Editorial

Are we in Selma Alabama or Sandwich Massachusetts?

Let us all support innovation in the classroom
And stop acting like uneducated "know-nothings" out for a lynching party

By The Catman 

The Forestdale School in Sandwich is fortunate to have a fifth grade teacher and principal who try innovative instructional methods to make science instruction more "alive" to the ten and eleven year-olds in their school.

MyFoxBoston reports today that last Thursday a Forestdale teacher invited a Pathologist Assistant to make a presentation on cellular development to her students. According to a statement by the superintendent of schools, the presenter brought slides of organ tissue samples as well as bottled specimens of organs as well as zygote and human embryo development specimens, again to illustrate organ development.

What a splendid way to teach science to middle school students!

Unfortunately we seem to be on the way to a lynching party at tonight's school meeting at the Sandwich High School at 7PM.

Why? Because someone thinks their ten and eleven year-old young people should not see a human organ specimen or an embryo?

Surely this is the real thing that upset certain over-protective parents. The nonsense about the chemicals used to preserve the specimens is likely just another excuse to lynch the school professionals. Anybody over thirty handled bottled specimens in their school days, virtually all without incident or harm.

Does everybody remember when they were ten or eleven years old?

What is more real for a kid - seeing a plastic heart in a plastic model, looking at a picture in a book or seeing an actual heart in a specimen jar?

If you grew up in the late 1960's like I did, cellular development was taught in a series of silent filmstrips or by drawings on the blackboard. If one was extremely fortunate there might be a single microscope in the school with some dusty slides that allowed one to see cells.

Today the airwaves are full of procedural crime shows (such as the CSI franchise) and medical shows, both of which provide a tremendous amount of information about human biology though usually presented in the most graphic ways. Tying in to this, the idea of bringing a "real scientist" (Yes, we know this is a Pathologist Assistant - but what ten-year-old makes that distinction?) to talk to a class is a terrific way to hold the kids' attention.

As far as the specimens themselves... What is more real for a kid - seeing a plastic heart in a plastic model, looking at a picture in a book or seeing an actual heart in a specimen jar? To show the kids slides of the cells found in different organ tissue is an excellent way to illustrate the function of each organ.

All in all, this sounds like a wonderful way to make science lessons come alive to today's children. Indeed, I would have loved this kind of presentation when I was in the fifth grade!

So, for daring to innovate, it appears the teacher and principal may now be crucified. Their lynching in the press is already under way. Tonight the school community will have an opportunity to weigh in on the issue, as well.

Seriously? A community meeting because someone did a creative science lesson? What is this country coming to? We're not talking about sex education here, "sexting" or cyber-bullying. They've called a "community meeting" because someone did a hands-on science lesson.

If you support active, cooperative instruction of the sciences please contact the Sandwich School committee to send them a strong message.

I ask again, does anybody remember when they were in the fifth grade?

I remember our school taking a trip to Sturbridge Village, where the highlight of the day (to we ten-year-old boys) was when the farmer chopped off the head of a chicken. Everyone was curious about that! Why? Because we were ten-year-old boys!

How many readers remember the proverbial "poking with a stick" of some dead animal the neighborhood kids found by the roadside? Kids are curious about these things!

Any trip to even the driest of life science museums would expose children to at least the level of biology they saw in their Forestdale classroom.

Much has been said in the press about supporting our schools and the teachers who educate our children. While I am the first to look at schools and teachers with a critical eye - and don't even get me started on teachers' unions - I believe that this teacher and this principal in Sandwich deserve the unequivocal support of the public.

Let your voice be heard

Here on Cape Cod we are blessed with many excellent science communities - from Woods Hole Oceanographic, to the Museum of Natural History, the Center for Coastal Studies, the Audubon Sanctuary and the Cape Cod National Seashore. Our teachers should be trying to integrate the local science community with their instruction programs. Not only does this keep the kids' attention, it drives home to them the relevance of the science the school is trying to teach. After a press disaster such as this, I fear that these scientific groups might hesitate a bit before offering yet another school outreach experience.

