Some Maine dentists feel caught in a trap. They are required by law to warn their patients that amalgam fillings contain mercury, a poisonous chemical. And yet, if they make a filling for a back tooth from the safer – but more expensive – white material known as… Read More
Speaking at a cross-border energy conference this week in Saint John, New Brunswick, Gov. Angus King told his audience, “You would have to have your head examined” to build a nuclear power plant these days. We hope the governor simply was unaware that the electric utility in his… Read More
The most damning aspect of the revelation that President Bush was warned more than a month before Sept. 11 that Osama bin Laden might try to hijack American airplanes is not that the administration failed to take specific action on what, at least at present, appears to have… Read More
Quietly but efficiently, an ambitious campaign is taking shape to close down the school vending machines that peddle sodas, chips and other high-calorie, high-fat and high-caffeine products that often start kids on a lifetime of bad teeth and overweight bodies. A task force of Maine… Read More
Those needy hordes of Canadians pouring across the border in search of the kind of medical services their government-sponsored system fails to provide may be a lot less horde-like than previously believed. The results of a study described this month in the health care policy journal Health Affairs… Read More
A board reviewing the state of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway for the last three years probably will not benefit significantly from delaying construction of canoe access at John’s Bridge and once again reviewing overall access on the waterway. Members of the advisory council have made their positions clear… Read More
Speak up, Ellsworth, says the announcement. “It’s about a healthy future for our community.” The city’s residents will meet 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 18, in the middle school (the old Ellsworth High School) to help chart a course for a healthier future. Read More
Maine’s case for federal disaster assistance because of drought was weak from the start and grows weaker with every drenching rain – Federal Emergency Management Agency guidelines and history make clear that a disaster declaration requires demonstrating imminent threat to human health, something the state did not show. Read More
Given that a 40-year embargo hasn’t worked very well, the visit to Cuba this week by former President Jimmy Carter is an appropriate attempt to improve human rights there and U.S.-Cuban relations. More than further blockades or congressional missile rattling, direct engagement, even if part of an unofficial… Read More
The latest news on the latest report on Maine’s economy will sound painfully familiar to anyone paying even the slightest attention to state politics. Maine’s best hope is that these repetitive reviews become painful enough to voters that they insist lawmakers do something about them if only to… Read More
Saving money sometimes turns out to be surprisingly expensive, especially the projected savings do not subtract some very significant costs. It is fortunate that UMaine President Peter Hoff took those costs into account Monday when rejecting a proposal to cut University of Maine athletic programs,… Read More
For what it’s worth as Congress reconciles House and Senate energy bills, consider the following: “The National Energy Strategy recently announced by President Bush fails to meet the needs of the American people. … Instead, the president proposes a policy from the past: increased oil… Read More
Microsoft has a big problem with software piracy. People buy one copy of the Microsoft Office program and then copy it, free, onto additional computers. The company seems particularly exercised about such piracy in school districts, but some school districts are fighting back, notably in Oregon and Washington. Read More
Assume that the National Marine Fisheries Services does not enjoy getting sued, that New England fishermen are not hell-bent on destroying the resource that sustains them and that environmental groups and judges would prefer not to be the targets of angry protesters and irate politicians. The conclusion, then,… Read More
The recent contributions by nurses from around the country to support a detailed analysis of a single-payer health care system in Maine do more than just help pay for a study. They are evidence of the widespread frustration over the current state of health care and they suggest… Read More
This generation’s Pearl Harbor, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, aroused Americans much like the Japanese attack 60 years ago that catapulted the United States into World War II. Once again, we were fighting mad. We had been caught napping and feared further attacks. Read More
There’s no mystery to why the National Governors’ Association is enthusiastically supporting a plan by Sen. Susan Collins to increase Medicaid funding by up to $9 billion over the next 18 months. State revenues, slammed by a combination of a tepid economy and a massive federal tax cut,… Read More
As the state’s Homeland Security Planning Conference heads into its fourth and final day, the many speakers have reiterated a few central points: Terrorism can take many forms and can happen anywhere; effectively preventing or responding to this amorphous threat requires cooperation at all levels of government; the… Read More
Does the appearance of memos detailing how Enron scammed the electric-utility system in California mean that the nation can forget about the vice president’s energy strategy, which tries to solve a problem it is now certain does not exist as portrayed? Will the answer of more oil drilling,… Read More
Concluding there is pork in a farm bill is a bit like announcing that the farm belt is the true heartland of America: banal enough to induce reading stupor. Yet the bill before the Senate today is truly something else. It’s a 70-percent increase over the current program… Read More
