The great C word of marriage has always been compromise. As of today, in Louisiana at least, the C word becomes covenant. Aug. 15 marks the beginning of an experiment there in preserving marriages by making divorces harder to obtain, but the law may be looking at the… Read More
Democratic leaders in Maine had to wait 16 years for their chance to propose a jurist at the federal level. When their opportunity came early this year, they did the right thing by suggesting two remarkably talented people. President Clinton, who decided after seven months which would be… Read More
President Clinton’s judicious, bipartisan use of the line-item veto Monday was an encouraging beginning for a tool that can help reduce waste and self-interest in the federal budget. The constitutionality of the line-item veto will be up to the courts to decide, but the president… Read More
Maine has had $29 million burning a hole in its pocket for two weeks now, roughly one dollar for every idea on how to use the unexpected revenue surplus. But before legislators choose sides for a rock fight over how it should be spent, saved… Read More
The idea of an Eastern Maine children’s museum, proposed last March by Partnerships for Healthy Communities, immediately caught local attention, and early meetings were packed. Now that the hard work of moving beyond the idea and into the details has begun, the organizing groups more than ever need… Read More
Someday, Maine lobstermen may be able to leave the public hearings behind and get back to fishing. Someday, just not yet. After a spring spent in packed meeting halls persuading the National Marine Fisheries Service that proposed whale-protection rules were disastrous, fishermen now have the… Read More
Portland city councilors say they’re troubled by the need to take by eminent domain a waterfront lot for expansion of the municipally-owned International Marine Terminal. They should be troubled. It’s wrong. googletag.cmd.push(function () { // Define Slot var slot_sizes = [[300,250]]; var new_slot_sizes = [];… Read More
Certainly voters pay less attention to politics during the too-short days of summer and, admittedly, the Senate hearings on fund-raising practices failed to pack in viewers. But the news last week that both major parties are raising record amounts of campaign money even while confessing to recent fund-raising… Read More
The pomp that accompanied the signing of the balanced budget bill Tuesday — military bands, gospel singers and fluttering flags — had all the subtlety and substance of a Super Bowl halftime show, it was a made-for-TV event of the first order. Highly appropriate, since… Read More
Sen. Olympia Snowe, in Bangor as President Clinton was signing the budget measure, agreed that Maine could feel short-changed in the near term because it receives more money back from the federal government than it sends in tax dollars. But she correctly asserted that prodding the nation into… Read More
The shorthand way of describing Maine Yankee these days is to say it has shut down, but the facility continues to have hundreds of staff members maintaining safety at the plant and planning for its decommissioning and eventual removal over at least the next 10 years. Without power… Read More
Jody Johnson stands accused of the most serious crime on the books — murder — and in the most heinous form imaginable — the murder of her infant child. So it is odd and unfortunate that the focus of attention has shifted from this tragic… Read More
The public view of the tragedy took only a few seconds. A young man, armed with a pistol, emerges from the rear window of an apartment and is told immediately by waiting police to drop his weapon. Instead, he points it in the direction of one of the… Read More
The lawsuit by four Raymond families against their town and the Maine Department of Education over school choice might be a national milestone or just a local bump in the road, but it should at least help determine whether the wall separating church and state is built of… Read More
Foolish consistency may be, as Emerson said, the hobgoblin of little minds, but consistency of the wise variety is always welcome. Especially from the White House. President Clinton’s decision not to intervene immediately in the commerce-crippling strike by UPS workers makes some sense coming from… Read More
Bangor’s municipal operations committee Tuesday properly responded to a request from the city’s housing authority to oppose a federal bill that would allow all common pets in federally subsidized housing. Congress should keep these homes from going to the dogs. The legislation amends the Housing… Read More
One more sign the Apocalypse is upon us: The sweet tintinabulation of the ice cream wagon is nevermore, as the bell heralding its approach has been supplanted by the raucous squawk of a high-volume, low-fidelity speaker bleating out an endless medley of annoying tunes. Call us cranky, but… Read More
This month’s subject of unfathomable outrage on local talk radio is the Maine supreme court’s decision to side with the state on the question of whether a man in Appleton must remove a pond that was built without a permit and has engineering flaws. Part of the talk… Read More
Plywood on the portico. What’s next — duct taping Lady Wisdom to the dome? The deplorable condition of Maine’s State House moved from the rotting-from-within stage to front-and-center last week when the noble building’s grand entrance was boarded up so cracks in the portico could… Read More
The most famous international court was the Nuremberg tribunal, after World War II. But as more recent events in Bosnia and Rwanda show, the need for an international court continues. The meetings at the United Nations beginning this week to draft a treaty to form an international court… Read More
