When the United Way of Eastern Maine announced a week ago that it expected to fall $50,000 short of its $2.65 million goal this year, local response was immediate; $28,000 was quickly raised and it looked like the charity might make its Jan. 29 deadline after all. But… Read More
Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman entered the Democratic presidential primary as the front-runner this week, announcing that he is a different kind of Democrat, one that could work with Republicans and find common ground on important issues. His primary opponents counter that this attitude was what got the party… Read More
No state, much less the federal government, has found an answer to rising health care costs, which seem much more serious now that the states are trying to close huge budget shortfalls, prompting two-thirds to plan cuts to their Medicaid benefits. It is the surest sign yet of… Read More
The speeches last week by Democratic Maine Reps. Tom Allen and Mike Michaud about the effects of the tax-cut proposal by the Bush administration were not so surprising. They pointed out that Maine state government would lose $40 million in revenue under the stimulus plan because the state’s… Read More
Not yet an olive branch, but it does look like a twig. For the first time since the angry confrontation with North Korea began, the Bush administration has suggested that it might discuss resuming energy assistance. The offer was conditional, but sounded like a conciliatory move that could… Read More
When President Bush laid out plans for a Department of Homeland Security in June, the most compelling argument for the greatest federal restructuring in more than a half-century was how the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks had exposed the muddling that had crept into those functions of government with… Read More
Merging schools would save both state government and municipalities millions of dollars a year, according to a recent study certain to be welcomed by lawmakers as a way to cut education costs. But the study comes with many warnings and exceptions, and legislators would do well to use… Read More
When famine swept through Ethiopia in 1984, more than 8 million people suffered severe food shortages and crippling malnutrition, more than 1 million died. Daily television coverage and a ground-breaking BBC documentary brought the horror to unprecedented global attention. Two immensely popular rock concerts – Band Aid and… Read More
Congress approved special grants for rural schools a few years ago because the federal money often is based on school-district population and the grants going to low-enrollment schools (fewer than 600 students) were so small that they didn’t buy much and achieved even less. But by giving these… Read More
When the Centers for Disease Control last November changed the deadline for states to have smallpox vaccination plans in place by 2004 to Dec. 9 of last year, giving states two weeks to assemble their strategies, it was fair to assume that a threat was imminent and the… Read More
(The following joint resolution was read and adopted by the Maine Legislature Thursday regarding the rally in Lewiston today by white supremacists.) WHEREAS, on January 11, 2003, the World Church of the Creator, a white supremacist group that promulgates hate, will hold a rally in… Read More
John Baldacci began his tenure as governor of Maine impressively. His inaugural address Wednesday was clear in its message, inspiring in its tone, tempered by experience and plainspoken in a way certain to build confidence in the state he will lead. It was an encouraging start to confront… Read More
Is it a good idea, as President Bush proposes, to eliminate taxes on the dividends that corporations pay to stockholders? Critics call it a pay-off to the rich. He calls it an economic stimulus measure and says it will promote growth and jobs. As to… Read More
David Flanagan was known, briefly, as an unsuccessful candidate for governor and, for a long time, as the successful leader of Central Maine Power Co. While on the campaign trail he developed a lengthy overview on the nature of the state’s budget problems and some possible solutions. As… Read More
For the moment, a federal judge’s ruling that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service failed to protect adequately the lynx when it listed the wild cat as a threatened species is nothing more than an order for the service to re-evaluate and reconsider. Six months from now –… Read More
Something more needs to be said about the recent test of compliance with Maine’s Freedom of Access Act. One reason why so many police departments, town clerks, school officials and other keepers of public records don’t readily produce requested documents is simply that they aren’t used to getting… Read More
With the cost of Medicare rising to unsustainable levels and the increasingly obvious need for a Medicare prescription drug benefit, President Bush is expected to propose major reforms this month to the health care program for the elderly. His plan has yet to be released, but must solve… Read More