United Nations forensics experts began sifting through two mass graves in northern Afghanistan Tuesday. One is a deep pit into which perhaps hundreds of Taliban were bulldozed after they suffocated; the other a shallow trench into which hundreds of anti-Taliban were dumped after being shot. Read More
The presence of more than $100 million in the state’s Rainy Day account, even if most of that money already has been committed to programs starting July 1, means that Maine has enough time to make thoughtful decisions about closing a $180 million shortfall in the current biennium. Read More
The Navy’s selection last week of Bath Iron Works’ arch rival as the lead designer for the next generation of stealth warships was a tough and surprising loss for the home team. Although BIW still will get a hefty share of the DD(X) program, workers and executives were… Read More
Twice recently executives of two of Maine’s largest paper mills, Domtar and Fraser, have gone before officials of their towns, Madawaska and Baileyville. In both instances, the reason was to caution that the property tax burdens they bear are unbearable. As the biggest property taxpayers… Read More
University of Maine scientist George Denton received one of the nation’s highest honors in his field last week with his election to the National Academy of Sciences. As the first-ever UMaine faculty member to join this elite group, he adds to a distinguished career in geological sciences. And… Read More
Two developments occurred this week in the Roman Catholic Church’s excruciating child sex abuse crisis. One illustrates how far some church leaders have come on this issue; the other how far some still have to go. After a clumsy and confused start in dealing with… Read More
Under an agreement announced last week, Bangor Hydro would avoid an audit by finding savings and efficiencies worth millions of dollars, cutting rates by as much as 12 percent through 2007 and agreeing to penalties if it failed to meet service standards. The agreement comes as part of… Read More
Timing is, if not everything in life, at least a healthy portion of it, so pity John Fitzsimmons, president of the state’s technical college system, who chose May 1 to announce a $23 million plan to expand his system. While he was talking to reporters from his Augusta… Read More
Maine’s senators recently supported a bill to offer Americans discount prescription drugs through government price controls – as long as the government exerting the control was in Ottawa and not Washington. Their support of a measure to allow wholesale drug imports from Canada is needed and welcome, but… Read More
Until recently, the story of Maine’s offshore islands has been a dismal tale of declining year-round population. A century ago, there were more than 300 full-time island communities, most of them with general stores and schools and many with their own post offices. That number dropped to 14,… Read More
Today is the deadline for the nation’s 1,121 medium- and small-market television stations to begin broadcasting a digital signal. Seventy-four percent, nearly 850 of those stations, missed that deadline. Blame these stations for ignoring both the will of Congress, which ordered this forced march into… Read More
The Bush administration’s plan to make a war with Iraq seem inevitable continued last week with its descriptions of the number of ground troops needed and potential hosts of needed air bases. But the questions Congress should be asking go beyond the logistics of war into what a… Read More
A visit yesterday in Portland from a national children’s lobbying group provided a refreshing change from the typical tough-on-crime attitude that has grown more common in response to violent kids. The group’s survey of Maine chiefs of police, sheriffs and prosecutors was meant to influence congressional debate, but… Read More
As the June primaries approach and the campaigns heat up, voters in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District are blessed. There are 10 contenders for the job being vacated by Rep. John Baldacci, four Republicans, six Democrats; all are credible candidates, accomplished and thoughtful individuals with something to offer. Read More
An agreement to set aside land for conservation in the heavily developed mall area in Bangor is a positive step in the city’s development and an encouraging result of the city council’s resolve last year to better balance development with environmental concerns. The easement doesn’t settle the question… Read More
About half of day care centers in Maine already meet the higher standards recently proposed by the Department of Human Services, but the difficulty of finding good day care combined with parents’ limited ability to pay more should cause the state to proceed slowly with its proposal. Read More
It was apparent from about mid-winter that the Senate energy bill would be an improvement over the House version but how much was uncertain. Now that a lengthy debate on the bill has been completed, the answer seems to be that it is substantially better in some areas,… Read More
Attorney General John Ashcroft is a straight arrow if there ever was one. His strong personal principles include support for the death penalty and support for a constitutional amendment banning abortion. On the abortion issue, he has pledged as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer to enforce current… Read More
The decision by Gov. Angus King to kill legislation that would have provided improved insurance coverage for mental health problems may not matter much if the news that President Bush is supportive of an even broader “parity” bill proves true. Maine often thinks of itself as a leader… Read More
Unpaid, unnoticed, and thus far mostly unappreciated, 19 Maine citizens have been toiling under a tight schedule to devise a universal, single-payer health care plan. If they succeed, and if the Legislature acts on their model, Maine could lead the nation in adopting a plan that would replace… Read More
