CapeCodToday Blog Chowder

Great reporting, Jerry.
It's nice to be reminded of how newspaper reporters worked, reported and wrote when newspapers were "the first draft of history."

Shame on Fox and WCVB.
I was dissecting animal organs in formaldehyde in prep school in the 1940's.

Apparently many parents in Sandwich wish to drag us down to their lunatic level and wait until their daughters come home pregnant or sons with the pox because of their ignorance of the basic facts of human existence.

Call the school board right now and let them know how you feel: (508) 539-9159.

I don't believe you win any war in the "first 21 day" as the start of Iraq War #2.
It's now seven years and counting and we're still there, hardly a win when the whole thing will collapse the minute our troops leave. wb

Hey Bill, welcome to the melee.
To quote your namesake, "Love and tolerance must be our rule."

Welcome to the Blog Pile, Bill.
You made me recall my favorite Joplin quote:
"I'm saving the Bass player for Omaha."
That little Port Arthur Texas girl sure could warble.

It looks like the south
After Hurricane Katrina -
These photos around Bourne
By Ana Paulina.

Kelly, I'm impressed! I only met you earlier this week in Warren RI and you are already blogging for us, and making me jealous with your photography.

UFB - Jul3ia, you are astonishing.

I had a noon appointment with a doctor from Boston who sees patients here on Mondays and he was two hours late today, spent an extra two hours at the bridge.

There are five workers on the bridge job and two State Troopers.

The cost in lost retail business for Cape merchants is running about a million dollars for every hour of delay, but the USACE doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about our losses.

Pip is the most gregarious and delightful child I've met in years. I guess her family gave her that nickname because she really was one, a "pip".
She ended up naming me "Pop.

Sam, I fear you've been hood-winked by the good doctors.
They dumped a couple thousand patients each, people they've have been attending for a quarter century, in order to make a killing without much work on a new scheme which few of their long-time patients can afford.
How would you like to spend thousands of dollars for two decades with a doctor and after all that money and years be told that you must now find a new physician unless you fork out a couple grand a year for what is essentially a "retainer".

The Cape Cod Hospital is apparently making this possible because they have offices at the hospital which they will be allowed to keep. This will allow them to return if their former practices there if their new high profit venture fails.

Wouldn't everyone love to have that kind of guarantee when they launched a new "business" because not think for a minute that this is "medicine." This is "business."

Welcome to America's healthcare fiasco.

Great new blog, readable and well-written.
Thanks for joining our happy crew of Cape Cod cut-ups.
My view on Kindle is that it's the best new e-device I've ever used, and to date I've downloaded over two dozen classics free and bought 80 books for a fraction of what the print edition would cost.

bipr, thanks for asking - I meant to add that to the story.
The Kindle is NOT back-lit like a computer.
The new technology is called "e-ink" and like the printed page, the brighter the light the better for reading.
But unlike the printed page, in dim light you can increase the typeface to read long past when you could with a book.
The device uses no battery power after each page is turned, and unlike a book, the pages won't flutter on the beach in the wind.
I do most my reading with it outdoors now.

We have opposed both the room and meals tax.
I can only repeat that the Democrat position on the sales tax is akin to what Samuel Johson said about sex: "the expense is damnable, the position is ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting."

Mea non culpa - my great regret is that my readers are unaware of the rational mind-set behind the mask.
Yes, I'm a lifelong social liberal, and hopefully, a fiscal conservative.
But this editorial is more about a one-party government in our state today.
Lord Acton taught us that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Even us old beaniks ain't all bad
;>)

The term "off Cape" is applied for the towns west of Cape Cod but nearby, such as Wareham, Marion and Rochester as well as Carver, Plymouth, Carver and Duxbury to the north.
Anyone may argue the definition, but these seem reasonable to us.

Did you hear about the dyslectic, agnostic, insomniac who laid awake all night wondering if there really is a doG?

The best thing we ever got out of Pomodoro was a blog by its hostess in 2006 when Katie Dickson was a soph. at BU,
She turned out to be a superb columnist, see
http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/Journo
and our waiter this year claims he will follow in her footsteps.

Fred Allen, born in Cambridge, was the most intellectual of the radio comics. Another typical Allen quote was;
"The first thing that strikes a visitor to Paris is a taxi."

