Your paper used poor judgment putting the sick zoophile from Dover-Foxcroft on the front page of your Web site. You have given the talk radio hacks in Massachusetts a lot of ammo to use. Part of our state’s problem, and especially in eastern Maine, is that rural Maine is viewed by much of the rest of New England as hillbilly country. We are viewed as a bunch of gap-toothed, floppy-eared, inbred hicks. We might like to kid ourselves with the “Way Life Should Be” stuff, but the perception in much of the rest of the Northeast is Mississippi with snow.

This adversely affects development in rural Maine. Given the outflow of people from this region, and the imploding of the regional economy, I would think the editors might consider the consequences of their actions. Perception is reality for much of America, especially in southern New England. You should have buried the story or not printed it at all. I didn’t see this story at all in the Portland paper.

Mark Allen

South Berwick