To the Editor:
An Open Letter
To Steve Goldin
How about this for an idea: Propose and build something beautiful for the town in which you and your family live. Build that gorgeous space you showed us so often in the early presentations. I think you’ll agree the five to eight floor condo complexes with a 50 foot wide, three block long road median of green that Hillier proposed for your land on the Vaughn Drive connector isn’t a town center piece.##M:[more]##
Make something that gives people the sense of Barcelona as you described at Grover Middle School a couple weeks ago. Propose to build 300 or 400 condos on your land. Integrate them with a beautiful promenade. Build those shops, build those restaurants, build those community meet and greet areas. You and your family will be treated with great esteem by a grateful community.
I’ll bet that would still be a good money maker for InterCap — and, can you imagine how easy your next project will be when you show your next candidate town the beautiful work you’ve done in West Windsor. It’s likely you will even have towns contacting InterCap to do development as opposed to needing lawyers to force development over united taxpayer and concerned citizen opposition.
And, in the end, it truly is your decision if InterCap pursues 1,”440 condos, 1,”000 condos or something beautiful in the town you call home. I’ll tell you what — you build something beautiful with a modest number of condos and I’ll be the first in line to sign a petition to call it the Goldin Promenade.
The choice is yours. And it is a pretty simple choice — unmitigated profit maximization, increased taxes, increased traffic, school disruption, and diminished home values vs. building something beautiful. How do you want to be remembered? What is your legacy?
Mike Baxter
Landing Lane
Three Generations
Comment on Obama
We have chosen Barack Obama as our next president. The odds against this phenomenon were staggering a few years back. His will, optimism, and common sense will enable our country to stabilize the economy, health and social structures, and foreign relationships. The road will be bumpy with many detours; the progress will be slow.
Realistically, it will require more than four years to complete. Patience will have to be coupled with sacrifices. I certainly do not envy his responsibilities. He needs our support with hard work and prayers. Victor Opalski
Old Trenton Road, West Windsor
America Comes of Age?
I’m overwhelmed with joy and hope that Barack Obama is our president-elect. He’s bi-racial African American and Caucasian, self made, committed to social justice and thus a sorely needed bridge between race and class in our divided nation. More importantly he’s highly intelligent, possesses reflection and proven, good judgment, charisma, courage and strong, positive, uniting leadership.
What better chance does America have to bind up and help heal a hemorrhaging economy, depleted national surplus, regressive tax system, skewed national priorities and budget, stalemated government, misused and overtaxed military, shattered international alliances, environmental degradation, foreign oil dependence and energy crisis, social inequality, inept administration, and divided, wounded, struggling and hungry citizenry?
Obama exhibits the same steady, principled traits and wisdom that J.F.K. used to defuse the Cuban missile crisis and avert nuclear conflagration with Russia 47 years ago. Thank God he’ll be in the White House with vice-president-elect Joe Biden, experienced in foreign relations, and not reckless hardliner cowboys like the current administration. For the first time since John F. Kennedy was elected, I feel safe and optimistic. Coming on the heels of one of the most divisive, fear mongering, callous and careless presidencies, i.e., that of Richard Cheney and George W. Bush, Obama’s victory is sweet relief in and of itself. But I am deeply concerned for him, us, and our country at the same time.
Out of the past 43 presidents, three were assassinated (J.F.K., Lincoln, and Harding), and near misses made on three others (Teddy Roosevelt, Ford, and Reagan). Two other men of similar talent and presidential potential were shot down and taken from us (Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.). That’s a presidential assassination rate of 19 percent overall and higher since the first assassinated president, Lincoln. On average at least one out of every five presidents and probable presidents has been the target of assassination. Talk about a life threatening job! It makes “The Deadliest Catch” look safe and preferable by comparison.
We are a nation rift with violence and armed to the teeth. It’s legally and culturally imbedded. Just look at the national sport, football. Flip through channels loaded with ultimate cage fighting, wrestle mania, killings, and death. Reflect on the reported student massacres at Columbine High School in an up-scale Colorado suburb and around the nation’s inner cities. The media accurately reports this message clear, often and unavoidably: if you don’t like something or someone, eliminate the problem, waste them. Obama is a high profile target whose theme is fundamental change. Good and righteous, he is highly vulnerable to the status quo who may well feel threatened, like big oil and arms manufacturers, the KKK and bigots. Already two neo-Nazis were apprehended as they planned to assassinate him even before his victory.
I don’t like to contemplate the above, nor send out negative energy. Rather all I can do is raise a warning and pray, fervently and daily. I pray that this fine and rarely gifted leader is protected and graced so that we all heal then thrive as a peaceful and prosperous nation, where “all men are created equal.”
I hope you lay down any Obama reservations and join me in this. America would be shattered by another assassination. Indeed we have waited 220-plus years since the Founding Fathers imbedded equal opportunity and freedom in our Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights. And it’s been nearly 150 years since we fought our bloodiest war ever over such issues as the Emancipation Proclamation, the abolition of slavery, unity, and dignity for all our citizens. Perhaps America can come of age at last, with all our good will, support, and God’s blessings. Douglas Opalski
Plainsboro Road
Douglas Opalski is the son of Victor Opalski and the father of a soldier who has served two tours of duty in Iraq.