If you support active, cooperative instruction of the sciences please contact the Sandwich School committee to send them a strong message. Contact information for the individual school committee members is available here. The chairman is Robert Simmons, email bob@CapeSimmons.com

Let us all support innovation in the classroom!

The writer wishes to remain anonymous because they are involved in education here on Cape Cod. The writer holds advanced degrees in education and is well know and respected by the editors.

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Where is Barbara Tuchman when we need her?

The Decline and Fall of the United States of America Empire
"Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

By Walter Brooks

A generation ago, Barbara Tuchman, one of the great historians, wrote her seminal work, "A March of Folly", which gave four frightening examples of  nations following failed and clearly self-destructive policies through successive governments, right, left or center.

As President Barack Obama considers increasing the troop levels in our war in Afghanistan, there is no better use of his time as he enplanes for meetings in Asia than this book published 24 years ago.

Can we succeed where Genghis Khan, the British Empire and the Soviet Union failed?

MS Tuchman demonstrates that what happens among national policymakers from the Trojan War through our Vietnam debacle is a "process of self-hypnosis." She recounts examples of tactics the British used against rebellious American colonists, including the heinous use of "mercenary" troops, then called Hessian, whom King George killed in what is today's Germany.

VOTE in our Poll
"Should America bring the troops home from Afghanistan?" HERE.

The parallels with the current escalation of the war in Afghanistan are more than uncanny. They show deeply rooted patterns right down to a New York Times story yesterday about the $1 million bribe paid by America's own Blackwater "mercenaries" to Iraqi government officials to make them overlook the 17 innocent civilians whom Blackwater's troops-for-hire murdered in 2007. Have we stooped so low as to learn how to wage war from King George?

The United States is not the first nation to fail in Afghanistan. Many preceded us into what historians call "the graveyard of empires." Almost a thousand years ago the hordes led by Genghis Khan could not hold this savage place, and the British Empire was defeated in their attempts a century ago when it was at the height of its power.

Can America match the Soviet Union's 14,453 war dead in Afghanistan?

Many present day historians credit Afghan for the defeat of the Soviet Union, not America's might. Between December 25, 1979 and February 15, 1989, a total of 620,000 Russian soldiers fought in Afghanistan (104,000 at one time), and the USSR's total dead from their failed decade came to 14,453.

The Soviet's equipment losses included 451 aircraft, 147 tanks, 1,314 armored personnel carriers, 433 artillery guns and mortars, 1,138 command vehicles, 510 engineering vehicles and 11,369 trucks and petrol tankers.

The decline and fall of the American empire

Only the victors get to write the history books, consider our own Native Americans. In another century historians will be able to look back at the American Empire with a degree of certainty.

I believe the history written then will declare that our empire, which began with our invasion of Cuba and the Philippines during the Spanish-American War in 1898, ended with our being defeated by the Vietcong on April 30, 1974.

Since that day America has not won a war except for our tin-horn invasions of tiny Granada and Panama.

Why our President doesn't see the grim and bloody handwriting of past Afghan invaders on the White House wall is beyond my understanding unless power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

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Blowing smoke

Cape Wind objections groundless

Editorial, Worester Telegram, November 9, 2009

Let's see if we have this straight: The Wampanoag tribe is claiming the construction of the Cape Wind project would threaten or destroy their religion by impeding sacred rituals that require an unblocked view of the sunrise over Nantucket Sound. Would this be the same people whose Aquinnah tribe is proposing a wind turbine for the Gay Head cliffs on Martha's Vineyard?

The Wampanoags' attempt to have the federal government classify all of Nantucket Sound as a "traditional cultural property" is truly a stretch, but if successful could put an end to a lot more than Cape Wind. First proposed in 2001, Cape Wind has been fought at every turn - often by the same environmentalists who argue that wind power and other forms of renewable energy are vital to the planet's future. Apparently, such concerns are satisfied best when the turbines are in someone else's field of view.

On Thursday, the executive director of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Brona Simon, decided the Wampanoags' arguments merited further study - meaning yet another delay for the project.

