By JDS/Staff Writer
OLD TOWN — As I walked out my door Tuesday morning with my cup of coffee in hand, I caught a glimpse of a snowflake falling from the sky and sticking to my truck. At least the day’s little storm rolled in with much wind but little snow, but the first thought I had in my head walking down my steps was, “I knew I should not have taken those sandbags out of my truck bed this weekend.”
That’s right. I jinxed us, and I wanted to apologize for that. I did it the last time we got hammered by snow as well, because I pulled my golf clubs out on a nice day and practiced in my back yard and Mother Nature was not going to let us enjoy the warm weather too soon.
I’m not a terribly superstitious man. My folks own a black cat, I’ve walked under ladders before and I’m fairly certain I broke a mirror once before and so far I think I’m doing alright.
When it comes to sports, however, that’s when I get a little strange. If the Green Bay Packers win one week, I’ll make sure the next week I wear the same hat or same Brett Favre jersey (the Packers version and not that pitiful Jets jersey that he wore last year) to aid the team along.
I’m 1,500 miles away from Lambeau Field, but I still feel like somehow me — through the TV set — can help the team move that extra yard.
Strange. Yeah, I know.
Despite the fact that I understand how little influence I have on a game by watching it through at TV set at home some seven states away, I still can’t get over the fact I have to do my part as a fan to help the team out. That’s exactly what was going on Friday night as the 12th-seeded Wisconsin Badger took on No. 5 Florida State in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, otherwise known as March Madness. I had my “Sconnie” T-shirt on, my beaten-up red Badgers cap adorned and was there squinting at the big-screen TV at the local pub to see what the score was in the upper corner of the screen.
Any time the Badgers were falling behind, I would unconsciously start twisting my cap around. Any time they started to do well, the cap would stop moving.
Somehow as a fan I’d like to think I had something to do with Wisconsin coming back from 12 down at halftime to beat the touted Seminoles in overtime. I know better than to believe that, but it’s what fans do. They always want to believe they can help the team.
One of my friends, Kristin, is a huge Boston Red Sox fan. Last year during the postseason, my wife and Kristin watched two playoff games together and both times the Red Sox lost. When we asked if she would like to come watch the next game with us, she said no because she would not jinx the team by watching another game with my wife. As Kristin put it, it was bad karma. Everyone can laugh about it, but Kristin was not going to do anything to jeopardize the Sox by watching the game with fans.
It’s simple fanboy superstitions. No matter where you go in the world, these superstitions manifest themselves in a whole slew of different ways. It’s one of the ways we as fans find a way to connect with our heroes in the sports world.
Superstitions only go so far, however. Despite watching the games pretty much by herself, Kristin’s Red Sox did not do so well in the playoffs last year. And despite me wearing my same beat-up Badger hat and Wisconsin Sweet 16 T-shirt on Sunday afternoon, Wisconsin fell to Xavier during March Madness.
That doesn’t mean dressing up in jerseys, throwing on the Red Sox cap or even the iconic foam Cheesehead for Packer games and getting all geared up for sports is one way that we can all forget about the struggles of life for a few hours and get lost in a game. That’s part of the reason I get into March Madness so much each year — well that, and the fact football and baseball are not on TV and I need something to give me my sports fix.
However, when the games end, I’ll be right back outside throwing my sandbags into the back of my truck again and waiting impatiently for spring to arrive.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Timing for statewide laptop program isn't right
By JDS/Staff Writer
In his State of the State Address, Gov. John Baldacci called for the Department of Education to expand on its one-of-a-kind laptop program for seventh- and eighth-graders statewide to include all high school students.
The program would call for the DOE to lease 100,000 computers from Apple Inc. that would carry a price tag of roughly $25 million, all paid for by current instructional technology funds in the education budget.
As Gov. Baldacci said on March 10, “Maine has been a leader in putting technology to work in the classroom. We are going to revamp our laptop program and turn it into a powerful tool for the entire family. The Department of Education and the Department of Labor will work to make sure every one of those computers has software preloaded to connect Maine families with the services available at our state’s CareerCenters.”
According to a March 12 story in the Portland Press-Herald¬, the current program for seventh- and eighth-grade students costs the state roughly $12.4 million, or $289 per laptop. That cost includes software, tech support, wireless, repairs, training for teachers and a host of other services.
From all accounts, the current limited program has been a worthwhile venture for schools and has given teachers another powerful tool to use in the classroom and putting laptops in the hands of high school students has been in the works since the law was crafted in 2002.
The thing is, at a time when school administrative budgets are being cut back, when the DOE can’t live up to its promise for Essential Program and Services (EPS) funding to each school district and when the state is constantly looking for places to cut funding or places to add taxes to offset a massive budget deficit, does it make sense for the state to dole out this program now?
