You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
You know, the $240,000 grant to buy our police department an armored truck would go much further in local classrooms.
I know of a local public charter high school that could really use it, with plenty to spare, just to approach the per-student spending of the neighboring high schools. Not that they don’t need that kind of infusion, either.
Way back in my senior year of high school, I remember a moment when our English teacher invoked the dictum that all fiction requires conflict – and my immediate contrarian reaction blurted out, “No, it doesn’t!” My objections were gut-level rather than coolly reasoned and certainly wouldn’t have held up to the novels that were capturing my attention at the time – Brave New World, 1984, and Animal Farm. Yet seeded somewhere in my aesthetic, the low-key, nonviolent approach to a story lingers. Few of us, after all, are parties to a murder, which is a key component of so much fiction. And Kurt Vonnegut’s advice to take a nice character and inflict the worst possible calamities on the poor soul still offends my spiritual proclivities, never mind so many passages in the Bible. Yes, I’ll now admit that true character can be shaped and revealed in intense confrontations and struggles. That is, conflict.
Still, my own entries to date have focused on day-to-day realities drawn from my own observations – attempts to comprehend contemporary social interactions, even if they appear to be history by the time the words finally appear in public.
~*~
In retrospect, my admiration of so much of Richard Brautigan’s output probably arises in the laid-back meandering of his hippie-era characters and their encounters. Think of Trout Fishing in America for starters.
~*~
More recently, Nicholson Baker has emerged as my favorite embodiment of the nonviolent sensibility. You could argue that nothing happens in the first 50 pages of The Incredible Story of Nory, and yet the tension is already mounting. To construct a successful novel on a father’s bottle-feeding session of an infant (Room Temperature) or a short escalator ride (The Mezzanine) is artistically courageous. Book of Matches, meanwhile, takes off on the simple premise of sitting by a fire in the predawn hours of deep winter – it could almost be blogging.
His latest volume, Traveling Sprinkler, pretty much slipped under the radar, yet impresses me as a nearly perfect example of the no-major-conflict novel. His main character, the minor-league poet and anthologist Paul Chowder, faces nothing more challenging than the question of whether his ex-girlfriend will return to him as he muddles through middle age. Yet along the way, Baker weaves in ruminations about the American health system and public education, the advantages of rhyming in song lyrics in contrast to poems, aspects of recording technology, basics of bassoon performance, collectors’ perspectives on lawn sprinklers and related outdoors gear, experiences of Quaker worship, and some travel pointers for Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Billed as a sequel to The Anthologist, it stands well on its own as a rich and deeply personal tapestry. What could be better? Even without a slew of dead bodies?
Homeland Security’s grant of $240,000 to my placid city of 30,000 to purchase an armored truck for the police department has me concluding:
Anyone who thinks this is fighting international terrorism has a lot of explaining to do. This place is the epitome of calm vanilla, even with all the college students and nightlife.
Until I hear otherwise, the conclusion continues: if those officials see this town as a hotbed of terror, it’s time to abolish the Department of Homeland Security. Even if it means starting over.
I’m waiting to hear from the right-wing of the political isle on the latest local issue of government waste. Yes, I know this one adds nothing to the city’s property tax bill, but it still comes out of our pockets.
I’m referring to last Wednesday night’s City Council vote on a $240,000 Homeland Security grant to purchase an armored truck for the police department.
That’s for a relatively quiet city of 30,000 residents.
It’s not the kind of place we have riots, much less terrorists.
Well, there’s some talk of using it in domestic-violence disputes, but honestly, I don’t see how a truck of any size is going to fit in a bedroom to calm things.
As for drug raids?
What do those have to do with fighting terrorism, anyway?
No matter how you slice it, this is government waste – from a federal agency that obviously has way too much money on its hands. Money approved by a Tea Party Congress.
With a cap placed on the city’s major source of tax revenue, Dover’s public services have been stressed. The library, for instance, is closed most evenings as well as early Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday. The public schools are in trouble, as you hear from parents, students, and teachers. Street repairs are often on a long list, along with other infrastructure upkeep and improvement. City hall had a leaky roof that went years to replace – there were buckets in the auditorium to catch the rainfall. You get the idea.