From today's NY Times Op Ed by Gail Collins;
There’s been a lot of talk about polls that show support for abortion rights has been sliding, but this is an issue where people’s level of discomfort is so high I think it’s very difficult to read much into specific poll results. The general sentiment seems to be pretty consistent: Most people don’t want to think about it. They leap with relief to any option that suggests it’s something that should be left between a woman and her doctor. Or options that say it should be legal “some of the time” or “under some circumstances.” They want somebody else to figure out what those circumstances should be.

But if you do pin them down, they tend to say that abortion should be permitted during the first three months, but not after that unless the mother is in danger. And since the vast number of abortions occur during that period, you’d think that we could work out a system that makes it very easy for women to end pregnancies early, but then very hard to impossible as time goes on. But the intensity of feeling on the issue, particularly on the part of the people who feel that it’s murder from the moment of conception, is so fierce that we wind up instead with vast stretches of the country where it’s almost impossible for a woman to get an abortion, creating more late-term unwanted pregnancies.
http://theconversation.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/guns-gays-and-abortion/?ref=opinion

This is beautiful stuff, Jon.

Snappers are Red,
Bluefish are Blue,
If I eat too much fried food,
I'll belong in a Zoo.

The real tragedy is the effect this will have on the over-worker staffs of the local weeklies.

The daily newspapers which GateHouse owns are the drain on the company's revenues. They are being supported largely by the weeklies which are doing far better in this economy.

Face it,the "regional daily" is a Dodo.

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be...

We nominate a black woman - how about Anita Hill?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Hill

Ron's painting of a Beetlecat at rest is about as archetypical a Cape scene as one can imagine.
The Beetle Cat is a 12 foot, gaff rigged, wooden sailboat first built in 1921 by the Beetle family of New Bedford, Massachusetts. beetlecat.com, now located in Wareham, is now the sole builder of this American classic.
Congratulations.

A Cape Cod protester named Anheuser,
Once said that no pol could surprise her.
Till Jeff Perry scrambled facts,
To prove we don't need more tax,
And now she is sadder, Budweiser

Gee, bartenderfromhell and capemom, I hate to make you read the this short post in it's entirety, but it's a "joke".

Said a soporific Senator named Kerry,
"I'm for climate control, but really, not very,
It needs 'leadership', you see,
And that's just not for me,
For annoying Sir Ted makes me wary."

puritanman90 really answers his own question:
"by the fourth time he called i had to hang up after he threatened to write the story with what he had..."
His clarification could only be reported if he(and/or the owner I asked to speak to as well) had been willing to talk to me BEFORE we ran the story.
As Nixon learned, "the cover-up is always worse than the crime."

The contrast for me was the difference between trying to talk with Puritan Pontiac when we were doing today's story as compared with doing the story about the Saab bankruptcy ten days ago.
As distressing as that was for them, the Cadillac-Saab of Cape Cod people were very courteous and helped us cover the story fully for both our readers and their customers.
In Puritan Pontiac's case they simply slammed the phone down in our ears each of the four times we called over a two day period.
Beside the obvious discourtesy, they squandered an opportunity to give their side of the story in whatever positive way may have been possible.
As a poet once said, "Against stupidity even The Gods struggle in vain."

The first ad I heard on WQRC radio this morning was Cadillac-Saab of Cape Cod soliciting Pontiac, GMC, Buick owners to visit his shop for warranty service.

An old newspaperman, Mark Twain, said, "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it."

#15) Decriminalize drugs and tax them as we do alcohol sales. All proceeds go to alcohol and drug rehab efforts.

NOW you tell us !
Have you any idea how much harder it is to find a rhyme for McSheey than for Sheedy?
Poet? Bah ! Humbug ! Balderdash! Piffle ! Twaddle !

No one ever admired Mr. Kennedy's political agendas more than I until, in his dotage, he decided his personal ocean view was more important than America's leap towards renewable energy to free us from dependence on Arab oil - the root cause of 9/11 and all the Bush horrors which followed.

History will not be kind to him for this antediluvian selfishness.

Our local Land Rover dealer in Hyannis could give lessons to all Cape Cod businesses about how to survive this economic downturn while at the same time solidifying their customer base.

Brilliant.

Buzz, it might also interest you that the authors of this blog are the editors or cc2day who promise to investigate any tips readers send them.

While the only three things which will last forever are death, taxes and herpes, I hope our dear readers take solace in the fact that we live here too, unlike the owners of most other media left standing.
In fact, my wife's family goes back to Edward Bangs, one of the original settlers here in the mid-1600s.

