Chip's Blog

As the ongoing saga of Boston Firefighter (folks, it brings bile to my throat to type that, trust me.) Arroyo unfolds, and the public perception of both firefighters in general, and the Jakes on the Boston Fire Department goes down the "crapper", I want to take a minute to tell a story of a guy who didn't take disability.

In 1996, as part of my duties as Fire Chief in my community (I admit, not the worst of those duties....) I had the pleasure of going to Ocala, Fla to attend what is called a "pre-build conference" for an engine we were purchasing from Emergency One.  At the time that I was there, three guys from the Boston Fire Department were also there, working out the final spec's for two engines a ladder and a lighting truck.  Needless to say, we are significantly smaller than the BFD!!!  One of these guys was Kevin Flynn, Head of Maintenance and the brother of Mayor Flynn, the second was a retired Lieutenant who was expert in fire apparatus design and a consultant to Commissioner Stapleton, and a Captain named Hugh Duffy.  Although we worked in seperate rooms, and fought fires in substantially seperate worlds, we dined in the same restaurants, and this old chief became a real fan of Hugh Duffy.  We never stayed in contact, but his story I'llo never forget.

At the first dinner we attended together, he invited me to join him in the hot tub the subsequent morning at 6 AM.  He said it was part of his "rehab" and I willingly agreed.  Now folks, understand that, although this was Florida, it was winter there, and the dawn temperatures were close to frost levels...but we were firefighters...we were men.

When I met Hugh at the hot tub, I asked him about why he was "rehabbing".  He told the following story.  About a year previously, he had been Captain of the House in Brighton.  A fire had come in for a residenttial structure and he was supervising the interior crews who were face to face with a bigtime fire, inside the building.  An unexpected (duh) floor collapse occurred, and he, and another firefighter fell through the floor into the basement.  The other firefighter was a rookie that Captain Duffy was keeping close for his protection.  Both of the men were trapped in the basement.  Hugh told me that the rookie was holding on to his boot, obviously frightenened.  Hugh's back was seriously injured in the fall, and a burning timber was laying on his shoulder.  The scars from the full thickness burn were evident on his shoulders as we sat there.  He couldn't move; he couldn't get out; they were trapped and he was being serioiusly burned.  He never said it, but I know he thought his number was up.  I would have.

Into that basement came a mutual aid crew from Brookline, pouring water on the burning timbers.  Hugh jokingly told of the rookie yelling, "Hey you're gonna drown us!!!"  And the Brookline Jake yelling back, "Do you want to "freakin" (I translate here!!) drown or do you want to "freakin" burn to death?"  Hugh laughingly said, "My rookie didn't say another word till they took us out."

Saved from almost certain death, Captain Duffy spent the next year on extended sick leave, rehabbing himself.  Commissioner Stapleton put him on administrative duty when he was well enough, and was trying to convince him to stay there.  Hugh wanted back "on a company".

When I last heard about Hugh Duffy, he was running "Moon Island", the Boston Fire Department Training Facility.  You see, ladies and gentlemen, the Boston Fire Department, like every other in this Commonwealth, wants more Hugh Duffy's.  None of them want Firefighter Arroyo.

And my request....when you think of the Boston Fire Department, think Hugh Duffy...think Stevie Minehan...please don't think of Arroyo.  He just ain't a "good Jake".

As a retired Fire Chief, I'd like to weigh in on the recent reports coming out of the Boston Fire Department, regarding the fact that Firefighter Arroyo was granted a full disability retirement on the eve of his bodybuilding competition.

Listen, folks, I agree with the Mayor, the commissioner, and the vast majority of the general public that this is a flagrant abuse of the retirement system.  No doubt about it.  I, like VB Goudie, think Ed Kelly, President of the Boston Firefighters Local, should have stepped forward already and distanced his rank and file from actions like this.  In fact, I am even more upset than the Morning News crew was.  This is not the retirement of a firefighter from Boston Rescue 1, nor is it from Engine 33 or Ladder 15.  This is not a man required to throw ladders or "hump hose", run into burning buildings at mortal risk and save innocent citizens.  This guy was retired from being an Inspector.  The heaviest thing he lifted (other than his musclebound ass out of the car) is a freakin' pencil!!!  Curl that, Barbell-boi!!!

