Looking forward to the President’s State of the Union address tonight. Remembering January 2009 and the massive gathering on the National Mall for the Inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Here’s a look at the scene by Susan Walsh, a photographer from the Associated Press (web photo courtesy of boston.com)
Town Library – Precincts 4 & 4A (photo from Town of Tewksbury website)
In a move announced by mail by the Town Clerk and sanctioned by the Board of Selectmen, some Tewksbury voters will again be moving to a new location to cast their ballots. The former Town Clerk had consolidated the voting sites to two handicapped-accessible sites – the new Senior Center on Chandler Street and the fairly new Public Library also on Chandler Street but adjacent to Route 38. It was a move that proved to be controversial with some and did see a bit of a log-jam with snow piles and an outpouring of voters for the special election for the U. S. Senate back in January, 2010.
Tewksbury Senior Center – Precincts 1 & 2 (photo from the Tewksbury Patch)
In an information sheet tucked into the 2012 Census Form envelope, voters learned that Precincts 3 and 3A will be casting ballots at the Lowell Assembly of God Church on Andover Street/Rte. 133 and Precincts 2 and 2A will vote at the Recreation Center on Livingston Street. Added to the Clerk’s voter information notice - with redistricting at the most local level completed – was a list of fifty streets that have precinct changes.
Tewksbury residents and registered voters need to carefully check the Census mailer for this important information. Also, mail back the Census form ASAP.
Recreation Center – Precincts 2 & 2A (photo from the Tewksbury Patch)
Lowell Assembly of God Church – Precincts 3 & 3A (photo from church website)
Election 2012, Greater Lowell, History, Politics | 
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What about that Gingrich win? Read this from the Red State blog, courtesy of realclearpolitics.com.
And don’t you think it’s strange that the national GOP got tagged with the “red” label, given all the anti-socialist talk coming from those megaphones? Which art director at which national TV network first decided to color code the electoral maps red and blue—and did he or she ever get credit for that sorting decision?
Current Events, Election 2012, History, Lowell | No Comments »
I don’t know why I’ve been watching as much TV news coverage of the Republican Party contest for the presidential nomination. I avoid Fox, but even on CNN and MSNBC and what we used to call the “network news” the reporting is staggeringly shallow.
All the talk today, and this extends to public radio broadcasting, was about Newt’s “fury” last night in batting back a question from the debate moderator when John King of CNN asked Newt to respond to his ex-wife’s statements about their marriage or lack thereof. This was considered the top story of the day and the indignant reply was supposed to demonstrate Newt’s power as a political figure, I guess. It was good theater if you like that kind of thing. More interesting to me has been the red-meat audiences in the GOP debate halls this week. It was like the Orcs in “The Lord of the Rings” saying the Age of Men (read: Romneyites) is over. King, himself, was an embarrassment to the profession as he sat and took the tongue-lashing without pressing his right to question Gingrich on this “values” issue. Consider the difference in the following encounter between CBS newsman Dan Rather and President Richard Nixon during the tumultuous 1970s:
Because of his aggressiveness and effectiveness as a reporter, Rather was not well-liked in the Nixon White house. He was a controversial figure for television viewers, as well. News watchers either loved him or hated him, depending on which side of the political fence they sat. During this period, Rather made news himself thanks to an exchange he had with Nixon during a press conference at a National Association of Broadcasters convention in Houston. When Rather rose to ask a question, colleagues spontaneously reacted by either applauding or booing him. The surprising display caused Nixon to ask him, “Are you running for something?” Rather quickly replied, “No, sir, Mr. President. Are you?” Many saw that as a demonstration of inexcusable arrogance. CBS even considered firing Rather. (Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/dan-rather#ixzz1k3VrDjRn)
The reporting on Stephen Colbert’s mock rally in South Carolina that was somehow linked to the disgraced but chuckling Herman Cain took the whole business over the absurd cliff. One broadcaster said the 3,000 people in Colbert’s crowd was bigger than he had seen for any of the actual candidates. This is what we get in a democratic republic. It’s a free-for-all. That’s OK, but I still expect the “press” or “media” to do the reality check and sort out fact from fiction. Too often it seems that the political reporters are simply paraphrasing what has been said. Even commentary programs like Chris Matthews’ daily grill spend too much time on distractions. They show up for the show instead of revealing an alternative narrative that might explain why the voters are either satisfied or not with what is going on. They accept the unreality that Trump and Cain and Gingrich represent as fuel for the fire that they want to keep us watching. I’m not happy that they get me over and over when I should know better.
