The Royals Join Me In Montreal

Dateline--Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 

Bibliotheque et Archives--Corner Rue Berri and Maisoneuve

July 2, 2011

Canada celebrated its 144 birthday yesterday, and Montreal is buzzing with activity. I hear the royals are in town, royals as in William and Kate who are touring Canada.  They visited Ottawa for the big celebration in the nation`s capital yesterday.

I spend these four days every year here, but have never had the occasion to blog here before.  This has got to the the largest library I`ve ever seen.  I`m in the university district, one street up from St. Catherine where its closed to vehicular for ten blocks (Berri to Papineau, down near the Jacques Cartier Bridge) all summer.

These are the the final four days of the 32nd annual Festival International de Jazz de Montreal, but much much more.  There`s a fantastic outdoor arts festival in the blocked off Village (more than 100 artists displaying their works).  We actually get to vote for our favorite artist.  The works range from the sublime to the ridculous and the grotesque to the beautiful (I kinda like the grotesque). I`m voting for Tick Tock Tom who creates fascinating mechanical devises, including a heart which pumps blood (yes, it`s called The Bleeding Heart--really gruesome; I`ll film it for use on More Politically Alert).  He also has an extraordinarily scary wolf mask (as in Little Red Riding Hood) which he was wearing yesterday!

Next to Tick Tock Tom is Sylvie Vaillancourt, quite a common name here apparently.  In one park in the Village, people are being asked to contribute to a mural--great fun.

I filmed an hour of jazz, fireworks, and fun yesterday, including a quick stop at the Bell Center where all those Canadian Stanley Cup trophies are on display.  The 50s was the golden decade for Les Habs.  Ah yes, I`ve seen plenty of Bruins championship tshirts in stores--get they`re not selling like hotcakes here.

Parts of St. Catherine are under renovation (that`s always the way it is here), so the Jazz Festival has been moved from its usual venues, but there are still a dozen free outdoor concerts all hours of the day and night.  Tony Bennett is here again (not free), but just to give you an indication of how the Jazz Festival isn`t all jazz by any means, my favorite new wave group of all time, the B52s, are closing out the fesitval July 4 with a mega outdoor free concert.   I had hoped to film Chester Arthur`s birthplace in northern Vermont the Fourth (I got 30 minues Thursday at the Calvin Coolidge homestead in Plymouth Notch), but how often does one get to see the B52s--they`ve been around for 30 years, and I saw them way back when at Hampton Beach--on foreign soil.

When I saw the B`s on the program, I couldn`t resist telling a couple of the young securityguards how much I like them.  Then I realized these kids had no idea who the B52s are; they weren`t even born when Rock Lobster and Planet Claire were so much fun to dance to.  They did, however, know about my second favorite group back then, DEVO.  I told the story on my TV show, but not yet here.

When Chris Spirous, current present of American Hellenic Univeristy with a $150,000 salary, was plotting to take control of the Democrat Party, he and Ray Buckley were meeting in my living room.  Devo, a friendly (one-eyed) cat if ever there was one, jumped up and Chris who screamed a line Ì`ll never forget, "Put the cat in the basement, Ray."

That`s my best Devo story--never thought I`d be telling it from a library in Montreal while planning to see the B52s.

I`ve got a half dozen blogs to write here, but I think this library limits me to an hour, and the keyboard is rather alien (alien French keys and all), so pardon the errors.  I think I`ll go back to filming, The Bleeding Heart, but who knows, maybe I`ll run into the royals.

Happy birthday Canada.  What a great country--at least Montreal is great.  As I was watching a lively concert in the Old Port last night,  was amazed at how many blacks and Asians and people of all nationalities were jammed in together.  Multiculturalism abounds here and while you know me as a fiscal conservative (tax on meals, rooms, just about everything is 13 percent here--7 federal and 6 provincial), Ì`m a social libertarian of the first order.

The only negative experience so far was thanks to Americans.  Amid the thousands of throning Canadians celebrating their 144th, som morons insisted on starting a `"USA' USA" chant.  How can we be so boorish when away from home?

Reading Room--Close "The Overton Window"

The Reading Room is an occasional feature of this blog and, time permitting, of More Politically Alert which airs live on Manchestertv23 Wednesday at 9 p.m., rebroadcast Thursday at 9 p.m., Sunday at noon, and Tuesday at 11 p.m. (always available at vimeo.com/channels/mpa).