It’s bigger than the interstate highway system, it’s the bane of government waste-watchers and environmentalists alike, it’s constantly under fire and it just keeps dodging the bullets. It’s the U.S. Forest Service’s logging road construction program. It’s, depending upon which side of the Mississippi you… Read More
Maine serves as host beginning today to a national convention of the people who ensure that Medicaid money is spent well and effectively. The meeting highlights the challenges this state will face as it increases its use of home health care. Surveillance and utilization review… Read More
This week’s announcement that Maine ended its fiscal year with $60 million more income than expected is splendid news, testament not only to a generally robust economy but to good, tough decision-making by the governor and legislators. The surplus allows Maine to save interest costs by not having… Read More
The recommendation this week by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to remove Edwards Dam in Augusta is not only a sound decision, it is an excellent example of the process of considering the trade-offs involved in producing any form of energy. The FERC staff balanced the ecological and… Read More
After getting pounded by Congress recently for requesting another round of base closings, Defense Secretary William Cohen came back for more this week with a better idea — use communities that made the successful transition to civilian life as role models. Yes, traveling around the… Read More
The Bangor City Council faces this difficult question: Should it remain fiscally conservative or risk $525,000 on a man with a dream of building a splendid arts school downtown? In the movies, you go with the man with the dream, he succeeds and everybody lives happily ever after. Read More
A mid-term report on the dreadful state of salmon fishing in Maine confirms that the problem lies where many have long suspected — out at sea — and gives one more reason for federal agencies to accept a state conservation plan. The Penobscot run of… Read More
There is probably something ironic in John Michael’s attempt year after year to coerce politicians to accept term limits. Now matter what the courts or the Constitution say, he remains at his post, pumping out proposals to force politicians out of their jobs. No one… Read More
The nature of nuclear power prevents the sale of Maine Yankee to Peco or any other company from being treated like the sale of just another business. Despite the jobs it may save, Peco’s continued interest in purchasing the facility should not be approved by regulators or welcomed… Read More
The nomination of William Weld, former governor of Massachusetts as of Monday, to be ambassador to Mexico has to potential to be a lot of things: an example of bipartisn cooperation; a chance for the Republican Party to reaffirm its roots in moderation and tolerance; an opportunity to… Read More
The recent victory of reason — new National Marine Fisheries Service rules both whales and fishermen can live with — was sweet. It also might be short. Drowned out by the sighs of relief that greeted the NMFS plan all along the Maine coast was… Read More
While testimony by Haley Barbour, the former GOP party chairman, was being torn apart last week by fellow party members before the Senate’s campaign finance hearings, President Clinton was in California raising $500,000 in soft money contributions. The events demonstrate how important the Senate’s hearings will be to… Read More
No one is likely to turn away a tax break, and the $135 billion in breaks proposed by President Clinton and congressional Republicans have something for just about everyone. But before taxpayers start dreaming of ways to stimulate the economy, they should ask whether this is what they… Read More
President Clinton has extended a bouquet to Republicans on Medicare reform. The GOP has good reason to inspect it for snakes. Not that Republican lawmakers have cause to doubt the president’s word that he will defend in public the vote of any member of Congress… Read More
While the DeCoster Egg Farm last summer was fighting a $3.6 million fine from the Labor Department for health and safety violations it was also standing in line to receive Agriculture Department grants for overseas marketing. The egg company did not receive the new money, but using DeCoster… Read More
The idea of a T-shirted Paul Bunyan statue welcoming shock radio’s Don Imus to town isn’t half bad. It’s all bad. It’s monumentally, to-the-bone bad. The granddaddy of goofs. The mother of all miscues. googletag.cmd.push(function () { // Define Slot var slot_sizes = [[300,250]]; var… Read More
Four Buddist nuns granted immunity from prosecution — could there be any more potent symbol of just how pathetic the organized influence-peddling known as campaign finance has become? The bipartisan vote by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee to hold the clerics harmless for their $5,000… Read More
There was a time when the nation’s move to digital television seemed like a dream come true: at-home viewing to rival the best movie theaters and a ton of cash flowing into the U.S. Treasury. Now, as often happens when Congress and Big Business snuggle… Read More
The whine of a Jet Ski on a Maine lake could become nothing next to the growing roar of protest over their use. Other lake users clearly have had enough of the noise and irresponsible behavior of some riders. The industry recently began to try to respond to… Read More
Large landowners irked by new state regulations have developed a clear theme in recent years: If Maine government treasures the land so much, they say, make us an offer on it. Short of funds, the state has only occasionally been able to do that. Now Gov. Angus King… Read More