Earth Day – actually, Earth Three-Day Weekend – was celebrated in Portland by graffiti artists expressing themselves on exterior walls throughout the city, an event that involved the use of fume-blocking filter masks and that produced a pile of empty spray-paint cans. At Unity College, the Recycled Derby… Read More
Economic development in northern Maine gets a significant, though still theoretical, boost with Transportation Commissioner John Melrose’s proposed resolution of the conflict over the future of the currently abandoned Bangor-Calais rail line. Although the proposal attempts to balance recreational and industrial uses of the line, it leans –… Read More
The debate over workers’ comp in the Legislature today is likely to focus on whether to count disparate work injuries together to reach an impairment total that qualifies a worker for permanent benefits and whether workers who sustained those injuries between the 1992 comp reform and Jan. 1,… Read More
Gov. King’s skittishness about increasing health care costs any amount is understandable given the recent insurance-rate increases. However, to veto mental-health coverage without regard to the importance of the services provided but simply because there is a small cost directly expands the problem that health care coverage currently… Read More
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act protect employees from being discriminated against on the job for the characteristics of race, religion, national origin, disability and age. Those federal laws cannot, of course, prevent prejudiced thoughts; they… Read More
The Senate’s refusal late last week to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling was a stunning rebuke to President Bush’s energy program. The Senate’s refusal last month to increase automotive fuel-efficiency standards was a stunning rebuke to the alternative. In these tumultuous times,… Read More
Peace in the Middle East doubtless will involve a compromise in which the Palestinians finally disavow violence, Israel gives up land and both sides agree on the coexistence of a Palestinian and a Jewish state. But mere exhortations to both sides to lay down their arms makes no… Read More
In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart described pornography as something that defied precise definition, “but I know it when I see it.” This week, Justice Stewart’s successors took up again the question of what’s dirty and what’s not and concluded that you often can’t know what you’re… Read More
The bare facts of the dispute are simple enough. Last fall, Harvard’s new president, Lawrence H. Summers, called in Cornel West, a professor of Afro-American studies, to try to get him to work more on serious scholarship and presumably less on such well-publicized activities as recording a rap… Read More
Computers are a great invention, but they have one big downside: They make plagiarism a simple matter of clicking on “copy” and “paste.” High school and college students know this. Their teachers know it. Even newspaper and magazine writers know it. And famous authors like Stephen Ambrose and… Read More
Bankruptcy courts in Maine had a busy 2001 – 4,397 people filed for protection from creditors last year. That’s up 13 percent from 2000, down a tad from the record-breaking 4,500 of 1998, up a startling 200 percent since 1990. Must be the bad economy. Read More
After leaders of the U.S. bishops conference met with Pope John Paul II and Vatican officials last week to discuss the escalating priest sexual-abuse crisis, a statement was issued affirming “the Holy See’s desire to listen and to support our efforts to respond effectively to the concerns we… Read More
The House Ways and Means Committee heard testimony yesterday on the long-debated proposal to add a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare program. Unfortunately, the committee heard only the testimony it wanted to hear. Given that the issue at hand is how such a benefit… Read More
Of what Arthur Andersen is guilty, in addition to shredding documents and incredibly poor judgment, will be determined in the next few weeks and months. More immediately, the accounting industry, the investment industry and concerned members of Congress want to make sure Americans have confidence in the system… Read More
Hugo Chavez was perhaps democracy’s most abject embarrassment. From his election as president of Venezuela in 1998 until the coup that caused him to step down late last week, Mr. Chavez had established a record of irresponsible, ineffective and unaccountable leadership that was the envy of despots everywhere. Read More
Maine’s unhappy experience a decade ago with the closure of Loring Air Force Base probably means that the northern half of the state never will trust the process used to target bases. But the argument in Congress on the issue is over whether closures actually save the money… Read More
Five men go on trial today in Frankfort, Germany. The men are charged with conspiring to blow up the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Strasbourg, France, on New Year’s Day 2001. The trial will be world’s first in-depth post-Sept. 11 look into Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network. Read More
President Bush was speaking directly to doctors, scientists, religious activists and disabled people last week when he urged a broad ban on cloning. Indirectly, he was trying to pressure the Senate to follow the House in supporting his ban. The Senate should consider doing so – but only… Read More
The findings of a new National Institutes of Health report on alcohol use among college students are at once unsurprising and shocking. Everyone knew the use was substantial; few could have guessed the results were so devastating. The report, “A Call to Action: Changing the… Read More
Maine, national survey groups never seem to tire of pointing out, is the worst place on the planet to do business. Unlike virtually any other state, Maine’s combustible combination of high taxes, nanny-state government and unfriendly climate are said to scorch any company that comes too close. Now… Read More