But I want to go beyond the rhetoric being spewed by the Menino Administration.  Ya see, they are using this as a bargaining tool against the union who has been working without contract for two years.  And, they are using this in a duplicitous way.  My question: Is this the simple egregious abuse of one firefighter, or is it the failing of the City's Retirement Board?  Does responsibility fall on the Mayor for not reforming his retirement board, or on the firefighters for one of their member's actions?  Isn't the answer to that obvious?

Although I feel it is the absolute responsibility of every firefighter, individually, to work as long and as hard as he/she can, I am more offended by the policy set by the City that would allow this to occur.  Why isn't the Mayor calling for the firing of the whole Retirement Board?  Precedent has been set, and practice is in place that would allow this man to be retired LOD...Sad, Sad Sad.  And...there are light duty jobs available for the injured to do, in Inspectional Services.  A little training...voila...enthusiastic Inspector.  For the love of God, a person in a wheelchair could do that job, if the City purchased one wheel chair vehicle for the Inspector to drive, with all the handicapped accessible buildings that need routine fire insptection.

So...Let's take umbrage at this, but let's make sure our "aim" is deadly.  Sure..."shoot" Arroyo...I'm good with that.  But don't stop there.  It's the Retirement Board, stoopid!!!

At a time when we, in the bordering State of Massachusetts, are both mourning the death of Brooke Bennett at the hands of a multiply convicted, Level 3 classified, child predator from Randolph, Vermont, and expressing our umbrage at the fact we don't have, nor does Vermont have, a death penalty to deal with this.....words fail me...or civil ones at least....so-called human being.

And yet, at the very same time, our State Legislature has before it, yet to be heard, Jessica's Law, so named for Jessica Marie Lunsford, who was raped and murdered by a multiply convicted, Level 3 classified child predator, John Couey.  Jessica's Law, as passed in her native State of Florida, provides for a minimum 25 year sentence for a first time offender.  It has subsequently been passed by 41 other states, leaving only Massachusetts and seven others who have not passed it.

Here you have it folks, tougher sentences for child predators.  Why, you ask, hasn't it passed here?  Quite simply, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Eugene O'Flaherty (D-Boston) refuses to release it from committee.  He is, however, not alone.  Martha Coakley, our esteemed Attorney General, has termed it unenforceable, and has suggested, like the other butthead O'Flaherty, that it infringes on attorneys' and judges ability to plea bargain.

Well, duh, why do you think it is passed? It is designed to limit plea bargains and sentence reductions.  It is designed, instead, to protect children from the selfsame people who would molest and murder them just like that mutt Jacques did Brooke Bennett.  DUH!!!!!

Instead, Coakley, in her inimitable wisdom, has suggested a watered down version...watering down the protection of children from rape....

"Less-ica's Law"....not acceptable in 42 or our 50 states...not acceptable here.

And here we are debating...bemoaning...our lack of a death penalty.  May God have mercy on the Commonwealth.

As is my style here, I am going to re-visit an issue, but look at it from a slightly different perspective.  The death of Brooke Bennett in a small Vermont town, and the circumstances of her death, along with some of the debate cry out for a different perspective.

It is doubtful that this unfortunate young lady did not die at the hands of her pedophile uncle.  It is aslo equally as doubtful that her ex-stepfather didn't have a hand in both her potential victimization, and in her death.  These facts alone are sufficient to bring up the lunch of the toughest of folks....

But the debate has moved to the parents...to the mother.  The more than reasonable question that is being asked is : Where was the mother?  Where were the parents?  These are excellent questions looking at this from the "parental responsibility" perspective.  Anyone who has read any of my threads knows I'm a big "personal" and "parental responsibility" person.

Folks, that is insufficient in this case.  You can line up a hundred folks to tell me she should have known and I'll say back to them:  She DID know!  It is just humanly impossible to have a Level 3 classified (more than one convictions folks...more than one...) brother (brother in law?) who is a pedophile, and an ex-husband who aided him in his perverse criminal activities, without knowing.  Please don't offer that option.  It only helps the pedophiles.

Look at the house.  A 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath center entrance colonial with a two car attached garage?  New Construction?  No other houses to be seen in the news footage?  Puh-lease.  How did he afford that?  Level 3 sex offenders can't get a job flippin' burgers at the local Mickey D's, to say nothing of having the wherewithall to live in a house as big as mine!!!  Puh-lease.

