To say simply, it is cold today, and that might be close to an understatement. It's closing in on 9 AM on this Sunday morning, and the temperature out on my deck is 7 degrees below zero with a wind chill of minus thirteen. That's cold. Now don't take my temperatures as anything official as they are taken strictly on an Acu-Rite weather station. As the sun gets higher, the temperature has now already begun to rise...slightly.
Nevertheless, if you're reading this on this Sunday morning, let me wish you and your partner a most wonderful Valentine's Day. If the Day has neared its end or is over, I hope you had a great Day for cuddling. It was surely cold enough for that activity.
Watching the news this morning sent me back down memory lane, a trip I like to take frequently. When I was much, much younger, I worked a seven day week so my bride and I could make some headway into our future. I had a full time week day job and a two-day weekender. There was a florist shop in the same building I worked in and back in the early 1960s, every Saturday I took home a single red rose to honor my bride for putting up with my endeavors. It cost me seventy-five cents, but well worth it.
Even back then, though, prices on just about everything occasionally climbed. My Saturday rose went from seventy-five cents to ninety one weekend and then, within 18 months or so it climbed to a full dollar. That, I think, was my pay for the first hour of my part-time job. It wasn't long after that the price went up again. It was the last Saturday rose I took home. Sandra was well worth it, and still is, but we were trying to save to buy our own house and that dollar plus could be put to another use.
This morning, the news said a single rose today would cost ninety dollars, not ninety cents and I mentioned to my bride how much money I have saved us. I'm not sure she agreed with my logic.
Conservatives, and the whole country should be, are mourning the loss of Supreme Court Justice Scalia this morning. If President Obama appoints his replacement, any chance of the Court interpreting our Constitution as it was intended will be gone, probably forever. Even today's divided Court, in my very non-legal opinion, incorrectly interprets many laws in ways that would cause our forefathers to literally roll over in their graves.
I am among you hoping that that President and Senate will hold off until after the next election in November to name a replacement. At least after the elections the selection will reflect the will of the people better as the people will cement our country's direction.
Meanwhile, we mourn the loss of a Great Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, appointed by then President Ronald Reagan. Sadly, for me, he was just a few months older than I.
I'm not going to defend Maine Gov. Paul Lepage's appointment of himself as acting commissioner of education. Last week I defended his action of withdrawing his then nominee after learning the Democrats on the Education were going to tear the nominee apart in confirmation hearings. I said it showed that the Democrats were not interested in working with the Governor and Republicans in fixing the many problems facing our state.
The actions, name calling among them, by the Governor, following the withdrawal will, probably has destroyed, destroy any chances of bringing the sides together and signal two more years of continuing and growing turmoil in Augusta. I'm disappointed in this action.
This growing power struggle will take Maine absolutely nowhere and we could be in for a long two years. There is a whole bunch of legislative branch and executive branch people who should take a good, hard look in the mirror mornings and grow up. The people of Maine deserve more than what we're getting.
There are always two sides, sometimes even more, to any issue facing us and the best solution is often somewhere in the middle. It takes good people to meet, face the problem head on, and then COMPROMISE to find the correct solutions to work for all of us. It's the way it used to be done when Maine, and America, grew into greatness. The current atmosphere is simply accomplishing that famous Russian's pronouncement before the United Nations, "We will destroy you from within."
It's now "grow up" time in Maine.
Dave
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