The Wampanoags are also arguing that the tribe's ancient burial grounds lie in Horseshoe Shoals, beneath the waves and on the very spot where the Cape Wind turbines would be erected. Archaeologists have not been able to find any such evidence. Small wonder: Nantucket Sound hasn't been dry since the last Ice Age, which ended between 12,000 and 15,000 years ago. Establishing the truth of such fleeting claims is essentially impossible.

Thus, this latest delay is not merely a frivolous further delaying tactic, but holds potential to actively harm the causes of environmentally responsible development. A legal victory for the Wampanoags would place a dangerous new tool in the hands of all who seek to block development projects anywhere, anytime.

It is long past time for the Department of the Interior to clear away the final hurdles standing in the way of Cape Wind. There's only one way to determine whether Cape Wind can fulfill the promise of renewable wind power for the region: Build it and put it to the test.

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The tribes' claim seems unsupportable

New York Times November 2, 2009
Editorial
Cape Wind

The tribes' claim seems unsupportable. "Traditional cultural properties" tend to be defined areas - a ceremonial burial ground, for instance - not a huge, unenclosed portion of the ocean.

After eight years of arduous state and federal environmental reviews, the promoters of Cape Wind, a wind energy project off the Massachusetts coast, had every reason to believe that they were home free. Then the Wampanoag tribes asked the Interior Department to declare all of Nantucket Sound, where the 130 wind turbines would be built, a "traditional cultural property" and, they hoped, block construction.

Tribal officials say their culture requires them to greet the sunrise each day and that this ritual requires unobstructed views. Their claim should be rejected by the responsible federal and state officials. Another round of bureaucratic reviews would drag out an approval process that has gone on much too long and give opponents time to find some other way to derail the effort.

The tribes' claim seems unsupportable. "Traditional cultural properties" tend to be defined areas - a ceremonial burial ground, for instance - not a huge, unenclosed portion of the ocean. Awarding Nantucket Bay such status could cast a legal shadow over a host of other activities, including shipping and commercial fishing.

The alliance includes many local people but has been largely underwritten by wealthy homeowners.

There is also evidence that the tribes have been working hand-in-glove with the project's main opposition group, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. The alliance includes many local people but has been largely underwritten by wealthy homeowners from Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod who hate the idea of having 440-foot windmills on the horizon.

The Minerals Management Service, the agency overseeing the approval process, believes that the claims are bogus. But still to be heard from is Brona Simon, the state's historic preservation officer. If she agrees with the service - and she should - then the matter goes to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. If she does not, then it goes to the National Park Service for further review and then to Mr. Salazar.

One way or the other,
Mr. Salazar should approve the project.

One way or the other, Mr. Salazar should approve the project. Cape Wind is supported by the Massachusetts government and the great majority of its citizens, who see it as a clean alternative to the power plants that contribute to global warming. Rejecting, even delaying it, would send a dispiriting message to other developers who are further behind Cape Wind.

In Europe, wind farms are a familiar sight. If this country is going to do its part to address climate change, they must become more common, and welcome, here.

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Sorry Charlie

Charlie Baker is a scripted and robotic empty suit
Apologies to his misguided supporters

By Sam Adams, Boston Patriot.

OK, I have given this some thought. I even let it ruminate in my mind over the weekend before sending this note to all of you fine people right now. But you know what, sometimes you just have to call it like you see it. So with that being said, I would like to publicly say "Sorry" to all of the Charlie Baker supporters out there.

Would you trust this man to return sane budget management to our state?

No, I am not sorry for criticizing Charlie for announcing his candidacy and then immediately taking off for vacation. I am not sorry for calling him an out of touch empty suit, or for saying he is indeed very much like his former employer and hero, the turncoat Bill Weld. I am not even sorry for pointing out the fact that Charlie Baker is so scripted and robotic that he can't even honestly answer the most basic of questions without feeling like he needs to confer with a campaign aid. No, I am not sorry for any of those things. What I am sorry for is the fact that those of you who support Charlie Baker are painfully misguided. You have been led to believe that he, and others like him are the "next best hope" for Massachusetts. But what those that are trumpeting this party line are intentionally not telling you is that that he actually embodies eveything that is wrong with the Republican party in this state.

