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The whole mirror
By Stew Goodwin
columnist@barnstablepatrlot.com
I
recently came across a riveting description
of a destabilizing condition that has been
spreading over the world's surface for the
last few years. The description was wrapped in
a fragment of verse penned by the nineteenth
century British linguist, scholar, and explorer
Sir Richard Francis Burton.
All Faith is false, all Faith is true:
Truth is the shattered mirror strown
In myriad bits, while each believes
His little bit the whole to own.
Everywhere one turns there are people tightly
clutching their own bit of mirror while loudly,
even fiercely, proclaiming with
absolute certainty that what he or
she believes is the complete truth.
This syndrome not only applies to
religion, it also prevails in other
disciplines, such as politics and
economics. As Burton observed ,
these little glistening shards are
increasingly being mistaken for the
whole mirror.
The inability to see the entire
mirror, or to admit the possibility
that there might be one, is a significant threat
to world stability.The shadowy,hate-filled paths
that religious extremism can sometimes follow
have become a part of our daily media diet.
We are growing used to being bombarded with
the Manicheanimagesof good andevilspouted by
bit clutchers as they hurl epithets at one another
fully convinced that God is on their side. We may
be slightly less acquainted with the debilitating
corrosion that occurs when governments adhere
to rigid ideologies. Tremors of instability start
to make cultures tremble when deniers of the
whole mirror move into positions of power, as
they have progressively done.
Wherever they make an appearance little
mirror bits inhibit discussion, interaction, and
cooperation. The self-righteous , self-centered
attitudes resulting from tiny reflections have
infected many societies in many locations. In
the United States they have fostered, among
other things, fiscal irresponsibility, preemptive
unilateralism, ecological desecration , income
disparity, invasion of civil liberty, and wisps of
theocracy. In other parts one of the most insidi-
ous consequences has been grinding repression
of the disadvantaged.
Rhetoric, not dialogue, flows from bit holders
who show scant interest in conservation and
only seek affirmation. When this
rhetoric is tethered to any of the
numerous belief systems that lack
democratic traditions there is little
motivation to limit authority or
liberate speech. Consequently bit
holders have lasered obsessions that
consign all dissenting views to an
inky void. Unfortunately, at present
this country offers a lasered image
to the world.
It is becoming increasingly clear
that clasped shards can only receive reflections
that are either totally supportive or hopelessly
antagonistic.Therefore ,the question wemust ask
ourselves iswho willteach us how to envision the
entire mirror.Instructors are in short supply. At
one time leaders like Learned Hand and Eleanor
Roosevelt could discourse with credibility upon
the mirror's properties. Such individuals have
been pushed into the background, along with
kindred spirits elsewhere.
If the American version of Western Civiliza-
tion is to thrive, indeed even survive, clutches
of tiny bits with their dangerous myopia have to
be replaced by those who can unveil for us the
possibilities contained in the whole mirror.
M&$#**
March musings
from the edge
BY JOHN Wires
The
month of March has such
promise. Winter has an end
in sight. Ahhhh, yes, it's like
taking a long sip of a rejuvenating
elixir to have the Red Sox (includ-
ing, at least for now, Manny) in
spring training camp.
It's a tremendous month of
celebration. On the 5th it's Cheese
Sunday, in Macedonia , and the
Feast of the Excited Insects in Ko-
rea. If you are a puce thumb, you
plant your peas on the Ides. For
those who find a strand of Eire in
their DNA, you step-dance ajig on
the 17th. And on the 19th -I'm not
sure which - the buzzards either
come or go in Hinckley, Ohio.
At 1:36 p.m. on the 20th , Spring
finally arrives. And if you were one
of early colonists, on the 25th you
would have celebrated New Year's.
It wasn't until 1752 that Eng-
land and its colonies switched to
today 's modern calendar with the
first of the year back in January.
I suppose every month can boast
a long list of celebrities like the fol-
lowing, but what a wide spectrum
of born-on's happen in March.
Dr. Seuss and Ursula Andress.
Willard Scott and Queen Latifah.
Aretha Franklin and Jack Ker-
ouac. Shemp Howard and Albert
Einstein. Chico Marx and Chaka
Khan. Burning Spear and Danny
Little Wolf. Ozzie Nelson and Eu-
gene McCarthy. And the list goes
on and on.
Of course, many famous people
have passed during the third
month of the year as well.
Now I'm not really hoping for
anyone's demise. But you know
what they say about taxes and er,
death. It is the big common de-
nominator. It's going to happen.
There, I said it. Now I must
admit that there is someone I hope
will not come down for breakfast
soon. Oh, boy. I've dreaded typing
those words. But , well, it's true, I
hope the great actor Karl Maiden
soon meets his maker.