Legislating morality simply does not work.
The Puritans and police have utterly failed to stop man's addictive urges from the dawn of time.
The only result of Massachusetts not having gambling is for our local addicts to continue to give their money to a neighboring state.
If there were no casinos a couple hours away, we might slow up the money drain, but unless we can close down the two in Connecticut, the Mass. money drain will continue.
We should ask the Guv for a casino in Mashpee and give Cape Cod a percentage.

Mark, your points are well taken as far as they go.
However, increasingly daily newspapers are NOT a permanent record of anything. The so-called "newspaper of record" was doomed as soon as Wall Street owned the industry and forced the lay-offs of local reporters to make their demanded profit margin.
And what does it matter is a tree falls in the woods to make your daily newspaper if no one under 40 is reading it?

bipr, you're right. I did. Thanks again for the kind words.

nipr, Thanks for the kind words. I would love to see newspapers stay exactly the way they are - I love 'em and read a couple every day.
The cold facts are that the business model does not work in a wired world and add to that they have already lost they audience of younger, active consumers.
It's not the web's fact.
It's the fault of the dead-headed old men who have ignored every chance to save their publications for fifty years, and the free enterprise system has a cruel but complete way of dealing with such business stupidity and lameness.
Online News Sites will develop the same way the newspaper pioneers of a century ago did by plowing every dime back into content. The original Hearsts and Pulitzers cared about their own communities too whereas the Wall Street owners of today's newspapers do not.
It's over, and we'd better get used to it.

A New England daily newspaper publisher friend wrote me:

"Unfortunately, Walter, no one has figured out how to make any money from a news site on the web, and that includes you. Competent reporters and design staff cost money, and the dollars that web sites command for their ad messages don't cover it. I'm not arguing that large newspapers face a possibly terrible future, but that certainly doesn't mean that the current web business model is the answer."

My good friend obviously doesn't read CapeCodTODAY or count the ads on it because our online revenue was up 18% last year and we routinely have a half dozen stories each day which our local daily missed.

He also forgets that web expenses are a fraction of those for print which like the old airlines have huge "legacy costs" and the rates will grow with the traffic which in our case was up 34% in '08 vs. '07.

And as the old media dies their ad base will migrate to the web as it has already.

"If you build it they will come."

Actually the hotel's in room access is by Ethernet cable, but it was out due to problems with Verizon, so I sidled over to the window and got free wi-fi from a nearby Irish Pub.
I even think I could smell the Guinness Stout... wb

Darwin:
Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically predisposed to cross roads, and,

Timothy Leary:
Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.

Kind words Robert, but only half correct. This multi-media magazine launch is all Julie's concept, the concept, design, packaging, pricing, everything, and It's a good or better than anything I've ever done myself. Walter

Solon, that's an old, erroneous translation.
Scholars today say the phrase is more accurately translated as "surrounded by 72 Virginians."

Sorry, Pusse, the reports of my dearth are exagerated ;>)

Thanks jack, for educating the ill-informed masses. It's alarming how few Americans know doodly-squat about their own history, including MS Maddow.
Hoover has become characteristic of how an unfeeling President acts, but in reality he was a good and caring man who did his best under staggering conditions and went on to be used by future Presidents of both parties for major work like the Hoover Commission.

Oh ye of little faith...

HOLY HORSE MANURE !!!

When you stoop to negative rants like "Deval I Wanna Be a Socialist Cabinet Member" Patrick and "Deval I Wanna Pander to the Far Left" Patrick and "Pretty Boy Romney" you lose about 90% of your readers (remember, the citizens here elected them both by wide margins).
You aren't making a rational argument, you simply sound like a Bush League Bill O'Reilly.
You and Whitey Bulger apparently know a lot about guns.

The truly scary thing about the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History in Brewster is how close it came to extinction a few years ago but for the remarkable work of its present board and director.
It is more wonderful than ever in its half century of history, and your children really deserve to become members this summer.

Solon, I dearly love you, but BOY ! do you have a bum palate. Your favorite Yarmouth restaurant is a local joke with frozen entrées served in a watery puddle, and you should be banned from entering Asian restaurants for life.
1- The term is ASIAN, not oriental, as anyone the least bit familiar with that part of our globe knows.
2- the restaurant you praise above is called "Human Gourmet" by locals and fit only for US Army palates like yours.
3- the Bangkok Cuisine is everyone else favorite on the Cape for Thai fun, and is is excellent. I personally have eaten there over fifty times and never been disappointed.

I have eaten all over Asia on a dozen visits, and recently spent a month in Vietnam and Thailand. Maybe you should seek another area upon which to inflict your lack of knowledge, but to defame a hard-working new American who has started six new restaurants in the decade he's been a citizen which employ dozens of local folks (no H2-B) is really not a very nice thing to do.
See -
http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/2005/11/03/happy_birthday?blog=21
and:
http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/2005/11/02/i_wasn_t_going_to_write_but_the_typhoon?blog=21

Don't fret, Monpo, you are still the fairest blogette of them all.

A peevish, protester named Peck,
Sailed The Sound and had a shipwreck.
He called his friend Mav,
And asked for a save,
Mav declined saying "I don't give a heck."

About that possible hunk in the waiting room;
You're still safe. He's gay
;>)

Charles de Gaulle felt the same way, "How can anyone govern a nation that has 246 different kinds of cheese?"

Poor Mary LeClair, she was born with silver quohog in her mouth.
Somebody tell the old bird about the "blog" that took down Dan Rather and a dozen pols who ignored a tidal wave of the future which is already upon us.

Jessica, I too found straight love in Ptown, so don't despair. Try roaming the aisles of Stop 'n Shop looking helpless and confused (no easy task for one as lovely and bright as you, I know).
In my case the woman of my dreams swiped my sketchpad when I wasn't looking and I caught her.
48 years, 4 months, one week. 2 days and 4 hours later we're still madly in love and still on Cape cod.

Despite my whining in this article, Culver was just what my rebellious spirit needed. I hated all schools from kindergarten on, and would never have learned a thing without being forced by the dons at Culver.

Libby, the depth of your experience and insight continues to amaze. May this tragedy be a catalyst for the Pakistani people to thrown off the yoke of Islamic extremism.

Katie, that's the best "political" column I've read in months.
It even raises the hopes of us swarthy, older male types (be still my heart).

As the masochist said, "OUCH ! That feels good." ;>)

As one of the 28,853 mustached men (there are also 32,742 mustached women) here on Cape Cod, I want you to know how deeply offended all 61,595 of us are... and that's not counting the 329 mustached transvestites who have refused to join our protest so far.

"SPLASH" - The untold story of why I named my dog

Feliz agradecimienton, Gregorio

The first Thanksgiving in North America was in Texas in May of 1541, almost a century before our Puritan "Saints" sold that pile of corn from the Nausets in Truro and escaped to Plymouth.

80 years before Pilgrims sat down with the Wampanoags in Plymouth, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado gave thanks in Texas.

In addition another celebration El Paso recognizes the “First Thanksgiving” every April, commemorating the day when Spanish explorer Juan de Oñate and his expedition stopped near San Elizario for an observance of Thanksgiving in 1598.

Us Yankees are simply a lot better at advertising.

I am embarrassed ! Coleman knows I hated every minute of the 4 years I spent there, and I've probably been rebelling against Culver ever since.

One of literature's greatest misogynists said it, H. L. Mencken WHO ALSO SAID,
In the duel of sex woman fights from a dreadnought and man from an open raft, AND
No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.

Oil rose to a new all-time high today - $84 dollars a barrel - four times what it was when Cape Wind was proposed in 2001.

Gee Soph, those are some of the elements which make for a great American.

Malcolm Hobbs* used to say, "they all believe what they're shouting."

*Longtime Publisher of The Cape Codder weekly newspaper

There is ONLY 1 reason to visit Fall Riv - Nick's Coney Island Hots on South Main Street.
Forget Delahunt, get a "real" hot dog instead
;>)

As Roy Blount Jr. writes in his book What Men Don't Tell Women, "Everyone knows that the only reason women complain about men's behavior during number-one activity (i.e. peeing) is that women will never get over the fact that women, unless they are extraordinarily nimble-footed, cannot write their names in the snow."

When I moved here in 1965 there was one Asian restaurant on The Cape, the Dragon Light on West Main Street in Hyannis, and Filene's was a small shop across the street. Today we have dozens including Thais beyond measure and even a Vietnamese restaurant on Route 28 in South Yarmouth.

Jack, you keep getting better.
Which is more than I can say about your uncle Edgar.

Thanks a bunch, Jack. Luckily the age of consent in Hawaii is 14, the lowest of any state, since I obviously met Pat when she was about three ;>)

Nice start, Jul3ia - we all look forward to many panels.

I love the quote in you artwork mouse-over;
"Hostility toward America is a religious duty, and we hope to be rewarded for it by God . . . I am confident that Muslims will be able to end the legend of the so-called superpower that is America"

Robert, you seem far better informed and logical as well as "on the mark" about the GOP candidates, which is perhaps because you are both Republican and conservative yourself.
Nice column. I agree with most your opinions about hte GOP, but you failed to mention Bill Richardson's biggest plus in your Democratic analysis;
He was a relief pitcher for the Cotuit Ketleers in the 1967 CCBL season.

Hate to think such a thought, but if I live long enough this new breakthrough could make my East Harwich home be "waterfront property." Gee, I'm glad the White House doesn't believe in Global Warming because they could stop this from happening it they did.

Dazzling and evocative words, Jack. We are all honred to share this space you.

Glad to help Solon. My online dictionary says the phrase in Greek is;
Filese to kolo mou, skatofatsa.

Of course Coleman's correct - he doesn't just vote like an elephant, he has a memory like one ;>)

Cape Cod's Johnny Kelley was a member of the U.S. Olympic Team that attended the Berlin Games of 1936. He finished 18th in the marathon, never really in contention for a medal. A highlight of the games for Johnny was meeting the legendary Greek runner Spiridon Louis, the winner of the marathon in the first modern Olympic Games, held in Athens in 1896. Louis died a few years later.

In 1940 Johnny made the U.S. Olympic Team, but due to Hitler's invasion of Norway the games were cancelled.

In the 1948 Olympic Games in London, on a course rumored to be long, Johnny ran the marathon in 2:51:56. He finished 21st at age 40.

He was a legend of the marathon. In the seventeen years from 1934 to 1950, he finished in the top five places 15 times at Boston, consistently running in the 2:30s. He ran his last Boston Marathon in 1992 at the age of 84, his 61st start and his 58th finish.

His kind will not be seen again soon.

Not with unreconstructed mugwump, Yellow Dog Republicans like you running the state GOP. You dinosaurs are the best thing that ever happeded to the Democrats.

Today's NY Times laughs at Boston in their "Week in Review" cartoon.

Are any of you people under 35?
As Bub's Lola states above "The first device was blown-up at 8am, that morning. Didn't anyone look at it to see that it was a battery operated device with zero explosives???"
If we can't tell the difference between a joke and a bomb, we're in for a long, hot future. The people who caused the problem and the expense were the Keystone Kops & publicity-hungrey pols.
So far four national newspapers have asked to run this as an Op-Ed piece, the Patriot Ledger ran it today, please read this Op-Ed.

Molly Ivans;
Nov. 19, 2002: “The greatest risk for us in invading Iraq is probably not war itself, so much as: What happens after we win? ... There is a batty degree of triumphalism loose in this country right now.”

Jan. 16, 2003: “I assume we can defeat Hussein without great cost to our side (God forgive me if that is hubris). The problem is what happens after we win. The country is 20 percent Kurd, 20 percent Sunni and 60 percent Shiite. Can you say, ‘Horrible three-way civil war?’ ”

July 14, 2003: “I opposed the war in Iraq because I thought it would lead to the peace from hell, but I’d rather not see my prediction come true and I don’t think we have much time left to avert it. That the occupation is not going well is apparent to everyone but Donald Rumsfeld. ... We don’t need people with credentials as right-wing ideologues and corporate privatizers — we need people who know how to fix water and power plants.”

Oct. 7, 2003: “Good thing we won the war, because the peace sure looks like a quagmire..."

How serendipitous that OIL RIGS are being recycled into platforms for WIND TURBINES.
Now id we could only recycle Ted Kennedy into a caring and unselfish US Senator who cherished about his country more than his ocean view.

I was so pleased you used an icon of St. Minutia for your logo.
Happily, a generous amount of hagiographical material on her has survived, perhaps the most popular of which is a collection of her homilies and sayings, including the motto most closely associated with her: "Non pilus tam tenuis ut secari non possit."
She appears to have had some interest in ecclesiastical architecture; one early vita has references to a church which was built using plans drawn up by Minutia herself. The actual building has not survived, but there is a fragment from a contemporary description: "On either side of the main entry, St. Minutia caused innumerable added entries to be placed, such that people marvelled at the great multitude of doors, and rebuked the Saint for the labor wasted in putting them there. 'No labor has been wasted', she answered them patiently, 'for by these means no one will be barred from my church through a lack of access.'" Another account explains that her plans were an improvement on earlier designs which had called for a single entry at the east end, near the tabernacle; the inconvenience of relying on this so-called corporate entry was immediately recognized and rectified by the saint.

Typically, disgruntled minority attitude.
Be careful, Monpo, Dickie C is really Darth Vader in drag.
;>)

At least somebody is covering the news on this holiday

Congratulations, Tim, on a banner year of reporting.

Wait till Crusader hears this -
Att. Geoge just made her day

WHDH-TV today:
"Governor-elect Deval Patrick's incoming budget chief says new taxes at the local level may be needed to create a stable long-term financial picture.

Leslie Kirwan says so-called local option taxes on meals, hotels and other services should be one of the things the state considers.

She also isn't sure the state can cut property taxes, as Patrick said he wanted to do during the campaign."

Peck-ish is off his meds again ;>)

Thanks Balo-babe, altho many of the acolytes deserved accolades ;>)

Remind me mare of Whitaker. The specific years were '59-'63 before the scene exploded to include Flower Children and Hippies.

Monponsett, shame on you - there are four *s in f****d, not three.
FYI, until Rudoph Murdoch bouight it, The NY Post was the most liberal newspaper in NYC and the entire northeast, maybe the entire country.

To all (except my nemesis Satan), thanks for your support.
I hesitate to write about myself here since we try to make cctoday "Cape Cod 24/7", and when I do, this feedback is heart warming.

And Maverick, who would have thought we had this much in common? Makes me ever more happy we kept cctoday an uncensored and open medium for all to post on - whether or not we editors agree or the comments or posts are PC.

Satan, are you off your meds again?
Rafio

Remember Katie, there is no great genius without some touch of madness.

Watch out Democrats ! Peter P. has lost his sense of humor.

No one suggested she wasn't educated or intelligent, simply un-electable, and I'll call her Muffy from now on.

Face the future, Peter P, change is in the wind - Cape Wind ;>)

Sacré bleu ! If the Monpon is upon it, look for gas prices to tank.

Peter, I am shocked at your lack of wit. Didn't a third party, conservative ex-Gop Ross Pertot, take enough votes away from George Bush I to give the election to the Demcrats and Clinton?

Answer with logic (as you always do), not with ire. I too wish Christy was not determined to deny his own former party the corner office, but he's one of you your people, not Patrick's.

And I'll bet you a Jeroboam of Mead that when you take away Milhos' numbers on November 7, Deval Patrick will still have chilled the Ice Queen.

Patrick doesn't have to beat Healey - Mihos will. Like Perot did in Bush I in '92, the 10% Christy takes away will insure a Deval romp of the Ice Queen.

"What say you to a piece of beef and mustard?"
Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew, Act IV, Scene iii)

Really Capri, "scientific"?
While the CNC survey was the surely the very opposite of scientific, the creation of polls has progressed enormously as you well know.
If you took the time to read the NPCC criteria linked twice in the story above, you would be both better informed and able to make a more valid argument.

CapeMom, The Crude's email ended on a strange, Freudian note.
She said "I won't be burying my head under a rock", and we all know what we find under rocks.

P.S. to that Gallic goad, that Francophone firebrand MONPONSETT, I will host a Blog Party this Fall.
I'll bring the booze and groceries if you do the cooking.
;>)

"What has kept the world safe from the bomb since 1945 has not been deterrence, in the sense of fear of specific weapons, so much as it's been memory. The memory of what happened at Hiroshima." John Hersey

There once was a Priest from D-Y,
Who said, "It's golfing I think I should try;
After all's said and done,
I know it'll be fun,
'Cause my golf tips all come from The SKY."

Marietta, you have always been a wonderful voice of sanity and reason in a darkening world. Keep up the hue and cry. They may start listening some day.

You certainly choose one of my favorite Presidents for this holiday.
His daughter, Alice Roosevelt Longworth who lived until 1980, was D.C.'s greatest Grand Dame.

At a soiree not long before her death at the age of 96, she said to a handsome young man, "If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me."

During her 80's, after two radical mastectomies, she descibed herself publicly as "Washington's only topless octogenarian."

They threw the mold away before they made her ;>)

Actually, Abdul, we fairly dote upon your droppings, camel or otherwise. WB

Alexander Hamilton was also a newspaperman. He founded The New York Post, America's oldest newspaper, and one for which I labored when it was a far different publication that today's right-wing rag owned by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

There is no free lunch.

The uninsured still get medical help at emergency wards, etc. - and you and I pay for it in the ever increasing rates we pay for our own health insurance.

It would seem simple math that if ALL Massachusetts businesses were required to pay, let's say, 75% of health care for their workers, and had the option of choosing from a small number of similar plans, the business "playing field" would be even for all state busiesses.