Seriously, I have tried to be fair about this but to be perfectly honest, the more I see of this guy, the LESS I like him. I am STILL waiting to hear a good reason why I should support him other than the fact that the MA GOP "powers that be" are clearly in his camp. Last I checked, that sorry organization has done about as much to bury the Republican party in this state as the Democrats have.

That being said, I strongly believe the following issue needs to be addressed.

Some of you may or may not have caught this but Dave Wedge's article in the Boston Herald on 9/11 was more than just a little troubling. If you missed the article, let me quote:

"GOP gubernatorial candidate Charles Baker runs a charity that's funded ultraliberal outfits which have fought for tuition breaks and driver's licenses for illegals, accused American soldiers of torture and blamed Israel for "genocide" in Palestine, a Herald review found..... The Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation, of which Baker is chairman, has given $30,000 to the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition since 2002, records show. The agency is a driving force on Beacon Hill for immigration reform, including pushing a controversial bid to allow illegal aliens to pay the same tuition rates as Massachusetts residents at state colleges.

Gov. Deval Patrick has been a strong proponent of reduced tuition for illegals, calling it 'a matter of simple justice.' MIRA also has backed failed bids to allow illegal immigrants to obtain Massachusetts driver's licenses and state-issued IDs. The Baker-run charity donated $10,000 to MIRA in 2005, at the height of a bitter Beacon Hill battle over immigrant licenses."

Wedge's article goes on to say:

"In 2006, Baker's charity gave $5,000 to Physicians for Human Rights, a Cambridge-based group that authored a study purportedly documenting "systematic use of torture by the United States during its interrogations of detainees at U.S. detention facilities, including Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan."

Wedge's description of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition is spot on. For those of you unfamiliar with Physicians for Humans Rights, let me fill you in a bit. Physicians for Human Rights is blame America first organization that hasn't met a left wing cause, politician or historical revisionist/conspiracy theory that it hasn't adopted. They claim that Israel is an 'apartheid regime' and they have made numerous absurd charges against the CIA in the wake of 9/11 and the legitimate associated security concerns of this country.

Don't believe me? Go see for yourself here.

Now would someone please tell me what Charlie Baker's excuse is for this? Really, I would love to hear it. The way I see it, at worst this man knowingly approved money to be donated to some offensive and despicable groups (And that is without even following the next step in the money trail which Wedge explores further in his article.

And at best, if all you can say in his defense is that he was ignorant and didn't know, well, to this particular citizen patriot, that is pretty sorry as well.

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The crown jewel in our green diadem

The 1,100 acres which saves Cape Cod for our grandchildren

The trails and vistas out to Cape Cod Bay are remarkable at the Wellfleet Audubon.

Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary is a priceless part of our heritage

By Walter Brooks

Displays are up close and personal.

Bob Prescott points to the solar panel.

A visit to a frog pond.

Turtles soaking up the September sun.

Have you ever even noticed the small sign on the left side of Route 6 as you speed towards the Cape tip, just past the Wellfleet Drive-In?

It says "Entrance: Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary", and it is easily the most unspoiled and lovely attraction on all of Cape Cod.

I say this with full knowledge of our 30,000 acre National Seashore and the tens of thousands of acres preserved in conservation in all fifteen of our towns, because this was among the first in the late 1920s when conservation and green were little known or valued.

Back then the Mass. Audubon became the first of its kind in the nation to purchase a large parcel of land to preserve it in its natural state for future generations.

The initial purchase of 200-odd acres on Cape Cod Bay has grown to over 1,100 and is one of the most delightful nature study opportunities in America.

The live displays of our local sea life are coupled with wide vistas of wetlands, frog and turtle ponds and marshes which lie in the flight paths of most eastern birds migrating each Spring and Fall.

It is also a very user-friendly environment for all ages.

Sanctuary Director Bob Prescott is starting his second quarter-century in Wellfleet, and his enthusiasm is the same today as when he began.

He doesn't appear to have aged in the 26 years he's spent there.

This last Sunday my wife and I spent two hours there with our nine and eleven-year-old grandchildren, and we could have stayed for days.