School districts statewide are struggling to come up with a way to offset state subsidy losses since many did not comply with school consolidation. Locally, towns are doing everything they can to keep from having to close schools. SAD 68 in Dover-Foxcroft voted to close Monson Elementary School to cut down on expenses, while SAD 4 in Guilford is toying with the idea of closing McKusick Elementary in Parkman and moving those students into Guilford Primary School.
SAD 46 in Dexter is already in the works of closing all neighboring elementary schools and moving them into the new centralized campus on the Fern Road in Dexter by 2010, but wants to consolidate with Harmony as soon as possible to avoid the state’s non-conformity penalty.
The fact that the governor also feels the laptop program can help connect families to “our state’s CareerCenters” makes me wonder if he’s seen how kids and computers work. As he said in his address, “Every night when students in seventh through 12th-grade bring those computers home, they’ll connect the whole family to new opportunities and new resources.”
You mean to tell me that the kid is going to willingly give up the laptop to their parents so they can use the state’s career resources on a nightly basis? Kids are going to be too busy updating their status on Facebook, downloading songs in iTunes and checking their e-mail, as well as doing their homework, to be letting their parents utilize the career resources that the Department of Labor will add to each laptop.
I agree with DOE Commissioner Susan Gendron that laptops are a great addition to the classroom, but I’m against the timing of this plan. You can’t tell me that a state that has as much trouble making ends meet at a time like this should be out purchasing MacBooks for the kids. It sends the wrong message — a message of fiscal irresponsibility — at a time when the state should be looking for ways to save money. If the state really has money burning a hole in its pocket and wants to help schools, maybe it should trying funding EPS as promised.
In his State of the State Address, Gov. John Baldacci called for the Department of Education to expand on its one-of-a-kind laptop program for seventh- and eighth-graders statewide to include all high school students.
The program would call for the DOE to lease 100,000 computers from Apple Inc. that would carry a price tag of roughly $25 million, all paid for by current instructional technology funds in the education budget.
As Gov. Baldacci said on March 10, “Maine has been a leader in putting technology to work in the classroom. We are going to revamp our laptop program and turn it into a powerful tool for the entire family. The Department of Education and the Department of Labor will work to make sure every one of those computers has software preloaded to connect Maine families with the services available at our state’s CareerCenters.”
According to a March 12 story in the Portland Press-Herald¬, the current program for seventh- and eighth-grade students costs the state roughly $12.4 million, or $289 per laptop. That cost includes software, tech support, wireless, repairs, training for teachers and a host of other services.
From all accounts, the current limited program has been a worthwhile venture for schools and has given teachers another powerful tool to use in the classroom and putting laptops in the hands of high school students has been in the works since the law was crafted in 2002.
The thing is, at a time when school administrative budgets are being cut back, when the DOE can’t live up to its promise for Essential Program and Services (EPS) funding to each school district and when the state is constantly looking for places to cut funding or places to add taxes to offset a massive budget deficit, does it make sense for the state to dole out this program now?
School districts statewide are struggling to come up with a way to offset state subsidy losses since many did not comply with school consolidation. Locally, towns are doing everything they can to keep from having to close schools. SAD 68 in Dover-Foxcroft voted to close Monson Elementary School to cut down on expenses, while SAD 4 in Guilford is toying with the idea of closing McKusick Elementary in Parkman and moving those students into Guilford Primary School.
SAD 46 in Dexter is already in the works of closing all neighboring elementary schools and moving them into the new centralized campus on the Fern Road in Dexter by 2010, but wants to consolidate with Harmony as soon as possible to avoid the state’s non-conformity penalty.
The fact that the governor also feels the laptop program can help connect families to “our state’s CareerCenters” makes me wonder if he’s seen how kids and computers work. As he said in his address, “Every night when students in seventh through 12th-grade bring those computers home, they’ll connect the whole family to new opportunities and new resources.”
You mean to tell me that the kid is going to willingly give up the laptop to their parents so they can use the state’s career resources on a nightly basis? Kids are going to be too busy updating their status on Facebook, downloading songs in iTunes and checking their e-mail, as well as doing their homework, to be letting their parents utilize the career resources that the Department of Labor will add to each laptop.
I agree with DOE Commissioner Susan Gendron that laptops are a great addition to the classroom, but I’m against the timing of this plan. You can’t tell me that a state that has as much trouble making ends meet at a time like this should be out purchasing MacBooks for the kids. It sends the wrong message — a message of fiscal irresponsibility — at a time when the state should be looking for ways to save money. If the state really has money burning a hole in its pocket and wants to help schools, maybe it should trying funding EPS as promised.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The distant echo of a recession
By JDS/Observer staff writer
EAST SANGERVILLE — Jeff Dunham is a hilarious comedian. The man is known best for his ventriloquist acts with his puppets named Walter, Achmed the Dead Terrorist, Bubba J. and most notably, Peanut.
One of the most notable parts of Dunham’s acts that usually gets a roar out of the crowd is when Peanut waves its hand over its noggin, making the few green hairs on its purple head going flying straight back like it was riding in a convertible as it makes the noise “Nrrrrrow,” like a car whizzing past.
