. It was more important to ask 3 questions about guns.

As for the local races – when you send most local Republicans to Concord, you are voting for obstruction and delay. Libertea Republicans get a yellow sheet handed to them every Wednesday on their way in to the House session. The “Gold Standard” is issued by the NH Liberty Alliance, and tells recipients how to vote on so-called “liberty” issues. No need for any work, research, or even any thought. (Kinda like taking The Pledge)  Sending Free Staters and John Birchers to Concord means that what you’ll get are knee jerk reactionaries who want to ensure that nothing gets done, other than MOAR GUNZ! At least 4 gun bills have already been filed for 2017, along with 4 bills intended to restrict voting. These are the GOP priorities for our state. Ponder that, as you drive over East Conway Road.

The NH legislature has been failing to invest in our state for decades. A pity we can’t shoot our way into good roads and bridges. Instead, we seem doomed to continue to shoot ourselves in the foot.

Published as an op-ed in the October 28, 2016 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper. 

Addiction on Trial

Addiction on Trial: Tragedy in Downeast Maine, with Steven Kassels

Thursday, October 27th, 2016, 5:30 p.m.

http://www.gibsonsbookstore.com/event/addiction-on-trial

Addiction and Emergency Medicine physician and internationally acclaimed author, Dr. Steven Kassels, will discuss his book Addiction on Trial: Tragedy in Downeast Maine, and his medical experiences. He will also discuss the reasons why we are experiencing a heroin/opioid epidemic and possible solutions.

Q & A to follow.

About the author: Doctor Steven Kassels has had the privilege of treating patients from all walks of life during his years of practice in both Emergency Medicine and Addiction Medicine. He believes that everyone deserves compassion and access to medical care regardless of the nature of the illness. He wrote Addiction on Trial to both entertain and educate, and to depict the struggles of addiction for an audience of avid readers who may expand their understanding of addiction on the basis of evidence. Doctor Kassels lives in Downeast Maine and Massachusetts with his wife, Ali; and enjoys spending time with their four children and life partners; and four delightful grandchildren. Dedicated to his work in Addiction Medicine, he is also passionate about tennis, backcountry skiing, biking, music, and the Boston Red Sox.

Dr. Kassels will be donating his author proceeds to the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness

Event date: 

Thursday, October 27, 2016 - 5:30pm

Event address: 

45 South Main St

Concord, NH 03301

Dr. Kassels was a guest on The Attitude with Arnie Arnesen on October 14. It was an important and enlightening discussion - and we urge you to attend his author event. 

http://www.wnhnfm.org/attitude-arnie-arnesen-october-14-2016/

It Starts Early for Girls

It starts early for girls. Most of us have the experience of being grabbed and manhandled by some adult man before we’re old enough to vote. Possibly before we reach puberty. It might be a stranger, or a family friend. It might be a family member. It might happen on the job, especially if that first job is in food service. Restaurants do not pay waitresses. They subcontract that duty out to customers. Young women learn early that they must be pleasing and flirtatious, and tolerate unacceptable behavior with a smile if they want to be paid. It provides excellent early training for young women in what they can expect for the rest of their lives. That early grooming may be one reason we see some women defending Trump.

By now you’ve heard Donald Trump boasting on tape about how celebrity status means you can kiss and grab women, in the crudest of terms, to his giggling, testosterone fueled fratboy buddy, one of the lesser Bushes. Trump was 60 years old at the time. His wife was pregnant. For me the worst part of the whole tape was the way he referred to the actress that he and Fratboy Bush were about to glom onto as “it” - as in “it looks good.” Women aren’t actually people to Trump, they are objects. If they look good, they are objects that Trump is entitled to. If he doesn’t find them attractive, they are objects for public ridicule.

To dismiss this as “locker room talk” is not only insulting to women, it’s insulting to all of the decent men in the world who would never dream of speaking or acting that way. It’s a way of slapping the old “boys will be boys” label on this mess, as if we should tolerate and expect this behavior from boys, even when the boys in question are nearly old enough to collect Social Security.