Here's the sad truth.  What you have seen is the tip of the pedophilic iceberg in Randolph, Vermont.  This "ring" was large, and profitable.  And this mother knew about it.  You see, she is a "perv magnet".  She is around them, and they are around her.  She was involved sexually with at least one of them (her ex-husband) and God knows how many else.  She knew.

So let's stop making excuses.  Let's stop asking questions that are completely relevant in other situations, but are grossly naive here.  Let's acknowledge that where perverts exist, so do pervert magnets.  And, let's hold them equally responsible.  We need to do two things:

1.  We need to broaden our perspective on accountability where child sexual abuse is concerned.  We need to hold those, who are likely spectators, equally as responsible as the perpetrators.  Legally responsible.

2.  And, we need to develop a technology that can cure people of pedophilic urges.  We need to invest as much money and time and emotion as we have to finding the cures for cancer or AIDS.

When all is said and done in Randolph, Vermont, we're going to find many many more perpetrators, and more victims...many many more victims.  My guess?  Mom was a victim at some point in her life...Not an excuse...an observation.

I have been reading here (truth be told, looking forward to the journalism of Ted Daniel and Bob Ward...and I'm betting our new blogger Lynn has alot to do with the quality of journalism I've seen!!) about the Neil Entwhistle trial.

What is striking, beyond the absolute morally bereft actions that took the lives of a Mother and her infant child, is the frequency of references to "the OJ verdict".  I half liken this to the phenomenon we experienced (and still do to some extent) after the Blizzard of 78, when, every time snow was predicted, store shelves magically emptied in the bread and milk departments, almost instantaneously!!

Did the verdict in the OJ murder trial so jade our perceptions of jury process that we now view every trial and every jury through this optic?  Did our perceptions of the actions of one jury cloud the public perception of our system, a beautiful system, that protects both the public from crime, and law abiding citizens from unwarranted legal consequences?  Was that jury even wrong, or was an investigation mishandled by over zealous detectives?

Whatever the explanation, it has affected us.  It has affected our perceptions.  In the Millenium, no hurdle lives without a diagnosis!  Post OJ Stress Disorder 

I think we need, as individuals, to go back to trusting our wonderful system of legal safeguards.  Judgement by a jury of our peers.  I want to believe...I will believe, dammit...that a slow verdict is a measure of a thoughtful jury, not a bad verdict.  A woman and an infant are dead and, boys and girls, that truly sucks.

But won't it suck more if with them dies the belief in the most beautifully designed judicial system on our planet?

What I'm going to write will irritate some folks.  I don't mean to be insensitive, nor do I mean to be uncaring.  Quite to the contrary, I mean to be kind...kind to the children of the future.

That being said, the recent story out of Gloucester has caused me to rethink how we, as a society, have gotten to the point that 17 girls, from 17 families in one community could have such a cavalier attitude toward parenting, and toward the future of children.  How, in the Name of God, have we gotten here?  This is not a story of a "bad family" or a "bad school" or a "bad community."  This is the story of a "bad policy" put into place with good intentions.

Our present welfare policy is failed, ladies and gentlemen.  It is the proximate cause of the problem in Gloucester and across the country.  By paying directly, with our tax dollars, for having babies (Aid to the Families of Dependent Children - AFDC - "Welfare"), we have created what has become the largest cottage industry in the country, having children and collecting AFDC to support them.  And with that industry, we are supporting the destruction of the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and the potential demise of our society as we know it.

Here's the math:  to make AFDC work, a woman has to have 4 children.  Then, a single mother can afford an apartment (Section 8) and have enough money for a nice car.  She can afford babysitting (subsidized daycare) and can buy jewelry and have her nails done professionally.  Unfortuantely, that causes a generational problem.  One lifetime (important word here, I'm not referring to those respectable women who find themselves pregnant, by mistake and use AFDC as a springboard to self sufficiency) AFDC recipient becomes 4 teenagers who have no working role model, nor a parent who understnad show to get a job and be successful.  Those 4 become 16 in the next generation and 256 in the third.....even if a modest number of these children "make it" by learning sefl sufficiency outside their own families, we still have a logarithmic crisis.

