The working agreement among Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine to organize a regional buying pool to leverage lower-priced prescription drugs is good news for several reasons. First, the agreement shows that Maine is not alone in its concerns about the high price of pharmaceuticals, particularly… Read More
If residents of Bangor are going to make progress in understanding the local drug-addiction problem and the possibility of methadone as a treatment, then progress can begin tomorrow. The public meeting scheduled for Wednesday is among the first significant signs that Bangor can pull together on this issue. Read More
And another thing… David Palmer was unopposed for the Green Independent Party nomination for a Portland House district in the June primary. He gathered the needed signatures. He accepted $511 in public Clean Election money. He did everything a candidate need do except vote for… Read More
In an age in which political discourse often has all the substance of a bumper sticker, it was not surprising that a complex income tax situation, born of the influx of women into the workplace during World War II, aggravated by the widowhood of many and made even… Read More
The penalties imposed last week by Judge Roland Beaudoin against the C. N. Brown Company for 27 violations of the law prohibiting the sales of tobacco to minors are strong and unprecedented. The hefty $10,444 fine and the suspension of tobacco-sales licenses at two of the company’s Big… Read More
The president’s decision this week to create a 2 million-barrel heating oil reserve for the Northeast is a necessary short-term move, even as OPEC’s member nations feud over increasing oil production. President Clinton said he would draw the fuel from the 586 million barrel Strategic… Read More
In meeting with other New England governors and eastern Canada premiers this weekend, Gov. Angus King has an opportunity to continue Maine’s first steps in reducing mercury use and pollution. He should use this meeting to reassert the state’s concern about this toxin and urge fellow leaders to… Read More
Maine’s Nov. 7 ballot contains six referendum and constitutional amendment questions. Five are first-rate examples of ballot questions at their best — from gay rights to physician-assisted suicide to tax reform to preserve the state’s working waterfront, they cover the type of vitally important issues that should be… Read More
As the 13th International AIDS Conference continues in South Africa, alarming statistics and projections continue to emerge. Alarming, however, may not be the right word to describe a catastrophe so long foreseen and neglected. Sub-Saharan Africa is being ravaged by the disease. As many as… Read More
The Coast Guard has put out for public comment a proposal to remove two mid-channel buoys in the Western Way, the passage between Great Cranberry Island and Mount Desert Island. These lighted buoys have been used for many years to guide commercial craft and pleasure sailors safely to… Read More
Even if gasoline prices fall and heating oil next winter stays under $2 a gallon, Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., proposed a potentially useful idea this week in forming a presidential commission to form a comprehensive energy policy for the United States. It is only… Read More
Legislators could let the serious problem of understaffing at the Maine State Prison be overshadowed by the process of finding more guards if they insist on taking a greater role in Gov. Angus King’s reasonable solution. Rather than demanding to be included in a debate for which there… Read More
When voters enacted the Clean Election law in 1996, Maine became the first state to venture into the territory of publicly funded political campaigns. Now, with the system undergoing its first electoral test, Maine must explore that uncharted territory between the letter of the law and its spirit. Read More
Several years ago, Michigan thought it had the answer to a long-standing problem with a standardized test designed to measure academic proficiency in high-school seniors — cash. As student participation in the optional test waned, the state offered a $2,500 scholarship for high performance on the exam as… Read More
Predictably, the advocates of an anti-missile defense system say the failed test last Friday was really a success, since the $100-million miss was due merely to a breakdown in a low-tech system while the actual high-tech killer systems probably would have worked. The failure, however,… Read More
Bangor lost a top lawyer and Maine and the nation gained a promising judge when, uncharacteristically, the Senate the other day swiftly confirmed George Singal as U.S. District Court judge. It was an excellent choice and a fine example of how Maine’s congressional delegation could be effective in… Read More
Prescription drug companies may have won recently in Congress when the House narrowly passed a drug-benefit plan that will do more to benefit the drug companies than drug users, but three articles in recent weeks suggest a major shift in the way Americans are coming to view this… Read More