This has created a big problem for the GOP, who weren’t all that popular with women to begin with. The recent émigrés to the Trump bandwagon are in a real predicament. In February, John Sununu Pere wrote an editorial piece for the Union Leader and urged people not to drink the “Trump Kool-Aid.” Recently we learned he’d been guzzling that particular beverage, presumably in the hopes that his son would be able to ride Trump’s coattails to the governor’s mansion. Chris Sununu isn’t backing down. He’s blithely giving Trump a pass, something his daughter may have a few things to say about in the future.

Speaking of daughters, imagine being one of Trump’s daughters, hearing that tape of their father discussing how he grabs women by the genitals, and “they let him”. The night of the debate, his younger daughter engaged in what appeared to be a very practiced maneuver to avoid being kissed by her father. One of my friends sent me the clip. He’s disgusted that we live in a world where girls learn how to do this.

Since this big revelation, we’ve seen a lot of reactions. Some Republicans have washed their hands of Trump. Senator Kelly Ayotte was engaging in a curious kind of dance, where she said she was supporting Trump but not endorsing him. She wanted to show her support for the GOP ideology without taking any kind of principled stand against Trump. She’s been freed to ditch him. Serial liar Frank Guinta once hoped to ride the Trumptails back to Congress, and now has to contend with not only the withering contempt of the NH Union Leader (the GOP’s statewide newsletter) but also with the fleas he’s picking up from lying down with that particular dog. Guinta also has a daughter. How proud she must be.

There is a certain irony in the fact that Trump started off by demonizing Mexicans, then moved on to all-purpose xenophobia by demonizing all immigrants, Muslims, and mocked a reporter with a disability. By far and away, though, the majority of his contempt throughout the years has been for women. His bizarre obsession with Rosie O’Donnell comes to mind. Once you have a billion dollars, and build yourself a tacky gilded palace complete with gold plated plumbing fixtures, one appears to have a lot of time on one’s hands for celebrity feuds and beauty pageants. The way he spoke about Miss Universe is certainly a lesson in perceived ownership, racism and contempt.

This is what a big chunk of the electorate wants to elevate to the highest office in our land. A morally bankrupt individual who loudly bellows ignorant proclamations, engages in rambling, sniffly speeches, promises to fix things but has no actual plan for anything, other than yonking down a tic-tac and kissing some women and grabbing them. Our country is sick. Trump isn’t the disease, but he’s the loudest and orangest symptom of it.

The disease is the contempt for government that the Republican Party began to nurture during the Reagan administration. They said gummint was the problem, and went on to elect a host of folks who did their level best to prove it. That was further fed by the Citizens United decision that unleashed unrestricted cash in the service of electing more terrible people. Tea Party ideologues have taken root and worked hard to obstruct in Congress, in the US Senate, and in state legislatures throughout the land, including New Hampshire.

This election cycle has cheapened the process so much that I don’t see how we can ever recover. Whatever happens in the general election – the aftermath is going to be ugly.

Trump has provided us with a barometer. Those who are supporting him despite recent revelations have made an illustrative choice. They may say that Trump’s commentary was offensive, give it the locker-room whitewash, and label it a distraction – but the fact that they’ve chosen to continue to support him means that they have just as much contempt for women and even more contempt for the process than their candidate.   

It starts early for girls. There’s no end in sight.

We Built This

I know I’m not the only one who is appalled by the presidential election. The candidates from both major parties are terrible. The candidates from third parties are equally terrible. If we, the United States, had any sense at all, we’d ask Barack Obama to stay on for another year, and stage a do-over. This time it would be publicly funded. We could cut some money out of the Pentagon budget to use to fund the whole thing. It would take six months. No conventions, no hoopla – no dark money, no corporate cash, no Super PACs. Three months in would be a national primary – on the same day for every state. At the end of six months would be the general election. But, as this election proves, we do not possess any sense.

Like many of you, I watched part of the presidential debate on Monday night. I can usually find some cynical mirth in these sorts of proceedings, but not this time. This time I just felt sick and ashamed. Ashamed of this debacle and ashamed of all of us. We built this. It took us decades, but we built this big honking mess we find ourselves in.

It started in 1987 with the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine. For those who don’t remember, the Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters to devote some airtime to discussing matters of public interest. They were required to air opposing views. This was in news segments, public affairs shows, or editorials. Viewers were exposed to a variety of viewpoints.