With his reasons for going to war against Iraq crumbling faster than he can build new ones, President Bush might turn for help from a couple of unofficial sources, and not necessarily conservative ones. North Korea pierced the administration’s arguments for the immediate necessity of… Read More
Americans have feared nuclear weapons for more than a half century. Presidents have often used that fear to justify their policies and actions. John F. Kennedy tried to scare voters with a fictitious “missile gap” between the United States and Russia in his 1960 election… Read More
Have the new air travel security rules got you down? Worried the fancy new baggage-scanning machines can’t tell an explosive from cheese or chocolate or that you’ll lose your tweezers in a carry-on inspection? Air travel runs fairly well considering the many new and necessary… Read More
With local school districts absorbing for the first time some of the consequences of the federal No Child Left Behind Act just as state education budgets are being cut back for lack of revenue, it is safe to assume that the centerpiece of the president’s domestic policy is… Read More
A statewide test of how well local government agencies comply with Maine’s Freedom of Access Law – scores of neatly dressed volunteers fanned out across all 16 counties, politely asking to see documents that should be available for public inspection – found that police departments and school district… Read More
The New Year’s Day implementation of tougher luggage screening at America’s airports, though still a hassle-filled work in progress, is a remarkable achievement by the federal Transportation Security Administration in substantially meeting one of Congress’ toughest anti-terrorism mandates. The alert issued Monday by the FBI to law-enforcement agencies… Read More
Even if the federal courts don’t cooperate by reversing an earlier decision on Healthy Maine Prescriptions, Sen. Susan Collins was right earlier this week to urge Health Secretary Tommy Thompson to move forward and endorse the updated version of the program. Maine government also has work to do… Read More
David Rockefeller, our wealthy and generous summer neighbor, loves Maine as it is, but he also recognizes the need for economic development. He made it clear, in an interview with the Bangor Daily News, that his principal interest is in preserving the beauties of the Maine coastline, particularly… Read More
Sometimes a ton of work produces only a tiny result. A coalition of colleges, newspapers (this one included), television stations and various other groups recently conducted a statewide survey of compliance with Maine’s Freedom of Access Act among municipal, school and law-enforcement offices and found … well, nothing… Read More
Once again, just like clockwork, it’s New Year’s Day. Once again, in a wave sweeping across time zones, the world has counted backward from 10. Celebrants have wished each other the best and meant it, at least for as long as the cup of kindness brims. Parades march… Read More
Baby Eve is a horrifying yet bemusing example of how the most serious debates can be driven by forces impossible to take seriously. There is nothing more serious before mankind today than cloning; at the moment, it is in the hands of a quasi-religious sect of pseudo-futurists and… Read More
Properly, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced Sunday that the United States would try to defuse a confrontation over nuclear weapons with North Korea by talking with this isolated nation. Whether the talks become the negotiation North Korean leader Kim Jong Il wants remains to be seen, but… Read More
It is no secret that families in developed countries are having fewer children. The reason often cited for the increasing prevalence of only-child households is that more women are working and, therefore, have less time for raising a family. However, a more insidious rationale is… Read More
Maine lawmakers will spend a lot of time this winter looking for a comprehensive answer to the problem of health-care costs. The Bush administration will be looking much more narrowly, according to a recent article the National Journal, at new versions of medical savings accounts. MSAs could become… Read More
A new state report that examines drug-related deaths in Maine gives perspective to a growing but solvable problem here and many other rural states. The report was written to be the basis of future state policy on the issue, which it could well become, although the broad nature… Read More
The United States is ignoring some of the international rules for detaining prisoners in the war against terrorism, according to a remarkable recent news story. The Washington Post uses first-hand accounts from U.S. officials Thursday to describe beatings, sleep deprivation and prisoners kept kneeling or standing for hours… Read More