No, it's not in honor of this being Glen Beck's last day on Fox News, but I just happened to finish his novel "The Overton Window" this past week. 

For once, it's a book I got actually got through--it wasn't easy--but am not recommending.

This novel, billed as a thriller, is a lot like Glen Beck himself.  A little of it goes a long way; parts of it are smooth and interesting, yes even provocative.  However, it fails on so many levels, that only true Beckophiles will be able to wade through it.

Beck and I are both admirers of Vince Flynn who has written a dozen or so thrillers featuring CIA tough guy Mitch Rapp.  They are cotton candy for the serious reader, something to breeze through in a day or two.

I know Vince Flynn, and Glen Beck is no Vince Flynn.  That seems to be his goal, but he comes up short.

"The Overton Window" fails as a thriller; it fails as a love story; it fails as a psychodrama analyzing a father-son rivalry.  About the only level this novel scores on is the political one.  Sections quoting the founders and evoking the Tea Party movement are quite good--if only there were more of them and less of the humdrum plot and silly romance.

The pages detailing the fraud in the public relations business, especially selling bottled water and lottery tickets are actually my favorites, and I sense they were added in as throwaway sections.

While doing his radio and TV shows and running Glen Beck Enterprises (not to mention getting his family heckled in public), the author undoubtedly decided he needed to try his hand at fiction.  I wish I could say nice try.  I can't, and remember, Beck was my Person of the Year not for last year when he had become really famous but for 2009.  He has had and will continue to have impact, but this book can't rank as one of his proudest achievements.

By the way, I picked it up on my way out of that seldom-used West Side Library which has a very poor selection of books.  I was on my way out the door, and staring at me were this Beck epic and O'Reilly's Pinhead and Patriots best seller (I didn't even get through Chapter 1 of that one). 

Aren't these showmen making enough from the mass media without trying to hit us up with "best sellers" every couple months?

I'm just asking? 

Another Day (Year) For Cuts Is Coming

So I read that Manchester gets away with only a three percent tax increase and that the seldom-used West Side Library stays open albeit only for three days a week at a cost of about $130,000 to us the hard-pressed taxpayers.

As we know from last week, thanks to the Senate and Rep. Lynne Ober, the state's Cultural Affairs Department also avoided the ax.  It took a million hit for the biennium but we the taxpayers still get to fund the nearly $100,000 a year salary for a director whose job could have been handled by DRED and the Secretary of State's office.  We still pay for him and will still waste $1.3 million for the biennium on a department which should have been "consolidated".

As I said on the House floor in my speech opposing the trailer bill (HB2), Republicans in Concord have stopped the bleeding on a patient (the state of New Hampshire) who was rushed into the emergency room after being bloodied from head to toe in a terrible accident with DWI Dems at the wheel.

The patient survives, but remains on life support systems.  Let us not be overly quick to celebrate.

We have not rolled back nanny state big government but have merely held it in its tracks for another year.  While we managed to stop tax increases at the state and Hillsborough County level, Mayor Ted Gatsas, burdened with a nearly unanimous Democrat Board of Aldermen, alas could not keep the tax rate down.

The bad news is--he promises it'll be an even greater struggle next year.

The good news is--we have one cut ready and waiting--the three days for the West Side Library will certainly go next year...as will the entire department of Cultural Affairs in two years at the state level.

Those feel-good but non-essential programs which survived this year (alas, Channel 11 was not among them; we saved $2.7 million a year by defunding that extravagence) should be the first to go when we face another crisis...as we most assuredly will with an incompetent leader like Obama at the national level.

The good news is--we still have more places to cut when we need to--rest assured--and we will need to cut more.

Despicable, More Despicable, And Most Despicable

After reading last Friday's report in the Union Leader in which Rep. Patrick Garrity (D-Ward 7, Manchester) buys hook, line, and sinker, Supt. O'Mara's inane contention that he will have to lay off guards, I felt compelled not merely to blog here, but to write a response for the folks on Loeb Drive.  I doubt they'll use it since it hardly fits the 200 word format and Mssrs. McQuaid and Cline have banned me (along with Ed Mosca) from the expanded space only an op-ed can provide.