It’s become something of a biennial tradition: The review of how much Maine’s top administrators are paid, accompanied by comparison to pay rates elsewhere and the requisite question: Does Maine pay its public officials too much? This time around, the focus in recent news reports… Read More
Maine recently marked the first year anniversary of the removal of Edwards Dam in Augusta, which is fast becoming a national symbol for river restoration. It can be more than that, though, in provoking further discussion about how Maine will look in the coming decades. Read More
The announcement this week that Bangor will hold an informational hearing about a planned methadone maintenance program here is a potentially positive sign in an issue that has produced a lot of debate but not a lot of understanding. The City Council, Acadia Hospital, which would operate the… Read More
Here we go again: Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is calling for a temporary suspension of the federal government’s entire 18.4 cents-per-gallon gasoline tax. Her plan should be met with skepticism unless it includes a way of ensuring that those savings are passed on to motorists. Read More
If you have purchased a television this year, you may not realize that it has a built-in feature — the much-ballyhooed “v-chip” — that allows you to block objectionable shows. But according to a University of Pennsylvania study, even if you know you have such… Read More
The practical winner in Mexico’s vote Sunday, though he no longer will be in office starting Dec. 1, was President Ernesto Zedillo, who will be remembered positively in history books no matter how the actual winner, Vincente Fox Quesada fares as the new president. The United States should… Read More
Congress is sending $1.3 billion to Colombia for its war on drugs. The majority view, shared by the president, is that this is necessary because, after the coca leaves are harvested, processed and shipped, it inevitably becomes our war on drugs. The minority view is… Read More
The proposed purchase of Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. last week wasn’t a surprise: Spurred by mandated utility restructuring, widespread consolidations have been occurring in the electric utility industry for several years. The question before Friday was who would be the successful suitor. At first glance, anyway, it appears that… Read More
Below is a lengthy excerpt from the document this holiday is about. Two hundred and twenty-four years ago, representatives in the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia and adopted their Declaration of Independence. It expressed frustration and anger with the policies of Great Britain and its king. It argued… Read More
Even if the Senate were to pass the skimpy prescription-drug bill similar to the one the House narrowly approved last week, there is little chance it will find enough support to overcome the promised veto by President Clinton. But the fact that Republican House leadership knew it had… Read More
The purpose of local government is based on something loftier than improved sidewalks, but plenty of Bangor residents would agree that the right to walk on something other than lumpy, crumbling or absent sidewalks isn’t a bad principle either. They will get them in Bangor’s new budget, and… Read More
Not to endorse the practice of fleeing police custody, but one must grudgingly admire one John Stanley Hutchinson for seizing opportunity in his escape from West Bath District Court the other day. While being led from court after sentencing for car theft and eluding police, Mr. Hutchinson bolted… Read More
The word both sides are using to describe House and Senate approval this week of legislation to close the so-called 527 loophole in federal campaign-finance law is “small.” Victorious proponents of this much-needed reform say it is but a small step. Opponents — the few left standing —… Read More
A new five-year, $2 billion program announced this week by Fannie Mae, the federally chartered mortgage lender, will help some 20,000 low and middle-income Maine families realize the American dream of homeownership. If they can find a place to make the dream come true. It’s… Read More
The Boys Scouts of America is hailing the Supreme Court decision upholding their policy of banning gay leaders as the final word — the right to free association includes the right to disassociate. Is there a merit badge for wishful thinking? BSA enjoys an unusual… Read More
Officials from Bangor and Eastern Maine Healthcare have a limited time to make progress in their discussions about treating heroin and other opiate addictions before the state loses patience and moves ahead with its plans to include methadone as a treatment option in Bangor. For the good of… Read More
The book of life, the most wondrous map ever produced, the instruction manual for building and operating people — the analogies that flowed during the White House ceremony Monday announcing the completion of the first rough draft of the human genome conveyed both the scope of this epochal… Read More
Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are receiving unusually intense attention from property-rights advocates and environmentalists because they remain undecided on the Conservation and Reinvestment Act — what could be the most substantial legislation Congress will pass this year. Though the bill has been debated for more… Read More
A recent study by Families USA found that nearly 1 million low-income working parents in 15 states lost Medicaid benefits when they did what they were supposed to do — get off welfare and into the world of work. Maine can take pride in the fact that not… Read More
Helping Colombia expand its war against drugs will cost U.S. taxpayers $1.3 billion. Keeping American troops deployed in Kosovo and aiding Americans stricken by disasters here at home runs to an additional $4.1 billion. Rebuilding fire-damaged Los Alamos National Laboratory could go as high as $448 million. Read More
The Elian Gonzalez affair put a human face, a little boy’s face, on this country’s 39-year trade embargo against Cuba. The establishment of normal trade relations with China supposedly affirmed that where commerce goes, freedom is sure to follow. To many in Congress, however, freedom… Read More
In the context of earlier decisions, the Supreme Court ruling this week that struck down a Texas high school’s policy of preceding football games with student-led prayer had all the surprise of a punt on fourth down. In the context of the long-running rivalry between church and state,… Read More
Despite strong opposition from several organizations and general opposition from the public, Maine’s superintendent of insurance Alessandro Iuppa approved the sale of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maine to Anthem Insurance Co. earlier this month. Now all that’s left to do is agree on a price. Read More
Considering the controversy over the Maine Warden Service in the last legislative session, it’s encouraging to see the agency taking steps absent crisis to shore up its public image. The wardens, whom some have claimed are too aggressive in the field, are circulating a survey… Read More
There’s nothing wrong with a Cortland apple that’s a bit small and has a blemish or two. It’s still an apple and tastes pretty much the same as all Cortlands do. There’s nothing wrong with carrots that aren’t as thick around as a shower-curtain rod. And there’s nothing… Read More
Voting via the Internet is the coming trend in electoral politics, and for some good reasons. The low voter response in Maine last week is not among them. With no statewide contests or referenda, only one congressional primary and just a smattering of races for… Read More
For more than a decade, Maine has offered low-interest loans for adaptive equipment to help people with disabilities live independently. The Adaptive Equipment Loan Program is one of those quietly successful projects that often get overlooked in the hubbub of state government. This one is so quiet that… Read More
The U.S. Department of Energy, already stumped as to where two computer hard drives containing crucial nuclear secrets went and how they got back, now says it can’t figure out why gasoline prices have spiked as high as $2.50 per gallon in several Midwest cities. Officials investigated the… Read More
No disrespect to the watchers of the digital divide, the race divide, the geographic divide (Two Maines) or all the other divides, but the education divide may be this state’s most serious gap. That was shown again this week in the 2000 Kids Count Data Book, that annual… Read More
When voters overwhelmingly supported the $50 million land-bond proposal last November, they were making a big commitment to preserving undeveloped land in Maine. Yesterday, they were given a sense of what is possible with that level of support: the preservation of traditional ways of life in Maine and… Read More
During his campaign for president, Vladimir Putin often used the slogan “dictatorship of law” in decribing what he would bring to Russia. Though it lost something in translation, it was taken as meaning “rule of law,” a promise of tough but fair justice for everyone from murderous mobsters… Read More
Anyone who has been swamped with junk-mailed offers of credit cards from banks unknown must wonder how anyone avoids the reach of Visa and MasterCard. The federal government wonders that, too – in the form of an antitrust lawsuit that rivals the Microsoft trial in terms of scope… Read More
Recent arrests by police in Bangor and statewide should remove any doubts that Maine is seeing an increase in the use of heroin and the abuse of highly addictive prescription drugs. The recent compromise between the state and the city of Bangor to discuss treatment options, however, falls… Read More