The tentative agreement between Penobscot Nation and Passamaquoddy Tribe and the state of Maine changes regulations only slightly but attitudes a lot. After a couple of years of contention over who had authority for water quality, the dispute appears not only settled but settled in a way that… Read More
You may already know this if you have a new baby: It pays to read to them early and often. At least, that is the belief that underlies a new system for giving free books to every newborn in Maine and additional books periodically until age 5. The… Read More
A study offered last week by the Maine Health Information Center shows at least one area where those buying insurance can act to reduce costs. More long term, it suggests employers will increasingly make choices about health care costs based on data they have produced cooperatively and out… Read More
The last time the Legislature raised the gasoline tax, back in 1999, the hole in the state’s Highway Fund needed a nickel per gallon to fill. Although the gas tax is based on the concept of the user fee – all who use Maine roads, residents or visitors,… Read More
Israel’s military might can eradicate Palestinian suicide bombers. Palestinian suicide bombers can counter Israel’s military might. The United States can end this horrifying conflict by staying out of it. Credit the United States with being among the first to figure out what does not work. Read More
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court revived Workers’ Compensation as a political issue that will not go away with the end of the current legislative session. The eventual agreement in Augusta this week will be temporary, with the best chance for a long-term solution a more thorough examination of… Read More
Calling the attack ads by a political fund-raising group “inexcusable” and “sick,” Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is taking the unusual step of trademarking his name in campaign slogans. The ads, which attack not the Republican incumbent but his likely Democratic opponent, former Attorney General Janet Reno, make allegations… Read More
It may be unusual for Republican governors to join some of the more liberal labor groups on cautioning the White House about the administration’s new welfare proposal, but their reasons for concern are clear enough. The president’s plan increases oversight by the federal government while flat-funding programs block… Read More
Without being maudlin or mawkish; without allowing sentiment to impose unreal meaning on a well-played, smartly played game until nearly the overtime end, let it be seen at least that the University of Maine hockey season explained the worth of sports in a way words cannot. Read More
Hathaway. Dexter Shoe. Saucony. IP. It’s hard to account for the many ways Maine has benefited from world trade, but it is depressingly easy to catalog the losses. Behind each of the layoffs are workers and their families who had built lives around jobs in communities that depended… Read More
Your street must have a name so that fire trucks, ambulances and police cruisers can be sure of finding it in response to any 911 emergency call. And if your street doesn’t have a name, you and your neighbors may name it. Here are some… Read More
The House debate Thursday night on the two bills that make up a comprehensive tax and education funding reform package is described by Geoff Herman, head of the Maine Municipal Association, as “the most thoughtful, impassioned, self-critical, self-evaluating and insightful debate on the subject that I have ever… Read More
The best part of an article last month in the American Dental Association’s newsletter was the lack of subtlety. The headline said, “Wanted: dentists,” and the straightforward, solid story that followed described Maine’s lack of dentists, its unusual alliance with Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia to get more… Read More
Health specialists see a connection between a huge increase in teen-agers’ soda consumption and a surge in obesity and tooth decay. A group of Mainers decided last week to do something about it. Their appropriate target: vending machines in the high schools. Fourteen health, nutrition… Read More
Despite their pique at having not been invited to the party, do members of environmental groups really think that if Vice President Dick Cheney had spent hours listening to their ideas on energy, he would have changed his more-oil policy? Probably they don’t, and are shouting now out… Read More
Legislators have tried to use the state’s school technology fund so often for so many other projects that even after the fund was approved this session it was unsurprising that a lawmaker proposed to lift $3.5 million from it to add to a “cushion” to General Purpose Aid… Read More
Freedom of speech – guaranteed by the First Amendment, the headliner act of the Bill of Rights – is perhaps the most precious of our constitutional protections. It is the right that makes all other rights possible. It is a right extended to all within this nation’s borders,… Read More
There’s good news for Mainers who love to catch, sell or eat lobsters. Both larvae and egg-bearing females are so numerous that lobsters might be regarded as a self-sustaining resource. Self-sustaining, that is, unless unexpected changes in ocean currents or temperatures or some disease epidemic upsets what looks… Read More
It has been five years since Gov. King issued a challenge to Washington County: With planning under way to overhaul Maine’s antiquated and inefficient prison system, they needed to make the case for Downeast Correctional Facility in Machiasport to be included in those plans. They… Read More
The Legislature will decide this week whether to conduct a study exploring the impact of a casino in Maine. Put another way, the Legislature will decide this week whether the next Legislature and the next governor will be able to conduct an informed discussion on this important issue. Read More