The reason for my morbid
thoughts about the demise of one
of the finest noses since Duran-
te*s?
I've got him in a dead pool.
For those of you who don't listen
to Howie Carr on the radio , you
might not know what a dead pool
is. People put in money, a couple
bucks a week. And you choose a
name. When the chosen one retires
for the long dirt nap we call death,
you collect the pool of money. It's
best that only one person in the
pool dies within a week's time pe-
riod so you don't have to split the
pool. Nothing worse than a double
be-header.
My pool has roughly 80 people
in it, so it can go up 160 bucks a
week. When Ronald Reagan died,
he was worth over 2G's to the
lucky recipient. The person who
had the Pope was afraid to go out
for a week or so. but his payoff was
large as well. A good friend of mine
had Rosemary Kennedy. He pa-
tiently paid his two bucks a week
for a few years before she slipped
away last February. He pocketed
about $700.
Now I have had Mr. Maiden for
over two years. I saw him on televi-
sion at the Golden Globe Awards.
He looked terrible. He had an open
sore on his forehead and didn't
look like he knew where he was. He
was at the time 94 years old.
Looks can be deceiving. The old
bugger is still hanging in there. My
friend kids me, saying he saw him
running through the streets of San
Francisco in a marathon last week.
But, with a couple hundred
invested , it's no time to quit now.
So please, Mr. Maiden , if you got
nothing on your calendar, it might
be time to grab a harp and get
suited for some wings. Perhaps
you'll remember the lines from
Julius Caesar and at the end say,
"Et tu, John?"
Well, I'm sure I've sickened
most of you with this. Ghoulish,
bad taste,crass: you name it -the
dead pool is all of that. But I don't
like Bingo, Super Bowl and World
Series pools only happen a couple
times of year.
I'm not really a gambler, but
I think this is betting on a sure
thing. Sooner rather than later.
But sooner would be OK with me.
fCORNER
i-i
— niiiiMi—mi! By Paul Gauvin
pgauvin@barnstabl.epatriot.com
Battling over taxation's
flaws an ancient human
endeavor
Industrialist and author Vivian Kel-
lems was once quoted in the Los An-
geles Times saying, in part, "Our tax
law...is a hydra-headed monster and I'm
going to attack, attack and attack until I
have ironed out every flaw in it."
Poor, deluded woman. She was born in
1896, died in 1975 and, regrettably, never
got close to the ironing board. There are
still more wrinkles in tax law than there
are on a Shar pei pup -and, to scoff Kel-
lems even more -new crinkles and folds
appear yearly to suit the times and as-
suage or aggravate tempers.
It is with these flaws, real or perceived ,
that Barnstable residents now live.
Among the town's citizens are more than
a handful of Kellems reaching for the flat
iron with which to press the attack on the
rumpled local property tax process. The
remainder are, well, contented enough to
be lethargic.
Since before the Boston Tea Party,
taxes have had the onerous distinction
of being one of society's prime divisive
forces. Ask Robin Hood. Taxation's cel-
lular-like ability to divide the population
into irate camps remains one of society's
challenges.
As this column is being written, town
council president Hank Farnham and a
detached group of businessmen are set-
ting the stage for repeal of the so-called
split-tax measure passed last year. They
are up-front about it.
On the other side of the fence, a small
group of equally candid citizens is shop-
ping for a "leader" to command a local
taxpayers' foundation army to repel the
coming assault on the split tax and, as
Kellem might put it, iron out other flaws.
And still another faction, yet to emerge
full bore, isthe second-home owners on
the other side of the bridges who will
pick up the tab of a 20percent residential
exemption also passed by the council last
year by which people who vote here will
benefit if they own a home of less than
about $810,000.
Most off-Cape owners probably don't
know about the 20 percent exemption
pending receipt of their late tax bills,
except some from Connecticut , according
to a recent issue of the Hartford Courant,
where Barnstable 's tax complexion made
headlines.
One Cape summer resident quoted
by the Courant is a familiar name here,
Dominick Gautreau who, with Al DeFlo-
rio and Tony Pelletier, led a semi-success-
ful grass roots effort called FAIR- abetted
by a referendum vote and solid statistics
-to finally wrest a split tax from a reluc-
tant town council.
Unfortunately for them, the effort back-
fired. They got the split-tax all right, but
not the ratio they wanted so the benefit
to million-plus dollar homes is minimal.
The group didn't pursue the 20 percent
exemption to any degree and when that
nonetheless passed, it increased the
burden on expensive homes more than
the micro gain from the split tax. "We
got the worse split in terms of fairness,"
says Pelletier. "We're branded as greedy
waterfront owners" some of whose taxes
nearly tripled a few years ago, which is
what incited their active response.
