In Frenchville, a grant of $3,122 helped catalog and label the entire collection of a local historical society. In Grand Isle, a grant of $15,000 helped pay to renovate the Centre Cultural Du Mont Caramel. In East Millinocket, a $3,750 grant went to teach community-theater skills. Brewer used… Read More
President Bush yesterday began in earnest a campaign to revise nearly everything his young administration has said about the value of energy efficiency and conservation. The sincerity of his campaign might be measured by this question: Will the nation invest in efficiencies and conserve where it can and… Read More
The moderating effect of the Senate Finance Committee on President Bush’s tax cut whittled the break for the nation’s 400 top earners (who average $110 million annually each) from $1 million a year in the House to an average of $622,000 in the Senate version marked up this… Read More
Not that millions of readers young and old need convincing, but the American Psychiatric Association says Harry Potter’s all right. A symposium at the APA’s annual convention analyzed the boy wizard with the shock of unruly hair, the round glasses and the lightning bolt scar and found him… Read More
A massive foul-up by the FBI has provided an unexpected extra month. Attorney General John Ashcroft could hardly have done less than postpone the execution of Timothy McVeigh for 30 days, unless he wanted to keep conspiracy theorists busy for the next several decades. Defense attorneys now will… Read More
Amid increasing criticism for the deaths of whales after testing powerful new sonar in the Bahamas, the U.S. Navy has announced it will conduct further studies on how the technology affects the animals. Coming as it does after years of denying any link between sonar and whale injury… Read More
Though Maine, with its statewide ballot, optical scanners and total absence of chads, hanging or otherwise, does not have most of the problems that plagued Florida in the last election, it still can make improvements to keep it among the highest in the nation in voter turnout. Secretary… Read More
Not only do some Maine restaurants go uninspected for years and not only do more than 300,000 people suffer food-borne illnesses here annually and not only are health inspectors given more work than they can accomplish, the solution to this collection of unhealthy conditions is already agreed to… Read More
Never heard of Linda Wachner? If you live in Waterville, or if you ever worked at the Hathaway Shirt Co., you must have vivid recollections of the woman once hailed by Fortune magazine as America’s “most successful businesswoman.” Ms. Wachner is the chief executive officer… Read More
OK, so Maine probably won’t experience the blackouts and huge jumps in fuel prices that are crimping the California lifestyle. Still, electric deregulation in Maine hasn’t gone as well as hoped, and the price increases here may be partly attributable to regulatory changes. David Flannigan, former longtime CEO… Read More
Give credit to Senate leader Rick Bennett for persuading Heinz Family Philanthropies to add Maine to the states where it has studied prescription drug costs and devised plans for making them more affordable to Medicare recipients. The Maine plan presented Thursday is an encouraging start to a major… Read More
In addition to the chronic resentment toward the United States for real and perceived instances of arrogance, the 54 United Nations members had a half dozen other excuses for denying it membership on the Commission on Human Rights. They could, for instance, have chosen the awkward handling of… Read More
It has been 14 months since Gov. King unveiled Laptops for Lunchboxes, his plan to provide laptops computers to all Maine public middle-schoolers. It has been 11 months since that great idea with the unfortunate name was converted by the Legislature into a $50 million technology fund with… Read More
The state Senate did well Tuesday in strongly supporting legislation to bar mandatory overtime for nurses and in seeing through the flimsy arguments used by opponents. The acute shortage of nurses will not be alleviated by forcing them to work past the point of fatigue. The threat of… Read More
New York recently learned that it can either spend $40,000 a year to leave a mentally ill person homeless or $41,000 to provide that same person housing linked to comprehensive health support and employment services. The choice should be of special interest to Maine, which has an unhappy… Read More
On the same day the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee unanimously approved a 25 percent price cut for prescription drugs for Maine’s uninsured, the National Institute for Health Care released a study showing drug costs rose 19 percent last year and 40 percent since 1998. The timing… Read More
Congressional budget resolutions are supposed to be fairly detailed guidelines for the nation’s spending and revenue plans, somewhere between broad outline and a line-by-line departmental account. The budget resolution being considered by this Congress bears more resemblance to the shopping list for a frat house party. Read More