Be sure to visit here soon, especially now as the seasonal bird migrations begin anew. In the two hours we spent there we saw blue and green herons, egrets, heard kingfishers, a dozen other birds, blue claw crabs, several different turtle species and visited the frog pond and butterfly garden.

Over a century ago Anton Chekov said, "Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wildlife has become extinct, the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day."

At least here at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary some good folks are reversing that process.

Read these and learn more about this treasure:

• The Wellfleet Sanctuary Blog.
• The Wellfleet Sanctuary website.
  

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Situational environmentalist

Editor's note: The following editorial originally ran in the Providence Journal.

Hypocrisy makes the world go ’round. Thus it is with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Mr. Kennedy first got into the environmental business as community service after a drug arrest back in the ’80s, and has made a lot of money presenting himself as one of America’s most avid environmentalists — indeed, as a kind of Cotton Mather of Green. But in practice, he’s a lot more, well, situational.

Thus energy-poor New England waits and waits . . . while the oil and coal keep getting shipped in.

For instance, he says he favors alternative energy like windmills — somewhere. But he has in his famous strident voice viciously and untruthfully attacked the effort to put up a wind farm in Nantucket Sound, one of the best places in North America for such a project –– close to the grid of a highly populated area, and with protected water and reliable wind. Thus energy-poor New England waits and waits . . . while the oil and coal keep getting shipped in.

But then, the Kennedy family has summer places from which members would be subjected to looking at the windmills five or six miles away. Can’t have that. So Mr. Kennedy joined forces with other rich, powerful folks, who have, with big checkbooks and back-room deals, so far kept this overdue project from contributing to our clean-energy supply.

Mr. Kennedy says he opposes wasting oil, but he is also in the plastic bottled-water industry, much of which is a giant oil-guzzling, anti-environment boondoggle. (The bottles are made from oil and shipping them around wastes more oil. And the liquid, despite the lie-rich ad copy, is often worse than tap water.) He has strenuously fought state legislation aimed at reducing the use of wasteful bottled water in New York.

He showed no respect for democracy - or the need for clean energy.

And now there’s the curious case of BrightSource, a company that wants to put a big solar-energy operation in the Mojave Desert, in California. In this case, Mr. Kennedy opposes an effort by some environmentalists to set up a National Monument in the area to protect it from the alleged horrors of the solar operation proposed by BrightSource. Foes say the project would hurt local eco-systems –– just the sort of argument, proven to be fraudulent, that Mr. Kennedy used against Cape Wind.

But then, he happens to have a financial stake in BrightSource! His funniest remark about the project is his complaint that the National Monument crowd is “putting the democratic process and sound scientific judgment on hold to jeopardize the energy future of our country.” In the Cape Wind case, he and his allies have used sheer financial and political power against the wishes of the vast majority of the population to be served by the wind farm. He showed no respect for democracy — or the need for clean energy. That was then, anyway. Maybe in the California case it’s different? In any case, it’s all about the needs of Mr. Kennedy.

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Gloucester Daily Times takes stand for local fishing industry

Editorial: NMFS' use of false data to set catch limits can't stand this time

It would be one thing to establish rules and regulations for commercial fishing based on credible statistics or other data.

Bill Amaru, a trawler fisherman on Cape Cod, "found over 100,000 pounds of errors and omissions" in NMFS records.

It is something else entirely to establish them based on demonstrably, admittedly flawed data.

Yet that is what the National Marine Fisheries Service intends to do - again.

The agency concedes that its information on catch histories of various fishermen is wrong. The minutes of a March 1, 2006 NMFS committee meeting readily admit the agency had "no expertise or time for correcting these errors."

Yet, it intends to impose an entirely new regulatory regime known as "catch shares," based on those erroneous catch histories, starting next May - with the critical, decisive data use to set fishermen's limits based on documentation NMFS' officials concede is inaccurate.

Shocked? You shouldn't be. That's because NMFS exuded this same level of arrogance in the wake of the infamous "Trawlgate" fiasco, when, at the turn of the new century, regulators conceded the trawling tactics used to "scientifically" assess fish stocks used the wrong-size nets - yet still used the flawed data to support regulatory rules that have already driven far too many fishermen right out of business.