A federal court’s rejection of Healthy Maine Prescriptions, a drug plan for the elderly poor, was not surprising after a similar Vermont law was overturned a year ago. But the need for low-cost prescription drugs – for drugs not inflated by unusually high costs from marketing and by… Read More
An outbreak of rioting recently put East Timor on the map again. The world’s newest nation, on an island between Indonesia and Australia, gained independence just seven months ago. But bad news is about the only thing that brings it to world attention. It suffered through centuries of… Read More
As the year-end football feast begins (note the restraint exhibited by not writing “kicks off”), millions of Americans will get comfy on the couch, with salty snacks and refreshing beverage at one hand, the TV remote at the other. According to a new study by the School of… Read More
Presidential pardons got a bad name in the last days of President Bill Clinton’s administration, when he pardoned a lot of scoundrels, including the fugitive financier Marc Rich and a gang of Puerto Rican nationalists convicted of terrorism. But the president’s pardoning power through the… Read More
It is the beginning of the third millennium of the Christian era. The Roman legions once garrisoned in Palestine long ago returned to dust. But the passing of scores of generations of common men and of hundreds of kings and tyrants and presidents has made… Read More
At the surface, the story of Bradley Demolet seems just one more about a young life well on its way to being wasted. In 1994, he, just a boy of 12 at the time, and three other boys broke into an Eastport home and, in a stunning act… Read More
Announcements by the Bush administration last week struck the right tone in addressing its refusal to accept Iraq’s U.N.-required weapon’s declaration as anything near a complete accounting. Forceful, specific, clear in its implications yet repeatedly offering peaceful alternatives to war, administration officials are outmaneuvering Saddam Hussein by being… Read More
Smoking, drinking and drug use are declining among American teens, according to this year’s update of an annual national survey that began more than quarter-century ago. Contained within this good news are valuable lessons about what works in teaching kids about taking better care of themselves. And we… Read More
The name of a little-known organization keeps cropping up as the Bush administration works to reshape the federal government and especially as it works at filling more than 100 federal judgeships. The Federalist Society was founded 20 years ago by students at the Yale and University of Chicago… Read More
As he has done biennially as commissioner of education, Duke Albanese has proposed a budget for the state’s share of K-12 education with an increase that resides slightly closer to optimism than what many lawmakers might prefer. It is the right way to lean, especially given the capitol… Read More
The worst conclusion Republicans could draw from the announcement by Sen. Trent Lott yesterday that he would relinquish his role as Senate majority leader is that this is an opportunity to “get beyond” or “move past” this or any of the other euphemisms employed to allow an embarrassed… Read More
It has been 30 years since American children received routine vaccinations against smallpox. The last reported case in the United States was in 1949. The disease was declared eradicated worldwide in 1980. Suddenly, as one more example of how the war on terrorism has changed… Read More
News stories following the struggle of Trent Lott to remain Senate majority leader regularly report how often the Mississippi senator has apologized – five times as of Thursday – for his comments at Strom Thurmond’s recent celebration. But the number misses the point because so few of the… Read More
Relations with North Korea have suddenly reached a five-star crisis, far worse than the vague and distant threat driving the United States toward war with Iraq. Pyongyang’s hawks have brought us to this point, but Washington’s hawks may have helped push them to it. North… Read More
A report by a state Senate committee reviewing 44 disputed ballots in the District 16 race ends the controversy but likely not the acrimony. The results give the Democrats, as expected, a sweep of the House, Senate and Blaine House, and it means that Republicans’ best chance of… Read More
The political questions in the outrage surrounding Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott are whether he will remain in his post and what that means for the next session of Congress, his Republican Party, the Democrats and the 2004 elections. A question that should but probably won’t be asked… Read More
Firings and resignations have been dominating the news lately. Mostly, their (job) loss is our gain. Henry Kissinger quit as head of the blue ribbon 9-11 investigating committee rather than list his clients, many of whom would have presented classic conflicts of interest. This after… Read More