With Gautreau and DeFlorio vacation-
ing off-Cape, Pelletier said he has been
left for the moment to ferret out a person
who could provide "the leadership, skill
and have the right rapport" with all fac-
tions to iron out tax flaws with the skill of
a presser in Chinese laundry.
For his part, Gautreau told the Courant
"This law puts an undue burden on sec-
ond homeowners who are already paying
[more] taxes and only using 30 percent or
so of town services. We are going to work
to get this changed."
Good luck, is the feeling of some
councilors like Gary Brown who told the
Courant ""So what if it's unfair? What are
they going to do? Sell? We have buyers
lined up behind every house. They won't
sell on a bet."
Councilor Greg Milne told the newspa-
per that out of towners paying high prices
for homes raised values to the point that
local workers couldn't bear the taxes and
needed relief. "We gave it to them," he
said.
Backfire indeed. We are left by contrast
to ponder the orderliness but not the
equity of Cecil Alexander's observation in
"AllThings Bright and Beautiful."
"The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high or lowly,
And order'd their estate."
LETTERS
Nursing shortage
is real
Edward Maroney 's news ar-
ticle and Paul Gauvin'scolumn
regarding the nurse staffing
controversy at Cape Cod Hos-
pitalpaint ableak picture ofthe
future for healthcareconsumers
on Cape Cod.
Given the best assumptions
of hospital spokesperson David
Reilly,the $650,000 ayear saved
by abolishing the weekend
nurse incentive program will
be nary a drop in comparison
to the $500,000 amonth hemor-
rhage the hospital claims it is
experiencing.
As Mr. Gauvin says, "do the
math." Even if all the weekend
RNs accept the pay cut and
stay at CCH there will still be
80 nurse vacancies. Now con-
sider if a third of the weekend
nursesleave. Overtime costs are
bound to skyrocket.Has anyone
offered an accounting of the
overtime costs paid right now
at Cape Cod Hospital? Factor in
the weekend differentials,vaca-
tion, holiday and sick time paid
to regular nursing staff to cover
weekends and that big savings
in the sky starts to fizzle.
Says Mr. Reilly of the deci-
sion to cut positions, "About
10 or 15 years ago there was a
nursing shortage."Reillyclaims
the hospital had to attract and
retain RNs and so the weekend
incentiveprogramwasborn. His
past-tense implication is that
the problems of nursing short-
ages are behind us here on the
Cape. Unfortunately, Mr. Reilly
goes on to contradict this claim
by offering his hope that the
affected nurses would decide
to stay, having been invited to
apply for the approximately
140nursingvacancies currently
available. Mr. Reilly,if you have
140nurse vacancies,you have a
nursing shortage!
Meanwhile, Mr. Gauvin's col-
umn uses every tired nursing
cliche' from bedpans to doing
"God's work," to express his
point that nurses should be
glad they have a job, period.
He makes the point many Cape
workers would love to work
the hospital-offered 30 hours
for the money and benefits.
The unasked and unanswered
question this begs is, where are
all thesejealous workers? If the
job and benefits are so enticing,
why are people not flocking to
nursing and beating down the
doors of the human resource
department? The answer, of
course, is that nursing is more
than bedpans and acalling.It is
work that isphysically demand-
ing,emotionallychallengingand
intellectually difficult .
Withresearch changingnurs-
ing practice on nearly a daily
basis, nursing requires highly
specialized knowledge as well
asacute socialskills.Registered
Nurses are licensed profession-
als. Decisions made and ac-
tions taken by nurses can, and
frequently do, involve life and
death. All work is important
to society. But the retail, lodg-
ing and food service workers
to whom Mr. Gauvin compares
nurses are simplynot held to the
same standards as nurses. And
clearly, despite Mr. Gauvin's
feelings about overcompensa-
tion, not many of the folks are
willing to take on the responsi-
bilities of those standards.
It is true, Mr. Gauvin, that
hospitalsdo not existto accom-
modate employees. They exist
to provide quality nursing and
medical care to the community
they serve. By the same token,
Cape Cod Hospital is not los-
ing money because nurses are
working weekend incentive
programs. The problem is just
not that simple.Many decisions
have led Cape Cod Hospital to
this sad place and staff nurses
made none of those decisions.
Making nurses the scapegoat
for those decisions is not going
to solve the problem.
Maureen Carsen, RN
Cape Cod Hospital, ICU
and 75 other signers
History of warrantless
searches is long
Re: "No person, or president ,
is above the law," by Richard
CONTINUED ON PAGE A:12