So City Council’s decision to accept a $240,000 Homeland Security grant to purchase the police department an armored truck – the description sounds like a flying saucer on wheels – does nothing to suggest common sense in high places. In fact, it’s salt in the wounds.
Does the police chief really expect public sympathy next time he’s trying to avoid staffing cuts and layoffs? Think again. And rely far more on those officers on the street than that armored truck, ever.
The Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck my little city will be getting from Homeland Security – presumably to fight domestic violence and riots rather than international terrorism – is described as a personnel carrier that can transport at least 10 police officers (who knows about regular folks) and comes equipped with gun ports on each side and a rotating center hatch.
Get that, Darth Vader? I assume it has blinking lights all over as well. And maybe steam or fog pouring from under.
Yes, the Department of Homeland Security has been playing Santa Claus with its Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program.
This decision does nothing, of course, to make me feel any more secure. Quite the opposite, actually. I hate to think what might happen if this vehicle gets out on the streets. Or bullets start flying. Or worse, it falls into the wrong hands.
It’s enough to suggest that too many bureaucrats in some high places have been watching too many weird action movies. Or are they really just 14-year-old male adolescents?
Some folks in Washington are all too happy to approve $240,000 grants to buy armored trucks for little ‘burgs like Dover – while trying to derail health care for all Americans as too expensive.
Huh?
Dover City Council voted, 7-1, Wednesday to accept a $240,000 grant to purchase the police department a BearCat.
This ‘cat, by the way, is not the least bit fuzzy – in fact, the name is an acronym for (get this with a straight face, if you can – its pomposity says everything) a Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck. That is, an armored vehicle for a city of 30,000 mostly average Americans.
More galling is the fact that the grant comes from the federal Homeland Security department. Are they trying to tell us international terrorists have put us in the bull’s-eye?
It’s really ridiculous.
A hearing Tuesday, with very little advance notice or public input, paved the way for Wednesday’s abrupt vote.
This is not how democracy’s supposed to work, especially at the local level. Some of us are feeling steamrollered by that truck. And steamed up, as well.
In New England, you live in either a town or a city. There are no townships or being “out in the county,” as I’d known elsewhere. And the counties are relatively insignificant, at least politically; they’re largely for a court system, jails, and record-keeping.
Part of my confusion when I first moved to this corner of the country was an assumption that “city” and “town” both meant “urban,” with some population density and a central retail and commercial district. But that’s not always the case. In fact, some seem to be entirely rural.
Additional confusion can be caused by looking at maps and seeing dots representing settlement and then assuming they’re towns. Gilmanton and Gilmanton Iron Works appear, for instance, but they’re both in the town of Gilmanton and are separated by miles of forest. The community of Groveton is in the town of Northumberland. The city of Laconia includes the enclaves of Weirs Beach and Lakeport. A city or town may have a number of distinct neighborhoods or villages, sometimes with separate post offices or Zip codes. And so on.
Our cities and towns are geographical spaces differentiated by their form of government. Cities are managed by a mayor and board of aldermen, while a town relies on a three-person board of selectmen. Population? Some of New Hampshire’s 13 cities are quite small, while a handful of its 221 towns rank among the largest localities. The form of government is a local choice.
Except for the towns that have opted for a ballot-based alternative known as SB 2, the residents of New Hampshire’s towns gather on the second Tuesday in March for Town Meeting Day, a celebrated exercise in democracy where everyone gets a say, at least if the moderator’s on top of his or her game. They’ll tackle the warrant articles – the agenda published in advance, including town and school budgets and bonding – and also elect new officials.
In a few towns, the entire event’s wrapped up in a half-hour, while others stretch on for hours or even demand additional sessions. The ones that get quite heated may explain why Town Meeting Day’s held in winter.
~*~
To see more of the region’s unique character and calendar, click here.
Jnana's Red Barn 