The motion is part of a joke, one that means something is way over your head. It always elicits laughs, and even watching it on YouTube gets me roaring as I hear the high pitched squeal of the absurd-looking green and purple puppet.
Then again, that’s how I felt Monday at the Piscataquis County Economic Development Council’s quarterly meeting. The topic of conversation was Tax Increment Financing (TIFs) for businesses. As soon as Brian Hodges of the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development started to speak, I heard an echo in my ears.
Nrrrrrow.
The echo subsided, however, when John Richardson began to speak. Richardson is the commissioner of the DECD in Maine. He didn’t speak about TIFs and how they can be of a benefit to communities in Piscataquis County, but rather about what’s going on in the world today.
“These are historic tough times,” Richardson said of the economy. “I don’t remember feeling this bad in a long, long time.”
Granted a large part of his speech sounded like he was getting ready to run for governor of Maine in a few years, but Richardson’s speech made me think about what’s been going on and one thing seems to come back to me time and time again.
What ever happened to Americans helping themselves out and pulling themselves up by their boot straps?
I know it’s a novel and quaint concept during these tough economic times to think we can just pull ourselves out of this recession on our own, but it’s funny how fickle we can be. For a long time, people were told not to even mutter the “R” word. Just don’t say it. It will bring bad luck on all of us.
But now that it was muttered, it’s led to a cascade of people yelling recession on every cable channel on TV. I’m slowly expecting to hear from someone that the world is going to end soon, or that the economy is so far gone that the damages are irreparable.
“It's fallen off a cliff,” Warren Buffett said Monday during a live appearance on cable network CNBC. “Not only has the economy slowed down a lot, but people have really changed their habits like I haven’t seen.”
So the Oracle of Omaha, the man whose company Berkshire Hathaway bought Dexter Shoe in October 1993 for roughly $420 million in Berkshire stock, has officially joined the chorus of talking heads that have told us what we already have known for quite some time: times are tough on Main Street.
Are things as bad as the talking heads say? Yes and no. Yes, people are losing jobs, more are filing for unemployment on a daily basis and Wall Street can’t seem to grow a backbone and trade scared. Businesses struggle to pay the bills and have to take out loans just to meet payroll at times.
But there is a positive to all this, something missing from all the doom and gloom that has come from all this. For my generation, Generation Y or the iGeneration as I think we’ve become known as, this is the first time we’ve been forced to look long and hard at our economic viability.
Many of us in the generation entered adulthood when our economy was on its way up, or at its peak. Money was plentiful, jobs were abundant and many of us grew up as impulse buyers, purchasing useless junk just to appease our need for new stuff.
Unfortunately, it was hard to learn about the economic lessons of savings and credit when everyone was enjoying the fruits of a stock market boom.
Well, that boom has long since gone bust, and that has forced many Gen Y’ers to learn how to deal with a personal savings the hard way: save it or lose it. It’s hard to break that trend of buying things for the simple fact to feel better.
And now we are all left wondering, what’s next? Mainers have a lot going for them. The people in this area have an incredible work ethic and a desire to do well in life. It’s hard to struggle for a long time when you have those two things going for you.
Richardson pointed out that, “When we (in Maine) have a chance to compete, we do well. It’s the chance to compete that sometimes eludes us.”
So, as our economy still struggles to regain its footing and jobs seem to be as sparse as deer in the woods lately, there is still a desire for good work and good jobs in this area. I hear TIFs can help bring in those good jobs. At least that’s what I got out of the meeting Monday night.
Here’s hoping that’s the case, otherwise that roar you hear and the feeling you get when the wind is blowing your hair back is the sound of another opportunity lost in this area.
And no one wants to be hearing “Nrrrrrow” at a time like this unless Jeff Dunham is on TV again.
EAST SANGERVILLE — Jeff Dunham is a hilarious comedian. The man is known best for his ventriloquist acts with his puppets named Walter, Achmed the Dead Terrorist, Bubba J. and most notably, Peanut.
One of the most notable parts of Dunham’s acts that usually gets a roar out of the crowd is when Peanut waves its hand over its noggin, making the few green hairs on its purple head going flying straight back like it was riding in a convertible as it makes the noise “Nrrrrrow,” like a car whizzing past.
The motion is part of a joke, one that means something is way over your head. It always elicits laughs, and even watching it on YouTube gets me roaring as I hear the high pitched squeal of the absurd-looking green and purple puppet.
Then again, that’s how I felt Monday at the Piscataquis County Economic Development Council’s quarterly meeting. The topic of conversation was Tax Increment Financing (TIFs) for businesses. As soon as Brian Hodges of the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development started to speak, I heard an echo in my ears.
Nrrrrrow.