Then along came President Clinton who gave us the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a bill that the corporate media lobbies were desperate for. At the time, it was touted as a way of encouraging competition and consumer savings. Congressman John Dingell thanked God for this bill that make this country the best served, the best educated and the most successful country ... in all areas of communications." Instead, it paved the way for huge media monopolies. In 1983, Ben Bagdikian published the book, “The Media Monopoly.” He reported that at the time, 50 corporations owned the media. Thanks to Clinton, that number now stands at 6. Before the Telecommunications Act, companies were not allowed to own more than 40 radio stations. Clear Channel owns more than 1200. The name change from Clear Channel to iHeartMedia doesn’t make that any more palatable. Print media suffered, too. Gannett owns over 1000 newspapers and 600 print periodicals. I could go on endlessly – but we’re seeing what happens when there is a dearth of independent media. We get an angry, incoherent man with a ridiculous hairstyle on the verge of becoming president.

During the same basic time period, we went from a nation that had some concern for the common good, to a nation that worships at the altar of the Church of the Free Market. Greed went from being a sin to a virtue. The Reaganites celebrated selfishness. In just a few decades we went from the GI Bill to you’re on your own, Jack. When money becomes the same as speech, the people without money are not heard. Free speech has become very, very expensive. We stopped valuing education, unless it was business school. Our founders all spoke several languages, yet we’ve hunkered down into “English only” as if it were some kind of a virtue to be less educated than the men we claim to venerate.

The worship of profit uber alles and selfishness combined with a failed fourth estate has brought us to this point. The rabid ideology of the far right has our government at a standstill. We no longer produce statesmen who want to serve their country. We have far lesser men (and women) whose sole concern is party loyalty and obstructionism. The bulk of our national treasure is invested in defense, and because the Pentagon refuses to be audited, we have no accounting of where those trillions go. Our national infrastructure is crumbling, and our government refuses to do anything about it. Our telecomm infrastructure is a disaster compared to other developed countries, but it’s controlled by monopolies that have no reason to improve it. Their bottom line is what matters.

We are served a steady diet of celebrity gossip, sports worship, and stories intended to create outrage. Take a look at the WMUR website sometime. There are stories posted every day of things that happen in other states, asking for comment. They’re intended to generate outrage and pit people against one another. Drunk people doing irresponsible things, stories of bad parenting – whatever. They are stories that are none of our business. The comment sections are filled with angry, petty judges, ready to pass sentence without full knowledge of the facts. It’s a safe bet that these same petty judges couldn’t tell you what the NH Executive Council is. This is what currently passes for “news.

As a nation, we have become stupid, angry, violent and greedy – and this is playing out for us in our current election cycle. A wealthy huckster and reality TV star somehow became the nominee of the Republican Party. The man has no idea what he’s talking about most of the time, and his views change from moment to moment. Trump has absolutely no impulse control, and as we saw in the debate, he is absolutely unfit to lead our country. The guy bankrupted casinos – which is virtually impossible to do – but people want to put him in charge of the US?

Clinton comes to us with decades of baggage. Her supporters complain that decades of right wing propaganda have turned people against her. Yet knowing that, the Democrats made the choice to foist a deeply flawed candidate upon us, and did whatever it took to anoint her. Now they’re mad at people who find the flaws problematic. Gary Johnson is a Koch-funded, right-winger, who likes to smoke pot. Jill Stein is just not leadership material.

There are no better angels here. The evils are equally distributed. The consequences of this election are going to be ugly, and the long-term repercussions will be devastating to the republic.

I vote for a do-over.  

 

published as an op-ed in the Sept. 30 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper  

Finding Your Inner Unicorn

William Shakespeare wrote: “For the apparel oft proclaims the man.” A more familiar axiom is “clothes make the man.”

We all have favorite clothes. The clothes that make us look and feel like a million bucks. When we wear them, there’s an extra spring in our step – and we project an air of confidence. In the photo attached to this column, I’m wearing a purple silk blouse that was my favorite. It was my lucky shirt. The last time I wore it was to a job interview. I was drinking a cup of coffee in the car, hit a frost heave, and spilled coffee down the front of the shirt. In spite of the big coffee stain, I got the job. The stain never came out.

