Yesterday, Anne and I went over to the State House to see what
the legislators were doing. (When we got
to work in the morning, we saw that the parking standards announced that the
parking spots were reserved for use by those who had legislators plates.)We
first had to pass the “guardian Angels hired by TSA” to see if we were carrying
any contraband – no back scatter machine, just a metal detector but we had to
turn out our pockets for them. All I had
was two used Kleenex – one in each pocket.
Anne had a cell phone and key. We
went upstairs – two flights of marble stairs – passed the huge portrait of
George Washington standing by his horse – but it is the rear end of the horse
that is in the picture – not the head.
Perhaps the artist wanted a silent message sent of his opinion of George
Washington? We will never know, but it
does present a thought provoking image. We
approached the glass doors and a liveried man importantly opened the door for
us and closed it after we entered the room.
He indicated that we had to sit down so we chose two chairs, close by
where we were, and we found ourselves separated and sitting on either side of a
VERY LARGE lady. Only the Senate was in
session when we got there and a Lady was standing and talking, and talking and
talking. She did not talk loudly, just
in a normal voice and the senators were swiveling back and forth in their
chairs as she talked. She was hard to
hear but the gist of what she was saying was that the person who was there to
be confirmed to the board of education, was perhaps complicit with a faculty
member of the college where he served.
As it turns out, a few weeks ago, a minister jumped off the Kennebec
River bridge and committed suicide. Not
much was said about him except that he was a child molester and sexual
predator. That does not look good if you
are a ‘man of the cloth’ – just ask the Catholic Church – they have been
through this a few times already. This
minister had been a faculty member at the college where the person under
consideration had been president, and like Paterno, and others, it was surmised
that this person knew about the sexual predation of the minister. The lady said she had met this minister, and
was terrified of him – she said he gave her the creeps – and she thought that
someone who was in position to fire the minister and did not do so, was
complicit in the actions of the minister and therefore a threat to the children
of Maine.
Another lady stood, she is running to fill the seat of
Senator Olympia Snowe, and she said that she was voting against the nomination
of the person – not because she did not like him, but that she thought that the
children of Maine should be protected – even from someone who was thought to be
complicit in this instance. The chairperson
in the room asked if there were other comments before the vote and since no one
stood to say one way or the other, he asked the senators to vote. They all reached for their little remote
buttons and pushed them. The board
behind the chairperson lit up with green and red lights and a count was
taken. 3 senators were absent and as
such when the votes were tallied, there was not a quorum of ‘nay’ votes to
block the nomination, and so the gavel was pounded onto the desk and the person
was nominated. After the gavel pounded
on to the desk and the chairperson announced that the nomination was now
official, all the senators came by and shook his hand and congratulated him,
even the two who spoke against him. Anne
and I left with very mixed feelings about what just happened, but this is how
the political system works, and love it or hate it, it is all that we have.
Last night we had dinner with Anne and her son Alex and his girlfriend Sara. Alex and Sara have the same style of glasses
and they have been friends for quite some time.
They look good together and if I was a matchmaker, I would call it a
match.
At the archives, they do not have any more of the hinged
boxes for me to put folders in, so I am at the end of the line for stuff I can
prepare for digitizing by the incoming missionaries when and if they come. I have completed up to and including the
September term of 1807. I could do more,
but there is a lack of boxes and so we have come to a grinding halt.
No comments:
Post a Comment