Do we want to do this?  I doubt it.  Is this kind to children?  I don't think so.  Is our goal to create foolish and unsuccessful children and adults?  Not likely. But we are.

What we need to do is think of children first;  we need to place the happiness  and, more so, the convenience of, parents a distant second.  We need to expect that each child will have a parent (preferably two) who is an excellent role model.  One of the minimal standards of being an excellent parent is holding down a job and supporting yourself and your children.  Any less is unacceptable.

At the same time as we have this crisis...the crisis I call "Childbirth as a Cottage Industry"....we have another.  We have thousands of couples who are childless.  Childlessness is the result of many factors, but we have "a gazillion" successful folks who are importing third world babies so that they can be parents.

What would happen if we time-limited AFDC?  What would happen if we made having employment (one parent) be a minimal standard of being a parent?  What if we set in motion a child welfare policy that took from parents their parental rights if one parent wasn't supporting his/her child?

Wouldn't both children and society be better off?

As I watched the news this morning, I was hit with the images of a fire on the pier in Boston.  Alarms were struck overnight, seven of them, for a fire at the James Hook Lobster Co. at the corner of Atlantic and Northern Aves.  As I watched all the raised ladders and flowing ladder pipes, I harkened back to a day in June in 1994.  Nine alrams were struck that day, and at the end of the day a valiant Boston Fire Lieutenant was dead.  I remember the day well, both with deep sadness and enormous pride.  I was saddened, as I have too frequently been, by the death of one of my brethren.  But I was proud, deeply proud or the tradition Lt. Stephen Minehan carried to his grave.  His was a story of bravery, sacrifice, courage and most importantly loyalty.

That day, fire crews were summoned to a stubborn blaze on the pier in Charlestown.  A vacant warehouse was on fire.  It was extremely difficult to get to, since it was rally just a sturcture built on a pier.  Fire crews were sent into the building to search for occupants.  Homeless people sleep in abandoned warehouses.  They did in Worcester in 1999, too.  Six of my brethren died that night....

When no occupants were found, fire operations continued inside the burning building because it was extremely difficult to fight it from outside, due to the fact that it was on the pier.  As fire conditions deteriorated, two Boston Jakes became trapped in the building.  Due to intense smoke conditions, firefighters Terrence Jones and Darrell Johnson were trapped in the building.  On arrival, crews for Boston  Ladder 15 from the Prudential Center station were sent into the building to search for and rescue the two trapped firefighters.  Both men were rescued. As an aside, both of these firefighters were black. The Lieutenant who commanded Ladder 15 died saving his brethren.  For the record, Stevie Minehan was a white Irish Catholic kid from Dorchester.  In the fire service, neither race nor gender affects loyalty...not one iota.  Stevie Minehan proved that.

As we discuss issues like pensions and sick time.  As we discuss issues like drug and alcohol use and testing.  As we discuss union contracts and pay rates, let us remember this: The images we see on our television of fire crews in action are the faces of courage and dedication.  They are the faces of commitment and loyalty.

Their dedication is to each other and to you.  Their courage and loyalty have no racial or ethnic bounds and do not factor in socio-economics.  Be angry with the system if you will; I certainly am.  But don't be angry with the men and women who show up every day for you.

After listening, not too happily I might add, to the debate on teen pregnancy and the clinic at Gloucester High, I felt compelled to give a more comprehensive opinion.  I simply do not believe that teen pregnancy is caused, or cured, by disseminating birth control in schools.

Three decades ago, we began a policy of compassion, in an attempt to do away with poverty.  With noble national aspirations, we embarked on a welfare policy that has grown to gargantuan proportions today.  It was noble, and it was caring.  No child should be left hungry, and no mother should be left unable to care for her child.  No person should be left without income to support his/her family, and no family should feel the keen pain of economic hardship.  We designed, with these principles, the Welfare System we know today.

Unfortunately, in the process of loving our fellow man, we missed one important point.  It is the direct consequences of our behavior, both good and bad, that shapes that our behavior.  In our zeal to be kind, we built a system that robs people of the most important building block of human learning....consequences.

Now, we have an epidemic of teen pregnancy.  We "need" to have birth control immediately available (no consequences).  We need to have clincis in our schools (no consequences).  We have a day care center (no consequences).  We NEED these things, because parents aren't stepping up to the plate (no consequences).

