Thursday, November 10, 2011

It's time for an apology Jim!

     Recently Jordan Levy interviewd Congressman Jim McGovern (a.k.a. McGivern) and former Marine Captain Matthew Hoh about our involvement in Afghanistan about the need to end that war. I was looking forward to hearing the Congressman since it appears likely he will be my Rep after the re-districting, (A.k.a. The Democrat Party Gerrymandering Project), takes place here in MA. From a distance, in a political sense, I had heard of Jim McGivern and his liberal leanings but to actually hear the vitriol live on the radio was something else.
     Jim McGivern wants us out of Afghanistan which is something I agree with him on. It is his rationale and premises for doing so I have big problems with. He told the listening audience over two thousand American soldiers had been killed and over fourteen thousand have been wounded in the ten years of war there. Harsh numbers, no doubt, and reason enough to pay attention. Then, incredibly, Congressman McGivern asked rhetorically how the families of those soldiers feel about their loved ones being sacrificed for nothing. He explained Al-Qaeda is no longer in Afghanistan and he said all wars can now be fought with small units without the need for major deployments. Really? Does the Congressman not understand how the Taliban and Al-Qaeda were brought to their knees? Where does he think the intelligence used by such units to go after the leadership of those groups comes from? Does he not understand how our presence there, on the ground, has leddirectly to those successes? I think the Congressman owes all of the Afghan Veterans and their families an apology for trivializing the sacrifices they made over there or here on the homefront.
     Congressman McGivern also complained about the cost of the war which is about one hundred and ten billion dollars a year. While that is a lot of money, McGivern failed to bring up the roughly two and a half trillion dollars the Obama Administration has spent, with McGivern's approval, in the past three plus years. We would have to stay in Afghanistan another twenty six years to even come close to that number! Although I agree with the idea of examining our role in Afghanistan and welcome an honest debate, my fear is the continued rhetoric from McGivern and orhers like him will only get in the way. Congressman McGivern needs to stop using the talking points provided by the DNC, recognize the job well done by the military, and work to bring this war to a satsfying end. He may find a lot of support from his constituents on both sides of the aisle if he does.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

National Grid

11 Nov 2011, 0931 hrs.

Since I saw the first snowflakes in Leicester MA on Saturday October 29, 2011, 117 hours and 29 minutes have passed. Just shy of 5 full days and still there are tens of thousands of National Grid customers here in Central MA are without power. As bad as that is, the real story must include the well over 1 million customers in 7 different states who are still praying today will be the day their power is restored. This situation is unnacceptable on any level and I welcome the news leaders like Martha Coakley and Senator Brown are going to investigate the poor preperation and response to what amounted to be a severe snowstorm. Nothing more, nothing less. As far as storms go it was much less intense as forecast due to the lack of high winds expected. So why the tremendous headaches?
There seems to be a common theme in disaster response since Hurricane Katrina whereas the agencies and companies responsible for reacting fail to prepare properly or adequately to deal with the situations which arise. In the case of New Orleans it was simple. Money earmarked for levy improvements was spent elsewhere. In the case of this latest Northeast snowstorm, utlities like National Grid failed to maintain clearances between power lines and trees. They have failed miserably to update equipment and also made the poor decision to wait for the
storm to pass before calling in more resources.
To those who wish to defend the actions of those in charge, I want to point out there are people dying now due to the prolonged outages. It cannot be denied and no amount of spin will bring those victims back. This pattern is not new. We saw it with the ice storm of 2008, the tornados of this past Spring, Hurricane Irene and other weather related episodes in the past few years. Something has got to be done to change this culture of not being prepared in the
hopes things won't get too bad. It has not worked!
As for some suggestions, maybe we should hold the executives in charge more accountable for their decisions. Maybe we should also make the utilities pay for the shelters, lost food, overtime public safety pay, gas for the generators, and funeral costs of the victims too. At the least we need to pressure our Pols To hold hearings and not let this matter drop without getting some answers and changes.