Great Northern workers must make deep wage and benefit concessions or the sale of Bowater’s Maine holdings to Inexcon will fall through, Bowater says. The Millinocket mill will be closed, its East Millinocket sister will be in jeopardy. Bowater officials say that sobering message was… Read More
Marie Noe recently pleaded guilty to murdering eight of her children, all of whom were younger than 14 months, from 1949 to 1968. The 70-year-old Mrs. Noe was given 20 years of probation, including five years of home confinement. She must also be evaluated by a psychiatrist in… Read More
Greens are good people — concerned, sincere, deeply committed. If they have a flaw, it would be their tendency for excessive solemnity. They fret about everything, including, apparently, about whether laughing out loud will disrupt the delicate ecological balance. Call the Green movement an organization, a group, band… Read More
A 21-year-old university student, a doctor’s son from a swank Chicago suburb, went on a rampage last weekend, shooting blacks, Jews and Asians. He killed two and wounded 12. He stole a van at gunpoint and, while being chased by police, shot and killed himself. Read More
If the federal Veterans Health Administration was a sick patient, its suffering through five years of shock therapy is about to come to an end. Not that the patient is entirely cured, but its exhaustive overhaul demands a temporary respite. The doctor in charge of… Read More
Cynicism aside, President Bill Clinton’s nationwide poverty jaunt this week with executives in tow might highlight a problem of the poor in a time of plenty and build support for strengthening places that are too easy to neglect. Though the president’s tour won’t be coming anywhere near Maine,… Read More
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, the newest New Yorker, officially begins her campaign for the U.S. Senate today. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the newsiest (until now, at least) New Yorker, has been an active candidate for several weeks. Although Election Day 2000 still is 489 days away, the networks… Read More
The federal ethanol subsidy is pure pork if you live outside the dozen states that produce the corn-based gasoline alternative and a major support to agriculture and cleaner air if you live within them. But whatever its value as a fuel, ethanol is proving once again to be… Read More
Some parents of special education students are nervous, understandably, about the proposed changes to state special education rules, saying the changes seem like a step back instead of forward. The reaction isn’t surprising given that Maine, and the nation, are actually moving in a different direction entirely, a… Read More
At the press conference last week releasing the FAME study, Gov. Angus King offered one important part of a remedy to Maine’s low college-participation rate when he said it needs to emphasize low-cost, low-stress, close-to-home access to higher education. Maine’s new Community College Partnership meets those requirements nicely. Read More
What Maine has found in the 2- years since the Finance Authority of Maine released its first study on why high school graduates here do not go on to college is that the question is more complicated than it first appears and single answers are invariably wrong. As… Read More
Below is a lengthy excerpt from the document this holiday is about. Two hundred and twenty-three 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
Credit state government officials for spending time and money to try to correct the Year 2000 millennium software bug problem in our state’s software systems. Don Groves, chief bank examiner of the Bureau of Banking, for instance, recently made it clear that Maine banks and credit unions are… Read More
You don’t have to be a Maine fisherman or a Maine senator to be outraged by the new line-up for the New England Fisheries Management Council. Anyone with a functioning sense of smell can detect the unmistakable odor of political spoils. For 22 years, practically… Read More
The American Medical Association, the representative body for one-third of the nation’s 600,000 physicians, recently voted to create a union for its members for the first time in its 152-year history. The desire of at least some physicians for this sort of protection is more evidence that the… Read More
It would require a much larger dam than the Edwards to hold back the hyperbole that will flow in Augusta today as politicians and environmentalists gather to celebrate the breaching of the dam that has restrained a portion of the Kennebec River for more than 160 years. And… Read More
If successful in what are likely to be two of the final items on his agenda, President Bill Clinton will leave a legacy of something besides presiding over a strong economy and being impeached. The president’s plans for Social Security and Medicare, announced this week, are neither dramatic… Read More