The echo subsided, however, when John Richardson began to speak. Richardson is the commissioner of the DECD in Maine. He didn’t speak about TIFs and how they can be of a benefit to communities in Piscataquis County, but rather about what’s going on in the world today.
“These are historic tough times,” Richardson said of the economy. “I don’t remember feeling this bad in a long, long time.”
Granted a large part of his speech sounded like he was getting ready to run for governor of Maine in a few years, but Richardson’s speech made me think about what’s been going on and one thing seems to come back to me time and time again.
What ever happened to Americans helping themselves out and pulling themselves up by their boot straps?
I know it’s a novel and quaint concept during these tough economic times to think we can just pull ourselves out of this recession on our own, but it’s funny how fickle we can be. For a long time, people were told not to even mutter the “R” word. Just don’t say it. It will bring bad luck on all of us.
But now that it was muttered, it’s led to a cascade of people yelling recession on every cable channel on TV. I’m slowly expecting to hear from someone that the world is going to end soon, or that the economy is so far gone that the damages are irreparable.
“It's fallen off a cliff,” Warren Buffett said Monday during a live appearance on cable network CNBC. “Not only has the economy slowed down a lot, but people have really changed their habits like I haven’t seen.”
So the Oracle of Omaha, the man whose company Berkshire Hathaway bought Dexter Shoe in October 1993 for roughly $420 million in Berkshire stock, has officially joined the chorus of talking heads that have told us what we already have known for quite some time: times are tough on Main Street.
Are things as bad as the talking heads say? Yes and no. Yes, people are losing jobs, more are filing for unemployment on a daily basis and Wall Street can’t seem to grow a backbone and trade scared. Businesses struggle to pay the bills and have to take out loans just to meet payroll at times.
But there is a positive to all this, something missing from all the doom and gloom that has come from all this. For my generation, Generation Y or the iGeneration as I think we’ve become known as, this is the first time we’ve been forced to look long and hard at our economic viability.
Many of us in the generation entered adulthood when our economy was on its way up, or at its peak. Money was plentiful, jobs were abundant and many of us grew up as impulse buyers, purchasing useless junk just to appease our need for new stuff.
Unfortunately, it was hard to learn about the economic lessons of savings and credit when everyone was enjoying the fruits of a stock market boom.
Well, that boom has long since gone bust, and that has forced many Gen Y’ers to learn how to deal with a personal savings the hard way: save it or lose it. It’s hard to break that trend of buying things for the simple fact to feel better.
And now we are all left wondering, what’s next? Mainers have a lot going for them. The people in this area have an incredible work ethic and a desire to do well in life. It’s hard to struggle for a long time when you have those two things going for you.
Richardson pointed out that, “When we (in Maine) have a chance to compete, we do well. It’s the chance to compete that sometimes eludes us.”
So, as our economy still struggles to regain its footing and jobs seem to be as sparse as deer in the woods lately, there is still a desire for good work and good jobs in this area. I hear TIFs can help bring in those good jobs. At least that’s what I got out of the meeting Monday night.
Here’s hoping that’s the case, otherwise that roar you hear and the feeling you get when the wind is blowing your hair back is the sound of another opportunity lost in this area.
And no one wants to be hearing “Nrrrrrow” at a time like this unless Jeff Dunham is on TV again.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
'In like a lion' -- the Maine version
By JDS/Piscataquis Observer
As the calendar flipped from February to March, an old saying popped in to my head that pretty much summed up the mess motorists faced on Monday morning.
“In like a lion, out like a lamb.”
It’s an old time weather phrase that means the month starts off roaring with the final traces of winter and ends with a peaceful transition to spring.
The saying lived up to its name, as the region was pummeled again by snow for the second Monday in a row. The snow was so bad that it cancelled school for yet another day this winter, keeping elementary students from likely art projects of making little faces of a lion and lamb out of construction paper and crayons while they learned about the phrase.
While the line is cute and kind of works, it really doesn’t describe the season well, nor does it fit the region well. I mean, what does a lion have to do with snow and cold temperatures? For that matter, what does a lamb and mud have to do with each other too?
I’m fairly certain the king of the jungle would be smart enough to leave the region if that was the case, and lambs tend to stay out of the mud and keep their wool somewhat whitish.
That’s why I suggest a new line that Mainers can take stock in to describe the wild weather of March: “In like a black bear, out like a moose.” Black bears roar — well, okay they make noise and can be frightening, so you can take stock in that. Also, bears deal with winter better than we do — they sleep right through this mess. That way, there’s no need for snowplows, sand, salt, fuel oil or even snow days for school. Now only if we could find a way move football season, Christmas and ice fishing to summer time, then maybe this has a possibility — however slight — of working.
As for the end of March, a moose definitely fits better than a lamb for this weather analogy. First off, moose can be temperamental, much like the weather can be. I’ve seen plenty of wicked snowstorms roll through at the end of the month, some to the point where I thought as a kid that the saying “In like a lion, out like a lamb” was meant for April. Secondly, moose play in the mud a whole heck of a lot more than lambs do. They also are more majestic than a freaking lamb.
