On April 21, Telegram readers were treated to a triple dose of wailing (and its associated byproduct of blubbering), courtesy of Barney Frank, Susan Feiner and Bill Nemitz.

Frank (“Reward rich AND reduce income gap“) bewails the unfortunate among us who actually now have to pay in the normal 6.2 percent Social Security contribution instead of the artificially mandated 4.2 percent, regardless of the fact that neither 4.2 nor 6.2 percent covers the long-term costs of sustaining the system.

Feiner (“Federal cuts put women and children last“) snivels about sequestration victims whose numbers apparently include all women, all children, the elderly, the uneducated, the sick and the rest of us as well.

Using her economic and counting logic, there are probably at least 3 million sequestration victims in the state of Maine alone — not an insignificant number in a state where the hypothetical population is a little more than 1 million.

Nemitz (“Dark times at Maine Labor Department“) bemoans the sorry state of those put-upon eight unemployment hearing officers who, it seems, were asked some questions about how they do their work.

How awful to be grilled by a superior about one’s job performance!

There probably ought to be a law barring performance evaluation in the public sector to protect these unfortunate eight state workers, among others, because such scrutiny causes indigestion.

Charlie Anderson is a resident of Stockholm.