Maine’s chummy relationship with the Environmental Protection Agency over air-pollution rules, in evidence last week, didn’t happen overnight. The state, as part of a regional group, has built a track record for being sincere in its efforts to cut pollutants and for persuading other states to do the… Read More
In theory, the personal watercraft law passed last year makes sense: If all the neighboring towns sharing the shoreline of a particular lake or pond agree, they can petition the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to ban the jet-propelled water bikes. It seems a fair balance between… Read More
As founder of the Senate Diabetes Caucus, Sen. Susan Collins has done much to promote the need for research into the disease called the silent killer. Her sponsorship of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation Children’s Congress last week put a human, heartbreaking face on this neglected crisis. Read More
Congressional Democrats couldn’t offend their entertainment industry pals by cracking down on bloody video games, Republicans gave their gun-show buddies a free pass, but they did agree to let schools display the Ten Commandments. This probably won’t do anything to quell school violence, but at least that graven… Read More
With one hand, the Supreme Court struck a blow for states’ rights Wednesday. With the other, it slapped around states’ workers and employers. By a 5-4 vote, the Supremes ruled that Maine probation officers cannot sue the state in state court for overtime pay they… Read More
Maine has a front-row seat on one of the few major decisions Congress is likely to make this session. The rising cost of prescription medicine has made a prescription drug program for the elderly an important goal for both parties and the White House, and Maine members of… Read More
If Charles Neville had used the telephone to pester his ex-girlfriend, if he’d stuck threatening notes on her door or stapled defaming flyers on utility poles, he’d be looking at a criminal charge of harassment, perhaps even terrorizing. He’d be a prime candidate for a civil suit. Read More
The expansion of coverage under the Americans with Disabilities Act during the last few years made it inevitable that the Supreme Court would face the task of establishing boundaries. It did so this week in a reasonable interpretation of the ADA as it relates to employment, at the… Read More
The award for best question to the Land Use Regulation Commission in 1997 should have gone to the gentleman who asked whether he needed a permit to practice the hobby of gold dredging. LURC’s answer, put diplomatically, was, Let us get back to you, but it could have… Read More
Anytime a state agency undertakes a comprehensive overhaul of an area of its rules, the people affected understandably get nervous. That was especially true when the Department of Education proposed to update its rules governing special education. Too often, the parents of those students have had to battle… Read More
The National Gambling Impact Study Commission was established by Congress in 1996 to objectively assess the economic benefits and social costs wrought by the explosive growth of the gaming industry – commercial and tribal casinos, river boats, state lotteries, pari-mutuel wagering on racing and jai-alai, charity gambling, Internet… Read More
The call in Congress came swiftly at the deaths of 14 people at Columbine High School last April: The nation must get to the heart of the problem that led two Colorado students to open fire on their classmates. The House last week concluded its effort, and it… Read More
Four years ago, the Maine Greens, coming off a respectable effort in the gubernatorial campaign had official ballot status, high hopes and plans for a major registration drive and candidate hunt. Today, the Maine Greens, coming off a respectable effort in the gubernatorial campaign have… Read More
School’s out for another summer and graduates are celebrating their temporary freedom from the classroom. How they celebrate, however, could largely be determined by what they learned in class, specifically, in the class presented by Drug Abuse Resistance Education officers. Residents owe them, and the people and businesses… Read More
Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the putative front-runners in the 2000 presidential race, are, for men virtually destined to become bitter enemies, remarkably alike: Each is the son of a powerful politician, each is a son of privilege, each has an elite prep… Read More
Sticking points remain, legalistic language must be defined, but the emerging agreement on the Russian presence in Kosovo seems to strike a fair balance between public recognition of Russia’s role in forging peace and an unspoken acknowledgment of its inability to be much more than bystander. Read More