Stephen King enjoys enormous and deserved success as an explorer of the dark side of human nature. The author’s newest venture may not be blood-curdling horror, but it may well tell us something about ourselves we suspect is there but prefer to ignore. Mr. King’s… Read More
Jim Doughty has spent the last 13 years being Bangor’s single-minded, top-down, performance-driven school superintendent, which, as it turns out, was exactly what Bangor needed after years of division and drift. With his retirement at the end of this month, his legacy is well in place: A school… Read More
The Maine Speak Out Project holds its third annual “Walk with the One You Love” on Sunday. The first two were in Portland only — this year it expands to nine other Maine communities, including Bangor. Also expanded is the support of public officials and… Read More
For most of its nearly 60-year history, the Los Alamos National Laboratory has served, and served well, a dual role as a center of scientific inquiry at the highest level and as a repository of this nation’s most precious nuclear secrets. In recent years, the scientific inquiry has… Read More
As several of the nation’s top tobacco executives take the stand in a Florida courtroom this week, this remains sure: The one thing the court won’t get is the full truth, and many states will be happy if it does not. True, the tobacco companies… Read More
A unanimous Supreme Court ruling Monday does more to explain the frustration Americans have with the current state of health-care coverage than any dozen patient surveys. The ruling should be of interest to Congress, which helped create the frustration and the lack of care that causes it. Read More
When the Supreme Court invalidated death penalty laws in 1972, Justice Potter Stewart wrote that the administration of the ultimate punishment was so inconsistent and capricious that the chances of receiving it were like being hit by lightning. The next year, the court began upholding revised laws that… Read More
A generous gift and matching public funds will make attending a course free for 125 students within the University of Maine System this fall, according to an announcement this week. An eye-opening set of statistics in the June issue of The Atlantic Monthly describes why taking advantage of… Read More
The House’s rejection last week of a bill that would further protect family farms and small businesses from the estate tax in favor of a proposal that most often favors the very rich, was a disappointing display of fiscal imprudence. Maine Reps. John Baldacci and Tom Allen were… Read More
A minor snag popped up in the first two flight tests of the proposed antimissile defense system. The weapon that will save the world can’t tell the difference between an incoming nuclear warhead and a medium-sized striped balloon. The Pentagon’s remedy is ingenious, at once both obvious and… Read More
No criminal charges will be brought against the three West Bath 9-year-old schoolboys who twice simulated the violent rape of a classmate. Although the playground assaults were stunningly repugant, the decision by Sagadahoc County District Attorney Geoff Rushlau not to prosecute these children as adults is correct. Read More
Not content with causing untold harm to human health, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. now intends to kill the advertising industry. This most intransigent member of the Big Tobacco family says it has proof ads do not sell products. This startling revelation comes just after Philip… Read More
On Tuesday, WorldCom settled charges that it illegally switched customers’ telephone carriers through the practice known as slamming. The $3.5-million fine for a year’s worth of wrongdoing was the largest ever levied by the Federal Communications Commission; it represented about a day’s worth of profit for the nation’s… Read More
At first glance, the conclusion of a new Atlantic States Fisheries Commission report seems like a contradiction: Lobster is being overfished but stocks are not being depleted. The warning offered by commission members sounds like the same old whine: The robust harvests of the last decade cannot be… Read More
At Presque Isle High School, there’s a simple policy: Don’t bother bringing a pager or cellular telephone to school if you are a student. They’re not allowed. At Bangor High School, the rules are a bit more accommodating. If there is a pressing reason for… Read More
When the chief executives of the world’s largest computer processor and software companies both say there is not enough technological brainpower to go around, Congress should pay attention. That’s what happened on Tuesday, when Andy Grove, chairman of Intel, and Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft,… Read More
Maine suffers from a double whammy when it comes to elderly drivers: a population that is, on the whole, older than most other states and a considerably more rural landscape, with little public transportation in most communities. These facts are not lost on Dan Gwadosky,… Read More
