Maine Turnpike Authority crews were busy last week, rearranging the mile markers along the toll road. The Maine Department of Transportation already has done this work on I-95. The result of all this effort will be that the 400 or so numbers on those little green signs henceforth… Read More
Here are the conclusions from the state’s 10th Annual Conference on Affordable Housing held last week: Too many Maine people cannot buy their own homes because rising prices exceed lagging incomes; too many existing houses are too dilapidated; and too many upper-scale homeowners object to lower-scale neighbors. Yes,… Read More
Far from home and far from help, 14 people died Thursday after their van went off John’s Bridge in the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. One man survived. In the next few days state officials will draw conclusions about the cause of death; perhaps assign blame; maybe issue fines. It… Read More
Those expecting new proof to justify war against Saddam Hussein and Iraq would have been disappointed by President George Bush’s speech to the United Nations this week. If new evidence exists, it remains securely private; his speech was a recounting of U.N. resolutions Iraq has failed to meet. Read More
Competing plans to test the Penobscot River for mercury from the former HoltraChem site are at odds over what areas specifically should be tested. The plans are before U.S. District Judge Gene Carter, who is expected to choose one this fall. But the judge’s own opinion on the… Read More
An important study last spring by the Senator George Mitchell Scholarship Research Institute showed that too many Maine high school students do not go to college not for reasons often cited – lack of money and lack of aspirations – but because they have not taken the many… Read More
One of the ways corporations have gotten away with cheating shareholders and taxpayers is to make their structures so opaque and complex that only the most diligent regulators can understand how the business is making money. One of the ways to build support to counter this strategy is… Read More
In the past year, President Bush has led the nation in a courageous and cool-headed campaign to destroy the terrorist conspiracy that mounted the terrorist attacks of a year ago and destroy the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that had sheltered Osama bin Laden and his murderous organization. Mr. Read More
Today is a day of remembrance. For all who witnessed it, Sept. 11, 2001, will never be forgotten. For generations to come, Sept. 11ths of the future will be days for solemn reflection. The deaths, the buildings, the airplanes, the astounding heroism are forever engraved in the most… Read More
The conclusion by the Department of Education that “there was no indication of any student being at risk” at the Elan School in Poland should be read carefully. The state’s investigation was a snapshot of current practices and did nothing to negate earlier charges by students and, in… Read More
Forest fires are not merely incredibly destructive; they also provide opportunity for serotinous cones to open from the heat, allow some species to thrive in newly opened areas and, most recently, prompt Washington politicians to torch environmental laws. This last opportunity was being considered by Sen. Larry Craig… Read More
The common desire of the large majority of Americans immediately after Sept. 11, 2001 was to overcome their shock at the al-Qaida attacks and do something helpful. Cash donations to charity soared; offers of blood donations exceeded the ability of the Red Cross to accept them. Many people… Read More
During the 2000 presidential campaign, candidate George W. Bush questioned U.S. involvement in NATO’s peacekeeping effort in the Balkans, expressing grave doubts about something he called “nation building.” Upon taking office, the new president’s heralded foreign-policy team took over and U.S. participation in the NATO endeavor continued. Read More
The annual State of Working Maine report, produced by Christopher St. John of the Maine Center for Economic Policy, neatly summarizes this year the conflicting evidence of an economy in an unusual transition. The many encouraging numbers described in the report are balanced by a less quantitative sense… Read More
No one expects the Task Force to Study the Impact of a Maine-based Casino to hold four meetings and come up with a precise assessment of every conceivable impact of a proposal that, though reasonably specific, cannot at this time be precise. No one, it seems, but some… Read More
When Japan’s prime minister schedules a visit to North Korea, one-third of President Bush’s “axis of evil,” it’s big news and reason for hope. Japan evidently sees an opportunity to negotiate outstanding differences between the two countries. The Bush administration seems to have given up on diplomacy with… Read More
A nip is in the air. Many crisp, clear days of fall lie ahead, for the enjoyment of all of us, including increasing numbers of summer visitors staying over for the “shoulder” season. Acadia National Park continues to welcome big crowds on its drives, carriage roads, mountain trails,… Read More
The Bush administration has built a strong argument for toppling Saddam Hussein. There is no doubt that the world would be a better place without this brutal dictator who has terrorized his own people, twice attacked neighbors and openly defied the United Nations and the disarmament and inspections… Read More
The Biddeford City Council will meet this week with an anti-casino group hoping to convince the city it should not make itself available as the site of a tribal casino. The council met two weeks ago with a pro-casino group hoping to convince the city it should. The… Read More
One of the more intriguing developments to come out of last week’s summit of New England governors and eastern Canada premiers was the decision to pursue the joining of the region’s electrical systems. Such a merger, all the leaders agreed, could advance cross-border cooperation and, the New England… Read More