Folks, all the birth control pills on the planet will not cure this epidemic.  Why's that, you ask?  Because it is not an epidemic of teen pregnancy.  It is an epidemic of poor behavioral control, created by a well intentined, yet tragically flawed, Welfare philosophy that robs our children, as it robbed their parents, of the most precious thing in life, a firm understanding of what makes you successful, and what makes you a failure, based on the direct consequences of what you do.

Yesterday, Massachusetts passed the most watered down version of "Jessica's Law" in the country.  We now have the weakest penalties for child rape in the country....great.  If the reports are true, this bill actually LESSENS some penalties for child rapists.  did you know that Massachusetts was the last state to pass a Sex Offender Registry statute?

Then I watch Martha Coakley, the Attorney General of the Commonwealth, at a podium saying it is hard on perpetrators who use weapons in the commission of child rape.  Weapons in the commission of child rape...  The most prevalent weapon used in child rape is candy for God sake.  Our most senior law enforcement officer in the commonwealth is handing us this drivel.

If you were a child molester, where would YOU settle?  Where would you chose to live?  The price just went down at the freakin' candy store...

Then, I listen to Mike Beaudet report that there are no less than 400 people who have warrants for their arrest for felonies and misdemeanors are receiving direct cash assistance from the Department of Transitional Assistance, and 2500 are receiving food stamps.  Good Lord have Mercy....Now we're paying them to live here?

Massachusetts is simply a Maggot Magnet....

This evening God looked favorably on our family and took our son to Boston with his girlfriend's father, and our daughter to a friend's house overnight.  I called my wife and we decided to meet at the restaurant in town for dinner.  After dropping off our daughter, I got to the restaurant considerably earlier than she would be arriving.  I went in the lounge, sat by the fire and ordered a Diet Coke.  At the table in front of me were two people in uniform, a man and a woman.  I drank my Coke, watched people and a bit of the sports on the TV.

The woman in front of me got up, leavng the man in uniform (BDU's).  I tried to see his rank insignia.  They've put it in a different place since my days....and saw "three up and three down".  But I saw something else.  In my usual forward way, I asked him, "Is that a diamond stuck in there?"  He smiled and said, "Yes it is.  You have previous service?"  I acknowledged I had " a hundred years ago", and told him it was along time since I had been in the presence of a "Sar-Major"..  He pointed out that, in fact I had been in the presence of TWO!!

"My wife has something in the middle of hers too." he said.  Being my usual fresh self, I said, "So who's the boss?"  "She is." he said.  I smiled and said, "Back in the day, it was if the boss was a Major or a Lt. Col...."  He said, "No, she's really the boss."

When she returned, I looked at her insignia...it held a STAR in its center.  I was now in the presence of both a Sergeant Major AND a Command Sergeant Major.  She indeed WAS the boss....and the highest ranking enlisted person in the United States Army.

They introduced themselves, and as we were exchanging pleasantries, their bill was brought over by the waitress.  I grabbed it and said I'd buy them dinner.  Both protested. "Sir, you don't have to do that."  "I know I don't.  I want to; it is my privelege, not my duty."

"I want you to understand how deeply appreciative I am for what you are doing for my family.  I ask only one thing in return.  Please tell your troops that we love them, and appreciate what they are doing for us.  And let them know an "old guy" wants them to know this because they are beginning to read in the papers things he used to read so many years ago."

"Yes sir.  We don't learn from history well, do we?  I'll tell them that.  They will appreciate it."

They thanked me and said they hoped to see me again in that restaruant...they were from he next town.  When my wife arrived, I told her the story.  When I said I bought their dinner, her smile couldn't have been more radiant.  "Good"  I was proud of my wife, and proud of my country....and I'm still shaking my head....I need to catch up...

She was the boss....

I have been following closely the story out of Bridgewater regarding the Level 3 sex offender who was fired after a woman informed the manager of his status.  As a mental health professional, I am keenly aware of a few things.  First off, the treatment of sex offenders is difficult.  There is a growing "technology" of treatment tools.  However, these tools are not as effective as many others we have.  However, the notion that sexual deviance is totally untreatable is outdated.  Secondly, the "Sex Offender Registry" and its public activities have been put into place to allow individuals access to the identity of certain sex offenders who pose a risk of re-offense.  It is designed to be used by individuals to use knowledge to protect themselves and their families from potential predators.  Thirdly, the "Registry" expressly is not allowed to be used to otherwise lower the quality of life for sex offenders who are released from prison after completing their sentences.