However, the main reason both these animals would fit the analogy better in Maine than lions and lambs do is simple — they are Maine’s animals. Just look at the University of Maine’s mascot and the state’s unofficial inland mascot (the lobster being the coastal mascot).
In like a black bear, out like a moose. I think it works pretty good.
Now if the University of Maine men’s hockey team could just have as much fight as Mother Nature seems to be putting up lately, maybe the Black Bears would win a game or two in the Hockey East tournament and make the NCAAs. That would make it all the more fitting.
Now that I think of it, I think we’re getting the worse end of the deal with that one. I’d take a good ice hockey team now more than more snow.
As the calendar flipped from February to March, an old saying popped in to my head that pretty much summed up the mess motorists faced on Monday morning.
“In like a lion, out like a lamb.”
It’s an old time weather phrase that means the month starts off roaring with the final traces of winter and ends with a peaceful transition to spring.
The saying lived up to its name, as the region was pummeled again by snow for the second Monday in a row. The snow was so bad that it cancelled school for yet another day this winter, keeping elementary students from likely art projects of making little faces of a lion and lamb out of construction paper and crayons while they learned about the phrase.
While the line is cute and kind of works, it really doesn’t describe the season well, nor does it fit the region well. I mean, what does a lion have to do with snow and cold temperatures? For that matter, what does a lamb and mud have to do with each other too?
I’m fairly certain the king of the jungle would be smart enough to leave the region if that was the case, and lambs tend to stay out of the mud and keep their wool somewhat whitish.
That’s why I suggest a new line that Mainers can take stock in to describe the wild weather of March: “In like a black bear, out like a moose.” Black bears roar — well, okay they make noise and can be frightening, so you can take stock in that. Also, bears deal with winter better than we do — they sleep right through this mess. That way, there’s no need for snowplows, sand, salt, fuel oil or even snow days for school. Now only if we could find a way move football season, Christmas and ice fishing to summer time, then maybe this has a possibility — however slight — of working.
As for the end of March, a moose definitely fits better than a lamb for this weather analogy. First off, moose can be temperamental, much like the weather can be. I’ve seen plenty of wicked snowstorms roll through at the end of the month, some to the point where I thought as a kid that the saying “In like a lion, out like a lamb” was meant for April. Secondly, moose play in the mud a whole heck of a lot more than lambs do. They also are more majestic than a freaking lamb.
However, the main reason both these animals would fit the analogy better in Maine than lions and lambs do is simple — they are Maine’s animals. Just look at the University of Maine’s mascot and the state’s unofficial inland mascot (the lobster being the coastal mascot).
In like a black bear, out like a moose. I think it works pretty good.
Now if the University of Maine men’s hockey team could just have as much fight as Mother Nature seems to be putting up lately, maybe the Black Bears would win a game or two in the Hockey East tournament and make the NCAAs. That would make it all the more fitting.
Now that I think of it, I think we’re getting the worse end of the deal with that one. I’d take a good ice hockey team now more than more snow.
Lyford's death gives us a tough lesson to learn
By JDS/Piscataquis Observer
MILO — A week ago the Penquis Valley High School gymnasium was the site of a pep rally for the Lady Patriots basketball team, as they got set to compete at the Bangor Auditorium for the first time in five years.
Friday was the day many in the community had hoped it would be back in Bangor to cheer on Penquis in the Eastern Maine Class C semifinals.
Instead, family, friends and community members joined together in the gym once again on Friday, Feb. 20, this time to remember and pay their last respects to a man who unfortunately died much too young.
Dylan Lyford, a 19-year-old chemical engineering student at UMO, died on Feb. 15 as a result of serious head trauma resulting from falling down a staircase, according to the state medical examiner. He was a freshman who had just graduated from Penquis Valley High School in Milo only months earlier.
First and foremost, my condolences to the family and friends that lost a loved one and dear friend in Dylan. I never had the privilege to meet the young man, but listening to people in town and reading his Facebook page only proved that he will be dearly missed.
“He was a person with a great heart for his friends, a great heart for life,” Rev. Michelle St. Cyr said of Dylan during the funeral service Friday.
It was hard to find a dry eye in the gym that day, as classmates from UMO and Penquis Valley, as well as family and members of the community came to remember the fun-loving young man always seemed to have a smile on his face.
“Our family is devastated,” said Dylan’s mother Susan Lyford in an e-mail to the Bangor Daily News on Thursday. “All we want is for people to hold on to the memories and remember Dylan for the child he was and the man he had become.”
The full details of Lyford’s death are still unknown. While the state medical examiner’s office said Lyford died from extensive head trauma, early reports also indicated that alcohol may have played a factor in Lyford’s death though the toxicology report has not come back yet to confirm that.