Not long ago the hottest topic in Washington, campaign finance reform has been on ice for the better part of a year. The issue of to what extent soft money — the tens of millions in unregulated contributions from business, labor and other influence-seekers to the two major… Read More
The people of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — PETA — have motives that no doubt are pure, but their methods need work. The group’s annual costumed protests at the Rockland Lobster Festival have only increased the public appetite for steamed shellfish; it’s anti-milk “Got Beer?”… Read More
With technology, geography no longer matters. The vanishing old economy will be replaced by one even better. Business tax breaks actually can help create new jobs. Just when these oft-heard reassurances were in danger of becoming broken promises, along comes Putnam Investments. The announcement by… Read More
The National D-Day Museum opens today in New Orleans. More than 10,000 World War II veterans will be on hand for the ceremony, the largest gathering since the war itself. Some stormed the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944; others served in other theaters. All helped save… Read More
From the news last week that J.D. Irving Ltd. earned “green” certification on 570,000 acres of forestland in Aroostook County, Maine residents might take away three ideas. All of them point toward the future of forestry in the state. First, in the long debate over… Read More
Unless Congress tears up the funding policies for home health care it created in the 1997 Balanced Budget Amendment, this will be the final year many care agencies, including those in Maine, operate. Their loss will not only deprive many elderly residents of needed care, it will raise… Read More
Not nearly enough time has passed since the approval of the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act in 1980 to explain the new, unusually strained misinterpretation of it by the Department of the Interior. Whatever else Interior officials are trying to accomplish by conferring to Maine Indians authority that… Read More
Voters who two years ago supported the state’s first attempt to fuel its university system with money for research and development now can see their investment in action. The University of Maine’s new wood-composite lab melds Maine’s traditional natural- resource-based economy with a high-tech future. Read More
Massachusetts is about to do in the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact. The compact, which sets minimum milk prices in the Northeast, won’t die immediately, even if the Massachusetts General Court eventually decides to withdraw the Bay State from it. googletag.cmd.push(function () { // Define Slot… Read More
Sen. Margaret Chase Smith took the floor of the United States Senate on June 1, 1950, and delivered a short speech. In the half-century since, those four minutes or so have become the crowning moment of a long and distinguished Maine life. The words “Declaration of Conscience” have… Read More
The greatest promise for President Clinton’s European trip is scheduled to take place today, when he meets Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The president and Mr. Barak are expected to discuss U.S. financial aid for Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, as well as another Camp David-style round of peace… Read More
After years of hearing promises from the Internet industry about self-regulation in protecting consumer privacy, the Federal Trade Commission last week said it’s time for a law. After hearing the same promises, the Federal Communications Commission said it’s time for more self regulation. The split… Read More
The politics behind an offer from Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen to presumed Republican presidential nominee George Bush could be interpreted a number of ways. But there is nothing ambiguous about the potential result of the offer, which, if it is taken seriously, could lift the level of… Read More
Maryland prosecutors properly dropped charges of felony wiretapping against Linda Tripp last Wednesday, saying a judge’s decision to limit testimony by Monica Lewinsky had gutted their case against the Pentagon staffer. The next day, the Pentagon’s inspector general released a report finding that two Defense Department public affairs… Read More
Gov. Angus King last year laid out a vision of an east-west highway across the middle of Maine. Philanthropist Sidney Unobskey on today’s op-ed page wants to make sure the state starts this project right. His set of principles for one end of the highway, a bridge planned… Read More
For the first time, the world’s five nuclear superpowers have publicly declared their desire to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. There is no timeline, nor even rough guidelines; only the sentiment of France, Britain, China, Russia and the United States that they will destroy their nuclear bombs, spoken during… Read More
Long before bargain basement sales and the Indianapolis 500 diluted Memorial Day’s true meaning, there was Gen. John Alexander Logan, a man of the hour destined to change the course of history. Turning grim Civil War battle experiences into something lasting and positive, Gen. Logan… Read More