A notice Thursday of intent to file a lawsuit in the cleanup of mercury in the Penobscot River may help this slow-moving project along or stall it through legal wrangling. That’s the risk the groups that intend to sue take by turning to the court. One aspect of… Read More
By the time the Legislature reconvenes this morning, Gov. King’s veto count may have reached 25, perhaps higher. The number contrasts starkly with the measured, calming phrases — fiscal prudence, the need to balance worthwhile goals with available resources — the governor has used to explain his objections. Read More
Put aside for a moment your fervid opinion about gun control and violent movies and temporarily overcome your indifference toward campaign-finance reform. The rot at the core of political debate was on full display in the House yesterday and to miss the message it conveyed is to miss… Read More
State police recruiters went to the U.S. Marine Corps base in Camp Lejeune, N.C., last month to entice minorities and women into joining the force. The reason back then — that an increasingly diverse Maine population requires a more diverse force — puzzled many who wondered why this… Read More
Two brief comments Tuesday by Central Maine Power CEO David Flanagan explain the deregulation of electric utilities as well as anything else that has been said about it to date. On what changes customers might expect to see now that CMP Group has been sold… Read More
Rosa Parks received the Congressional Gold Medal yesterday. Along with her Presidential Medal of Freedom, the 86-year-old mother of the civil rights movement now possesses the highest civilian awards the nation can bestow. Those honors — plus the standing ovation at this year’s State of… Read More
The trouble with examining miracles is that they often turn out to be less miraculous than a product of determination and plenty of hard work. So it proved to be Monday when Maine was introduced to the Irish economic miracle — and found that Ireland has spent decades… Read More
Hard to believe it’s been six years since this country was gripped by health care fever. While the rift between those who saw that new Clinton couple in the White House as visionaries or meddlers was deep and wide, there was, amid those hardened positions, general agreement that… Read More
After a booming decade, it’s understandable that the home health care part of the Medicare system would be in need of some fine-tuning. Leave it to the federal government to turn necessary adjustments into crisis. The good idea behind home-based care for the ill elderly… Read More
Imagine a bank with a half-billion dollars in deposits from hundreds of thousands of account holders. Imagine that bank not being able to provide those depositors with the most basic information about their money. Imagine it telling some their accounts were too small to even worry about. Read More
More than 1,200 irate retirees scorched Gov. King’s phone lines one day last week, demanding he veto a bill that would tax some Social Security recipients in order to give a tax break to other retirees — former state and federal workers — who don’t receive Social Security. Read More
Maybe NATO’s critics are right; maybe you can’t win a war just with an air campaign. You can, however, force a peace. Keeping it will be the hard part. The indicted war criminal Milosevic still shakes his fist in defiance, although it is a pathetic… Read More
If only half of what the Department of Conservation says about Tim Caverly is true, the Allagash Wilderness Waterway needs a new manager. If only half of what Caverly says about the department is true, the Allagash needs a new way of being managed. googletag.cmd.push(function… Read More
Dr. Nancy W. Dickey is a family physician in College Station, Texas. She’s also president of the American Medical Association. She knows rural, she knows health care, she had some important things to say about the intersection of the two during a visit to Maine this week. Read More
It was hot in New England for nearly two full days this week. Not hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. Not hot enough to parch the landscape or to threaten public health and safety. Certainly not hot enough to cause a calamity in the region’s… Read More
Three times in the last month, intoxicated and violent British passengers have forced transatlantic flights to make emergency landings at Bangor International Airport. Although BIA officials and Bangor police richly deserve the wide acclaim they’ve received for their deft handling of these cases, enough is enough. Our fair… Read More
The most successful education fight in Augusta this year wasn’t the improvements to the funding formula and it certainly wasn’t the 5 percent increase in funding. It was the coming together of teachers, students, parents and school administrators from around Maine to demand that state government keep its… Read More