The news of Lyford’s death and the subsequent rumors of what happened led to numerous people demanding that the people who supplied alcohol to that party should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Whatever the family wants to do in this situation is their decision to make, a difficult decision I do not envy them in making.
What I do hope that comes from this is a lesson for all of us. Alcohol is ever-present in our society. Ads are everywhere for beer and liquor — the Super Bowl is known almost as well for its beer ads as the game, and Jack Daniels sponsored a NASCAR team last year. It seems kids each year experiment with things like beer, wine and hard alcohol like whiskey and vodka a little earlier than the kids before them.
It’s hard for me to stand here on a soap box and bemoan Dylan’s death as a careless action of a young college man when I was that same man doing much of the same things when I was 19 years old. Unless the medical examiners find more evidence in the coming weeks, it seems right now that his death was an unfortunate and terrible accident.
While I do not condone underage drinking, I find it hard to fault college students for having a few beers. They are at a young age where experimenting in beer and alcohol is socially acceptable, and it’s hard to imagine there’s a whole lot to do in Old Town and Orono (or any college in cold, snow-filled parts of our nation) for underage college students to do on a Friday or Saturday night in the winter besides staying cooped up in their apartment or dorm room.
I know this, because I’ve been there. I’d be willing to bet most of us have. There were the nights drinking at house parties at the University of Wisconsin that I got a little carried away and made a fool out of myself, only to pay the price with a ripping headache the next morning. But I, like many other college students every year, thankfully came away from those incidents with nothing more than a hangover.
There are students every year nationwide who are not so lucky. Students like Dylan, who for no other reason than just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, die in the most unfortunate of situations.
While what happened to Dylan is incredibly unfortunate and tragic, let us not learn nothing from his untimely death. Kids need to learn not only about the dangers of alcohol and drugs, but also to look out for one another during these times as well. Parents need to sit down with their kids and talk to them about alcohol and its dangers. Most importantly, we all need to sit down and look after one another.
As Susan Lyford told the BDN in that email, “All we ask is that kids learn when someone hits their head you don’t let them go to sleep. Call for help. Maybe someone will remember this and it will make a difference for someone.”
Dylan Lyford’s death was unfortunate, but we can’t let the opportunity to learn something from this go by, because if we do we would be doing an injustice to the young man.
MILO — A week ago the Penquis Valley High School gymnasium was the site of a pep rally for the Lady Patriots basketball team, as they got set to compete at the Bangor Auditorium for the first time in five years.
Friday was the day many in the community had hoped it would be back in Bangor to cheer on Penquis in the Eastern Maine Class C semifinals.
Instead, family, friends and community members joined together in the gym once again on Friday, Feb. 20, this time to remember and pay their last respects to a man who unfortunately died much too young.
Dylan Lyford, a 19-year-old chemical engineering student at UMO, died on Feb. 15 as a result of serious head trauma resulting from falling down a staircase, according to the state medical examiner. He was a freshman who had just graduated from Penquis Valley High School in Milo only months earlier.
First and foremost, my condolences to the family and friends that lost a loved one and dear friend in Dylan. I never had the privilege to meet the young man, but listening to people in town and reading his Facebook page only proved that he will be dearly missed.
“He was a person with a great heart for his friends, a great heart for life,” Rev. Michelle St. Cyr said of Dylan during the funeral service Friday.
It was hard to find a dry eye in the gym that day, as classmates from UMO and Penquis Valley, as well as family and members of the community came to remember the fun-loving young man always seemed to have a smile on his face.
“Our family is devastated,” said Dylan’s mother Susan Lyford in an e-mail to the Bangor Daily News on Thursday. “All we want is for people to hold on to the memories and remember Dylan for the child he was and the man he had become.”
The full details of Lyford’s death are still unknown. While the state medical examiner’s office said Lyford died from extensive head trauma, early reports also indicated that alcohol may have played a factor in Lyford’s death though the toxicology report has not come back yet to confirm that.
The news of Lyford’s death and the subsequent rumors of what happened led to numerous people demanding that the people who supplied alcohol to that party should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Whatever the family wants to do in this situation is their decision to make, a difficult decision I do not envy them in making.
What I do hope that comes from this is a lesson for all of us. Alcohol is ever-present in our society. Ads are everywhere for beer and liquor — the Super Bowl is known almost as well for its beer ads as the game, and Jack Daniels sponsored a NASCAR team last year. It seems kids each year experiment with things like beer, wine and hard alcohol like whiskey and vodka a little earlier than the kids before them.
It’s hard for me to stand here on a soap box and bemoan Dylan’s death as a careless action of a young college man when I was that same man doing much of the same things when I was 19 years old. Unless the medical examiners find more evidence in the coming weeks, it seems right now that his death was an unfortunate and terrible accident.