After being the punch line of an election that turned the world’s premier democracy into a worldwide joke, it seems absurd to suggest that Florida should be emulated in any way when it comes to voting. Yet just six months after an embarrassment in which nearly all states… Read More
For at least two years, Maine law-enforcement officials have been fighting – sometimes successfully, sometimes not – the rise in the illegal use of prescription painkillers. Though they continue to try increased oversight, education and enforcement, their efforts may not be enough. Two bills in the Legislature would… Read More
The Northeast Dairy Compact, which since 1997 has established minimum prices for milk to help that farmers stay in business, has raised the price of a gallon of milk by an average of 29 cents during the last three years. No one much liked institutionalizing the price increase,… Read More
Prospects for a smooth transfer of the Navy’s communication base at Schoodic Point to Acadia National Park promise to assure the park’s integrity. But the economic impact on Winter Harbor is still up in the air. Nearby communities, especially Winter Harbor and Gouldsboro, had become… Read More
It has been 21/2 years since Maine voters passed a citizen-initiated medical marijuana referendum. The argument in favor was strong – compassion demands that people suffering from pain and nausea associated with treatments for such diseases as cancer, AIDS and glaucoma be allowed to use a drug that… Read More
The compromise announced Wednesday on FPL’s Wyman Station was an important example of the state putting reasonable standards ahead of strict controls. Like all compromises, it demanded that both sides – in this case, FPL and the environmental group the Natural Resources Council of Maine – give up… Read More
The Bush administration is headed toward a big defeat as it insists on its plan to permit drilling for oil and natural gas in the vast Alaskan wilderness called the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Vice President Dick Cheney indicated in his speech this week that the plan would… Read More
A National Missile Defense system is such a comforting thought that it is no wonder that presidents going back 30 years have an-nounced their intention to invest in a shield that will keep the nation safe from enemy missile attacks. But with numerous failures in its history, missile… Read More
In a more innocent time, not so very long ago, Maine lawyers who advertised on TV showed themselves in earnest close-ups, stressed their experience and promised nothing more than doing their level and honest best. Then came little dramas with conniving insurance executives and a well-known but currently… Read More
Members of Congress know that in their zeal to balance the budget in 1997, they cut funding to home health care so severely that they nearly wrecked a service that millions of people depend on. Now with a sizable surplus and the ability to repair some of the… Read More
As a senator, John Ashcroft was utterly opposed to the federal lawsuit against the tobacco industry. As attorney general, he is entitled to that same opinion. As the boss at the Justice Department, he should know better than to trash his employees. If Mr. Ashcroft… Read More
Kerrey’s Raiders, a seven-man unit of elite Navy SEALs, attempted to infiltrate the remote Vietnamese village of Thanh Phong on the night of Feb. 25, 1969, their mission to kill the Viet Cong leaders they believed were meeting there. Their approach was detected and they came under fire… Read More
Maine doesn’t have a city large enough to qualify under a new study of how well metropolitan areas are preparing for the new economy, but the lessons from that study should be useful even to smaller places. If nothing else, it is a reminder, first, of the number… Read More
Just in case you had any doubt about the nation’s coming energy problems, Sens. Susan Collins and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., are unusually clear. Their new report on energy is titled “The Perfect Storm: How Convergence of Shortages in Three Major Energy Markets Could Threaten the American Economy.” From… Read More
If, as Sen. John Martin says, $100 boat inspections and $5,000 fines are being proposed merely to get the public’s attention on the problem of Eurasian watermilfoil, the senator and his Natural Resources Committee colleagues can consider their mission accomplished. The public’s attention now fully engaged, the committee’s… Read More
The latest campaign by a Maine environmental group to ensure good forestry, coinciding this week with a legislative committee for yet another year wiping out a slate of forestry reforms, points Maine in a single direction, one in which both the state and the forest industry should be… Read More
