Time to address bullying
To the editor:
Every semester I send out letters of congratulations to all of the honor roll students in my district. There are few duties that I find more rewarding than acknowledging students who have excelled in their academic studies. The letter that I am now writing, however, to all the students in District 3, gives me no pleasure but rather cause for great concern.The purpose of this letter is to address the problem of bullying in our elementary schools and high schools. As a former educator there were few problems that I found more disturbing then another student who takes it upon him or herself to intimidate, ridicule or insult a fellow student. I have often wondered what would possibly cause someone to feel that he or she has reached such a level of perfection that they can take it upon themselves to make another person feel small or worthless. I ask that student, do you feel that it increases your stature, that it increases your standing among other students, that it adds to your personality? Are you so perfect as to be completely faultless and must take it upon yourself to point out other peoples’ inadequacies? I always remember reading what our 16th President said about insulting and ridiculing others, “that no one can raise themselves by tearing down another person.”
Incidentally, I want to mention how truly proud I am of our latest Maine Potato Blossom Queen, Miss Ashley Martin of Van Buren, when she told me that her platform as Queen will be an anti-bullying theme. What a thoughtful young lady!
I am urgently asking that each student take it upon him or herself to intervene when you see bullying taking place in your school. Kindly inform that student that they may not be as perfect as they believe themselves to be and that God made us all different, both physically and mentally and that they have no right to expect another student to live up to their standards. I have found that a high percentage of the time, the person perpetrating the bullying is trying to cover up for his or her own inadequacies.
I am asking that each person who feels the urge to bully a fellow student, look at their own faults, their own inadequate behavior, their own shortcomings and if in fact you find none, then sincerely thank God and add one more thing to your perfection check list by ceasing to bully or intimidate others.
If you feel that you have difficulty determining the difference between bullying and teasing, consult your guidance counselor, your principal or one of your teachers whom you have great respect for and talk the problem over candidly with them. If you still have trouble determining the difference — do neither!
Bernard L.A. Ayotte
State Representative
“That’s one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.”
My heart leapt up Saturday afternoon. My Freestar was accelerating through the golden green hills of planet Presque Isle, Easton bound along the Conant Road. Daydreaming and almost dozing, (not an unusual preoccupation for a near 60-year-old) I clearly and calmly heard the news. The radio voice steadily and almost matter-of-factly intoned and announced the death of Neil Armstrong, age 82, from complications following heart surgery.
For one shining moment, the passing of an American icon super sized the circuitry of my American Experience. A tear welled. What could it possibly mean to be alive and well in America in 2012? What does his death mean to my life?
My brain pumped electricity through a billion neurons reminding me of the moments in July, 1969 when a 13-year-old kid just learning to shave sat spellbound with a hundred young hearts watching the CBS animation; Walter Cronkite droned on preparing us for the impossible: Men on the Moon! Six hours later, alone in a small Wisconsin cabin, I watched the eerie grainy grey astronaut leap into history from the footpads of the Lunar Module.
Neil belonged to all of us because his small steps transported every awakened human alive to the alien landscape some 300,000 kilometers distant. No matter that his family would personally disclose him as a “reluctant” hero. In the final analysis, Armstrong was humanity’s and civilized humanity’s ambassador or agent to the stars. He was an atomic era Adam who served as the living substitution for our scientific aspirations. He symbolized a centuries long capstone for all the progress of modern innovation, technology, and sheer knowledge had catapulted our society towards.
Like a mighty Beethoven symphony, the voyage of Apollo 11 and the first movements upon the lunar badlands proclaimed a new era and a new awareness. And make no mistake – it was a mighty move of the human mind and hand and spirit. But it also came with a price tag. No matter what transpired to diminish or tarnish its glow, the steps of Armstrong will not vanish from sight.
Armstrong’s presence upon the Sea of Tranquility challenges our capacity to understand the awesome loneliness and desolation of most of the solar system. If we are ever to fruitfully settle within that interplanetary neighborhood or brotherhood, we must rebirth our better natures and ask not what the solar system can do for us in Earthly terms of greed and gain, but what we can do for the solar system in terms of hopes and dreams. Our great human adventure must stand in tribute, in the final boil-down, not just to Armstrong’s personal courage and steadfastness but to all modern humanity’s will, under God, to live life to the fullest. Undeniably, we all truly stepped upon the Moon. In spite of the horrific realities of the 20th century from Auschwitz to Hiroshima, from the Titantic to the Twin Towers from Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, we made it to the Moon! Hurrah for us!
In all fairness, Neil Armstrong deserves burial in a soft mound of regolith within the sweetspot of the Sea of Tranquility. His personal salvation and sanctification aside, the somber procession in near weightlessness should carry his body to a resting place second to none. The pallbearers would include you and I – for we are now, thanks to Apollo 11, one world as never before realized.
Resting with Neil in that eternal silence should include those lives sacrificed for the “conquest” of space – Robert Goddard, and Wernher Von Braun, and Grissom, White and Chaffee, and Yuri Gagarin, and Alan Shepard, and Pete Conrad, and James Irwin and Sally Ride, and Christa McAuliffe, Judy Resnick, the entire crews of Shuttles Challenger and Columbia and a thousand others, American and Soviet Russian who would forever give silent testimony to their deep loyalties to the Deep.