Anyone who was truly surprised, even shocked, by former Vice President Al Gore’s announcement on Sunday’s “60 Minutes” must not have seen him on “Saturday Night Live.” Hearty self-parody, gleeful lampooning of fellow Democrats, cavorting in a hot tub with an actor portraying his 2000 running mate are… Read More
In an extended interview in the Maine Sunday Telegram recently Gov. Angus King offered his views on the successes and failures of his administration, now about to close up shop after eight years, and provided some advice for the next governor, John Baldacci. Given Maine’s dismal budget outlook,… Read More
The Bush administration’s decision to revive the practice of awarding cash bonuses to some political appointees – after being prohibited under the Clinton administration – likely was made with the best of intentions. Career federal employees, after all, get such bonuses when exceptional performance warrants and there is… Read More
The most striking aspect of Cardinal Bernard Law’s statement of resignation Friday is that, unlike recent public statements regarding sexually abusive priests, it made no direct reference to the victims. He thanked Pope John Paul II for allowing him to step down; he expressed his gratitude to clergy… Read More
The University of Maine prohibits the possession of anabolic steroids by its student-athletes. The penalties for possession range from an initial warning to permanent suspension and withdrawal of athletic financial aid. University officials knew in early November they had a star athlete who was caught by police in… Read More
A preliminary report on Maine’s largest investigation of a single-payer health care system had both sobering and encouraging news. Assuming the conclusions of Mathematica researchers hold up, the state has learned a single-payer system is by no means free but certainly is less expensive in providing full health… Read More
The three lead architects of the North American Free Trade Agreement – or at least its three loudest cheerleaders – met in Washington Monday to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the deal. Former President George H.W. Bush, former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and former Mexican President Carlos… Read More
One of the curious characteristics of history is its selectivity: Critics regularly are willing to declare without doubt what the nation’s founders intended 230 years ago, but how many recall important events from 15, 25 or 30 years back? The few people who raised alarms about John Poindexter… Read More
The Trouble with Moderates, those middle children of American politics, arose again last week in a column in The Wall Street Journal that featured Maine’s two GOP senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. The column’s conclusion was in its headline: “The Mushy Moderates.” Moderates, said… Read More
The next governor of Maine, Rep. John Baldacci, has a crucial appointment to make in choosing his commissioner of education. With major federal and state changes anticipated in education, whomever the governor picks will be in the public spotlight for the next four years, where outcomes – student… Read More
Peter von Tiesenhausen of Alberta, Canada, has been fighting oil and gas development in his province for a decade with lawsuits and activism but without muck luck. Now, a new approach; he’s declared his dilapidated picket fence and decaying boat and the overgrown yard in which they sit… Read More
Though a player in Washington since the Ford administration, John W. Snow moved to the top of the current administration’s hardly secret search for a new treasury secretary in July with the TV appearance in which he praised a speech President Bush had just given on corporate responsibility. Read More
Forecasts of Christmas sales say the economic season looks fragile – it started strong but may not last; shoppers are aggressively looking for deals but may avoid larger items. A tossup. But what is certain is that more people than in recent years in this region will need… Read More
Senate Republicans have a reappraisal to make. Last week they heard their next majority leader, Trent Lott of Mississippi, say he believes the nation would have been better off had the Dixiecrats of 1948 won the presidential election because then “we wouldn’t have had all these problems over… Read More
The idea that sound environmental practices often make economic sense has been tossed around for decades in Washington, but returned and was then ignored recently after Congress killed legislation that would have required cars to be more efficient and President Bush eased standards on coal-fired plants. The issue… Read More
William Bulger is the former president of the Massachusetts Senate and the current president of the University of Massachusetts. He also is a loyal brother. The recipient of this loyalty is brother James “Whitey” Bulger, head of Boston’s notorious Winter Hill Gang, accused of racketeer,… Read More
President Bush was right this week to make the distinction between Iraqi cooperation with weapons inspections and mere noninterference. Iraq must not force inspectors to guess where weapons or their components are hidden; if they have the weapons, they should produce them without further delay. The White House,… Read More
