hard deadlines

John R. MacArthur speaks in Portsmouth

John MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine, addressed a group of Preserve Portsmouth supporters and friends this evening at an event at the Green Valley Country club, and he spent much of his half-hour talk praising last year's successful grassroots effort to block Target from building a store on West Main Road.

"It was the interests of the many versus the interests of the few," said MacArthur, "In Portsmouth, at least for now, the many won." And it was not just a political victory, he went on to say, "What you have done together as neighbors and citizens has enhanced your humanity."

MacArthur was signing copies of his new book, You Can't Be President, which explores the barriers to real democracy in America, and features a chapter on Preserve Portsmouth. He talked about juxtaposing the machine politics of his native Chicago with the efforts of Conni Harding and the group she organized here in town.

"You are a very small exception to the rule," he told the group. He urged continued vigilance, as well as putting the fight against big boxes in a global perspective. Free trade agreements like NAFTA (the subject of one of his previous books) encourage a "race to the bottom" with "countries that have nothing to sell us but cheap labor."

"Unless we change the terms of the debate about free trade," said MacArthur, "There will be a lot more fights like this one."

MacArthur spent an hour in a lively discussion with the group. He said that one of the things that made the success of Preserve Portsmouth possible was that all three local papers — the Newport Daily News, the Sakonnet Times, and the Providence Journal, "did their jobs." He singled out Jill Rodrigues of the Sakonnet Times for her reporting. And, recognizing the shrinking coverage of print publications, he noted the importance of local bloggers. "Which is why John is so essential — he's replacing the papers," said MacArthur, pointing to this reporter.

What. You think I'm going to get a shout out from the publisher of Harper's and not run it?

The real divide in America now, he said, was not ideological, but between those with power and those without. MacArthur warned that the country was sliding into a "class-based society, not seen since the 1920s" with the real upper class now not directly economic, but rather a caste of politicians with the ability to raise money that comes with incumbency.

Given that, he said, the real question is what grassroots organizations do. "Does Conni Harding go into politics?" said MacArthur. "That's a question I can't answer. I've been around long enough to see what happens to reformers."

But he remained hopeful. "I don't know what's going to happen in the next four years," he said, noting Obama's roots as a community organizer, "It may be that local movements will be more in style."

And Conni and the Preserve Portsmouth folk are already hard at work on their next campaign, "Buy Local First Aquidneck," a collaboration with Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Roberts Buy Local RI initiative.

We bought WALL*E, of course, and watched it together immediately, and it's just as good on repeated viewing. Then last night, as we were talking over the bonus content, Jack noticed something. The featurette, about one of the robots on the Axiom, is called BURN*E. "Shouldn't that be BURN*A?" asked Jack.

Of course, my nine-year-old is right. The "E" stands for "Earth-class" and we clearly see the trash robots on the ship are labelled WALL*A for "Axiom."

This morning, I found that even the director has admitted the name was a hand-wave.

There is no prouder moment for a hard-sf parent than this.

FYI: "Hard" science fiction tries to get everything important right and track with science as we understand it. What I think of as the paradigmatic example comes from the 1993 Clarion workshop, where one of my colleagues began a critique of a story with, "I did the math, and your planet has no atmosphere."

The Portsmouth schools are managing the current year's budget conservatively in anticipation of bad news about state aid, with building principals held to an 80% spending rate, district Finance Director Christine Tague told the School Committee at the meeting last night. Tague presented last month's financials and projected the schools to be about $100K under budget for the year.

"We're well positioned for a small state aid cut," said Tague, "But anything larger would be dificult." Each one-percent cut, given the state contribution, would be about $54K. But while the administration and members of the committee did not speculate on any anticipated cuts, the magnitude of the state's budget crisis clearly led to considering pretty catastrophic scenarios. "A 10% cut could be half a million dollars," Tague said.

You would think that the two new committee members, Angela Volpicelli and Marilyn King, would have wanted to stick around for an agenda item like this, but they had left right after the presentation on regional special education. Volpicelli asked precisely one question: "How many special education students as of today are being serviced out of state?" Regional director, Trish Martins, promised to investigate the number.

Then Volpicelli and King left. WTF? Now look, I know I'm going to be accused of being a partisan hack, but these people are Democrats. You'd think, given that they're going to be sitting on the committee in just a week, that they might stick around to hear about the financial situation in the middle of the biggest freaking meltdown since forever.

But I digress. Oh, and did I mention that there was nobody there from the PCC Town Videotaping Committee to record the session for public access?

Which was a shame. Ms. Martins' presentation on special education was quite heartening. Portsmouth's investment in co-teaching does seem to be paying off, with over 80% of students now participating in their regular classes 80% of the day (already meeting state target, and 15% better than the state average). And as the district has been developing local specialized programs, the cost for sending students to out-of-district placements for services has decreased by $830K compared to last year.

Yes, Portsmouth will see some increase in the contribution to the regional special education budget, but that also includes local teaching positions which have been shifted to regional roles.

"You're seeing out-of-district tuition go down," said Superintendent Susan Lusi, "And you're also seeing more special education staff moved to regional budget lines, that way we're sharing in the cost. This last year, we moved 4 positions to the region, paying roughly a third of what we had been."

In other business, Lusi announced that the invitations for January's strategic planning session are due to go out shortly. And the committee formally commended the work of the Portsmouth High School science department.

"All too often we hear about teachers 'having the summer off,'" said Vice-Chair Dick Carpender, reviewing the amount of work department members had put in on professional development in the off season. "I count 156 person-days that science department staff put in over summer to make themselves better teachers and offer our students more in-depth teaching."