I cannot end this personal cry without a sense of bewilderment. The evening of Armstrong’s passing, I hosted a public sky watch at Caribou “Burger Boy,” ironically arranged to magnify the Moon’s face with perhaps the largest telescope active in Aroostook County. And yet only a minute handful of attendees from a county of 90,000 even knew or cared to look through the eyepiece at that ancient, eerie, unforgettable surface. And rather than a Beethoven Eroican funeral march to honor a man’s memory, I can only turn on and tune in my radio to “Call me Maybe” and “I’m Wide Awake.”
For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, till death parted us from our Apollo, we must carry on and see how this story ends for the citizens of a blue green planet. For Armstrong’s life and death to exert any ultimate meaning for our own brief spans of space, I believe, we must recognize that Outer Space stands not as a backdrop and footnote for our daily, crowded calendars, but as a destination for our ultimate odyssey with all its attendant ambitions and dreams, our true Habitat for Humanity.
Larry Berz of Caribou is director of Easton’s Francis Malcolm Planetarium and astronomy instructor at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics.
To the editor:
Maine needs jobs! And the need for jobs in Aroostook County is even greater. That is why Rep. John Martin sponsored and I cosponsored LD 1853, the bill that is now law and provides for mining in Aroostook County at Bald Mountain and in the rest of Maine. This legislation was carefully crafted to balance the needs of protecting the environment and job creation,
I am proud to say that this bill was supported [and opposed] by both Democrats and Republicans [See Roll Calls 334 and 488]. Unfortunately Rep. Edgecomb misrepresented the facts when he implied that Republicans sponsored and enacted the bill, while Democrats opposed the bill. It seems that Rep. Edgecomb’s statement in the Aug. 1 Aroostook Republican is not intended to inform the residents of Aroostook County, but to negatively use it for political purposes.
Rep. Edgecomb’s statement raises the question of trust. If he can’t be factual with respect to the sponsorship and support of a bill, how can the residents of Aroostook County believe that he will be factual on much larger issues?
I want the residents of Aroostook County to know that I support every effort to create jobs here in The County, and my voting record proves that I have worked to bring good-paying jobs to this part of the state. I have supported efforts that boost the Maine economy and create opportunities so that once again Maine can be a place where we can all raise a family and prosper. Our children should not have to choose between their hometown, their home state, or earning a living.
Sen. Troy Jackson
D-Allagash
Maynard’s smart and energetic voice
To the editor:
I am writing in support of Gail Maynard for District 3 Representative. Gail and her husband Stanley operate an organic Scottish Highlands cattle farm in Woodland — reactivating a farm that was out of farm use for many, many years; while maintaining their careers in public education during much of that time. They are now also working hard to bring good jobs related to beef processing to our area.
District 3 includes Van Buren, Woodland, Hamlin, New Sweden, Connor, Cyr Plantation, Caswell, Grand Isle and Limestone. Gail Maynard has been out and about over the past several weeks visiting the people in these nine communities listening to our concerns about roads, education funding, healthcare and jobs. I hope that when she knocks on your door you will take the time to get to know her and tell her what you are concerned about as we choose an effective representative for our area.
Gail Maynard has an inexhaustible amount of energy and enthusiasm for representing our district. She has already put us on the map in her efforts to become an active elected advocate for District 3.
This is my message — District 3 can do no better thing than to send Gail Maynard’s smart and energetic voice to speak for us in Augusta. Let us be heard!
Mary McGlinn
Woodland
Heading down a dark road
To the editor:
The problem is that the Bible tells us there should be “no other Gods before me.” The problem is that our country is starting to act as if they are a god and we don’t need God in America. We are on a path of destruction just as Sodom and Gomorrah was in the past. Wake up America before it is too late.
Fred Schloeman
Caribou
The politics of destruction
To the editor:
As I anticipate the start of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida — whenever Hurricane Isaac will safely permit — I am reminded how vicious and destructive the party of Lincoln, in the grips of the Tea Party and other ultra-right zealots, has become. Throw civility and respect out the door, and usher in nastiness and veiled threats to achieve control and power.
Never has a black man been subject to abasement and racism since Jackie Robinson broke the color line in 1947 by becoming the first black Major League baseball player. President Obama has been attacked by the “birthers,” who question his citizenship by denying his birth in Hawaii, by GOP politicians saying that the President is not a real American and that he is leading us to “European-style socialism,” or by uninformed people doubting his Christianity. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell declared early in 2009 that his main goal was to get Obama out of the White House. A Republican congressman even shouted, “You lie!” during one of Obama’s State of the Union addresses. Like Robinson, the President has handled attacks with strength, dignity, and without retribution.
What is most disgusting is the lack of rejection of these attacks on the President by most GOP leaders. A noble exception is Republican senator and presidential candidate John McCain’s rebuke of a woman’s verbal barrage against Democratic nominee Obama: “No, no, M’am! Sen. Obama is a decent American and family man.”
Frenchville