Accounts, comments and reminiscences of that terrible morning 61 years ago give dramatic emphasis to America’s need to commemorate Pearl Harbor. Dec. 7, 1941, was a colossal lapse and failure militarily and a tragic awakening to the realities of war and eventually to a new era in international… Read More
Fishermen complain that the science government uses to regulate their industry produces results that do not match what they see out on the ocean. Government regulators dismiss those complaints as being driven by unfamiliarity with the long and exacting scientific process. Conservation groups charge the regulators with dragging… Read More
Even after being warned that their advertising was inaccurate, some pharmaceutical companies have persisted in using deceptive ads in print or on the air, a study from the General Accounting Office concluded this week. The study also showed the ads were effective in attracting consumers to these products… Read More
Say you’ve had a beer or two or maybe a cocktail at one of those holiday parties. You feel perfectly capable, get into the car and start driving. A police officer sees you run a red light or notices that a headlight or taillight is off and pulls… Read More
Before the teeth were put into the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act or the Endangered Species Act, there was the National Environmental Policy Act, a Nixon-era policy that asserted the idea that government agencies should study the environmental effects of their major projects before beginning them. Read More
The first reaction many Maine residents likely will have upon learning that a new state-level task force convened for its first meeting this week is that the last thing Maine needs is another task force. Given the extent to which convening task forces has replaced actual progress on… Read More
The Business Roundtable, a lobbying group of chief-executive officers from large corporations, last week showed where along the political spectrum the debate over the next tax cut will take place when it found itself aligned with Democrats in advocating more relief to workers. Its unexpected position suggests even… Read More
If history were half as good a teacher as it is reputed to be, Quebec politicians would have figured out by now that the fervor with which they support separatism is in inverse proportion to their province’s prospects for economic growth. If Quebec citizens would review the ignored… Read More
By appointing former secretary of state and national security advisor Henry Kissinger to lead the independent Sept. 11 investigation, the Bush administration, once reluctant to have an independent panel at all, guaranteed the commission’s work will be scrutinized. The Democrats’ choice of former Senate majority leader George Mitchell… Read More
If giving Americans the creeps is the goal, the Pentagon missed nothing when designing a new anti-terrorism surveillance system. The name – Total Information Awareness, or TIA – conjures up an Orwellian eyeball that never sleeps. The head of this project, John Poindexter, is the same John Poindexter… Read More
Performances of “The Laramie Project” in Ellsworth and Bar Harbor have changed some lives. One of them is James Pendergist, a middle-aged Ellsworth insurance agent, who played a half-dozen parts in the play about the torture killing of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student in Laramie, Wyo., four… Read More
After a difficult recount and two court decisions, Democrat Christopher Hall was certified Tuesday as having nine more votes than his opponent, Republican Leslie Fossel, in Senate District 16. Mr. Hall, along with the other 185 legislators elected Nov. 5, will be summoned to the Capitol next Wednesday… Read More
People living north of Augusta who have been hoping the state’s next governor would focus more on this half of the state have reason to be surprised by the hometowns of Gov.-elect John Baldacci’s transition team and his claim that the team represents all parts of the state. Read More
It is too soon to know whether recent funding changes will reduce the unacceptable delays for care in the Veteran Affairs Medical Center at Togus. But the increased dollars and, more importantly, the higher reimbursement rates and more specific method for assessing the need for funding demonstrate that… Read More
Everyone should know by now that kids are too fat, especially in Maine, and that sodas are one of the causes, especially those sold in school vending machines. But getting the sodas out of the schools means getting around some obstacles. Many school principals are hooked on the… Read More
Harriet Beecher Stowe moved to Maine in 1850, with her husband, Calvin Ellis Stowe, a professor at Bowdoin College. In Brunswick, she wrote her famous ?Uncle Tom?s Cabin? and many stories about New England life, including ?The Pearl of Orr?s Island? (1862) and ?Oldtown Folks? (1869). The latter… Read More