The Campus View
On Tuesday, November 4, I had one of the most surreal experiences of my life. At around 11 p.m., when Barack Obama was projected as the 44th President of the United States, a certain elation spread throughout my dorm that eventually would turn into a national elation. After hearing the news, all 1,”020 kids in my dorm, including myself, “swarmed” the White House in spirits of the election results. The series of events that occurred are almost too much for words — all undergraduates and graduates of the George Washington University sprinted towards the White House in a renewed energy that the Obama campaign so long spoke of. As we reached the White House with thousands of other students, we chanted “O-bam-a” continuously along with other victorious chants.
I cannot begin to explain to you in words what it felt like to be in D.C. at one of the most historic moments in America — and that it was occurring during my freshman year of college. I saw Obama signs and American flags being waved in the air. To stand in front of the White House, just anticipating the arrival of one of the most inspirational leaders of our time was an amazing feeling. In the pouring rain and the cold, we stood outside, as a college community, united, anticipating and celebrating the coming of “change” that this country so desperately needs.
I never considered myself a politically active person — until I came to D.C. I found myself canvassing with the Grassroots Campaign on Monday night in Virginia, checking to see if inconsistent Democratic voters went out to the polls to support Obama. Indeed, watching Virginia change to blue on the television screen made me feel proud to be politically active and understand that the “change” that Obama spoke of last night really starts with the American people.
Furthermore, last night, I realized that American politics has truly become “participatory” as a result of Barack Obama. To see a few thousand college students celebrating victoriously in front of the White House symbolized that change begins from the ground up, and it begins with us, just as our future president promised. Our votes, donations and time all meant something in an election whose turnout was monumental, and results, historic. In the throes of the election, I knew Barack Obama would be the candidate I would cast my vote for, but I never knew he could electrify our country in this manner. He put a new face to politics, and standing in front of the White House till 1 a.m. election night looking over at the sea of GW students, I realized the enormity of our country’s decision.
Although a lot lies ahead in the next four years, I am proud to say that I was able to experience a moment that is so pivotal in our history, and that I will have the opportunity to see the change up front as my new neighbor moves in on the 20th of January.
Tanya Chanda
West Windsor
Chanda, a 2008 graduate of High School South, is a former intern at the WW-P News and is now a freshman at George Washington University.
Recalling a Friend Who Saw the Best in People
Editor’s note: Former West Windsor resident Dianne White died November 8 at the age of 65 (see page 9). An editor of the West Windsor-Plainsboro News Eagle in the late 1990s, she had moved to Petersburg, VA, in 2004 and there became active in the community theater, Sycamore Rouge, where she met another former West Windsor resident, a member of the WW-P High School Class of 2000. He posted the following tribute:
Dianne made me feel like ending up in Petersburg was fate; through friends of friends and most tenuous of tangents, our lives had almost connected via the News Eagle when we were both in West Windsor a decade ago. She welcomed me with open arms, with laughter, with a self-aware goofiness that belied her intelligence, ability to learn, and ability to love.
When the chips were down, when I was frustrated or stressed, I knew I always had someone to laugh with, who got my sense of humor and had near-limitless reserves of concern, passion, and compassion. She loved Sycamore Rouge. She saw the best in people and places, beyond what they were or are and into what they had the potential to be. I like to think that’s why she gave so much of herself to SR; I also like to think that investment paid off exponentially.
I’ve kept this polaroid picture of the two of us; it’s from Halloween, 2006. She’s dressed as a witch (a “sexy witch!” as she would continually correct me throughout the evening…and I have to give this one to her, it was some costume, She looked great) and we both have these mirthful, confused, happy grins on our faces. It was a bizarre evening; we were talking at the bar at SR (her with her signature appletini, me with my ginger ale), about West Windsor, about Petersburg, about theater, about life, while a rehearsal for Les Miserables went on in the theater.
This sounds weird, but all my favorite memories of Dianne happened at that bar—seeing her fete her friends after a show, good times at new years, and most importantly, her and Rob.
Invariably, the evening would reach a point where Rob would want to go home, and Dianne would always be game for another round of drinks and sparkling conversation—and the interchange between the two of them, full of mock grumpiness, and comfort, and good-natured ribbing—it always made me smile. It was absolute proof that here were two people who were best friends, and loved each other unconditionally.
I remember thinking to myself, “If I can find someone who loves me a fifth as much as these two love each other, I’ll be okay.” It was an inspiring and wonderful thing to be in the presence of, and it’ll last forever.
I miss my friend. My heart goes out to her family, to Rob, to Carry and Craig, to Savannah, to everyone whose life she touched. The luster and joy for life she brought to each and every day lives on, and I feel so lucky to have had you in my life, Dianne.
Jonathan Elliott