However, rest assured, the Union Leader has received this should they wish to impart the truth to its readers.  There's lots more to be said to refute the just plain silly O'Mara assertions which Garrity and Company seem to have accepted.  

Yes, this would be the same James O'Mara who, when he didn't get everything he wanted in the budget, threatened to eliminate a popular $125,000 program in which Valley Street Jail prisoners perform free labor in selected towns.  His grandstand bit of demagogery riled up plenty of town fathers, but after wasting county tax dollars making signs annoucning how he was cutting the program, O'Mara managed to find monies to continue the program, and well he should have.  As you'll note in this letter, the department runs a surplus of between a half and a million dollars each year, yet O'Mara has the nerve to whine like a stuck pig, and Garrity buys into it like a lemming going off the cliff into the sea.

 June 28, 2011

 To The Editor:

 It’s tough to tell which is more despicable.

Is it Corrections Commissioners James O’Mara who with a $127,000 a year salary ($20,000 more than Governor Lynch) is the highest paid official in Hillsborough County and is trying to scare people into thinking he’s going to lay off guards if he doesn’t get everything he wants in a budget?

Or is it Democrat Representative Patrick Garrity who buys into the O’Mara logic without looking at the real numbers?

Or is it the Union Leader which insists on running Garrity’s inane comments in bold print with no explanation?   

Here are the facts.  While O’Mara and Garrity claim guards will have to be laid off due to passage of a $14.9 million budget, more than half a million in salary and benefits remains unspent as we hit the end of the current fiscal year.

Expenditures for the jail were $14.2 million in 2009, $14.77 million in 2010, and are currently $14.7 million this year (out of $16 million budgeted for FY11).                

The number of prisoners is actually down 10 percent, from 610 when last year’s budget was prepared to 549 now.  $100,000 less will be spent on food next year, yet O’Mara, Garrity, and the Union Leader try to scare the good citizens of Hillsborough County into thinking we’re not budgeting enough for the jail.

It’s despicable, more despicable, and most despicable.

How do I know?  Because as a Representative (Ward 8, also on House Finance), I sat in on the budget deliberations for every county department and made sure that, despite a six percent property tax hike proposed by county commissioners, we came in with a zero increase.

 Sincerely,

 Rep. Steve Vaillancourt, Hills. 15

Face To Face With Government Bureaucracy

Having been warned several times at the border that I really should get a new passport (mine expired years ago), law-abiding citizen that I am, I decided to comply.

Of course when I sent away for a new one, I received a letter back from State saying that it's been so long that I need to go in person to the nearest Post Office which deals with the issue.

No problem, I thought, so I went to Goffs Falls Road (not far from home).  They accept people without appointment from 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m., but the person manning (womanning?) the desk left early, so a postal clerk explained the procedure.

For $15 they'll take your pictures here (but not the day I was there) or you can go to a place like CVS and probably pay less.  The postal clerk explained that they had to charge more since they couldn't be in competition with private photo takers.  Strange, I thought, but I went to CVS.

The photo taker at CVS explained to me she does four or five of these a week, so I was confident that everything would be fine.  Smile, wait, pay the $9.99 and go back to Goffs Falls Road.

It's $110 for a new passport, but if you only plan to go to Mexico (no) or Canada (yes), you can get a passport card for $30.  Only checks are accepted, but there is an additional $25 charge for dealing with the woman at the post office for five minutes (and they will take cash or credit for the $25).

Got all that?

But wait, the woman explained to me that she could not deal with me because my head is too small in the special-made CVS photo.  She whipped out a template and showed me EXACTLY how big my head needs to be, nothing more, nothing less, mind you.

OK, OK, I said, let's finish the paper work, I'll go back to CVS, get a bigger head shot, and mail it in.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible," the $25 clerk explained, stressing that she can't do any of the paper work until my properly sized head is set before her, in duplicate of course.

And they wonder why government gets such a bad name!

You really can't make this stuff up.

I wonder if CVS will want another $9.99.

I wonder if I should splurge and get  the passport book, settle for the card, or just have faith that the border guard will keep on saying, "You really should update this passport."

If my blogs mysteriously disappear, start looking for me at some jail along the Canadian border.  My good law-abiding citizenship status is being sorely tested.