Not that it will console the state’s budget makers, but the latest reports from around the country show most other states with shortfalls similar to or worse than Maine’s. If there is good news in this, it is that the shortfalls are so widespread that lots of people… Read More
It is unlikely that the wife of Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States knowingly gave money to two of the Sept. 11 hijackers. The Saudi royal family has reason to consider Americans as patient to a fault in this lopsided friendship, but it surely is aware that… Read More
An odd thing happened in Washington last Friday while President Bush was overseas and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman was engaged elsewhere: Mid-level staffers at EPA made an announcement about what was described as “historic” revisions to rules they said will reduce air pollution as they… Read More
Whether Nancy Pelosi becomes the savior of House Democrats or their well-dressed downfall, the new minority leader is, all sides agree, a liberal at a time when “liberal” is an epithet flung to injure. “You’re a liberal,” are fighting words and maybe even dangerous ones – the Supreme… Read More
A report published by the National Academy of Sciences last week declared that the “American health care system is confronting a crisis.” Closer to home, a report published last week by Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Maine’s largest insurer, asserted that bold change in this state is… Read More
The Bangor public will have a chance on Monday to tell city councilors what they think of the idea of extending the limit on councilors’ term from two to three and whether the school committee should be similarly limited. Absent compelling new information about the value of term… Read More
It just wouldn’t be the holidays without the cheery gatherings of family and friends, the joyous music, the festive foods, the incessant squabbling over whether public decorations that even hint at religion violate the Constitution’s disestablishment clause. Different communities deal with this issue in different ways, but few… Read More
It figures that after a campaign season of unprecedented, unwarranted meanness and just plain stupidity that the balance of power in the Maine Senate may well be decided by voters who could not follow simple instructions. If there were ever to be a qualifying test of voter competence,… Read More
Philip Morris is trying to have it both ways. It spends billions of dollars enticing people to buy and use an addictive product that causes illness and shortens life. And yet, this past week, it spent millions spreading an anti-smoking message across the country in a lavish insert… Read More
In his first interview after the Senate voted to create the Department of Homeland Security, Domestic Security Advisor Tom Ridge was asked how he will lead the largest government reorganization since World War II ended and the Cold War began. “I may need to go to church every… Read More
Even before President Bush won the backing of the United Nations on Iraq, news stories were describing the new New World Order, which would be very different from what his father envisioned a dozen years ago. But there is a constant, as well. The Cuban government of Fidel… Read More
Every state has a Megan’s Law. Named in memory of a 7-year-old New Jersey girl raped and killed in 1994 by a neighbor no one in the community knew was a convicted sex offender, these laws spring from both public outrage and a 1997 congressional mandate. At minimum,… Read More
Mainers must find the story as strange as a tale from some far, exotic land. A hotshot Wall Street analyst talks the head of the world’s biggest financial services firm into helping him get his twin toddlers into a fancy nursery school, considered the first stepping stone toward… Read More
Lewiston should be proud of the way it has embraced Somali immigrants. There have been some missteps – careless words, angry reactions – regarding the sudden, unexpected arrival of more than 1,000 strangers of different race, religion and culture, but the overall and overwhelming response has been that… Read More
Maine’s neighboring darkest of dark horse candidates for president in 2004, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, is running hard, but he is way out in left field. So is the rest of New England, compared with the Republican lineup put in place by the midterm elections. Read More
On the two walls of the narrow corner from which Maine policy-makers will operate this winter are written, on one, that state and local taxes are too high and, on the other, that they either they reform the tax system or expect the public to do it for… Read More
In a dismal end of eight years as governor, Angus King will go through his budget once again, this time looking for another $40 million or $50 million in savings to match an expected shortfall in the current budget. It is, of course, not what he hoped to… Read More