Parents of college students and many students themselves will have noticed a painful hole in their bank accounts this month caused by tuition payments. Parents and generous relatives of students as yet too young for college but who are thinking they’d like to go someday, preferably without the… Read More
Congress returns to business this week with approximately one more month to produce drug benefits for those receiving Medicare. Seniors have expressed extraordinarily strong interest in such a benefit; Congress would be smart to bring one home in October. Both houses have something to work… Read More
What an opportunity the World Trade Organization handed Congress in agreeing with the European Union to whack the United States for $4 billion in trade sanctions. Just as Washington was in need of more revenue and looking for a way to hold corporations more responsible, the WTO shows… Read More
Ever since President Grover Cleveland signed an act in 1894 making the first Monday in September a legal holiday to honor America’s workers, Labor Day has been a holiday of conflicting themes, an odd mixture of the somber and the frivolous. Even 19th-century labor organizer Peter J. McGuire,… Read More
Old-timers these days sometimes bemoan the sad state of Congress in these times and yearn for the days of the giants. They recall such figures as Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during World War II. A former isolationist, he led his party… Read More
Nothing better shows how much Maine – and the world – has changed than the news of an environmental group stepping in to help a paper company with its cash flow. The deal between The Nature Conservancy and Great Northern Paper is historic because it changes the relationship… Read More
One of the most appealing aspects of baseball, whether played in a big league park or a neighborhood vacant lot, is what those who get all misty-eyed over the sport call its timelessness. Not in the sense, as those less fond of the sport might assert, that games… Read More
The World Summit on Sustainable Development began in Johannesburg this week, with South African President Thabo Mbeki calling for greater solidarity with the world’s poor as the leaders from 100 nations discuss water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity. Over the week or so of meetings, the 40,000 delegates… Read More
While legislative Republicans and Democrats were disagreeing on how to request jointly that Gov. King add enough savings to his earlier plan to close the current budget gap, the governor found the money by asking businesses that receive a tax break to wait a few or several months. Read More
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was created by Congress in 1978, a post-Watergate reform enacted in response to the domestic spying scandals of the Nixon White House. The rotating panel of seven federal judges secretly reviews Justice Department requests to employ wiretaps and other forms of surveillance against… Read More
The newly grown grass along the Bangor waterfront has yet to recover from the trampling of the 80,000 or so people who attended the National Folk Festival last weekend, but the planners already are talking about what they would do better next year. That’s to be expected, of… Read More
Jack Grubman, the hotshot Wall Street analyst who resigned under fire last week from Salomon Smith Barney, blamed “the current crisis of criticism” and “the relentless series of negative statements about my work” for his troubles. Those negative statements pointed out that he sat in… Read More
One of the first acts of the Legislature early this year was the rejection of a bill that would have established nurse-patient ratios in Maine hospitals. Contrary to the negative connotation of an “ought-not-to-pass” vote by the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee, this was a positive development:… Read More
A decade ago may have marked the nadir in the modern era of this state failing to care for its mentally ill. Longtime residents at Bangor Mental Health Institute were turned out of the facility to inadequate services and those needing help wandered the city, often ending up… Read More
A few days ago, the White House handed out a list of 160 friends, family members and political supporters who had stayed overnight with President and Mrs. Bush in the first 20 months of the Bush administration. And guess what? Nothing happened. The announcement came… Read More
Not only is the notorious Senate slowdown for picking judicial nominees for appellate courts a waste of time, it may eventually be harmful to the views of those urging the slowdown. So says Jeffrey Rosen, an associate professor at George Washington School of Law and the legal affairs… Read More
With all the issues that have divided the United States and Canada recently – softwood lumber, fisheries and natural gas to name but a few – it’s good to see the two nations united in neighborly agreement. It’s not good that the agreement is to perpetuate an irrational… Read More
The idea behind the Maine Code of Election Ethics is to have Maine politicians agree to a standard of behavior for campaigning and let the public decide whether they have met that standard. When this works, candidates run higher-minded campaigns and voters become more involved in the election. Read More
Under the most charitable interpretation, state Democrats merely made a mistake when they rushed a television ad onto the air just after the Senate failed to pass a last-minute Medicare prescription drug measure. In the ad, the Democrats accused Republican Sen. Susan Collins of siding with drug companies… Read More
