The Salem News
Monday, October 28, 2002
An anti-taxing woman
By Alan Burke
Staff writer
Twice in the last 12 months Barbara Anderson has come to the brink of
death.
That sort of experience changes someone, and for Anderson,
59, founder of Citizens for Limited Taxation and a columnist for the Salem News, the most obvious change is on the
surface. Gone is the revolutionary red hair, her trademark; it has been
replaced by short, white hair.
Not gone, however, are her optimism, her idealism or her
sense of humor.
"I love this," she smiles, gesturing at her hair. "And I
would never have done it without cracking my head open."
Anderson's first brush with death came when doctors
discovered a tiny, cancerous growth in her lung. She had surgery last October, but only after being told to go home
first "and get your affairs in order."
"I really thought that weekend might be my last," Anderson
recalls. But her disposition was, by her own account, "Zen-like." She shrugs, "How can you complain when you've had a
good life?"
And her sense of calm, she realizes, probably helped. "Your
stress levels go down and you're more likely to survive."
The cancer was excised along with the middle third of the
lung, and the upper and lower portions were joined together.
With exercise, Anderson soon recovered. "Actually," she
says, "I breathe better now than I have in years."
Then last April she mysteriously fell in her Marblehead
home. She probably hit her head in the fall, although she can't be sure of the sequence of events. In fact, she doesn't
remember much about it and only knows that her boyfriend and colleague Chip Ford found her lying
semi-conscious on the floor.
Close to dying
She was flown by helicopter to Boston's Brigham and Women's
Hospital, and she regrets that she doesn't remember that, either -- because she has always wanted to ride in a
helicopter.
"Chip tells me the doctor said I was very close to dying,"
she says.
For her part, Anderson didn't realize that anything serious
had happened until she woke up and found her son, Lance, who had traveled here from his home in Nevada. Later, the
hospital room filled with people, including two ex-husbands, an ex-boyfriend and a current
boyfriend.
"And they all got along," she adds admiringly.
Anderson's head had been shaved for surgery, and afterward
her hair grew in white.
"I've recovered," she says, speaking from her modest home,
which even now is crammed with, among other things, furniture, books, CDs, electronics, glass animals and a teddy bear
collection. This is after Ford has cleaned out much of the clutter, which he early on suspected
was the cause of her fall.
He lives in the house next door.
Meanwhile, she is not overly concerned by her two brushes
with the hereafter. The cancer in her lung, she believes, had a genetic cause and is unlikely to return.
She had a bad moment, worrying that her political opponents
in Marblehead could link it to their efforts to find environmental causes to cancer. "Dear God," she joked at the
time, "do not let (the cause) be the (Salem) power plant or the pesticides."
Astrology buff
The origins of her fall are more difficult to know, but she
seems satisfied that it's no indication of a chronic problem. "It was just one of those times when Saturn was transiting my
sun," she says.
The remark reveals a little-known element of the unconventional Anderson's rise. While using
the initiative petition to pass Proposition 2½ and while maintaining a
full-court press against tax increases for more than two decades, her path has been charted in the stars -- literally.
In fact, Anderson has used astrology not only for herself,
but to gauge the personalities of the state legislators she once lobbied.
"And it worked," she insists. "Although knowing that (House
Speaker Tom) Finneran is a fellow Aquarian didn't do me much good."
While Anderson speaks sometimes of retirement, Citizens for
Limited Taxation remains a going concern, a four-person operation led by her and operated from the homes of the
members.
In the wake of her medical misadventures, the aim remains to
punish state legislators who negated the tax rollback that CLT passed by initiative petition.
"This is a very key election year," she says. "People have
to send them a message."
A son leaves the fold
A keen debater, Anderson hasn't converted everyone, but one
holdout is especially notable -- her own son and only child.
He voted for Clinton, she admits, and probably for Gore. "He
hates Bush." Anderson blames his embrace of taxing Democrats on his attendance at the University of Massachusetts in
Amherst.
Not that it's created any real rift. In fact, some of
Anderson's best friends are her political opponents -- like liberal activist Jim Braude, who came to Marblehead to check on
her recovery.
Likewise, she can forgive son Lance his electoral choice --
issues like choice and environmentalism motivate him -- thanks in part to two beautiful grandchildren. Their photos
hold a place of honor on the Anderson coffee table.
