AND ANOTHER THING …

No offense intended toward lighthouses, pine trees and Katahdin, but the three proposed designs for the Maine Quarter that feature various combinations of those landscape staples seem rather cluttered and a bit trite. The fourth finalist – an outline of the state with the sunbeams of “Our Nation’s First Light” washing across it – is slightly better, more spacious and bold. The only blemish in that otherwise clean design is the dot in the south-central part of the state that is meant to mark the location of the state capital but comes across as a pimple. This is either a lapse in artistic judgment or inappropriate political commentary.

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With the National Folk Festival just a few weeks away, hotels, motels and campgrounds in the immediate Bangor area are reporting a slight increase in reservation activity, but innkeepers in the surrounding region say they’ve had few inquiries about one of the premier arts events ever to visit this state. Say what you will about ineffective government programs, but the ad campaign by the Maine Office of Tourism that ignores the festival and urges visitors to take the ferry to Nova Scotia seems to be working quite well.

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The public hysteria has passed but climate experts and emergency-management officials continue to bicker among themselves about the drought – whether it’s actually over, whether it indicated long-term climate change or was just a short-term fluke, that sort of thing. For the layperson, there is one strong and familiar indicator that life is back to normal: The Maine blueberry industry is lamenting, again, the prospect of a poor crop. Too much rain.

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Astronomers are keeping a close watch on 2002 NT7, an enormous asteroid they calculate could strike Earth on Feb 1, 2019. More will be known next year, when the space rock completes its current orbit of sun – if the numbers don’t change, Gareth Williams of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., says he’ll “start to get a little concerned” about a collision that would have the power of a 1.2-million megaton nuclear bomb. The upside is that 16 years is plenty of time to practice the old duck-and-cover.

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has fined the Maine Turnpike Authority $100,000 and ordered $184,000 in remedial action for hazardous waste violations after an inspection of MTA maintenance facilities. Good thing the EPA didn’t look into the some of the bathrooms at turnpike rest areas.