It has been 20 years since President Ronald Reagan first promoted the concept of new federalism, the transfer of power and responsibility from the federal government to the states. The federal government, by acts of Congress, executive actions and Supreme Court decisions, has done its part. The states,… Read More
The official plan for the Duane D. Fitzgerald Gubernatorial Endowment for the State of Maine at Harvard University says the intensive training sessions it will provide are for “examination of a specific policy problem or crisis facing Maine, or for benchmarking and review of best practice models in… Read More
Though the House Wednesday supported improved trade status for China, a prime reason for there being a debate at all on this issue is found in the recent history of similar legislation. More specifically, NAFTA’s failed side agreements on workers’ rights and the environment and the failed programs… Read More
With the end of the 119th Maine Legislature comes another conclusion: The state’s experiment with term limits is turning out more legislators than would leave voluntarily, but is ushering in more chaos and the possibility of delay and increased bureaucratic influence. In 1993, voters approved… Read More
Last year, as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maine was suffering catastrophic financial loses, company officials were given some generous raises, pushing the CEO’s salary up to $311,000. Now, with a sale to Anthem of Indiana pending, BC/BS officials have packed themselves some generous golden parachutes —… Read More
One of the uglier, though ultimately commendable, aspects of the recent legislative session was the tussle between lawmakers and Maine Educational Services. The ugliness came from MES and the venomous lobbying/ad campaign the big-spending non-profit conducted to keep its student-loan empire intact. The commendable part was the work… Read More
Maine’s unemployment figures released last week showed rock-bottom rates in much of the state, and lower than usual rates in the remainder. In the longest economic expansion in the nation’s history, that’s not so surprising. The change worth following was that, for the first time in recent memory,… Read More
New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg is said by the Clinton administration to be holding up essential money for U.N. peacekeeping forces in Sierra Leone, Kosovo, East Timor and Congo. But there is a question of whether Sen. Gregg’s intransigence or the administration’s weak policies is the real culprit. Read More
Back in 1985, the General Accounting Office took a survey of 25 computer systems in 17 federal agencies. Inspectors found all of the systems vulnerable to waste and fraud because of lax security, with government workers often a source of the trouble. A lot has… Read More
Since 1978, when a suit by Maine residents resulted in a decree to improve the treatment of people who lived at the Pineland Center, the state has known it has not done enough — legally or ethically — for the mentally retarded here. Now a recent study of… Read More
With a unanimous vote by its board of education this week, Cincinnati became the first public school district in the nation to replace the seniority-based pay scale for teachers with one solely based on performance. This remarkable step toward greater accountability in public education is made even more… Read More
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt says the National Park Service committed a “landslide” of mistakes in conducting a prescribed forest fire that set the city of Los Alamos ablaze. Faced with an internal report that read like a primer on poor planning, lax oversight and stunning mismanagment, Mr. Babbitt’s… Read More
Though pleased with the presidential candidates it produced, the national Republican and Democratic parties are unhappy with the primary system that produced them. The accelerated packing of key primaries — called front-loading — into the first month of what is supposed to be a four-month nominating process turned… Read More
The encouraging news from the U.S. Commerce Department this week that Maine income is among the fastest growing in the nation could mean that Maine truly is on the move, leaving its 39th place in this category for higher rankings. Or it could mean something else entirely. As… Read More
A new report that concludes NATO’s airstrikes in Kosovo were far less effective than the military has claimed is just one of the latest wedges to be driven between public trust and the military. It is a trend that can be checked only by more honest and open… Read More
Blue Cross directors Wednesday showed a sensitivity both to public concern and political reality by agreeing to release the details of the compensation packages for top executives from the sale of the Maine insurer to Anthem Insurance. The decision was important as a demonstration of good faith and… Read More