Several readers have called in recent days to ask why an ordinary Maine citizen planning to protest at the trade conference in Quebec was stopped at the Canadian border because of a decades-old drunken driving conviction while President Bush, who has a similar blot on his record, was… Read More
When public officials say something is a tragedy, watch out. That’s what they called the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, the plane collision off the Chinese coast, the shooting down of a missionary plane in a U.S.-Peruvian patrol operation, and now the deadly collision of… Read More
Give the staff at the State Planning Office credit for turning what could be an extremely dull document – the annual year-end review of the Maine economy – into a readable and even entertaining work that contains its own top 10 list and plenty of easy-to-understand charts. Give… Read More
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that persons cannot sue federally funded state agencies for having discriminatory policies if discrimination is the effect of the policy but not its stated purpose. It was an unfortunate decision, a sad triumph of legal theory over real life with repercussions that will… Read More
Preparations for a lobster stew look at first like a hodgepodge: a cup of lobster meat, leftover empty shells, a bowl of broth, a stick of butter, cream or milk heating in a pan, minced garlic, and seasonings including thyme, maybe rosemary, salt, black pepper and a pinch… Read More
Parents have been told for years that high-quality day care did no harm and may even provide added benefits for their pre-school children compared with staying at home. So the results of a large study released last week that finds a tendency for young children who spend more… Read More
In the weeks leading up to the Senate’s April 2 vote on the McCain-Feingold bill, there was real concern that important campaign finance reform legislation that had twice been blocked by Republican filibusters might this time be done in by Democratic cold feet. In the end, the bill… Read More
Having appeared on talk shows, written op-ed commentary and explained to anyone who would listen at the local lunch counter, mainstream economists these days must be frustrated that people continue to protest deals like the Free Trade Area of the Americas. The agreement to lower trade barriers by… Read More
For the last three years, campaign finance reform has been at the top of the nation’s good government agenda. While all the attention has been focussed upon the influence of money on the White House and Congress, its corrosive effect upon the third branch, the Judiciary, has gone… Read More
Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins have built reputations for themselves as members of a centrist bloc in the Senate. The New York Times recently listed them, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and James Jeffords of Vermont as the core group of four New England moderate Republicans who… Read More
The current issue of Newsweek contains a brief essay on President’s Bush’s performance on environmental issues, this being both the eve of the 31st Earth Day and just a week or so shy of his 100th day in office. The piece is accompanied by one of those computer-aided… Read More
The withdrawal of the pharmaceutical industry’s lawsuit against the nation of South Africa is a well-deserved black eye for the industry, a triumph of public pressure over the highest-priced legal talent the 39 manufacturers could muster. In the battle against AIDS, it is a moral victory that now… Read More
An energy policy task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney may propose lifting some economic sanctions against Iran, Iraq and Libya. According to a draft of the panel’s report, the trade restrictions imposed upon the three nations that virtually define ”rogue” should be reviewed given the importance… Read More
The conservative humorist P.J. O’Rourke once wrote something to the effect that giving Congress the power to tax and spend is like giving a teen-ager car keys and liquor. While the Federal Reserve’s emergency rate cut Wednesday may not bring about drunken and bloody mayhem, there is the… Read More
Mississippi can do what Mississippi wants, but the overwhelming vote there Tuesday to keep a state flag dominated by the Confederate battle cross is a clear instance of “can” overcoming “should.” With 65 percent of Mississippians voting to keep a design that for many symbolizes slavery and oppression,… Read More
It started as a low-key, routine exchange in this newspaper’s letters section. A restaurant patron from Burlington wrote that she objected to being asked if she wanted change from the $30 she offered for a $25 check and answered by withholding the tip entirely. A waitress from Bangor… Read More
Attorney General John Ashcroft has won praise for his decision to permit closed-circuit television coverage of the May 16 execution of Timothy McVeigh. Many consider it fair and proper to let survivors and families of the 168 victims of the Oklahoma City bombing watch the execution while shutting… Read More
