Northwood Progressives

Incredible doings at Selectmen's meeting

I attended a rather incredible selectmen’s meeting last night in Northwood.  I had gone to hand deliver my letter from a month ago concerning the special privileges apparently granted to one of the selectmen’s wives to use the administrative assistant’s desk while no one was in the office to oversee what she was doing.  I found out that the chair of the board (who is the gentleman I worked with for 3 years on the board) had never seen the letter, although I had received an e-mail from the wife in question responding to my inquiry.  Unfortunately I missed public comment, but I stayed to watch a disciplinary hearing which was quite the show!  I will be sending my letter again return receipt requested.

The two town employees who had disciplinary reports placed in their files by the interim town administrator had asked for the hearings and had asked for them to be in public, as is their right under the law.  This was not a happy thing for the two new selectmen, who tried to circumvent this.  Town Administrator Cady also demanded a non-public session because her reputation was, according to her, being attacked.  She was over-ruled. 

Last week Thursday the welfare director had a number of urgent invoices that had to be created.  She had statuatory requirements as to when payments must be made.  Northwood has just changed financial software and it was not yet working on her computer, which is an older model.  So she asked the administrative assistant for help, which is part of the job description of the assistant.  Ms. Leavitt suggested that Ms. Jones log onto the town administrator’s computer under her own user name and password, since the software was working on that computer.   Town Administrator Cady was out of the office. This was successful and the invoices were processed. 

When Ms. Cady tried to log onto her computer the next  morning she was unable to log in.  Why this was is a mystery, and it was suggested it might have something to do with not understand computer networks and the process of logging on under your own user id and password.  Eventually she was assisted to log on by the town’s computer support company.  I believe I heard that the problem had something to do with using upper or lower case letters, or some other problem of that sort.  However,  the result was that two employees were written up for denying her access to her computer, the administrative assistant and the accounting technician . 

Ms. Cady apparently went to the home of the accounting technician and, according to a complaint filed with the Northwood police, pounded on Ms. Garrett’s door and yelled and screamed at her because she could not access her computer Friday morning. 

Both employees presented their side of the case and requested that the disciplinary letters be removed from their files and all copies destroyed.  Perhaps the most interesting part of the exchange was a comment from Mr. Witham that this was all very conveniently timed, because the board was due to discuss the resume’s they had received for the permanent town administrator position.  He seemed to be accusing the employees of staging this to make Ms. Cady look incompetent, although he perhaps thought better of it and did not pursue this.  Ms. Leavitt, the administrative assistant,s pointed out that the discussion was not listed on the agenda for the meeting and that she had no knowledge of it.  It does seem a bit hard to imagine that the entire  episode was timed to exactly coincide with the rev iew of resumes for the position. 

The board has ten days to decide on the requests of the employees.  They will meet again on Monday, July 17th, at 7 pm to make their decision.

We don't need no stinkin primary!

Link: Union Leader - Taking no chances: Democrat bosses choose for NH dolts - Sunday, Jun. 4, 2006.

"WE’RE NOT taking chances leaving it to Sept. 12 to find out who our nominee is.”

So says a member of the national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, explaining that the group has anointed state Rep. Jim Craig of Manchester as the party’s candidate for Congress in the First District.

It so happens that Sept. 12 is the date Democrats, and Republicans, are supposed to hold primaries to see whom the voters in their respective parties might like to choose as their nominees. But that apparently won’t be necessary, now that Ms. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (she is a Florida congressman) and her committee have determined a winner.

Taking a shower in Iraq

Link: AP Blog: the Story of Iraq, Told in One Day - Yahoo! News.

The music selection on the Iraqi stations gets boring after a while. Time to see if the water has returned. A weak flow emerges from the shower head. I move fast. Grab the soap, grab the shampoo. But the bathroom has no light -- the electricity is still off. Pills, deodorant and razor all careen off the sink as my hands thrash about in the darkness in search of the soap.

Showers in Baghdad aren't a leisurely excess. They must be taken fast, just the basics. No time to stand there, feeling the warm water streaming down your back. This morning, there is no hot water. It's not freezing cold, but too cool for comfort, even in the morning heat. And water supplies are uncertain. They could switch off at any time. It's pitch dark, but at my age, I know where the body parts are anyway.

Be like a really cheap pen

It's not a typo, it really says Bic.

Link: The Republicans DO Have Bic Ideas | TPMCafe.

Now that the conventional wisdom happens to coincide with the reality that it is the Republicans who have no Ideas, don't think for a second that the Republicans aren't dealing with the problem. Yes, just like liberals, they've got their own rich internal debate about finding the deep purpose and public philosophy that will renew their political relevance.

But do they struggle with abstractions like "the common good." NO. They get down to practical things. And so today’s candidate for core conservative principle is:

Be like a really cheap pen.

George's Palace

Link: In the Chaos of Iraq, One Project is on Target: a Giant US Embassy.

The question puzzles and enrages a city: how is it that the Americans cannot keep the electricity running in Baghdad for more than a couple of hours a day, yet still manage to build themselves the biggest embassy on Earth?

Irritation grows as residents deprived of air-conditioning and running water three years after the US-led invasion watch the massive US Embassy they call “George W’s palace” rising from the banks of the Tigris.

Insider's take on doings in our town

Link: NH INSIDER- Your Source for NH Politics - Chaz Proulx - Right Wing Bottom Feeders Suspend Due Process in Northwood.

This is an important story because what is now happening in Northwood has happened in dozens of NH towns when right wing bottom feeders move in for the kill.

Fun with numbers

Link: You know how to add, don't you? - Los Angeles Times.

I Was working late in my D.C. office. I'd been running some new simulations on my macro-model, but nothing was converging, so I figured I'd close up my spreadsheet and find a corner in some dark speak-easy to lick my wounds.

That's when she walked in.

Where have I been?

Where have I been?  Well, I have been busy working on a website for local Democrats, and watching my town being taken over by the right wing.  The local Democrats site is www.lampreydems.org.  You can read about my poor town here .  And you can read about a candidate I am working for here .

New and Improved Outsourced Domestic Spying

For some reason this makes me angry!

Link: The Next Hurrah: New and Improved Outsourced Domestic Spying.

So let me connect the dots here. Republican legislators have set up this nifty scheme, whereby their buddies ply them with golf trips, swank real estate deals, and prostitutes. In exchange for that booty, they give their buddies contracts at Defense or Homeland Security or CIA. Spying contracts. Under those spying contracts, the buddies spy on American citizens, even funny bloggers and peaceniks. And although it is known that these buddies are a little sloppy with the way they spy on American citizens, they continue to get more work.

The leaker