Johnny Mac hits the green wall

I’m beginning to wonder if John McCain will get the free ride from the press that we all think he’ll get. So long as McCain critics continue to raise questions about things like his false reputation as a green Republican, there is a chance that the public will get a chance to see how far outside the mainstream he really is.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Conspiracy theories in Cranbury

I usually don’t do this, but I wanted to point our readers’ attention to the Cranbury forum page on Cranbury.net — mostly to respond, but also to raise a question.

First, The Cranbury Press is not anti-Cranbury, nor am I. The notion that my opinions or the paper’s opinions are part of a grand conspiracy designed to fold Cranbury into one of the neighboring communities is preposterous. I have no underlying agenda. I do believe, however, that there are many towns in the state that probably should be merged out of existence, but as I said last week Cranbury is not one of them. The town may have a small population, but it has a sizable tax base that supports a level of services that some larger towns cannot.

Our decision as a paper to encourage the purchase of the bank building for use as a library — or a community center or both — is based on what we know at the moment. We understand that there will be conversion costs and operational costs, but the current library arrangement has problems that cannot be addressed without building a new library. If the community doesn’t want to do that, we are OK with it. At the moment, however, buying the bank seems to make sense.

And let’s be honest. Cranbury’s downtown functions well, but businesses are not clamoring to relocate to Main Street. This is not a knock on Cranbury. Most towns like Cranbury face the same issues. But there are no guarantees that the building will not stay vacant for a while or that the businesses that may be interested will be the kind that draw shoppers.

In any case, the decision will be the community’s and not the paper’s. We’re just offering our two cents and anyone who disagrees is free to write a letter to us and/or make their opposition know to the Township Committee.

As for the question, I’d like to know why this debate about the paper is happening on some anonymous bulletin board and not in the letters section of the paper. If there are criticisms of the paper, I will run them in the paper — as I did when we ended the zoning of the paper and folded the two Presses back into one.

Basically, if you don’t like what the paper is doing, tell me. I want to know. Please e-mail me by clicking here (just let me know if you want your e-mail published as a letter, or if it is intended as a personal note; I promise to respond).

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

The Burma dilemma

This is the kind of story that poses a dilemma for someone like me with pacifist tendencies. The junta that rules the Southeast Asian country is making it nearly impossible for aid to get to victims of a cyclone that has left tens of thousands dead and nearly 2 million homeless.

The issue is this: Should an international military force be assembled to step into the situation to ensure that not only food and medicine, but doctors and aid workers, can get to the survivors and offer assistance. This literally is a matter of life and death for the Burmese.

Forget for a minute whether this is even possible. The logistics are the logistics and I am far from qualified to talk about them. What is interesting to me — what is most worth considering — is the question of humanitarian intervention.

I am basically a pacifist. I don’t generally approve of the use of military force and I believe that using violence to combat violence rarely does anything more than escalate the violence. At the same time, I can’t ignore what is happening around the world — Rwanda, Somalia, Kosovo, for instance — and wonder if there are cases when a military force with a limited mission might be necessary.

This is a difficult one. Like I said, my view is that violence begets violence. But I also know that unarmed men and women are no match for armed gangs. A larger military presence that had the authority to intervene may have prevented some of the horror in Rwanda or at least slowed it.

The drawbacks, of course, include the potential for so-called mission creep and the cynical use of the idea of humanitarian intervention to further political goals — as in Iraq.

I am getting ahead of the question, I know. But should the Burmese government continue to maintain its prohibition against foreign aid workers and a larger humanitarian crisis ensues, the call for some kind of intervention is sure to come. We need to be asking these questions now, so we waste little time when there’s literally no time left to waste.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.