For the past couple of elections, candidates nationwide would show how aware they were of the issues and how they intended to stand up to those bureaucrats in Washington by demanding that special education be fully funded. Those who got elected would nudge the funding… Read More
It is not surprising that state government has been asked to become more and more involved in the oversight of prescription drugs as their cost has risen beyond the reach of many of Maine’s low- and even moderate-income families. But as Maine has learned over the past couple… Read More
The recession of the early 1990s jolted Maine in ways from which it has yet to recover – ask any school administrator. The job and population losses, the chronic state budget shortages, the wiped-out gains of the 1970s and ’80s were barely anticipated by the state but have… Read More
If free trade is anything more than one nation angling to give its products an advantage over the products of another, the lumber-subsidy dispute between the United States and Canada ought to be settled through something more sophisticated than the “does not-does too” argument that has been shuttling… Read More
That pile of icy snow on the east side of the house is shrinking under the warmth of a few sunny days. People with brooms and shovels and power brushes are cleaning up the winter’s sand and dust along the roadsides. The sap is already running up the… Read More
The two budget proposals that have split the Legislature are overwhelmingly alike in all but two areas. The Senate budget relies on one-time funds for ongoing programs to leave the next cycle of lawmakers with a budget gap of between $140 million and $165 million; the House relies… Read More
This week’s packed public hearings on legislation to reform the citizen-initiated referendum process demonstrated that Maine people cherish their constitutional right to take lawmaking into their own hands. As admirable as that is, the hostile rhetoric and baseless anti-democracy accusations leveled against the reformers is unfortunate. Read More
Americans are relieved and glad to have our 24 detainees released. The Bush administration deserves credit for its patience in reaching a reasonable, peaceful settlement of an event that China seemed to be doing its best to turn into a crisis. Certainly President Jiang Zemin had hard-liners to… Read More
Two legislative committees are right to set aside all 11 bills submitted this session proposing changes in Maine’s foster care and child-protective services and instead to call for reviews of the entire system. The recent death of a 5-year-old girl in foster care and the horrific circumstances under… Read More
When Congress deregulated the airline industry in 1978, it was known from the start that the promised benefits of competition would come at a price. The airlines could only deliver lower fares, better service and more choice if travelers, particularly those not flying to or from major airports,… Read More
Despite protests from the American Dental Association, any country that seriously discusses doing away with mercury thermometers because of their potential impact on health cannot be long from restricting the use of mercury dental fillings. Congress will soon work on the question while Maine reviews LD 1409, a… Read More
By calling for $28 billion in additional Medicaid spending over the next three years, the U.S. Senate recently responded in a small way to legislatures across the country that are looking for ways to expand health care coverage to the uninsured. Maine’s Legislature, when it eventually emerges from… Read More
Christie Whitman tried Friday to keep environmentalists from rising up as one to oppose Bush administration policies of the last three months – Arctic drilling, carbon dioxide, arsenic, climate change – and to keep them from rallying against anything else the administration might think of in the next… Read More
The Legislature’s Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee takes up three bills this week that address the two most emotional issues of the hyper-emotional debate over genetically engineered food – whether people have the right to know what they’re being fed and how nature can be protected from the… Read More
Back at the start of Gov. Angus King’s first term he proclaimed that he wanted no fish to leave Maine with its head on, meaning that he wanted Maine goods to have value added to them, to be worth something so that the industries of Maine could become… Read More
John Ashcroft gave all the right answers about abortion rights in January when the Senate was considering his confirmation as Attorney General. Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, asked the right questions, too. As a senator, Mr. Ashcroft had sponsored an anti-abortion amendment in its… Read More
On the defensive for sabotaging a state budget the Appropriations Committee worked out in public hearings in broad daylight, some lawmakers who favor the Senate’s top secret version now are circulating unsubstantiated accusations that the Appropriations Committee is threatening to retaliate by not funding programs for blind children… Read More
