Opinions and Editorials

While other parts got socked yesterday, the "home office" for Westborough.com didn't seem to get that much snow.  Here's hoping y'all did well.  

Kudos to officials for closing offices today, and a *HUGE* thanks to our hard-working DPW crew for their ceaseless efforts for our safety.

Happened across this great link from National Grid which displays power outages.  Here's a map from from 10:30 a.m. this morning:

Curious if your family or friends have any power outages?  You can get a idea of where the trouble spots are by visiting  http://www1.nationalgridus.com/masselectric/stormcenter/ for the latest status.  

The site's map is dynamic -- you can scroll and zoom it as desired -- and it's updated as new reports are received, and after services have been restored.

[the following was received as a submitted article -- webmaster]

Which Votes Will Benefit You Most?
October, 29, 2010

By Len Mead

What votes November 2nd will benefit you most? Fortunately, Dear Reader, I stand ready to guide you. And why should you listen to me? What’s my track record predicting how past votes turned out for you? Let’s look.

Two years ago most of you voted Democrat. I asserted then that frightened voters had chosen for more government to take care of them – abdicating the personal responsibility that had made our nation great. I predicted that the Democrat victory would result in more pain, more unemployment, more taxes, more regulations more debt and a recession at best – possibly worse. The current Obama Democrat regime was then imaculated.

My predictions were right. Big-time.

In the next two years, unemployment doubled. 27 million people are now unemployed – almost 20% of our workforce -- if you include the Department of Labor’s “U6” figures of marginally attached workers and those forced to work part time for economic reasons. The desperation and despair of these 27 million individuals is heartbreaking.

Ostensibly to fix this, the elected Democrat regime implemented discredited Keynesian government “stimulus” spending – most recently proven a failure by Bush’s stimulus outlays. Almost a trillion dollars of “targeted” spending went to boondoggle projects and 1-shot injections for public union payrolls. This preventing needed public sector belt-tightening. Not only did this fail to grow our economy, it left us a $14 trillion debt and our Vice President proclaiming, “Yes, we have to keep spending to get ourselves out of bankruptcy.” Duh?!

The total federal debt we and future generations now owe is $43,000 per citizen – unprecedented in history. When will we ever learn that no public figure can out-guess better than the millions of producers in the free market where best to spend the money they earn?

So far this year, our federal government spent $3.5 Trillion -- but collected only $2.1 trillion in taxes and other revenue! 40 cents of every federal dollar spent was borrowed. 40 cents of every dollar of army pay checks or social security checks now has to be borrowed. Do you run your family budget that way? Also, consider that 40 cents of each dollar paid to the 105,000 government employees of the Department of Agriculture has to be borrowed – and how many ears of corn do these employees grow?

Because our banking industry was forced by Barney Frank to make home loans to un-credit worthy people who then defaulted, the Democrats you elected stepped in with two new waves of government financial regulation – again arrogantly demonstrating the thinking that congressional votes could repeal the laws of financial supply and demand. Now personal bankruptcies, home evictions and bank failures are higher than at any time since 1929.

Businesses struggling to expand and hire workers by borrowing will now find available bank loans even more restricted because the new regulations cripple and punish bank risk-taking.

Every crisis between the election and now was used by the Democrat regime to intrude into our precious free markets with more regulations, more taxes, and outright theft. Rather than allow the free market cleansing action of bankruptcy to solve our once-great auto industry’s problems, the Obama regime used the crisis to steal the assets of auto secured bondholders and hundreds of family owned dealerships nationwide (primarily in Republican voting areas). Then the regime rewarded union votes and donations by handing the ownership keys of the auto industry over to the very unions who drove the industry into a ditch.

The best (but not perfect) healthcare in the world will be taken over with Obamacare -- a deceptive scheme with 10 years of new taxes to fund “health change” four years from now. “Romney-care” now bankrupting Massachusetts with costs 40% over estimates is showing what Obamacare will bring.

Our country is now more despised in the world than ever. The presidential “apology tours” only encouraged our enemies to spit in our face. Our borders are now over-run with criminal illegals and terrorists while our Democrat federal government refuses to protect us by enforcing immigration laws. States trying to protect their citizens by enforcing immigration laws are being sued by the elected Democrat regime.

In short, Democrat government has failed absolutely.

So now, friends -- especially you disillusioned Democrats -- you have a chance to use your precious votes to correct these frightening “changes” away from the constitutional principles upon which our country was founded.

My advice is this election is Vote Republican everywhere you can – except where the Republican either in office or running has gone over to the socialist dark side and promises to take care of YOU with more taxes, more spending and more “fairness” regulations. Amazingly, Fidel Castro just admitted, “Socialism doesn’t even work for us.”