But beyond these facts, there are others that have to do with protecting the public from sexually based offenses.  Let me give you a few facts culled from pertinant empirical research.  There are behavioral and social predictors to re-offense.  What does that mean?  It means that there are certain things that, if a sex offender doesn't deal with, he is dramatically more apt to commit another sexually based offense.  These factors include the consumption of alcohol (extremely high risk behavior and legally presumptive evidence of high risk of re-offense), failure/resistence to seeking specialized treatment,  untreated co-morbid mental illnesses, lack of healthy social outlets, poor/inadequate housing and economic stressors.

I stressed these last three, not because they are more important than those that preceded them, but because they explain the legal uses and the illegal uses of the "Sex Offender Registry".  Essentially, the legal prohibition to using the contents of the Registry website to discriminate or create economic hardship addresses just these points.

Don't get me wrong.  I experience the outrage everyone else does over sex offenders in general and pedophiles in particular.  My heart says, "Hang 'em from the highest tree..."  But my head tells me we have to base our actions not on our hearts, not on our outrage, but on doing those things we KNOW reduce the potential for others to be harmed.

Given these facts, I ask you this:

Is a sex offender, behind the counter of McDonalds, supervised by a manager (McDonalds never runs a shift without one) more hazardous than an unemployed sex offender, living in inadequate housing, collecting money from the government?

I think the "unemployed sex offender, living in inadequate housing, collecting money from the government" is simply less visible.  And I think, based on empirical data, that less visible is more dangerous.

In this mornings New York Times, a story appeared about Duh-val Patrick's ongoing problems with the legislature in Massachusetts.  Whether of not one agrees that Duh-val is "on the ropes" (I don't...to be "on the ropes", one has to have "gotten off the canvas"...), his difficulties with the Massachusetts House raises interesting questions about Democratic Party politics, and draws into question Obama's fate were he elected.

Let me start out by telling folks that I am not a Duh-val fan.  I campaigned against him, I've been openly and consistently critical of him on the blogs, and, in the absence of dramatic change in the very near future, I believe he will become simply the worst Governor in my lifetime.  I also want to state, unequivocally, that this has nothing to do with his race, but it has everything to do with his message.  I've just never liked politicians who promise everything to everybody.  They damned near always deliever nothing to anyone...but themselves.  Duh-val is right on track toward proving me right again.

But I'm watching the response he is getting from Sal DiMasi and the House.  He's not even getting an "audience" to say nothing of a debate.  I opposed the casino plan, but was shocked it received so little debate and consideration.  His attempts to assist communities with tax burdens was shot down without a word.  We could go on.  It would be very easy for me to write this off as "dumbassed Duh-val" activity.  And I'd enjoy doing so....but for one problem.

I have come to the realization that the reception he has recieved on "the Hill" by his fellow Democrats is racist.  You see, I have been studying Democratic Party philosophy for a year now.  I have watched how Democratic Party policy, most especially "entitlements" have enslaved again minorities.  Now, I'm watching a Democratically controlled State House of Representatives not even give his ideas the time of day.  The disrespect is palpable.

Here's what I think.  I do not think the Democratic Party in Massachusetts is vastly different than the national Party.  What I'm thinking is that not only will Obama take Duh-val's words as his own, but will inherit his political fate.  He will simply be politically emasculated by the same Democratic Party leadership who is trying to serve up to Hillary the delegates and popular votes from Florida and Michigan.  And I think that is because he is black.

I have been watching a scandal brew for some time now in the community to my west.  I work in that community.  It is alleged an employee of the public school system had recently been fired for inappropriate sexual behavior with a male student.  If what has "bled out" of this brewing scandal is valid, this individual was working directly with students in the special education department.  The student, who was not a special ed student, who he "befriended" was receiving sexually oriented emails from this staff person.  The emloyee was fired and warned by the parent about further contact with his son.  It is my understanding that this man then purchased a cell phone for the boy, and was involved in sending sexually oriented explicit text messages to the youth.