The rapidly evolving state budget got a breather this weekend and lawmakers got a couple of days to recover from their extreme budget exertions of the last few days, leaving a persistent and unfortunate feature in the latest proposals that would demolish Maine’s technology endowment (Senate) or merely… Read More
Twenty-two states are under court-ordered consent decrees because of conditions of their jails and prisons. Maine is not, and a bill before the Legislature, LD 1492, would help ensure it avoids this expensive, antagonistic distinction by using national accreditation to improve training, especially for addressing mental illness and… Read More
The Legislature’s Banking and Insurance Committee holds a public hearing today on L.D. 1745. Beneath the bland State House title, “An Act to Address Issues in the Maine Health Insurance Market,” beats the heart of a casino gambler. If Maine catches some breaks, the bill, a product of… Read More
Those thousands of white mice at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor are vital instruments for research there and around the world, aimed at solving the mysteries of such diseases as cancer, AIDS and Alzheimer’s and the genetic makeup of people and animals. The animal… Read More
You are going to hear a lot about Robert H. Bork now that Attorney General John Ashcroft has concluded his department no longer needs the American Bar Association’s role of screening potential Supreme Court nominees. It was a role it had for 50 years but one conservative critics… Read More
It may never be known whether the collision Sunday between an American reconnaissance plane and a Chinese fighter was the result of pure accident, recklessness or aggression. Whether this explosive situation it is resolved quickly and calmly or is allowed to ignite into military and diplomatic confrontation depends… Read More
Maine state senators have signaled that they recognize passing a budget without including a tax increase on cigarettes or on meals and lodging, as approved in the House, and instead relying on the Rainy Day Fund is not sustainable. Despite what some supporters argue, there is nothing fiscally… Read More
After a school year with 193 forced closings, the last Legislature appointed a study commission to make recommendations on dealing with bomb threats and other potential acts of violence in Maine schools. Last month, the Criminal Justice Committee of the current Legislature rejected the entire package of recommendations,… Read More
The Bangor’s Planning Board is scheduled to meet today to continue discussion of a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter near Stillwater Avenue. The issue is made more complicated because the extraordinary size of the development – a 224,000-square-foot store, nearly 1,000 parking spaces – places inescapably before the board a… Read More
Given the suggestion behind a bill to review (that is, change) the way schools currently are governed, recent testimony from the Maine School Boards Association was remarkably restrained. Restrained, but also useful to the Legislature’s Education Committee, which is considering LD 1403. The bill, a… Read More
The House zipped through several key parts of President Bush’s tax-cut plan last week, clearing the way for its upcoming spring break. The comparison between this congressional haste and a collegiate road trip to Daytona is unavoidable. The cut in the misnamed marriage penalty was… Read More
The state budget approved overwhelmingly Thursday by the Senate may have been a fair attempt to reconcile endless legislative demands with limited resources, but the result sets up Maine to repeat the economic chaos of the early 1990s. To largely deplete the state’s savings account, to add programs… Read More
The schooner Bowdoin plunged into what looked like a deadly squall last summer – figuratively, anyway. But the sturdy wooden ship, the official sailing vessel of the state of Maine, has come through the crisis just as handily as she emerged from 30-foot seas and hurricane winds on… Read More
Though it has been four or five years since the proposals for cooperation among the heavily forested portions of the Northeast, the mere mention of “The Northern Forest” still elicits emotional denunciations from many here who viewed the plans as a land grab or, at best, unwarranted meddling… Read More
The Senate distinguished itself this week with its first major votes on campaign finance reform by soundly defeating two key provisions of a faux-reform bill. The next test is whether the Senate can resist the temptation to undermine real reform. In a pair of closely… Read More
Alert watchers of the Legislature observe that, just as Maine winter snowstorms turn into a spring of freezing rains, so too do lawmakers annually turn from the relatively civilized stroll of the two-weekend notice for public hearings on legislation to the frenzied one-weekend (or less) sprint for notices… Read More