Clothes serve a variety of functions. They cover us, protect us, and keep us warm and dry. Some of us wear uniforms so that we can be easily identified as a member of the military, or perhaps a fire fighter, EMT, or police officer. Various types of clothing can also be part of ceremonies, rituals, or special occasions. Clothes can reflect how we feel, and just like mom always told you, clothes project a message. We do judge books by their covers.

My granddaughter will soon be seven. She just started second grade. I’ve been doing some back to school/birthday shopping for her. It’s been quite a learning experience.

I traipsed through some stores and then did some online shopping, and found some universal truths. Clothes for girls are mostly awful. There is no shortage of gaudy pink, cheap polyester covered with ruffles and sparkles. Faux worn and torn jeans are a big thing this year. It’s almost impossible to find a plain shirt that isn’t tarted up with lace, sequins or glitter – and that is in addition to the graphics.

Somewhere along the way, Disney decided they could sell the bejeebers out of princess crap, and began to invent new princesses to tie merchandise to, and market the heck out of it to girls and their parents. This seems to have coincided with the backlash against feminism.

Boy’s clothes haven’t changed much over the decades. Their shirts feature superheroes like Spiderman, Batman, or Captain America. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are popular again. There are shirts with dinosaurs or racecars. There are sports themed shirts, with soccer balls or basketballs, or slogans such as, “Start Fast Finish Faster,” or “Any Game Any Time.” Boy’s shirts come in plaid or stripes, and they also come in plain colors. Boys and girls both wear blue. Only girls wear pink.

The graphics on clothing for girls is an entirely different matter.

In my admittedly unscientific study, the number one graphic for a girl’s shirt is a heart. It can be covered with small hearts, or have one large. Some have the word “LOVE” inside the heart. LOVE with a heart shape replacing the O is common. Others have “There is No One Like Me” inside a big heart shape, or “Do What You Love,” inside a graphic heart. Other slogans I found: “Follow Our Dreams, They Know the Way,” “Keep Dreaming and Follow Your Destiny,” “Throw Kindness Around Like Confetti,” “Live, Love, Dream,” “Believe,” “Always Beautiful,” “Happiness is a State of Mind,” “Let Your Heart Shine,” “Lead Your Own Way,” “Let Your Light Shine,” “Happy Girls Shine Brighter,” and “Dream Big, Sparkle More, Shine Bright.” There were shirts with pictures of Barbie, kittens, unicorns, butterflies, or ballerinas. “Find your inner unicorn,” one tee shirt advises. Any sports themed shirts for girls were pink and often involved ruffles. One girls clothing company is called, “Self Esteem,” and produces clothing that seems likely to create just the opposite. Would a boy wear a vest that has tiny writing all over it reading, “Love you to the moon and back?” Do girls require so much extra reassurance that they are loved that it is necessary to print it on their clothing?

There is plenty of money to be made in selling products to girls and women. Not so much for boys and men, because they aren’t taught from the cradle to be insecure. Boys do not wear shirts telling them that happiness is a state of mind. There are no hearts emblazoned upon their clothes, or messages of love. Why doesn’t boys clothing tell them to love, to smile, to sparkle more, or follow their dreams? What kind of message does this clothing send to our girl children? What does it prepare them for? Why does a seven year old need to hear that “happiness is a state of mind?” Are we sending them off to a Zen retreat or preparing them for a lifetime of second-class citizenry?

These girls will grow to adulthood in a world where what they look like is how they are judged. We’re seeing the end result of that in the current endless presidential election cycle. If girls clothing is being designed to reinforce self esteem and steer them toward success we’re already doing something wrong.

All those hearts, all that admonition about love made me wonder. Is love an activity solely for girls?

Judging on the basis of clothing alone, we seem to expect boys to love dinosaurs and sports. We expect girls to love, smile, dream, and sparkle. It explains a lot. Dreaming is good. Dreaming isn’t threatening. One shirt read, “Future Princess” with a slash through the Princess and under it read, “Boss.” If we really want that girl to be a boss, why would the shirt need to even mention princesses? Is this a form of training, or grooming? Do we need to get girls focused on love early so they’ll grow up to love the boys who aren’t being programmed to love? So that they’ll be ready to settle for less?

I haven’t finished shopping, but after all of this, I sent my granddaughter a tee shirt that says, “Future Brain Surgeon.”

If clothes really do make the man (or woman) what kind of men and women are we trying to create?

Published as an op-ed in the September 16 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper