Tag Archives: current events

Local Politics Rant

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I don’t often discuss politics in my blog, but this is one local issue that I can’t get off my mind lately, so excuse me while I vent.

I grew up in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, which is about forty-five minutes north of Boston. One of the reasons my parents chose to live there was because of its good school system, and I agree that for the most part, I had a great experience in the Chelmsford public schools. I had some amazing teachers, and I feel that I was so well-prepared for college that college actually seemed easy to me. I majored in English, and none of the English classes I took at BC were as rigorous as the English classes I took at Chelmsford High. I had a terrific calculus teacher who made things so easy to understand that I wondered why anyone thought calculus was hard. I had some wonderful teachers in elementary school and middle school, too, and some of my fondest memories of high school involve extracurriculars: swim team, musical theater, treble choir, yearbook, etc.

I don’t live in Chelmsford anymore, so I don’t really follow the local news there, but this week, I read in the Globe that voters had failed to approve a property tax override that would have prevented several budget cuts. I was sad to hear that, but I had to give the voters the benefit of the doubt, since I’ve never had to pay property taxes myself. Nobody likes tax increases, and I thought that if the override had failed so decisively (3 to 2), it must have been a significant increase.

Then I found out more facts about it. Because this override failed, an elementary school will have to be closed permanently, when the schools are already getting overcrowded. Students will have to be redistricted yet again. There’ll be a $200 bus fee per child, when previously, buses were completely covered. Student activity fees will be significantly increased, which means that some kids might not be able to afford to participate in the extracurriculars I was involved in. 35 school employees will be laid off. A fire station will be closed permanently. Police officers and firefighters will be laid off. Libraries will have to cut their hours.

These are not small things. These are life-changing, property-value-diminishing, educational-quality-decreasing, threat-to-public-safety changes. The people of Chelmsford decided, through the democratic process, that several people should lose their jobs, residents should be more vulnerable to crime, homes should be more likely to be destroyed by fire, and that the town should no longer have a high-quality, enviable school system that makes people want to raise a family there. That override must have been for a hell of a lot of money, I thought.

Then I found out exactly how much. This document explains that the taxes on a home valued $370,000, which is slightly above the town average, would increase by about $200 a year.

Whoa.

Back up there.

$200 a year? $200 a year! Not a month! A year. A YEAR! $200! Not $2,000. $200! Two zeroes! Two!

Now, you all know that I have no money. The first word of my blog title is “struggling.” I recently joined a Facebook group called “I work in publishing and I’m underpaid.” Taking a vacation is a dream of mine, and God only knows when I’ll be able to afford a house. But when I can, I will most definitely be willing to spend $200 a year to help schools and town services. I’d be willing to pay that now, for God’s sake, as little money as I have!

I just don’t understand this way of thinking at all. Not wanting a tax increase when you don’t know where your tax dollars are going is one thing, but how can you see these very specific things that are going to be cut and think, “Oh, we don’t need good schools! Screw the fire department and police, I’ll take the risk and save myself $200 a year!” I get that a lot of the people voting against it are senior citizens on fixed incomes, but most of them had children in the school system in the past. How can they look at the kids in their neighborhood and feel okay about decreasing the quality of their education so that they can save $200 a year? How are that many people so selfish?

The last override in town happened seventeen years ago. I actually vaguely remember it—I was in first grade, and my parents, along with many, many others, had a bumper sticker on their car and a sign on their lawn urging people to vote yes. I was only six and had no idea what taxes were, but I remember thinking, “Well, of course people should support the schools. Why wouldn’t you?”

Seventeen years later, my thinking hasn’t changed at all. Maybe someday I’ll look back at this and think, “Oh, you stupid, idealistic twenty-three-year-old. You have no idea how the world works,” but I really don’t think so. Last year, Chelmsford was named the 21st-best place to live in America by Money magazine. Somehow, I doubt that it will happen again. And I used to think that once I was married with kids, I’d like to live there and have my kids go through the Chelmsford public schools. Unless something major changes between now and then, that’s most definitely not an option anymore.

I believe strongly in public school education. In college, I was amazed to meet so many people who had gone to private schools, since I barely knew anyone who did growing up, and I’ve never quite understood the school choice position because it doesn’t address the problem of how to fix failing schools. Education is a right, not a privilege, and the people of Chelmsford, who, according to the PowerPoint presentation on this page, spend $2,000 less per student than the state average, aren’t asking for anything extravagant. They just want a school system in the town they live in with good teachers, small class sizes, available transportation, and affordable extracurriculars. I thought most people in Chelmsford felt the same way.

But apparently, by a 3 to 2 margin, they don’t.

Have You Seen the Globe Today?

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I spent a good portion of yesterday reading the Boston Sunday Globe.

I read a piece describing, with quotes from family members, the abusive relationship a doctor who recently shot and killed her husband endured.

I read about how global warming has already caused the mosquito to evolve.

I read about how injured and traumatized veterans who live in rural areas often have trouble finding adequate care.

I read about how many other Republican presidential candidates besides Mitt Romney have “flip-flopped” on the issues.

I read about the age divide in the French elections—overwhelmingly, young people are voting for Royal and older people are voting for Sarkozy.

I read about how illiteracy is on the rise in China, and how most linguists think English isn’t losing its “universal language” status anytime soon.

I read about the issues Arab-Americans have when traveling abroad, how more flight attendants are taking self-defense training, and a café in Denver where patrons pay whatever they can afford and think is reasonable.

I read about how in California, inmates sentenced to jail for minor crimes can pay to upgrade their prison cells, and I read about how schools in Texas are adopting random steroid testing.

I read about how kids who experienced the chemical explosion in Danvers last November are describing that night in words and pictures, and I read about how professors, in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting, have to figure out where the line between creativity and disturbance is in violent student fiction.

I read about how, contrary to what Plato and others have been saying for millennia, our emotions are what make our thoughts possible.

I read about how learning how their energy use compares to their neighbors can cause people to lower their thermostats.

I read about two high school football players, one of whom came back from a stroke to have a successful season and the other of whom came back from major facial surgery.

And I read about the many movies coming out this summer.

It makes me so sad that people don’t read newspapers anymore. I have the Globe delivered and read it on the T on my way to work, and if, for some reason, I don’t read it, my day feels incomplete. My mom likes to end her Sundays in bed, propped up with pillows and reading the Globe. And that was a habit I picked up.

To me, reading a newspaper online just isn’t the same. I don’t really like TV news, particularly local news—they never focus on important stories, and most of the time they go for sensationalism. Around here, Channel 7 is a particular culprit—their headlines are all alliterated. It’s ridiculous. Random sampling of headlines from tonight: “Deadly Drive,” “Animal Attack,” “Hometown Hero,” and “Driven to Distraction.”

People my age, I think, tend to get their news from sites like cnn.com, or from The Daily Show (which I do like, but come on). But what it means is that newspapers can’t get advertisers and thus have to cut newsroom jobs. Sometimes entire departments are only one person. It’s getting harder and harder to get jobs in journalism, and I don’t see it getting better anytime soon.

But I’m sticking with my Globe. It’s a lot easier to read a newspaper on the T than a web site. I doubt I’ll ever have warm, fuzzy memories about curling up in bed to read the news on my computer. And waking up on a weekend, finding the paper outside the door, making yourself a hot chocolate and a bagel, and going out on the porch to lounge and read the news? Let me just say that if you’ve never had that experience, you don’t know what you’re missing.

What I Did on My Lunch Break Today

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You know what’s cool about working in the Back Bay?

You can swing by the gubernatorial inauguration on your lunch break.

I haven’t been voting very long, but my vote for Deval Patrick was the first time I ever really voted for someone, rather than against someone else. So even though I could neither stay very long nor see very well, I was very happy to be part of this historic occasion.

No Gray Area

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Too often, people make things that should be black-and-white into a gray area. There’s absolutely no excuse, for instance, for cheating on a significant other— but of course people continue to justify and excuse the behavior of their darling cheaters so that they can stay in relationships with people who don’t respect them enough to remain monogamous. And there’s never a single instance where rape is not a heinous, vicious crime, but some people still continue to insist that its victims “ask for it.”

And then, of course, domestic violence. It’s such a simple concept. People in relationships do not hit each other. Period.

At least, that’s the way it should be. But people stay with abusers all the time. People at all levels of society stay with violent partners—everyone from teenage mothers on welfare to wives of professional baseball players.

So while it’s not exactly news that people stay with abusive partners, this particular case of it is. While the Phillies were in town this past summer, pitcher Brett Myers was seen beating his wife Kim on the streets of Boston. But this past week, the charges were dropped. Kim didn’t want him to be prosecuted.

I have yet to decide what the most disturbing part of this is:

1. That she’s going back to a man who has no qualms about hitting her on the street in front of people, so God knows what he does to her behind closed doors

2. That the statements of the people who witnessed the incident, and who were only trying to help, can be completely disregarded because Kim told the courts, “”There’s no violence in our family. That night in Boston we had both been drinking. I was not harmed that night. I was not injured.”

3. That the Phillies actually let him pitch the day after he was arrested

4. That Brett’s comment after his arrest was, “I’m sorry it had to go public. That’s it. Of course, it’s embarrassing.” (Because, you know, it’s perfectly fine when it’s in private and you’re not surrounded by pesky reporters trying to humiliate you.)

5. That Brett and Kim Myers have two young children who are going to have to continue to grow up in a home where their dad hits their mom

I know that it’s easy to say from the outside looking in that domestic violence is unforgivable and that violent partners should get no second chances. But the truth is, people often see only what they want to see in their significant others. We overlook incompatibilities that could destroy our relationships. We tell ourselves that just because he says he doesn’t want a girlfriend doesn’t mean we can’t be the exception. We rationalize that we must have done something that led to him sleeping with that other woman—it can’t be entirely his fault.

I realize that none of these things are equivalent with spousal abuse, but think of it this way: if we keep raising our tolerance level within relationships, how long is it before we’re claiming we walked into a door again? If we can justify someone battering our feelings, how is tolerating physical abuse any different?

I’m not too familiar with the Phillies, so I don’t know how popular a player Myers was before this incident, but I sincerely hope that his fans no longer support him. I love the Red Sox (and I love the fact that Gabe Kapler and his wife, who was a victim of dating violence in a previous relationship, work to raise awareness of the dangers of domestic abuse), but I know that if I found out that one of the Sox was beating his wife, I’d hate him. I wouldn’t care if he could break the home run record or win the Cy Young Award. As a fan, I deserve better. Fans deserve players they can admire for playing well and for conducting themselves professionally on and off the field.

But I can’t get out of my head the image I saw on the news of Kim Myers leaving the courtroom. She was wearing a white pinstriped suit and looking straight ahead, her posture stiff as a board. I think she was aiming to look strong and dignified, but all I could think of was how tiny she looked next to her husband, a former amateur boxer who, according to his bio, is six-foot-four and 234 pounds.

And it’s scary to think that Kim Myers is just one of millions of women who stay with abusers. What do they think they deserve?

Belated September 11th Entry

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I was a senior in high school. It was C Block, the free period I had to work on the yearbook. I was working on the yearbook supplement for the previous class’s yearbook, the little book that covered all the events that were too late in the year to make it in the yearbook. I was picking out pictures for the page about the school musical, Man of La Mancha. My friend Sherry had her hand on the phone, about to call our yearbook advisor to ask her a question. Then the principal came over the loudspeaker. I figured he was probably going to say that someone left his or her headlights on or something. Of course, that’s not what he said.

Everyone has a memory like this. You don’t forget the moment you learned that the world would never be the same, that the security you used to feel was gone. I’m just lucky that my memories of this day don’t include the deaths of relatives or friends. Of the thousands of people dead, none were people I knew personally, although some were relatives of people I knew. I’d say I’m grateful that I didn’t lose anyone, but it’s hard to be grateful when so many others did.

On September 11th this year I donated blood at Fenway Park. There’s always a need for blood donations, but it still makes me shudder to think about the sheer number of people in need of blood five years ago.

The phrase “the war on terrorism” has always made me uneasy, because it’s not a war against a country or a group, but against a way of thinking. And when as many people as it took to pull off the September 11th attacks are zealous enough to commit crimes of this magnitude, eliminating the idea that killing thousands of innocent people is for the greater good could be impossible.

I don’t have any answers. All I can do is pray for a safer world.