If you find yourself along Bangor’s waterfront Saturday at approximately 4 p.m. you will hear, depending on which way your ears are attuned, Nathan & the Zydeco Cha Chas, a fiddle traditions demonstration, French traditions or Brian Marshall & His Tex-Slavic Playboys or maybe a bit of all… Read More
Like cartoon characters that turn their unusual intelligence to evil deeds, Enron officials are being exposed by one of their own in a plot to enrich themselves while California suffered in darkness and the company’s many investors lost their life savings. This first plea and others likely to… Read More
The news reports that at least several ranking members of al-Qaida have taken refuge in Iraq will mute some of the dissent against a U.S. attack there but the words of caution from experienced former officials remain worth considering. Broadly, they worry about an attack’s effect on the… Read More
Education reforms seem to move slower than an all-day calculus class, so the recent and rapid expansion of the Unobskey School of the University College at Calais is a pleasant surprise worth noting. Supporters of last year’s education bond, which is funding the expansion, can congratulate themselves on… Read More
State welfare caseloads have risen slightly since the start of the economic slowdown but they remain considerably below the number when Congress and the Clinton administration ended “welfare as we know it” in 1996 and stressed the temporary in Temporary Aid to Needy Families. TANF is now scheduled… Read More
Worried about the way big companies are dodging federal taxes by incorporating in Bermuda? How about Delaware as a tax haven for a lot of companies to dodge state taxes? The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Toys R Us, for example, avoids many… Read More
Head-on tax reform failed in the Legislature last year, although just about all lawmakers recognized the imbalance among a too-narrow sales tax, a too-steep income tax and a too-heavy property tax. Legislators will be especially busy next session trying to close a huge budget shortfall, but they should… Read More
MAD, which stands for “mutually assured destruction,” is the strategic system that held the United States and the Soviet Union in an edgy but peaceful nuclear standoff for half a century. Each side was certain that if it fired its nukes first the other side would fire its… Read More
Most people think P.T. Barnum, the great circus showman, said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Actually, a rival showman made that statement as he watched the crowds going into a tent to see Barnum’s fake Cardiff Giant. Anyhow, without shills, Barnum’s show would have… Read More
The computer business model for Staples in the early ’90s made places such as Portland the farthest profitable reach into rural America for the office supply store. But looking for areas in which to grow since the first Staples opened in Boston in 1986, founder Tom Stemberg took… Read More
Trade officials from the United States and Canada are preparing to resume talks in two weeks on the long-standing softwood lumber dispute between the two countries. Industry groups on both sides of the multi-billion-dollar argument over subsidies and tariffs are urging their representatives to be tough; there is… Read More
From the time the Experience at Sea crew began two months of rigorous training a year ago to the end of their arduous nine-month voyage last spring, the innovative group-home program for teen-age boys in foster care built an impressive following of influential supporters. Glowing statements of support… Read More
A little-known United Nations agency has gotten caught in a political fight, and overburdened women of the world are the ultimate losers. The Bush administration has reversed course and cut off $34 million it had earlier approved for birth control in 142 countries. It cited a 1985 law… Read More
Legislative leaders have reason to work quickly to close the current budget gap – public employees and the people they serve need to know how much funding will be available for services and where the money will be spent. But the shortest path between the governor’s proposal for… Read More
President Bush’s economic summit in Waco Tuesday was billed as a trip to the “front lines” of the American economy. If so, it’s an awfully convivial battle zone. The summiteers, a collection of some 250 entrepreneurs, corporate executives, investors, union leaders and workers of every… Read More
Political parties and others commonly accept the job of running negative campaign advertising so their favored candidate can remain positive and seemingly flaw-free while the opponent gets thumped. The worst of these ads generally appear in October, when most voters are thoroughly tired of all the candidates and… Read More
It was bad enough that the U.S. Mint, in refining the final designs for the Maine quarter, bulldozed majestic Katahdin into a pathetic hummock and plowed an expertly composed scene of the Great North Woods into a clutter of stunted trees, ugly rocks and a misproportioned canoeist. Mainers… Read More
Mainers who grumble about the Legislature’s poor decision to increase the gas tax automatically and grumble louder about the condition of Maine highways may be made a bit happier by the news that more of their federal taxes could be returning to the state in the form of… Read More
As young athletes from all corners of the globe gather in Bangor for the Senior Little League World Series, perhaps a brief explanation of some of the curious local customs that have grown up around America’s Pastime is in order. Our fans dress in such outlandish garb as… Read More
The parent of a child with an ear infection is likely to get a quick lesson in the history of antibiotics: Amoxicillin once was thought to be highly effective against these earaches, but its widespread use and overuse have allowed bacteria to adapt and resist the drug. Many… Read More