No economy has been more examined and celebrated in the last decade than Ireland’s, where rapid growth after a long history of economic troubles brings to mind for many people a simple thought: If Ireland can do it, so can we. Can Maine? This year’s Governor’s Economic Development… Read More
The photograph, taken by a French news agency, was published everywhere Monday: a sun-baked beach; sparkling water; happy, splashing children; an Albanian Army tank standing guard. The children are Kosovar refugees. Although the nationality of the tank is subject to change, the scene is tragically… Read More
With a federal commission formed to address the future of Medicare failing to recommend action, President Clinton is expected in the next few weeks to produce his own plan on the health-care coverage — or partial coverage — for senior citizens. When he does, pharmaceutical costs should be… Read More
The Transportation Committee deserves high praise for its proposed solution to Maine’s Highway Fund dilemma. The combination of a modest increase in the gas tax and a modest increase in vehicle registration fees balances needs with concerns, it demonstrates that deliberation and compromise can resolve an issue that… Read More
Probably the six House Republicans who went against the wishes of party leaders last week and supported a vote on campaign finance reform did not read Public Campaign’s arguments and suddenly decide to switch sides. And yet, who knows? The group’s recent newsletter on reasons for conservatives to… Read More
Veterans, once again, are outraged. They are promised that the health care system they earned in uniform is becoming more efficient, more responsive to their needs. Yet the wait for appointments is getting longer, as are the bus rides to specialists. The familiar, trusted caregivers are getting laid… Read More
Kill your friends guilt free. Get in touch with your gun-toting, cold-blooded murdering side. More fun than shooting your neighbor’s cat. With these spectacularly egregious examples taken from ad campaigns for computer games, President Clinton announced Tuesday an investigation into how the entertainment industry markets… Read More
China’s leaders could hardly have failed to learn in the 10 years since the protestors of Tiananmen Square stood against, then fell to, the tanks of their own government that economic integration is not enough. Without improvements in human rights, Beijing will remain isolated and friendless, even if… Read More
Monique Dostie cares for mentally retarded adults four at a time. The Maine Department of Human Services cares for them a state at a time. With all this caring, the clash between the Lewiston foster-home operator and the state seems petty and sad. Ms. Dostie… Read More
Being the minority party in a legislature is not easy. Being a minority party with an independent governor, who may or may not support your position, is harder still. But as lawmakers wrap up the details of another session, Maine Republicans have reason to feel some satisfaction with… Read More
For reasons that need no elaboration, there is a great, desperate hunger for good news about American schoolchildren. Here’s nourishment: The eighth-grade pupils at Boothbay Regional Middle School held an art auction recently. They raised about $1,000. Not for new basketball uniforms or to throw… Read More
President Clinton should take Belgrade’s recent interest in the cease-fire plan produced by the foreign ministers of the G-8 — the world’s economic powerhouses, plus Russia — as a sincere gesture toward peace. The president, with NATO’s support, could do that by setting measures for the first two… Read More
The Cat, the Bar Harbor-to-Yarmouth high-speed ferry, had a somewhat checkered inaugural season last summer — three citations for wake violations that tossed smaller boats and a foggy collision that killed a Nova Scotia fisherman. This year, the owners pledge an emphasis on safety with a plan that… Read More
The Legislature deserves credit for trying to give the public a sense of the shape of the amorphous Maine Educational Services, a growing organization responsible for approximately 70 percent of the student loans in Maine. Lawmakers handled this difficult issue thoughtfully, and their legislation should help shed light… Read More
The University of Maine’s recent national championship didn’t fill Alfond Arena with howling fans. And no one is going to join next year’s team members at midnight when they open the practice sessions to defend their title. But then paper kayaks aren’t really that popular anywhere. Read More
Long before department store sales and the Indianapolis 500 diluted Memorial Day’s significance, there was Gen. John Alexander Logan, a man of the hour destined to change the course of history. Transforming grim Civil War battle experiences into something lasting and positive, Gen. Logan set… Read More
In their long-weekend bliss before a final week of legislating, lawmakers can curse their extended spring in Augusta. Or they can be grateful that the governor’s threat to veto the budgets of both parties gave them time to find money for a package of programs that had received… Read More