Using false records for fishermen's landings this time around would wrongly drive down their allowable catch limits - and thus artificially, once again, limit their ability to earn a living. And it is yet another example of a rogue agency that must not be allowed to trample on the livelihoods of commercial fishermen with any means necessary - yes, even admittedly false premises.

This should bring the city's congressional delegation out in force, to demand regulations that are fair and well founded. Sen. John Kerry and Congressman John Tierney have spoken frequently about their support for the fishing industry; now is the time to turn that talk into action.

Indeed, it is almost beyond comprehension that NMFS thinks its impending regulations are justifiable.

Maine fisherman Bill Doughty told Times reporter Richard Gaines that NMFS failed to credit him with about 40 percent of his catch one year and 25 percent of it in another.

Bill Amaru, a trawler fisherman on Cape Cod, said he "found over 100,000 pounds of errors and omissions" in NMFS records. Geir Monson, owner of Seafreeze Ltd. in North Kingstown, R.I., called the statistics, "some of the worst workmanship I ever have seen of any type of work." And he made another good point:

"If this record-keeping was in a commercial company," he said, "the company would be bankrupt and the people in charge of the record-keeping would be in jail for falsifying records."

It's not, of course, And no one is calling for NMFS' top regulators to be sent to the slammer. This is the government, of course, so not only is nobody in trouble for such shoddy work, but that shoddy work is about to be accepted.

Even more absurd, NMFS spokeswoman Maggie Mooney-Seus said that, while the agency acknowledges the problem, it cannot make corrections before next May, yet still intends to use it to set catch quotas. And any fisherman who wants to make a complaint about faulty data, in hopes of a correction in time for the 2011 season - 20 months away - has only until Oct. 31 to file the complaint.

Simply put, this should be NMFS' last straw. Federal legislators simply cannot accept the approach and conduct on the part of an agency that indeed seems to have no sense of accountability whatsoever - no sense of the need to back up its business-killing tactics with viable data, and no sense of the need to hold off on any regulatory changes until it at least validates the records used to put these new limits in place.

That must change, and it's time our government leaders on all levels recognized this renegade agency's downright incompetence, irresponsibility and misconduct.

NMFS must get its house and data in order before making wholesale changes in the regulation of the New England fishery - and any move to fishermen's catch shares must be held until there's a sense they are based on true and credible data.

There's sure no reason to think NMFS could ever deliver that.

This Editorial appeared in the Gloucester Daily Times on 9/10/0.

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The Spirits of Massachusetts are bought in New Hampshire

How our state leaders made our Granite State neighbors richer

This is the New Hampshire State Liquor Store 1 mile over the Massachusetts border, and yes, the car and most the others are from the Bay State not the Granite State. Walter Brooks photo.

Tax-Free Savings - Stock Up and Save, or Live (tax) Free or Die

By Walter Brooks

The new sign is easily read from the highway. The Mass. Sales Tax was recently increased and added booze.

That's what the big new signs reads at New Hampshire State Liquor Stores just over the border from Taxachusetts.

The liquor prices were always cheaper in New Hampshire, but the just added Massachusetts 6.25% tax on booze makes it irresistible.

When I stopped to check this it out this past weekend on my way home from Maine, every car I saw in the parking lot was from Massachusetts where our one-party Democratic State Legislature just increased our sales tax 25% and included alcohol in the items taxed for the first time adding 6.25% to the cost of liquor and wine bought locally.

Our Democratic Governor signed the bill demonstrating to one and all that he is as removed from the "real world" as our long-discredited, corrupt and dictatorial one-party legislature.

These wealthy political poobahs are too well off personally to mind a Draconian tax increase, and they are totally indifferent to your needs, problems or welfare.

The fact that unemployment is almost 10%, the worse it's been in decades, means nothing to these rich, fat political hacks who are completely insulated from your retribution because of our de-facto one-party system on Beacon Hill.