Vote conservative, and our capitalist economy will finally roar back as taxes are cut, as unproductive jobs primarily in the public sector are cut and unrealistic spending is cut (primarily unfair promised public pensions). Businesses will start growing and productive jobs will open up once again. Your career prospects, your wealth and your family’s future opportunities will once again be bright.

Voting Democrat again will bring more failure, more misery and possibly even the destruction of our great country. Voting conservative will elect candidates who will mercifully start restoring our God-given rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Len Mead can be reached anytime at mead1720@gmail.com

I didn't realize we had previously elected Odysseus to the legislature!

(Those wanting a refresher on Greek mythology can read up here :-)

Have you heard about the move to drop MCAS standards and curriculum in favor of the national "Common Core Standards in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics".  (See previous article, below).

This issue was discussed Thursday night on the "Nightside with Dan Rea" show on WBZ, which featured a conversation with Jamie Gass, Director of the Center for School Reform, of the Pioneer Institute.

This vote to adopt these standards is not without controversy and concern.  Consider the first part of a report from Boston's Pioneer Institute, titled "National Standards Still Don’t Make the Grade - Why Massachusetts and California Must Retain Control Over Their Academic Destinies" which says (emphasis mine -- webmaster):

"In conclusion, if California and Massachusetts adopted Common Core’s standards for their own, the intellectual demands on students in the areas of language and literature would be significantly weakened. Adopting Common Core’s standards would also weaken the base of literary and cultural knowledge needed for actual college-level work now implied by each state’s current or draft standards."

Another voice expressing uncertainty in this direction is found in the BU article "Will National School Standards Dumb Down Mass.? SED prof says trade-off could be worth it to help the country".

On the other hand, the press release from the Commonwealth's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) states "Curriculum experts and educators from across the Commonwealth reviewed and submitted comments on drafts that were incorporated throughout the development process to ensure that the expectations set in the final versions met or exceeded the state's strong standards for students."

Who has the correct analysis?  Will the national standards be worse, or at least as good as (if not better)? Pioneer Institute? Or the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education?

In fairness, the BESE press release also states: "Later this summer the ELA and mathematics curriculum framework review panels will be reconvened and charged with identifying unique Massachusetts standards to augment and strengthen the Common Core. This will be brought to the Board this Fall for final approval."

(Huh?  If these national standards are so great, why would we need to "augment and strengthen the Common Core"?  However, let's not look a gift horse in the mouth.  Let's work to ensure that parents' and educators' voices are well-heard by the curriculum framework review panels, and let us demand superlative academic standards for our children.)

The following quotes come from NECN in their article "Mass. board unanimously approves national education standards"

Paul Reville, MA Secretary of Education: "It's good for kids, it's good for teachers, it's good for the Commonwealth, it's a great day."

Charlie Baker (Republican gubernatorial candidate):"By hitching our wagon and our future to some national consortium that is untested. This move has the potential to erode our gains."

Governor Deval Patrick: "And I am proud to be supporting standards that will raise the standard for all our children."

Mitchell Chester,MA Commissioner of Education: "I can't imagine having done a more thorough job of considering these standards and making sure they are right."

(Webmaster note:  the final versions of the released Core Standards were made available only 6 weeks ago -- nearly 500 pages of PDF documents.  Why couldn't our Board of Education at least be like Washington state, which has provisionally accepted them? Washington state set for themselves the goal of creating a report for their legislature by January 2011 to "include a comparison of common core and the current state learning standards for reading, writing and math, and an estimated timeline and costs to the state and districts to implement them.")

Additional formal statements, as reported by NECN:

Statement from the Governor:

"Massachusetts leads the nation in public education. Our children perform in the top tier, not just in the country but in the world. I want to keep it that way. That means we have to continue to raise the bar. That's why we passed the education reform bill, to close the achievement gap once and for all. And that's why I support the Board's decision to sign on to the national Common Core standards. These standards will be as strong as the ones we already have in place, and in some cases will be stronger. And they are consistent with our MCAS, which has been and will continue to be a key element of our progress. Common Core will enhance the Commonwealth's already rigorous standards."

Statement from the Lt. Governor:

"The overwhelming body of evidence and research has concluded that Common Core will add tremendous value as Massachusetts remains committed to ensuring every student receives access to an excellent education. Today's important action by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education means that Massachusetts students will stay at the top as we continue to institute increased standards and expectations and strengthen current rigorous assessment tools, like the MCAS, which will remain a requirement for graduation."