The Legislature’s Business and Economic Development Committee was right to endorse a bill to assist employee-led buyouts of paper mills. Given the unusual circumstances and the apparent lack of faith some lawmakers have in the state’s workforce, the unanimous ought-to-pass vote was, in fact, exactly right. Read More
For 20 years, while four American presidents slept, China snuck in and stole this country’s most valuable nuclear, missile and high-tech secrets. The reaction by national leaders to the thievery described in the Cox report has been swift and strong. Republicans in Congress and on… Read More
Though Maine’s state budget is still up in the air, one piece of it was settled this week when President Clinton signed a bill to send aid to Kosovo and for a wide range of humanitarian and disaster relief. No, Maine doesn’t qualify as a disaster area, but… Read More
As the midpoint of 1999 nears, the tussle between Y2K panic and calm preparedness intensifies. While the overall outcome remains in doubt, when it comes to banks and the security of accounts, the smart money’s on calm preparedness. Federal and state finance regulators have been… Read More
Just about the time Gov. Angus King was submitting his budget last winter, he lamented that the state couldn’t afford to do more for education. But, he pledged, if future revenue forecasts showed increases in available funds, he would dedicate three-fourths of that new money to General Purpose… Read More
So far, the buzz in Congress about the juvenile justice bill passed by the Senate last week has focused upon the politics. How Vice President Gore won by breaking to 50-50 tie on background checks at gun show sales. How Republican leadership lost by severely miscalculating the effects… Read More
As a rule, the annual awards an industry association gives its members mean a lot to the recipients and less than nothing to everyone else. It’s a plaque and a pat on the back for the honoree, a yawn for the general public. The Maine… Read More
Members of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee were given an extra reason last week to support a proposal to fund the state’s homeless shelters. Five months late, the federal Emergency Shelter Grant arrived from Washington and the numbers aren’t good. It is no surprise that money… Read More
The Warren Center for Communication & Learning in Bangor has never turned away someone in need. Not since it started in 1961 and not now, though it runs a deficit that would make most businesses run for cover. But the speech and hearing center might soon have to… Read More
Proving that politics precedes precedent, a federal appeals court recently invalidated clean-air rules established by the Environmental Protection Agency that would have left Maine with cleaner air. The split decision was confusing for the EPA and raw meat for lobbyists with grudges against any government agency. Read More
The mood in Great Northern land is understandably mixed. In Millinocket, the announcement this week that all of Bowater’s Maine holdings will be sold to Quebec-based Inexcon brought relief to workers and townspeople — there’s life left in their aging, unwanted mill after all. In East Millinocket, the… Read More
The pending Bowater/Inexcon deal may make plans for worker ownership of the Great Northern holdings moot. The notion that Inexcon might fail to pull together the financing may be little more than false hope, given the experience of Mr. Kass and Mr. Bedard. None of this diminishes in… Read More
Give Gov. Angus King credit for one thing in the school funding debate: at least he is upfront about the fact that his latest plan to provide more to schools while reducing the sales tax is poor fiscal planning. He knows, the entire Legislature knows, Maine cannot responsibly… Read More
Ladies and gentleman, our speaker is here this evening to discuss a matter of growing interest to everyone: peace and the world today. “We are the one nation that can still think about how an enduring peace may be brought about when the conflict ends,”… Read More
In 1996, Israelis elected Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, hailing him as a straight-talking, anti-establishment, media-bashing conservative — a less telegenic Ronald Reagan, a somewhat more flappable Margaret Thatcher. They tossed him out of office Monday, calling him a three-year waste of their time, a belligerent isolationist, an… Read More
Legislators should forgive the wild threat made Monday by Gov. Angus King to veto the entire Part 2 budget unless he got his half penny off the sales tax. Not only was his remark made worse by the terrible timing, coming just two days before a hearing on… Read More