Best Read Guide, BRG Distribution and eCape.com pay the lion's share (over 75%) of our employees health care. We use Harvard Pilgrim. One hopes our employees are pleased, but this acy of simple, human decency on our part actually places us at a disadvantage since none of our direct competitors pay any of their employees' health benefit to the best my knowledge.

The fact that we, three small, Cape Cod-owned, family businesses, have managed to prosper greatly for over two decades of crises in health care is testiment to the wisdom of the letter writer above.

Sometimes these decisions are easy - it's simply the right thing to do. How nice that it also turns out to be "good business."

It is the paradox of our nation that so few Americans participate in the wonderful ritual of democracy that we call Election Day. Hopefully Jack Coleman and his Polical Calendar will amend that failure to some degree.

Thanks Barbara - it's so refreshing to read about something besides the Cape Wind.

Dona, you may be unaware that the Bush admin's relaxed attitude towards our national parks has already resulted in Cell towers being placed on hilltops well within the view of "Old Faithful". See this story from the National Parks Conservation Association's magazine. Here's is a link.

As I keep telling you Gad-flea, you should be writing these excellent adages in your own blog. Who knows where some of our bones are buried better than thee?

Send me your first one about the Marvelous Mihos.

I spent a week in eastern Germany this June, and every journalist, academic and tourism official I met (and I met a hundred since they were hosting me) extolled the German experince with wind power and said they planned to expodentially expand its use in the immediate future.

They already were paying over $6 a gallon for regular gas BEFORE the recent increases.

I visited Wartburg Castle in Eisenach which is more than just an UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site. It is considered the German nation's number one historic monument, the place where Luther sought refuge after being excommunicated by Rome, and it is surrounded by wind farms which can be seen from every wall.

If you want the facts, read them here.

George Steinbrenner was a classmate of mine at Culver Military Academy, and was just as arrogant at 15 as he is at 75.

Remember, on July 30, 1990, Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent banned Steinbrenner from baseball for life after he paid Howie Spira, a small-time gambler, $40,000 for dirt on his outfielder Dave Winfield after Winfield sued him for failing to pay his foundation the $300,000 guaranteed in his contract. He wesseled his way back three years later.

As for Damon, "money talks, caveman-manure walks." The Sox saved some money and lost a lot of fans, although 32 in getting up there in pro sports if you're not George Foreman.

Jack is correct. I even set up a blog for Susan Nickerson at The Alliance but she doesn't wish to use it.

I also made the same offer to Cliff Carroll, and I ran a letter he wrote objecting to something or other, but he too has not offered any more or asked to have me set up a blog.

P.S. That offer goes out to Super5 as well. Email me at wb@eCape.com if you'd like me to set up a "Cape Blog" for you. I'll need a short bio and whatever name you'd like to use.

Since Quintal's closed, you have to drive to Vel's in West Wareham on Rt. 28 for good, inexpensive home cooking, altho Bailey's or Lindsey's will do in a pinch.

Beth, be back, but consider doing a Cape Blog yourself.
Write me at wb@ecape.com if you are interested.

Walter Brooks, A.K.A. "BlogFather"

Mr. Perry, I assume, was not taught U.S. history at his Alma Mater.

Freedom of speech, the first amendment, are things MMA grads have died for in every war.

All our blogs offer the ability to comment directly. He could and should use that avenue. Instead he emailed his message above to all our advertisers.

By copying our advertisers he was attempting to stop that freedom.

Mr. Perry brings shame on himself and the academy. He also placed himself in jeopardy of legal action by our attorneys as his action is legally known as "interference with a legal contract."

I am quite sure one of the major reasons cape businesses advertise here is specifically because of our free exchange of opinions, and everyone's ability to comment and agree or disagree - agreeably.

Mr. Pery is simply another barbarian at the gates attempting to shoot the messenger, in this case Monponsett. Anyone with a name like Monponsett is probably used to being shot at, starting in 1620.

Ironically Mr. Perry's actions will bring greater attention to the very subject he wished "swept under the rug" - discipline at the Mass. Martime Academy.

Don't worry Monponsett, you sound more "Cape Cod" than most, and at last reports Bourne and Buzzards Bay were still part of Barnstable County. But you write so well we'll get "the powers that be" to change the boundry line if we have to.

Welscome.