The Committee also voted to commend the hard work of PHS coaches Mike Lunney and John Blaess, as well as students Matt Murphy, Dylan Mello, and Jordan Lyons, for organizing donations of soccer equipment to be sent to Iraq to help our troops stationed there build relationships with the local community.

"We shipped over 72 boxes of items," said Lunney. "This broadened [our students'] view of things going on overseas. There will be Iraqi children wearing Portsmouth jerseys."

And my favorite tidbit from last night's meeting — in addition to the new state requirement that all 8th graders take a technology proficiency exam at the end of this year, Assistant Superintendent Colleen Jermain noted that next year, that requirement is extended to staff.

"In the fall," said Jermain, "Teachers, administrator, and principals will all have to take the assessment as well. All part of federal grants."

For anyone who doubted that our technology warrants were necessary. It ain't just a luxury anymore. It's a Federal mandate. No teacher left behind.

As mentioned previously, Harpers publisher John MacArthur will be in Portsmouth tomorrow night, sponsored by the folks from Preserve Portsmouth who get two chapters in his new book. From an e-mail sent by Preserve Portsmouth to supporters:

Dear Folks,
Don't forget to mark your calendars for this Thursday evening from 6:30pm-8:30pm at the Green Valley Country Club in Portmouth!

John R. MacArthur will be joining Rhode Islanders for a chat and book signing of his latest work entitled, "You Can't Be President: The Outrageous Barriers to Democracy in America."

We will also be discussing plans for the "Buy Local First Aquidneck" campaign and how it will tie into the statewide "Buy RI" campaign which has just been launched. This is a very exciting time for our local community and Rhode Island as a whole, despite a faltering economy...

Hope to See You There,
Preserve Portsmouth

p.s. Yes, I did go to the School Committee meeting last night, and yeah, I will try to post on it. Work is the curse of the blogging class...

Portsmouth and Board of Elections staff recount ballots from November 4.

With 51 ballots pending review, Democrat Jim Seveney maintained a 23-vote lead over Republican challenger Joe Robicheau for the 7th seat in the Portsmouth Town Council election, according to numbers released this morning by the RI Board of Elections. The outstanding ballots must be reviewed by the Board, and that may not happen in time for Portsmouth's canvasser to certify the results prior to Monday's Town Council meeting.

"You can certify everything but this race," RI Director of Elections Bob Rapoza told Portsmouth Canvasser Madeleine Pencak, who was on hand with other town administration to assist in the recount effort. The Board of Elections was scheduled to meet on Friday, but "that may not happen," Rapoza said.

The final number this morning was Seveney 3,724 to Robicheau's 3,701.

Both Seveney and Robicheau were on hand to watch the recount, which took about 90 minutes and involved two dozen people re-feeding ballots by precinct as well as the almost 500 mail and provisional. Also on hand, taking notes and asking questions, was PCC, Inc. President Larry Fitzmorris, who stood with Robicheau the entire time I was there. Just for those who can't tell the players without a scorecard.

Both candidates saw their totals decline slightly, with Seveney losing 8 and Robicheau 13 from the election night tally. But with Seveney maintaining a 23-vote lead, and only 51 ballots pending review by the Board, it would seem a steep hill for Robicheau to climb unless there is something unusual about the distribution of the uncounted ballots.

I've written before about digital civil libertarian Cory Doctorow's newest novel, Little Brother, and what a great handbook it is for anyone concerned with electronic freedom. Today, Cory posted a note on BoingBoing about a teacher who's using the book as a jumping-off spot for an on-line YA community. Says Cory:

Smári McCarthy, a high-school teacher in Iceland, has been teaching a course unit on civil liberties and technological literacy based around my novel Little Brother. He's launched a new Google Group for the kids in his class (and other classes around the world) to continue the discussion -- what an awesome idea!

At the end of the last class yesterday the idea came up to form a mailing list for young people who're interested in digital freedoms, computer security and so on, and one of the students suggested that we call the list "Watching Back". The list is watchingback@googlegroups.com and almost all the kids who took the course are on it.

It would be great if people running similar courses could get their students involved on the list, and that teachers and other people who know something about the subject hang around and help guide the discussion as mentors. [...]

Throughout the network young people are being empowered to change the world, they're figuring out the beauty of the hacker culture and the fight for freedom. In a world where big brother is watching with increasing scrutiny it is a big relief to know that at least the children are watching back.

— Via BoingBoing

Resources:
Watching Back
Download Little Brother for free from Craphound.com

A peaceful group of at least 500 gathered in the rain at the capital building in Providence this afternoon to protest the message of California's Proposition 8 and to show solidarity for marriage equality in Rhode Island. Speakers from Marriage Equality Rhode Island, the organizers of the local event, as well as members of the state legislature and Providence Mayor David Cicilline spoke to the group assembled on the state house lawn.

Providence Mayor David Cicilline

Part of a national day of action with events in over 300 cities, the Providence event provided an opportunity for everyday people to speak to the group as well, and their stories were compelling. The lesbian couple with a 13-year-old daughter who had to go to Massachusetts to get married because they wanted their daughter to have two parents. The young man who emigrated from India, lured by the promise of America, who urged us to live up to our image of freedom. The straight man who reminded all of those who express solidarity with the LGBT community that small acts of courage in our everyday lives matter and that silence is not an option.

It was an encouraging day, and several speakers noted the importance of keeping up the visibility and building on the momentum we have. As one speaker noted, Rhode Island is sandwiched between two states that already have marriage equality.

Jack and I were happy to have the opportunity to be there and celebrate our friends and family who deserve the same rights that everyone else has. And we are very proud to be represented by Sen. Chuck Levesque, who co-sponsored S2204.

Maybe this will be the year.