With the conversion to digital television bogged down in a stalemate among broadcasters, electronics manufacturers and viewers, the Federal Communications Commission has taken decisive action to get things moving. It’s going to tax viewers. To be precise, the FCC voted last week that within five… Read More
Forty years ago, as the United States plunged ever deeper into the Vietnam war, Sen. William Fulbright, an Arkansas Democrat, led the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in lengthy public hearings that created a great national debate on the developing conflict. Millions of Americans watched on television as witnesses… Read More
Whatever type of health-care system Maine eventually adopts, it would benefit from a couple of ideas presented this week by Anthem officials visiting Bangor. The insurance giant’s interest in holding down costs is clear enough; what’s interesting is when the means for achieving that interest overlaps with sound… Read More
Tourists visit Downeast for the scenery and the serenity; they likely do not understand the region’s importance to the nation’s history or to the people who had lived or traveled through it for thousands of years before. The value of the Downeast Heritage Center, begun with shovels this… Read More
President George Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Vice President Dick Cheney, who dislike leaks about their war plans, made two mistakes when they tried to persuade members of the House and Senate intelligence committees to submit to lie-detector tests. They relied too heavily on lie detectors, now… Read More
The most striking feature of a decision late last month by U.S. District Judge Gene Carter was not its opening quote from famed physicist Murray Gell-Mann, who was talking about the physical evolution of the planet, but could have been usefully talking about ecosystems, the law, free trade… Read More
The view from West Quoddy Head in Lubec out toward Grand Manan is one of the most spectacular on the Maine coast. Come next week, it could get ugly. That – Thursday, Aug. 15, to be precise – is when the Canadian federal government will… Read More
The University of Maine’s response since the tragic accident last week at its Franklin aquaculture facility – one person killed, one seriously injured through the inhalation of hydrogen sulfide – has been forthright, responsible and properly sensitive to the terrible event. But, of course, the accident should not… Read More
Not quite unlimited, but a pending proposal would make it a lot easier on the pocketbook. Medicare already pays for periodic colonoscopies and other screening procedures to hunt for signs of deadly colon cancer in persons over 50 or at significant risk. Now a Senate bill headed for… Read More
The decision to put the new international crossing between Calais and St. Stephen, New Brunswick – the now legendary Third Bridge – at the city’s industrial park is, under the state’s current, painfully cautious approach to rural economic development, the right one. The agonizing way this decision was… Read More
What made the recent Senate failure to pass a prescription drug plan for seniors so frustrating was not merely that the two parties could not agree on a bill, but that a large majority of senators agreed on much of the legislation but could solve the final issue… Read More
Here’s a deal for Maine legislators: We won’t object to your breaking the state’s contract with Apple for laptop computers if you promise to never again say anything a – not even a peep – about the state’s business climate. In dollars and cents, it… Read More
Like many states a couple of years ago, Maine decided that even if many people went without health care coverage and often without care, the state could at least make sure kids were covered and urged the federal government to expand Medicaid to include them. It did, and… Read More
Congress begins its August recess fresh off of settling an argument it has been having with itself since 1994 – whether a president should have the authority to negotiate trade agreements. President Bush begins his month-long break with this renewed authority. Fast track is good to go. Read More
Nearly three years ago, when hospitals across the state were competing to win the right to offer new or expanded cardiac catheterization services, the Maine Medical Assessment Foundation published an 18-page analysis that explained, first, what catheterization is and then what the likely effect on health care and… Read More
President Bush’s remarks this week about a program he seems to understand only slightly contradicts not only what he claims to want in a reauthorized welfare bill but contradicts the reason for the welfare bill’s existence – to help people lift themselves out of poverty. As he relaxes… Read More
Brian Kent has a complaint. In an age of complaining for complaining’s sake, this would hardly be news were it not for the fact that his is valid. Mr. Kent is the Gardiner artist who created one of the four final designs for the Maine… Read More
With $200,000 for a feasibility study, the Maine Health Security Board is on its way to finding out whether Maine can lead the nation by creating a one-state universal single-payer health care system. The board expects to sign a contract with Mathematica Policy Research of Washington, D.C., within… Read More
Talk about your awkward moments. Secretary of State Colin Powell is in Brunei for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to discuss new measures regarding anti-terrorism cooperation. Also present is Paek Nam Sun, representing North “Axisof Evil” Korea. At separate and almost simultaneous press conferences,… Read More
In March 2001, Maine lawmakers were – literally and figuratively – fed up. Obesity was recognized as a national epidemic, the costs in health care dollars and just plain health were staggering and Maine was wheezing along in the middle of the national out-of-shape pack. The Healthy State… Read More