"I never thought I'd be one of these grandmothers carrying
around pictures of their grandchildren," she says. "But I saw these kids and I melted into a puddle on the floor."
Nevada dreaming
Meanwhile, she remains grateful that her son removed himself
from Massachusetts, a state that Anderson regards with increasing pessimism.
"There is something seriously wrong in Massachusetts," she
comments, complaining that too many in government reject both her libertarianism and her opponents' liberalism.
In fact, she says with disgust, they have no principles at
all, only a desire to collect a paycheck and a pension.
Officially nonpartisan, Anderson adds, "It's still essential
to have a Republican in the corner office. You can't give it to all Democrats all the time."
And, for a moment, as she warns that still more taxes might
be just around the corner, she has all the fire she displayed in her days as a redhead.
"My son voted for Clinton -- let him deal with it," she
explains with a smile. "But now I've got grandchildren. And now I have to save the world again."
A veteran traveler, she has visited cities around the globe,
from Budapest to Sydney. In addition, she takes imaginary trips, soaking up the food and culture of destinations beyond
her reach, as if she were really there.
But lately she only has one destination in mind. She casts a
glance on the photo of her two grandchildren and says, "All I can think of is Nevada."
And Nevada, she adds, has no income tax.
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The Patriot Ledger
Monday, October 28, 2002
CAMPAIGN 2002
There's no doubt who teachers want
By Tom Benner
State House Bureau
BOSTON - To Ellen Peterson, a first-grade teacher at the Union
Street School in South Weymouth, there's no question that Democrat Shannon O'Brien is the best candidate for
governor.
For starters, Peterson says, O'Brien will help reduce class
sizes. Peterson has 22 students in her class; she'd rather have no more than 18.
She says O'Brien will deliver on adequate school funding.
And she says O'Brien respects the teaching profession.
"She is willing to work with educators and listen to the
experts in the classroom," said Peterson, who is president of the Weymouth Teachers Association. "We're the ones who live
the reality in the classroom every day."
Teacher union leaders such as Peterson are adamantly opposed
to Republican gubernatorial candidate Mitt Romney. They worry that his promised tax cuts will mean less money for
schools.
"Tax cuts don't fund education," Peterson said.
They're also scared off by his talk of tenure reform and
firing bad teachers. And they oppose Romney's call to replace bilingual education with one-year English immersion for
non-native speakers.
That explains why the statewide teachers union, the
Massachusetts Teachers Association, is spending $1 million on television ads, mailings and phone calls to help O'Brien get
elected.
But shaking up the education establishment is exactly what
other people want Romney to do.
"Somebody better shake up the education establishment
because it isn't going to shake itself up," said Barbara Anderson of
Citizens for Limited Taxation.
Anderson and other critics of the powerful MTA say the union
is solely concerned with teacher salaries, pensions and job protection.
"The MTA has resisted every reform, every attempt at
accountability, everything anyone ever tried to do to make sure children are learning," Anderson said. "Somebody has to care
about the children of this state and it certainly isn't the MTA or the people who are beholden to
them."
Romney also scores points with bilingual education critics,
who say immigrant children struggle for years in public schools without ever becoming fluent in English.
Bill Kerrigan of Wollaston, a retiree who tutors students in
math and English, said he's seen too many immigrants go through school without becoming fluent in English.
"It's a grave injustice that's done to these kids," Kerrigan
said. "While they serve 12 or 13 years in the school system, if they are unable to speak the language, they won't have the
opportunities that other kids have."
O'Brien supports a recently passed law that allows schools
to set their own bilingual program.
O'Brien and Romney agree on one thing: keep the MCAS test as
a high school graduation requirement. That runs counter to what the three minor-party candidates are saying.
The MCAS exam "is boring to the bright students, and it is
stigmatizing and discouraging to the students who don't pass," said independent candidate Barbara Johnson. "I would much
prefer if the children were taught how to think, and how to teach, so that wherever they go, it
is a classroom."
Johnson supports vouchers to allow students to transfer from
public to private schools. And she wants to expand the state college system.
Green Party candidate Jill Stein also opposes MCAS as a
graduation requirement. She wants to increase teacher salaries, increase community involvement in local schools, and
pump more money into low-income districts.
Libertarian Carla Howell has a far-more-radical proposal:
end state funding and state involvement with local schools, and eliminate the MCAS exam.
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