And another thing …

The people of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — PETA — have motives that no doubt are pure, but their methods need work. The group’s annual costumed protests at the Rockland Lobster Festival have only increased the public appetite for steamed shellfish; it’s anti-milk “Got Beer?” campaign on college campuses was blasted by substance-abuse experts; it’s most recent stunt — an attempt to shame Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman into denouncing meat — flopped when a tofu cream pie thrown at point-blank range sailed wide of its cabinet-level target. In the genre of animal-rights political theater, this is what is known as laying an egg substitute.

Republicans in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District got their first side-by-side look at the two contenders for their party’s nomination in a televised debate the other night. In one particularly enlightening exchange, State Rep. Richard Campbell, 50, urged voters not to back a candidate who is “wet behind the ears.” His opponent, Lynwood Winslow, 30, urged voters to reject “good old boy” politics. How many irrelevancies does it take to fill the generation gap?

Thanks to geography, the arrival of summer in Maine invariably brings the launching of many cross-country treks using a variety of transportation modes to raise money for numerous good causes. First out of the gate this year is Gary Hatter, an Illinois man who left Portland on a riding lawn mower Wednesday to begin a 48-state fund-raiser — for himself. While this enterprise raises many questions, such as how a man unable to pursue his occupation as a truck driver because of a back injury 20 years ago can bear to do 14,000 miles on a Kubota, it does answer the one about where charity begins.

In Iran, a judge in the ongoing trial of 13 people accused of spying on behalf of Israel alleged last week that two Muslim defendants were tricked into participating by Israeli agents who plied them with liquor and women. There probably are few places on the planet as humorless as an Iranian courtroom, so imagine the suppressed snickers when Provincial Judiciary Chief Hossein Ali Amiri said the two “were made drunk and then debriefed.”

State Sen. Beverly Daggett was the lead plaintiff in an ultimately unsuccessful three-year legal challenge to the Clean Elections Act passed by Maine voters in 1996, so it was a surprise to see her name on the list of candidates who’ve signed onto the public campaign funding plan for its first use in the November election. The Augusta Democrat still has reservations about the law, but says running as a Clean Elections candidate will help her to better scrutinize the new process. Plus, getting nearly $13,000 in public funding is just so cool.