An account of expected savings from a mental health parity bill arrived at the Legislature’s Banking and Insurance Committee just after the committee voted 7-6 against funding even a portion of the bill. The new data should give the full Legislature reason to consider this bill, LD 1627,… Read More
Just as rates for the state’s unemployment insurance began falling dramatically this year, Maine received an added $32.5 million boost to its unemployment fund through a federal benefits program. The doubly good news means that Maine finally can afford to help out its fastest growing segment of workers… Read More
President Bush signed the campaign finance reform bill last week without ceremony. None of the sponsors were clustered around his desk, no commemorative pens were handed out. It seems an odd way for landmark legislation to become law, especially legislation that took seven years to… Read More
The growing sentiment among lawmakers and the public for a major state tax overhaul is the best reason yet to support a bill that creates a politically neutral oversight office to analyze and report on the effects of currents programs and pending legislation. Maine is one of only… Read More
For too long, Maine’s tax structure, a haphazard construction seemingly designed to chill the state’s economy, has been like that famous observation on the weather often attributed to Mark Twain. One of the more important outcomes of this legislative session would give the people of Maine the opportunity… Read More
Democrats gratefully accepted two record-busting checks from soft-money contributors last week as they approved campaign-finance reform: $5 million from Hollywood guy Steve Bing and $7 million from Haim Saban, head of the company that created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Mr. Saban’s check will go toward the Democrat’s… Read More
Those military tribunals, rightly denounced as kangaroo courts when President Bush first ordered them last November, have now been largely fixed up. But some serious problems remain. The original order, drafted quickly by White House lawyers, provided for secret trials of accused foreign terrorists. A… Read More
Maine’s current seat-belt law places 4- to 8-year-olds in greater danger of injury in an accident if they are buckled up, as required, than they would be if they were not belted. But unbuckled, they face greater risk of death. The answer, as proposed this session and already… Read More
On March 11, a Florida flight school received notice from the Immigration and Naturalization Service that Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi had been granted student visas. This approval came six months to the day after those two applicants drove hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center, using training… Read More
If the Maine Workers Compensation Board worked as intended instead of as a labor-employer standoff, as it frequently does, the recent Maine supreme court decision allowing non-work-related injuries to be considered part of total disability wouldn’t be such a big issue. If the Maine tax system, its unemployment… Read More
With bare majority support from the Natural Resources Committee, a bipartisan bill to ensure the safe removal and recycling of mercury from vehicles needs strong support in the House today. The bill, in effect, requires auto makers to take back the toxin mercury they have put in U.S. Read More
If, come trial in May, Arthur Andersen is acquitted of the criminal charges it faces for shredding crucial documents in the Enron scandal, the once-mighty accounting firm already has pronounced itself guilty of cynicism in the first degree. If there is a public-relations equivalent to cooking the books,… Read More
A bond to strengthen Maine’s nascent research industry needs crucial support today from the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee. The bond includes money for established programs that provide low-interest loans to qualified businesses and promote job growth in rural areas, and it supports two new university facilities that would move… Read More
In every legislative session, bills are introduced that are ill-timed or poorly conceived or just plain silly. Occasionally, a bill comes along that is all those things. Such a bill this session is LD 2180. This piece of legislation stands out because, in addition to… Read More
Mother always said don’t sit around with wet feet or you’ll catch cold. If you got one, she’d make you drink lots of water and maybe a lot of orange juice. She’d put drops in your nose, make you gargle, and maybe stick a mustard plaster on your… Read More
Even though Criminal Justice Committee members were aware that the Legislature will not be spending an additional $9.6 million to help the mentally ill in Maine’s jails and prisons, they voted unanimously to approve a proposal that addresses the broad problem of inadequate training and services and put… Read More
Anyone with a fascination for the arcane could see one result this week from the nation’s Rube Goldberg health care system when a couple of conflicting ideas landed in the newspaper. Readers may well have sympathized with both stories, one of which concerns expanding Medicare and the other… Read More
Two prominent Americans recently have heard their off-the-record words come back to haunt them. Both Treasury Secretary Paul H. O’Neill and the Rev. Billy Graham thought they were speaking privately. The similarity ends there. The contrast in their behavior may hold lessons for other public figures. Read More
The good news this week was that Maine lands simultaneously earned certification from two major audits, a national first. Equally good – and potentially more far-reaching – news is expected in a month, when the results of the two auditing standards are judged against each other. The comparison… Read More
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland met its self-imposed deadline Tuesday with a report to the Cumberland County District Attorney on the sexual abuse of minors. As promised, the report describes allegations by victims against priests and other diocese employees still living. Also as promised, diocese officials soon… Read More