While I do not condone underage drinking, I find it hard to fault college students for having a few beers. They are at a young age where experimenting in beer and alcohol is socially acceptable, and it’s hard to imagine there’s a whole lot to do in Old Town and Orono (or any college in cold, snow-filled parts of our nation) for underage college students to do on a Friday or Saturday night in the winter besides staying cooped up in their apartment or dorm room.
I know this, because I’ve been there. I’d be willing to bet most of us have. There were the nights drinking at house parties at the University of Wisconsin that I got a little carried away and made a fool out of myself, only to pay the price with a ripping headache the next morning. But I, like many other college students every year, thankfully came away from those incidents with nothing more than a hangover.
There are students every year nationwide who are not so lucky. Students like Dylan, who for no other reason than just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, die in the most unfortunate of situations.
While what happened to Dylan is incredibly unfortunate and tragic, let us not learn nothing from his untimely death. Kids need to learn not only about the dangers of alcohol and drugs, but also to look out for one another during these times as well. Parents need to sit down with their kids and talk to them about alcohol and its dangers. Most importantly, we all need to sit down and look after one another.
As Susan Lyford told the BDN in that email, “All we ask is that kids learn when someone hits their head you don’t let them go to sleep. Call for help. Maybe someone will remember this and it will make a difference for someone.”
Dylan Lyford’s death was unfortunate, but we can’t let the opportunity to learn something from this go by, because if we do we would be doing an injustice to the young man.
'Flat is the new up'
By JDS/Piscataquis Observer
I blame it partly on the half-pot of coffee I drink most mornings, and partly my distain for bad music and commercials on the radio, but I end up flipping between six or seven radio stations during my daily drives between Old Town and Dover-Foxcroft.
One of those radio stations that is programmed in my truck is the Maine Public Broadcasting Network out of Bangor. There are times, mainly around elections, when I become a political junkie and MPBN is my fix. I still turn to the station from time to time, though the election season is over, just to get a new perspective on local and national news.
During the afternoon news hour, a commercial came on for a National Public Radio program that was going to discuss the new slogan for businesses in 2009: Flat is the new up.
Flat is the new up: it’s one of those cute little taglines that are found in urban culture, like “black is the new red” for fashion, “A-Rod is the new Bonds” to talk about steroids in baseball (by the way, what a fool. It’s a good thing that A-Roid chose the Yankees instead of the Red Sox all those years ago), and “50 is the new 40” when it comes to age.
Basically it’s a hip way to redefine a situation. A July 16, 2008 column by Daniel Gross in Newsweek researched the phrase and found out it has been around for a number of years. If you Google “Flat is the new up,” you’ll get 36,100 responses, which means the slogan is catching on.
So what does it mean? Well, think of it like a roller coaster ride. After falling down 30-40 feet, the moment the car levels off seems to be a more reassuring feeling than that big freefall. In reality, with the economy taking a big hit and people in every walk of life in this nation seeing the pocketbook thin out to varying degrees, “flat is the new up” means a good year will be defined by holding on to what we have instead of losing more and more of our assets.
As I drove south on Rt. 16 that day from the Milo chip mill toward LaGrange, I began to think of how that line applied to our neck of the woods. In Piscataquis County, the line takes on a more meaningful definition when you look at some of what we have here: some work but climbing unemployment, schools, and hope.
There have been a number of headlines in recent months about how the lagging economy has taken a toll on one of Piscataquis County’s historical employers — True Textiles (a.k.a. Guilford of Maine, a.k.a. InterfaceFABRIC). Layoffs have already been handed down to roughly 90 people at the plant, and an uncertain future has left many more wondering if they are next. Everyone hopes the cuts are over, but no one can answer for certain if that’s the case.
Now, just because True is going through this turmoil doesn’t mean all of Piscataquis County is hurting in the same way. That being said, it’s hard to ignore one of the mainstays of the region battling in the midst of the recession.
So how does “flat is the new up” fit here? If employment numbers stay flat, that means no one else has to lose their jobs.
The slow economy is taking a big bite out of Maine’s budget, which in turn means nearly every aspect of the state budget seems to be on the chopping block for cuts — and that includes schools. The governor has proposed flat-funding schools at the 2008 rate for the next two years (there’s an instance where our slogan doesn’t work). That, coupled with the financial penalties all five area school districts will face for voters not approving consolidation referendums, is leading to major financial challenges for districts.
Two area school districts, SAD 68 in Dover-Foxcroft and SAD 4 in Guilford, have proposed addressing these challenges by possibly closing elementary schools in Monson and Parkman, respectively. Part of that reason for those closures has to do with declining enrollments; the other declining revenues.
This is the reality of consolidation, something that was going to happen down the road in the RSUs or AOSs throughout the state after the dust settled. There was no way just shaving administrative budgets was going to save $34 million as the governor proposed. A school board official once told me a reduction of teachers and facilities was going to inevitably be the answer.
Parents in Piscataquis County cherish their local schools, especially elementary schools, and it will be hard for these towns to give up their schools. If school officials can find a way to reduce budgets without closing schools, then staying flat will truly be an uplifting thing for many parents.