They can NOT  be touched, and it's YOUR fault

The last Governor who called Cape Cod his home was Francis Sargent. He founded the Goose Hummock Shop in Orleans and lived at the tip of Barley Neck in East Orleans. His ilk included US Senator Ed Brooke of Oak Bluffs, US Attorney General Elliot Richardson of Eastham and Shirley Gomes of Harwich.

Thomas Jefferson said that "a people get the government they deserve", and Massachusetts deserves these narcissistic nabobs because you and I put them in office by our votes.

And the Republican party in Massachusetts is just as guilty.

The GOP POGs, "Petrified Old Guard", which control the Republican party machinery, is more interested in foisting conservatives who are stuck in the GOP past, than offering voters the kind of Progressive Republican men and women whom this state regularly elected a generation ago, men and women like Governor Frank Sargent (Orleans), Ed Brooke (Oak Bluffs), Elliot Richardson (Eastham) and Shirley Gomes (Harwich).

Independent and Democrat voters supported these Progressive Republicans every time they ran for office.

That was then, this is now

A perfect example of the state GOP's fascination with bourgeois capitalist conservatives instead of people-friendly pols is the party's present back-room fostering of an large insurance company C.E.O., probably the least popular job in America today.

Reminds us of the 2004 Gail Lese Cape Cod carpet bagging flop by Mitt Romney.

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Wait a while before renaming things for Ted

Unseemly haste during time of grief always causes regret

The Zakim Bridge is one of the World's Top Ten and should be renamed for Ted Kennedy. Above is the Amber Alert sign on the bridge during yesterday's downpours as the state mourned his loss. Walter Brooks photo.

Let's try to learn from history rather than repeat it

By Walter Brooks

The minute a great or famous person dies there is always a rush to rename things in their honor. Boston did it a decade ago when it named the majestic new bridge crossing the Charles River the Leonard P. Zakim Bridge. The roadway on that bridge is the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway (Route I-93) named for Ted Kennedy's maternal grandfather.

Not one person in a thousand today knows who Zakim was.

The bridge's name commemorates Zakim who was a Boston civic leader and civil rights activist. Originally Massachusetts Republican Governor A. Paul Cellucci wanted to name it the "Freedom Bridge," however in 2000 local clergy and religious leaders, including Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, requested the Zakim name shortly after Mr. Zakim's death from myeloma. Gov. Cellucci agreed to the naming, but community leaders from the insular community of Charlestown objected to the name as they felt that since the design reflected the nearby Bunker Hill memorial, it should be named the "Bunker Hill Freedom bridge". Today the unwieldy full name of the bridge is "The Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge".

Today not one Massachusetts resident in a thousand has the slightest idea who Zakim was. The unseemly haste in naming what is now a symbol of our state's capital city for him seems ill-advised in the extreme.  The Travel Channel has ranked the Zakim Bridge 9th in their list of the World's Top Ten Bridges.

Cape Canaveral becomes Cape Kennedy becomes Cape Canaveral

When Ted Kennedy's brother, President John F. Kennedy, died in 1963, his widow Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis suggested to President Lyndon Johnson that renaming the Cape Canaveral facility would be an appropriate memorial. However, Johnson recommended the renaming not just of the facility, but of the entire cape which had born the name Canaveral for four centuries. Accordingly, Cape Canaveral was renamed Cape Kennedy.

Honor Ted in a manner in which the ages will approve.

This was not popular in Florida, and a decade later the state passed a law restoring the former 400-year-old name. The Kennedy family issued a letter stating they "understood the decision". Jacqueline also stated if she had known that the Canaveral name had existed for 400 years, she never would have supported changing the name of the cape. The Space Center itself retains the "Kennedy" name.

A serendipitous way to honor Ted and undo a mistake

Senator Kennedy must also be honored, but let's do it after the hysteria has settled and in a manner in which the ages will approve.

One idea would be to undo the state's mistake of a decade ago and rename one of the World's Top Ten Bridges in his name, the Ted Kennedy Bridge with his grandfather's name on its roadbed already.

And while we're at it, let's ask the President to rename his Healthcare Bill as "Kennedy Care" and let his former Republican colleagues votes against that.

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