Letter to the Editor: Transport Stim for SoME - Ditches a'brim with money and jobs

Editor:

Re the Blaine House announcement that Maine's $162 million share of the transportation portion of the stimulus package will be used to upgrade roads, railways and waterways, primarily in southern Maine:

I'm so thankful I live in Washington County where all our highways, byways, and bridges are in the same pristine condition now as when they were laid. I'm glad for our transport infrastructure that speeds commerce to and from our towns and villages with 21st century efficiency.

And, oh yeah, while I'm at it, I'm moved to note that I'm grateful that all our homes and businesses in Washington County are wired with 3G broadband and that our cell towers are strategically distributed so that we are blessed, in every regard, with connectivity to the globe which enables the engine of industry to chug away 24/7 - bringing good fortune and prosperity to every citizen here in our little piece of heaven.

That's GOT to be the reason that decision-makers in Augusta have determined that all $162 million dollars of Maine's share of transportation stimulus - and the jobs the work will create - will be apportioned entirely to southern Maine, right?

What other reason could there be?

I'm Mad as Hell...

I just watched, for the first time since I saw it in a theater right after it was released, the film Network. I'd recorded it off TCM as they broadcast their month of Oscar-winning films.

Network was the first movie I walked out on. I thought it was awful. Just awful. I didn't ask for my money back I just left. I haven't walked out on a movie before or since.

Let me say, however, that having watched it tonight I understood my first viewing experience as akin to the way literature is wasted, many times, on the young. Like, the way high school students take a disliking to Charles Dickens.

Tonight I understand that Network is more a premonition than an film.

I encourage everyone to run to your video store, surf on over to Netflix, or do whatever it is you do to rent movies. Order this one. Sit down and watch it until Howard Beal tells you to get up out of your chair.

Then go over to your nearest window facing the nearest bloom of population, fling open your window, lean your torso out, and yell for all to hear: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"