What’s that leave us with? I’d say hope but it’s hard to imagine there’s much of that around, even with the economic stimulus package through Congress and on the president’s desk. It won’t be an end-all, fix-all, but that package is a step in the right direction for turning this economy around.
Maybe it’s flatness that we can look forward to in 2009. As long as job losses are kept at a minimum, doors stay open at schools and businesses throughout the region and the state passes a budget that doesn’t gouge the taxpayer any more than what is already demanded of them, then maybe we can level out a little bit this year and look forward to a brighter future in the coming years.
“Flat is the new up.” It’s not just an urban buzzphrase anymore.
I blame it partly on the half-pot of coffee I drink most mornings, and partly my distain for bad music and commercials on the radio, but I end up flipping between six or seven radio stations during my daily drives between Old Town and Dover-Foxcroft.
One of those radio stations that is programmed in my truck is the Maine Public Broadcasting Network out of Bangor. There are times, mainly around elections, when I become a political junkie and MPBN is my fix. I still turn to the station from time to time, though the election season is over, just to get a new perspective on local and national news.
During the afternoon news hour, a commercial came on for a National Public Radio program that was going to discuss the new slogan for businesses in 2009: Flat is the new up.
Flat is the new up: it’s one of those cute little taglines that are found in urban culture, like “black is the new red” for fashion, “A-Rod is the new Bonds” to talk about steroids in baseball (by the way, what a fool. It’s a good thing that A-Roid chose the Yankees instead of the Red Sox all those years ago), and “50 is the new 40” when it comes to age.
Basically it’s a hip way to redefine a situation. A July 16, 2008 column by Daniel Gross in Newsweek researched the phrase and found out it has been around for a number of years. If you Google “Flat is the new up,” you’ll get 36,100 responses, which means the slogan is catching on.
So what does it mean? Well, think of it like a roller coaster ride. After falling down 30-40 feet, the moment the car levels off seems to be a more reassuring feeling than that big freefall. In reality, with the economy taking a big hit and people in every walk of life in this nation seeing the pocketbook thin out to varying degrees, “flat is the new up” means a good year will be defined by holding on to what we have instead of losing more and more of our assets.
As I drove south on Rt. 16 that day from the Milo chip mill toward LaGrange, I began to think of how that line applied to our neck of the woods. In Piscataquis County, the line takes on a more meaningful definition when you look at some of what we have here: some work but climbing unemployment, schools, and hope.
There have been a number of headlines in recent months about how the lagging economy has taken a toll on one of Piscataquis County’s historical employers — True Textiles (a.k.a. Guilford of Maine, a.k.a. InterfaceFABRIC). Layoffs have already been handed down to roughly 90 people at the plant, and an uncertain future has left many more wondering if they are next. Everyone hopes the cuts are over, but no one can answer for certain if that’s the case.
Now, just because True is going through this turmoil doesn’t mean all of Piscataquis County is hurting in the same way. That being said, it’s hard to ignore one of the mainstays of the region battling in the midst of the recession.
So how does “flat is the new up” fit here? If employment numbers stay flat, that means no one else has to lose their jobs.
The slow economy is taking a big bite out of Maine’s budget, which in turn means nearly every aspect of the state budget seems to be on the chopping block for cuts — and that includes schools. The governor has proposed flat-funding schools at the 2008 rate for the next two years (there’s an instance where our slogan doesn’t work). That, coupled with the financial penalties all five area school districts will face for voters not approving consolidation referendums, is leading to major financial challenges for districts.
Two area school districts, SAD 68 in Dover-Foxcroft and SAD 4 in Guilford, have proposed addressing these challenges by possibly closing elementary schools in Monson and Parkman, respectively. Part of that reason for those closures has to do with declining enrollments; the other declining revenues.
This is the reality of consolidation, something that was going to happen down the road in the RSUs or AOSs throughout the state after the dust settled. There was no way just shaving administrative budgets was going to save $34 million as the governor proposed. A school board official once told me a reduction of teachers and facilities was going to inevitably be the answer.
Parents in Piscataquis County cherish their local schools, especially elementary schools, and it will be hard for these towns to give up their schools. If school officials can find a way to reduce budgets without closing schools, then staying flat will truly be an uplifting thing for many parents.
What’s that leave us with? I’d say hope but it’s hard to imagine there’s much of that around, even with the economic stimulus package through Congress and on the president’s desk. It won’t be an end-all, fix-all, but that package is a step in the right direction for turning this economy around.
Maybe it’s flatness that we can look forward to in 2009. As long as job losses are kept at a minimum, doors stay open at schools and businesses throughout the region and the state passes a budget that doesn’t gouge the taxpayer any more than what is already demanded of them, then maybe we can level out a little bit this year and look forward to a brighter future in the coming years.
“Flat is the new up.” It’s not just an urban buzzphrase anymore.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)