It’s high-school graduation time. Parents, do you know where your children are ranked? Increasingly, no. Class rankings are on the way out. The valedictorian is going the way of the dinosaur. It’s becoming, as the Wall Street Journal said recently regarding the anti-competition trend in… Read More
A convicted sex offender form North Carolina did Maine a favor recently by unintentionally pointing out a flaw in state statute regarding his crime. State lawmakers can and should swiftly submit legislation to close the loophole in the law. Howard Brooks, formerly of Forsyth County,… Read More
State senators offered many reasons for defeating a bill requiring gun locks in households with small children — maintaining tradition, resisting government intrusion, obeying the law of natural selection, to name but a few. Sen. Leo Keiffer of Caribou summed it up best: With their guns under lock… Read More
When the Natinal Park Service and the owners of Saddleback Mountain began negotiations over protecting a section of Appalachian Trail that crosses the ski area, nearly half of the 2,100-mile trail was unprotected. Now, two decades later, only 26 miles of unprotected trail remain. The stretch over Saddleback… Read More
It’s been called the Learning Results for school discipline. It requires the Maine Department of Education to develop statewide standards for responsible, ethical student behavior and local schools to turn those standards into a code of conduct. It enjoys strong support among legislators and, apparently, the public. It… Read More
Someone once said Robert Rubin was the only adult in the Clinton administration. A bit of hyperbole perhaps, but in a White House full of colorful characters, the treasury secretary stood out for his steadiness and sound judgment. His understanding of Wall Street and of the changing nature… Read More
Financial analysts no doubt can explain with statements of profit and loss, with white papers on investment strategies, with graphs and flow charts exactly why so much of Maine has been bought and sold so quickly in the last year. But none of their analyses could begin to… Read More
Congress is faced with the choice of strengthening Social Security with moderate repairs now or saving it for use as a campaign cudgel in next year’s elections. Guess which it is doing? Members of Congress of serious mien have allowed in interviews during the last… Read More
It’s been six months since Hurricane Mitch buried Central America in mud. Since the United States pledged to help with the digging out. Since members of Congress began that noble promise with expensive favors for their home-state special interests. Stuffing emergency spending bills with non-emergency… Read More
It was supposed to be different this time. The Columbine massacre was so horrifying, the link between violent thoughts and deeds so clear, that something definite, lasting and meaningful would be done. It was supposed to start at the White House Monday, at President Clinton’s… Read More
By ignoring critics who said Maine’s school funding formula was too complicated and too driven by politics to be improved, the Legislature’s Education Committee delivered last week half an overhaul of the formula for Maine’s school-funding system. To complete the other half, lawmakers must set the same level… Read More
The bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade that killed four civilians is the kind of tragedy that reveals the essential difference between human beings and political beings. The sorrow and anger of the Chinese people is genuine, as is the remorse expressed by people of the NATO… Read More
An investigation by the Associated Press last week revealed that, given a choice, most Mainers would prefer not to pay higher taxes. Next up for the AP: a survey of residents who want worse roads or, to paraphrase a Vermont joke, whether motorists can get there from here. Read More
Comments recently by Lee Perry, commissioner of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, could have been made by any of several leaders of tourism-related agencies. His observations are useful, however, if they prod the Legislature into funding tourism as if they meant it. Commissioner Perry was blunt:… Read More
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has authorized half of its $313 million for disaster relief to eight states, including $19 million to Maine for last year’s ice storm. In return, Congress must promise it won’t yank HUD’s disaster-relief authority and turn it over to the… Read More
The first baby born in the United States to the recent wave of Kosovar refugees and a nascent plan to end the war arrived more or less simultaneously this week, both representing the hope of less-violent times for Yugoslavia. The final version of the plan is still several… Read More
So what if Gov. King misread a report on U.S. Department of Labor job-growth statistics or that he misspoke in claiming Maine led the nation last year. A tie for seventh still isn’t too shabby. USDL reports aren’t known for their readability. The error is… Read More