Independent candidate John Michael, who is white, recently likened himself to a “nigger” because of his perceived treatment in the Maine Legislature when he was behaving badly toward other members. He used this offensive word because he lives to draw attention to himself. A suggestion has now been… Read More
The push to regionalize schools in Maine has been for decades countered by the pull to protect the social and cultural lives of smaller schools and the towns they serve. The regionalizers are winning, very slowly, but the public may wonder whether they are better off for it. Read More
Though it has been only seven months since the FBI and postal service redoubled their efforts and doubled the reward to $2.5 million in the search for information leading to the person who sent letters containing anthrax, it seems like a different time, or at least a different… Read More
On July 25, 1952, Puerto Rico was made a “free associated state,” or commonwealth, of the United States. Under that constitution, Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens (as they have been since 1917), they can serve in the U.S. military, but they can’t vote for president and have no… Read More
The pronouncements of gratitude that flowed from state capitals last week toward Washington suggested some landmark legislation had been passed. Instead, it was merely the passage of an amendment to raise Medicaid rates, temporarily supplying $9 billion more to states. The gratitude indicates the awful condition of most… Read More
Justice Antonin Scalia has always spoken sharply and decisively as one of the most conservative members of the present U.S. Supreme Court and one cited by President Bush as an example of judicial greatness. So his scathing words about some of his colleagues in his dissenting opinion when… Read More
The 121st Maine Legislature has yet to be elected and it won’t take office for another six months, yet it already has set a record: 54 candidates have dropped out after being nominated by their parties at the June primaries. After all, dubious records count, too. Read More
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… Read More
When Canada relaxed its drug laws last year to allow seriously ill people to use marijuana for pain relief, it did so under a court ruling that the existing prohibition was unconstitutional because it failed to recognize the drug’s medicinal properties. It also did so with the clear… Read More
President Bush properly has dropped his early line that the wave of business and financial scandals were merely the fault of a few bad apples. But the phrase keeps cropping up, among people who have a hard time realizing that something has gone wrong with the system. Systemic… Read More
Expansion of methadone services in Bangor, which seems inevitable given the current demand, may not draw the same level of protest that led to months of meetings in 2000, but it should concern city leaders. Though their authority to officially act on the issue is limited, they have… Read More
The Senate’s clash of views over whether the government or private insurers should provide a Medicare prescription drug benefit is frustrating, especially so to those who have been working on the issue for several years and are now looking at an end-of-summer deadline to pass something or, perhaps,… Read More
The best explanation of the stock market’s recent swoon can be found this week not with Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan’s observations but in the hearing room of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which showed greedy and often illegal behavior stopped at neither the companies benefiting directly nor… Read More
A friend from the coast who has more trivets than places to put them recently offered the following: “Everyone likes to visit Maine in July and August, and with houseguests come house gifts. Some are great, but some are terrible. If they ask for advice,… Read More
An article posted on the Maine Department of Marine Resources Web site last year notes that the Asian shore crab, inadvertently introduced to this country in 1988, had spread from North Carolina to Portland, but its ability to thrive in the colder water to the north was uncertain. Read More
A recent Boston Globe story about the Green Party convention in Philadelphia reviewed the concern that the party’s primary influence is to rob Democrats of needed votes and, in effect, elect Republicans. The Greens make a convenient target for frustrated Democrats, but the conclusion that the upstart party… Read More
If there were a contest for post-Sept. 11 bad ideas, Operation TIPS would be the undisputed champ. The only good thing that can be said about the Justice Department’s plan to enlist a million or more Americans – truckers, letter carriers, parcel delivers, meter readers, cable installers and… Read More
For a politician with strong pro-business credentials, New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord is taking an awful pounding from his country’s business interests. He’s even been called – an indication of the Canadian fondness for punning – provincial. The issue is natural gas, of which enormous… Read More
Gov. Ken Curtis is recalled often by Democrats in Augusta these days because he was the last of their party to lead a major tax reform that had a significant effect on the state. Gov. Curtis was successful in part because his proposal arrived at time of fiscal… Read More
If a single leader cannot devise a bold answer to Maine’s tax problems, perhaps an answer can be found in the courage of a group. House Speaker Michael Saxl has such a group that will begin meeting Monday, but like the many earlier attempts, its value will be… Read More
David Flanagan approached his run for governor in much the way he steered Central Maine Power Co. toward success: thoughtfully, analytically and, for all the press releases and position papers, quietly. That isn’t surprising given his laconic style, but it rarely wins political races. His departure from the… Read More