Comments welcomed

We welcome your comments on our postings.

We will gladly post all comments, provided you give your name, address and phone number. Only your name will be published.

I know you'll be glad to stand up and be counted!

Best,

Nathan Tsukroff

Feel free to email me - please put the message "Blog comments" in the subject line to get through the spam filters. tsukroffn@securespeed.us

Gray News is not blogging

The Gray News does not have a blog.

The graynews.blogspot is actually a blog for a family with the last name of Gray. And that family is in Georgia.

Nathan Tsukroff

Half the truth about our Library

Gary Foster has a way with words. Or is he simply having his way with those words? Either way, he's not using enough words.

In discussing the proposed build out of the Library cellar, Foster insisted that the construction could indeed be done for less than $200,000. And he's absolutely correct. The basic construction could be done for under $200,000.

Of course, what Foster did not mention is that the front doors would then have to be padlocked.

Why? Because the library would immediately be closed for violations of our public safety laws.

You see, once the cellar becomes useable space, the square footage of usable space in the building exceeds 7,100 square-feet and a full sprinkler system is required. That's not just Gray's building code - that's a national fire safety code to which all public buildings must adhere.

Of yes, and under the Americans with Disabilities Act, an elevator would be required.

All this for an extra couple of hundred thousand dollars, just as described by the architects in the report the GPLA and Library so carefully presented to the council.

Mr. Foster, the citizens of Gray want the WHOLE story, not just the part that supports your desires. It's a shame you're not under oath in a court of law - where you would have to tell the WHOLE truth.

Nathan Tsukroff

Facism. In Gray? Possibly . . .

Merriam-Webster defines fascism as "a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition".

The American Heritage Dictionary instead describes it as "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

A recent definition that has attracted much favorable comment is that by Robert O. Paxton:
"Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion." (Anatomy of Fascism, p 218)

And today a friend described a facist government as one that insists everyone must proscribe to the same ideals, no dissention is tolerated, and anyone who questions the government is attacked.

While facism is commonly defined by Mussolini's Italian government and Hitler's Nazi movement, it is disturbing to see the same political ideals put forth by our present Town of Gray leaders.

People describing the present Town Council as facist are both strongly liberal and strongly conservative. This leads me to believe that the cries of facism are not the cries of lunatics, but the warnings of honest and concerned citizens.

We would do well to take heed!

Nathan Tsukroff