Now, the cynical amounst us might say, this is despicable but certainly not at the level of being a scandal.  Inapproriate activity caught by a school district and dealt with approriately.  Inappropriate activity caught by a parent and dealt with appropriately.  Here's where the problem lies.

This man has been doing this for nearly twenty years in a small community that has known about it in the past.  He was the talk of students who are now parents.  I direct you to a letter to the editor of the local paper....and I urge you to read it in its entirety.  This letter is simply one of the most courageous acts I have witnessed in my life.

http://www.atholdailynews.com/main.asp?SectionID=9
&SubSectionID=9&ArticleID=31218&TM=22339.16

Then I ask....why isn't this a big deal in this town?  Then I ask....why did a school district hire this man when it should have been aware of the fact that he had to leave another municipal position under a cloud of suspicion?  Then I ask...why did this victim allegedly have to work so hard for his letter to even be printed?  Then I look back at the interscholastic sports event I attended last year, and remember seeing him there in an official capacity....and I ask myself...why didn't I call the Superintendant...I know him....

And then I ask...Is there  journalist out there whose mother works in this school?  But I keep going back to the question...why didn't I call?.....

I took by truck to the dealership this morning...my 4 WD was not working.  I left it there for repairs, and was offered a ride to work three towns away.  I happily agreed, and a minivan marked "Patterson Chevrolet Courtesy Van" pulled up.  I got in the passenger seat next to a young man with skin darker than mine, two earrings and a ball cap.  He asked where I was going with a thick accent.

As we politely passed the time on our drive, he mentioned the Dominican Republic.  I asked if he was Dominican, and he said yes.  Chip being Chip, I asked him how hard it was for him to come here with a green card.  He looked at me with a proud smile and said he had worked hard for 8 years ot get here.  He siad his parents had preceded him.  He spoke of loving his job and the dealership he worked for.  "They treat us like family,"  Unable to resist asking , I asked him how he felt about illegal aliens.  He became indignant.  How dare these people not follow the rules.  "How could they so disrespect America as to come without permission."  We talked about this issue for a bit.

I asked him if he intended to apply for citizenship.  He proudly told me he was and was studying now.  He then said some things that humbled me...truly and sincerely humbled me.  He went on to tallk about the opportunitites he was afforded here. He said that all you had to do was to work hard and you could get anything you wanted.  He proudly said he had a nice car and a nice apartment.  He talked of pride in the job he did as Pattersn Chevrolet's "detailer".  And he spoke with  pride of his desire to be an American citizen......

I told him he was an inspiration.  I told him that he had more appreciation for our great country than most naturally born citizens.  And I didn't say one thing I thought...because for one brief moment I was ashamed of my country.  I was ashamed for two reasons:

1.  We discriminate against folks like him...not me and maybe not you, but way too many of us.  This man IS America...in its finest form.

2.  I was ashamed that we had a Presidential candidate whose wife is not as proud of the opportunities we afford men like him.

I wanted two things...for Michelle Obama to have the honor of spending a half an hour with this young man like I did.  I would do her good.

Secondly, you can be damned sure I'll be taking my truck to Patterson for detailing when the snow is off the ground.  I will support this young man in any way I can...and be humble in my service.

"...I am proud of my country."

Michelle Obama, wife of Presidential Candidate Barack Obama on 2/19/08

Although I'm listening to the apologists, VB Goudie included, for Michelle Obama, I also know that NO ONE in a competent campaign gives an "off the cuff speech".  This was not a mis-speak by the ditzy wife of a Presidential candidate.  This is the professinally written and officially approved text of a speech given ON PURPOSE.  This is a belief held at the core of the Obama campaign.  WE DO NOT LIVE IN A COUNTRY THAT WE SHOULD BE PROUD OF.

Maybe we could list for Barack some of the things that We are proud of:

1.  Our national response to 9/11.

2.  Our role in the non-military dissolution of the Soviet Union.

3.  The fact that, in the last administration (Dubya), three minorities held top level Cabinet posts, Condy Rice, Colin Powell, and Alberto Gonzales

4.  A Constitution that has lasted 225 years and has given us incredible freedoms compared to any other country on the planet.

Anyone else want to offer their "national pride"?

Maybe we can package them and send them to Michelle....and she can have more "hope".