By Tom Dalton, Chris Cassidy and Amanda McGregor
Just as Sen. Scott Brown is challenging President Barack Obama to a basketball game, Salem Superintendent William Cameron issued Brown a challenge of his own.
While listening to public radio one morning last week, Cameron heard the junior senator from Massachusetts assert that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, known as the stimulus package, has created no jobs in Massachusetts — echoing a claim Brown made during his Senate campaign.
The superintendent fired off a letter to Brown later that day.
"My reason for writing is to ensure that you have accurate information about the effect of ARRA funding on the Salem public schools," Cameron wrote.
He went on to list the 38 positions funded with stimulus money, including math tutors, a school resource officer, grade one teachers and more.
"His analysis was that because there has been a net loss of jobs, even with the recovery act, that therefore it had effectively created no jobs for the state," Cameron said yesterday. "We've hired quite a few people in direct service positions, and I don't think they're nothing, so I wanted to make sure the senator knew that the federal money had greatly benefited ... the school district."
In case the two-page letter wasn't clear enough, Cameron welcomed Brown to contact him with questions.
Oh, and he also wished him well in his work as our senator.
Kitchen cabinet
Your mayor really knows how to let loose on her time off.
A vacationing Kim Driscoll had the house to herself last week when her husband, Nick, and the kids spent some time visiting his sister. So Driscoll kicked back, relaxed — and remodeled her kitchen.
Kim the Carpenter stripped the old wallpaper, painted the walls, repainted the cabinets and installed new countertops.
In five days.
By herself.
All of this started a few months ago when the family got a new golden retriever puppy and named it after the Gaelic word for "snowball." The name is spelled Snoochear, but Driscoll said it sounds something like "Schnookie."
She quickly pointed out that the mayoral puppy is not named after — as she put it — "the gym, tan, laundry 'Snooki' from MTV," a reference to the breakout star of the reality show "Jersey Shore."
The situation with Snoochear, however, quickly became strained when it started to pick away at the dated wallpaper in the kitchen.
So Driscoll decided it was time to embark on a little home-improvement project.
"There's nothing like hanging out until 2 a.m. painting cabinets," said Driscoll, who we think was being sarcastic. "The Olympics were on. It was kind of soothing, actually. It was better than lobbying for the meals tax."
Hand it to Allen
It wasn't quite Tina Fey, but Red Lion Smoke Shop owner Mike Allen did a pretty good impersonation of Sarah Palin on Wednesday night, whether he realized it or not.
As he addressed the City Council, it became obvious that Allen was looking down at the talking points he had written in pen on his left hand.
Palin had words like "energy," "tax" and "lift American spirits" on her hand.
Allen scrawled four words to describe the proposed meals tax: "hardship" (of paying the new tax), "600K" (the money coming out of residents' pockets), "ref" (because the new tax should be a ballot referendum) and "bridge."
Bridge?
Allen wanted to say that if you believed the new meals tax would help cut property taxes, he had a bridge to sell you.
But City Councilor John Ronan stole the line. (Maybe he's a palm reader).
Anyway, Allen said he was at least partly inspired by the former governor of Alaska.
"Of course," Allen said, "we don't have a teleprompter."
Puppy love
In a "first" for the Northeast Animal Shelter, two dogs got married there yesterday.
Yup, you read that correctly.
During a birthday party at the Highland Avenue shelter for Gefen Finn and Sophie Marston, 8-year-old best friends from Swampscott, their puppies exchanged vows. Or, maybe, bowwows.
Ruby and Colby, Australian labradoodles, dressed for the occasion. Ruby, the bride, wore a white gown purchased at the Beverly Dog Spa, while Colby donned a black doggie tuxedo.
They had a wedding cake of chicken livers and peanut butter. The human guests politely declined.
The puppies will honeymoon in Dogtown, Gloucester, and plan to live a few blocks apart in their own homes.
"They're living separately," said Gefen's mother, Ivy, "but they go to puppy group together."
Early exit
State Rep. John Keenan can be excused for ducking out early from Tuesday night's public meeting on the new MBTA garage.
Keenan was following the meeting with one eye and using the other to watch his 10-year-old son, Aidan, stroll around the Carlton School meeting room.
"We had a child care glitch," Keenan said afterward.
It undoubtedly was an enlightening evening for the young Mr. Keenan, who got to listen to one speaker after another drone on about what, to a 10-year-old boy, must have seemed like incredibly boring details about an even more boring building.
On the way home, Aidan asked his father: "Daddy, is this what you do?"
Sadly, yes.
Lexington to Concord
Earlier this month, a Lexington pastor dove into the pool at the Salem YMCA with the goal of swimming 5.3 miles. He chose that number because that is the distance between the Minuteman statue in Lexington and the Old North Bridge in Concord.
The Rev. Richard Capron of the Lexington United Methodist Church did this as a fundraiser to repair a church in Nicaragua.
The question, of course, is why did he swim here and not in Lexington?
"I live in Salem," the 61-year-old minister said. Good answer.
A former marathoner and a regular at the YMCA pool, Capron swam for 31รขÑ2 hours and did 216 laps, or about three miles. Other church members gave a hand and, together, they swam more than six miles and raised more than $1,200.
Wonder if we could get a Salem minister to go to Lexington to swim the distance between two Salem landmarks. Let's see, what are two good milestones? How about The House of the Seven Gables and the Hawthorne Animal Hospital on Canal Street?
Marblehead diaspora
No matter what we do, more Marbleheaders keep crossing the border.
There are almost too many to count — George Carey of Finz, Biff Michaud of the Salem Witch Museum, Andrew Oliver of the Salem Mission (OK, Lifebridge), Mike Rockett of the Salem Waterfront Hotel, Marblehead Town Administrator Tony Sasso (a Salem resident), and on and on it goes.
Now, Tom McNulty, the former selectman-for-life in Marblehead, has joined the board of the Salem Boys & Girls Club.
You don't think they're plotting something?
Mr. Smith goes home
Yes, that was Salem Harbor Station's Jim Smith hosting a big gathering at his Swampscott house a few days ago for Gov. Deval Patrick.
That political pairing might come as a surprise to people who know Smith only as a lawyer for the Salem power plant. Contrary to popular belief, he is not the conservative, big-business, smog-loving attorney some environmentalists think he is. In truth, Smith comes from a long line of Democrats and was once a liberal state representative from Lynn.
Sorry, Jim, if we blew your cover.