Too bad Maine’s challenge isn’t to take its tiny population, its rural setting, its low incomes and lower than average percent of adults with college degrees and keep up with the hottest research and development economies around. That, at least, would be easier than what its real challenge… Read More
Tax time and legislative review of the state’s Clean Election laws come together this spring, with lawmakers seemingly content to avoid major revisions in the new law. That’s for the best. Voters and candidates learned last year that while the public-financing system may need some improvement, it worked… Read More
Contained in all the irrational conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has always been one kernel of rationality – the possibility that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone. That was the conclusion of the House Assassinations Committee in 1979, which… Read More
Gov. Angus King’s recent change of heart in support of a higher minimum wage was welcome not only to the 5,000 residents who work for the current $5.15 an hour, but for thousands more who stand to benefit from the proposed increase. The governor deserves credit for changing… Read More
A decade after federal regulations were enacted to reduce the effects of acid rain, the results, according to a new study in the journal BioScience, suggest some progress has been made but also show a clear need for tougher standards. The study gives Congress powerful evidence that, despite… Read More
Watchdog groups are an important force in American politics. Given the tendency of Congress for swapping favors, it is good to have non-partisan citizen organizations keeping an eye on all the log-rolling, back scratching and quid pro quoing that ends up costing taxpayers a fortune. Read More
When a 15-year-old boy won a half-million-dollar wrongful death civil award in 1994 against the man who murdered his parents, it seemed the end of a long and tragic story. Not a happy end, by any means, but at least an end that blended life imprisonment for the… Read More
After enduring several days of ridicule from everyone from local wags to town officials to members of Congress, the Army Corps of Engineers finally admitted it goofed when it built a flood-control project for Fort Fairfield that did not take into account the annoying habit water in northern… Read More
Just four years ago, Maine took an important step forward in reducing dioxin in the environment by setting tough standards for paper mill discharges in rivers. Legislators are expected Monday to hear a bill that would reduce this toxin in the air. It is a reasonable bill that… Read More
The National Liberation Army of Macedonia, made up of ethnic Albanians, exists and torments the Macedonian government today because NATO, and therefore the United States, allowed it to exist in a different form during the war in Kosovo. To pretend, as President George Bush seems willing to do,… Read More
Never mind that months of unrelenting protest by listeners gave Maine Public Radio little choice but to undo some of the programming changes that started the ruckus. MPR executives and trustees deserve some credit for eventually recognizing unrelenting protest when they finally see it, and being a bit… Read More
Though necktie-less informal Fridays abound in offices, male models in fashion ads mostly go without ties (and seem to have trouble buttoning their shirts) and some years ago in Israel, a Labor Party member of the Knesset went to court with his outraged complaint that a newspaper had… Read More
A huge part of forested Maine yesterday was protected from development in what is the largest conservation easement in the nation. The deal, along other large-scale easements or conservation purchases, ensures Maine will be a heavily forested state for decades to come and shows the kind of support… Read More
The real battle, said a woman who recently used the services at Spruce Run shelter for women and children, is not leaving an abusive relationship. “The real battle is staying out. The support group at Spruce Run, the Hot Line, the books, the meetings, the educational materials and… Read More
Although the House and Senate both have passed bankruptcy reform legislation making it tougher for borrowers to walk away from debt, the differences between the two versions are significant. Whether it is the best bill the banking industry could buy or much-needed relief for bill-paying Americans depends upon… Read More
Almost as soon as lawmakers began this session in January and looked at the expected shortfall in revenue, they agreed that Gov. Angus King’s plan to increase k-12 school funding by 5 percent was the best that could be done. Since then, the debate in the Education Committee… Read More
More than coffee or the name-brand apparel that comes out of its free-trade zones, El Salvador’s most lucrative export is its emigrants to the United States. Hundreds of thousands Salvadorans have entered the United States in the last few years, mostly illegally, and they send back to their… Read More