Welcome 'Stan, you bring much wit & wisdom to our insular cyberworld.
Walter

'Twas me I admit. PhotoShop makes artists of us all.
I have saved the orig. file as a photoshop.psd so I can add any "Cape Cod Tree Ornaments" anyone would like to see added to the Cape Cod Christmas Tree. Just email the jpg or gif to me at wb@eCape.com

Otis, up till now I've been too busy pulling your barbs out of my thick skull to notice how informed you are and how well you write and think.

Please consider becoming an anonymous Cape Blogger so you can start these discussions rather than react to them - and BYW, give the rest of us a chance to barb back at you ;>)

Walter Brooks, wb@ecape.com, (508) 246-1212.

Otis, up till now I've been too busy pulling your barbs out of my thick skull to notice how informed you are and how well you write and think.

Please consider becoming an anonymous Cape Blogger so you can start these discussions rather than react to them - and BYW, give the rest of us a chance to barb back at you ;>)

Walter Brooks, wb@ecape.com, (508) 246-1212.

Prove that, Gad-person, and we could do a great story on it. But be sure you compare "apples to apples", or in this case "Abnakis to Abnakis".
Are Indians and Non-Indians doing the SAME WORK paid at different rates? Or are Indian translators paid less than Non-Indian Executives?

As usual, from his prospective of two and a half centuries, Peter Porcupine is correct.
In 1950 each U.S. households paid for an average of one and a quarter newspapers each day, many families reading both a morning and afternoon edition. That "penetration" has dropped to half the U.S. households now buying one a day, or a 72% loss in the last fifty years.

Dear "My Two Cents", I am afriad you don't understand how blogs work;
1. I write as "Blogfather" and occasionall contribute to "MediaWatch".
2. I never write about Barnstable because I have lived in Harwich for 41 years and wouldn't presume to know enough about another town 15 miles away. CC Living and COG write on CCToday about Barnstable and control their content as well as any comments on their own blogs.
3. I haven't the foggiest idea of what you mean by "You did NO ONE any favors by your 'assessment' of your patrons" unless to refer to the misquote in CCTimes last week where they confused my calling some commenters "idiots" and implied I referred to bloggers.
4. What does the "whackos' refer to?

Thanks for the kind words, El G, and you should coin a new phrase by changing the letters in oligarchy to OIL-garchy ;>)

To answer Porcy's question, type in your browser:
http://www.google.com.vn
which is what you get here in Viet Nam when you type in
http://www.google.com

It is not possible to use Google here without the .vn at the end.

I suggest you search both versions for the term "press freedom" in quotes & look for the subtle, but I think insignificant, differences.

Here's what I want from Jack & Eric for my 75th birthday:

As a special favor for me will you both "bury the hatchet", but not in each other?!?!

Please recall the Arab adage, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and stop bickering at each other & turn your attentions back to matters affecting us all - a task you both have been performing with great skill.

For the sake of our site, let the above comments be the last ones attacking each other. It only serves our adversaries.

Fellas & girls, I am really touched.
But how do I get into this white slavery racket, anyway?

Wally the B

Now, now, children, you mustn't squabble whilst your BlogFather is away. If Emily Dooley, the CCTimes' enterprise reporter, (862-1163, edooley@capecodonline.com) wishes to speak with me I'm sure she'll await my return in a week of email me as I'm online whenever we hit a wired hotel. In my absence she's smart enough to call the President of eCape.com and head honcho of cctoday, my daughter-in-law Julie Brooks ( 385-0003, jbrooks@eCape.com) who is responsible for this site and all our others as well.

OOOOPPPS - I wrote too soon. I just checked my email here at the Caravelle Hotel in Saigon and Emily has attempted to contact me a half day ago, hours before this "post" went online.

So rest easy, bloggeros, MS Dolley and I gabbed for an hour and her story (after she talks to Julie) will be as well written and as accuate as all her others. wb

The photo is untouched, and shot through a thick, rain-spattered window, and Peter is correct about the French. Thanks for your good wishes, and this country seems much freer than China. They even have mobs of worshipers at a weeping statue of the Virgin Mary in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Saigon.

I await the opening of Disney Danang where the featured rodent will be Ho Chi Minny Mouse
;>)

Gee, Porky, Matt Drudge? Not Arianna Huffington whom I much prefer, but thanks anyhow ;>)

George Steinbrenner was a classmate of mine at Culver Military Academy. I was in Infantry Company C, but George's parent paid extra to have him a member of the Cavalry and the Black Horse Troop which marched at every Presidential inauguation, especially Republican ones.

Steinbrenner was as big a [censored] then as he is today.