Elizabeth Warren in Lowell, November 2011
In the January/February edition of Mother Jones Magazine, writer Tim Murphy talks about the revenge of Wall Street and its target Elizabeth Warren and her campaign for the U. S. Senate in Massachusetts. For her sin of taking on the banks, Warren is unrepentant and unbowed by the attack-mode and notes:
“I’ve gone toe-to-toe with some of the most powerful corporations out there in this country,” she says. “Toe-to-toe with the largest financial institutions. And toe-to-toe with people in our own government.” She pauses for effect and gives the table a light rap with her fist. “I don’t plan to stop. Ever.”
Read the full article here at motherjones.com.
With Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. being remembered tomorrow in a special way across the nation, I went back to a prose poem written after a family visit to Washington, D.C., in the early summer of 2004, another presidential election year. We were months away from seeing Barack Obama make news with a speech at the Democratic Party’s convention in Boston, and the extraordinary memorial for Dr. King was yet to be installed on the National Mall. — PM
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Checking the Property
My nine-year-old son says, “I’m going to read the ‘Gettysburg Address’”—on the other side is the lesser-known second inaugural speech. What’s the Lincoln shorthand? Freed the slaves; saved the union. People crowd the marble steps at dusk. A sign asks for silence. When he sees my wife lining up a snapshot, a guy in a straw cowboy hat offers to take a picture of my brother’s family, my wife, son, and me in the glow of the civic temple. Climbing the steps, I caught sight of the figure set behind the columns, and then lost him because of the steep ascent, only to come upon the sculpture again near the top, where visitors gaze at the huge seated president, whose massive square-toed boot juts out, looking as if it could kick Jeff Davis’ football the length of the Reflecting Pool and onto the white spike of the Washington Monument, which, in the after-supper hour reflects sun along its narrow western face, a mighty glo-stik on the national common, a staunch obelisk, a big white numeral standing for the first president, who set the constitutional republic in motion, the stone blocks a different shade on the top half, marking a stop in work and resumption, the monument telling its own story, one in which protesters rolled cut stones into the drink, foreshadowing later protests and rallies and comings together, like the 1963 March on Washington that brought Martin Luther King to these same steps to declare his dream of a nation at last free for all, the same steps where Joan Baez and Bob Dylan sang for justice and where Dylan returned to sing for Bill Clinton’s booming inaugural, the same steps movie-land Vietnam vet Forrest Gump spoke from and from which he spotted his life-long love and source of ache splashing toward him, the same pool in which the spaceship crashed in the Planet of the Apes remake, this electric stretch of public land without timber or copper, a wide open space in which to make a verb of America—to recall and celebrate and to do democratic research and development in this red clay-lined lab, bordered and crowded with evidence of the ongoing experiment, and bearing key formulas and equations inscribed in stone.
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—Paul Marion (c) 2004
Culture, Election 2012, History, Lowell, Poetry | No Comments »
From truth-out.org, I picked up news that Bill Moyers has a new TV program. He keeps coming back, I think, because nobody else has figured out how to do the kinds of shows he is so well known for, mixing high-minded thinking, compassionate political ideas, and entertaining broadcast methods. Read about his new show here.
Writing quite moderately about Mitt Romney today, NYTimes opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof reviews past charges of flip-flopping candidates and reminds of us of Paul Tsongas calling Bill Clinton “a pander bear” in 1992—there are photos of Paul holding up a stuffed panda bear at campaign rallies. I don’t know who came up with the panda bear thing, but it stuck for a while and is remembered. Read Kristof here, and get the NYT if you want more.
Iowa, Iowa, Iowa…”Iowa” is the word you hear the most on TV, radio and political blogs these days. Why? because on January 3 (this Tuesday) both the Republican and Democratic Parties will “caucus” in Iowa. Many, like me, go around pretending we know how a caucus works, but really have little clue about the specifics. ABC News produced a video explaining simply the Iowa Caucus procedure. I’ve posted it below.
Those of you politicos who thrive on cross-boarder trips into New Hampshire during the presidential political season – might be interested in a Forum on the Future presentation scheduled for January 9, 2012 at the NH Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, NH.
The discussion - “Renewing America’s Political Culture” - will be held on the Monday morning before the first-in-the-nation primary. It features keynote speaker David Gergen – CNN senior political analyst and director of Harvard Kennedy School – joined by New Hampshire’s two U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Kelly Ayotte – making brief remarks as part of the Forum on the Future.
Registration is $25 and checks should be submitted to NHCUC at 3 Barrell Court, Suite 100, Concord, NH 03301. To register for the forum online or to find out more about the event and the series visit the site: http://www.nhfuture.org/invitation.asp.
Current Events, Election 2012, Greater Lowell, Politics | No Comments »
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