After three days of piracy, West Coast Canadian fishermen accomplished this: they got a meeting with their very own fisheries minister; they damaged relations between two usually friendly nations; they made a mockery of their legal system; and they very likely cost a small British Columbia town its… Read More
It was Will Rogers who said he belonged to no organized political party, for he was a Democrat. The public pretty much expects Dems to be the rock-fighters — arguing, bickering, spatting among themselves. That’s what being the Party of the Big Tent is all… Read More
The decision by the Federal Aviation Administration to keep human weather observers on the job at Houlton International Airport until their digital replacements actually work is, in the parlance of the day, a no-brainer. That well-worn word might also describe the cranial condition that led… Read More
There’s several good reasons — moral, legal, fiscal — for the state to get out of the liquor business. Add one more to the list: The state is clueless about business. That became abundantly clear last week when state liquor officials met with grocers, the… Read More
To many Americans, one of the most puzzling things about the Beltway brawl last month over disaster relief was the insistance by Republican leadership that help for flooded North Dakotans be tied to Census 2000. The census? That boring decennial national head count? That mundane,… Read More
A few weeks back, a medical study revealed that those who mingle in society, outgoing types who go out and get involved in their communities, have fewer and less severe colds than those drones whose lives consist of work, surfing the Web and prime-time TV. Something to do… Read More
Phew. What’s that goshawful smell? Manure spreading down to Monroe? Rockland’s high-profile sewer plant? The remnants of last weekend’s lobster boil? Nope. It’s Maine’s public-private partnership with General Dynamics, also known as the Bath Iron Works tax break. googletag.cmd.push(function () { // Define Slot var… Read More
When the case of Grendell v. Gillway goes to trial this fall, Bangor federal court will need a jury with a strong nose for the truth. And a strong stomach. Crystal Grendell, 18, is suing James Gillway, Searsport police chief, for violating a whole passel… Read More
Twenty-four times a day, a commuter plane flies out of Bangor to Logan International Airport. It is an essential link between this part of the state and the rest of the country, so Sen. Olympia Snowe was correct recently to express concern that the Boston airport was about… Read More
Carnival of animals: An escaped emu was apprehended after a week’s rampage through central Maine in which it bit one would-be rescuer. Now, state authorities are wondering what to do with the five-foot tall, 200-pound bird. Martha Stewart suggests l’orange in the large economy drum. Read More
Despite its uncertain start earlier this month, the idea of conservation days urged by Central Maine Power is a good one that should be continued. The public could be even better served, however, by looking further at other sources of pollution statewide. The voluntary conservation… Read More
It was the long way ’round through needlessly perilous waters, but the right whale protection plan released by the National Marine Fisheries Service Tuesday brought Maine fishermen into a relatively safe and sane harbor. The most striking thing about the plan — a combination of… Read More
After years of plotting, knitting and taking names, conservative revolutionaries in the House finally made good their promise to guillotine the National Endowment for the Arts. It’s a sad day for the arts and one for which the agency must share the blame. No, not… Read More
The scenery has all the splendor of a parking lot under construction. The high-tech dune buggy has a top speed of about a half-inch per hour. The rocks it gathers are garden variety. Why, then, are Earthlings so gripped by Mars? Partly because it’s there… Read More
With Bangor Hydro-Electric and a group of downtown merchants at odds over an impromptu mini-park, the City Council tonight can play the role of peace-maker and deal-cutter. Bangor Hydro is asking permission to install five pieces of equipment, transformers and switching gear, in the rear… Read More
A new study of Maine’s acute-care, nonprofit hospitals asks an interesting question: Do communities get enough value from the hospitals to make the hospitals’ tax exemptions worthwhile? Answers in the study, unfortunately, veer toward a narrow agenda that easily could be misinterpreted and come to a conclusion that… Read More
So NATO has invited three more to the banquet. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are about to be seated at the feast of friendly nations. Now, it’s up to Congress to scrutinize the tab. It may find things just don’t add up. The bill… Read More
Though Democrats seem content to feed fund-raiser John Huang to the Senate campaign finance committee this week, the opening statements of committee members better set the tone for the hearings. The statements contained slight references to bi-partisanship, but were — properly — highly partisan. The… Read More
Lawmakers are debating whether to increase the tax on cigarettes and use the money to fund children’s health care. Sound familiar? It is, except the debate is not taking place in the Maine State House but in Congress, where a promising proposal in the Senate has gained bipartisan… Read More
If last week’s federal court approval of the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact was, as Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy said, like Christmas in June for the region’s struggling milk producers, new allegations of retail price gouging must make this the post-holiday hangover for hapless consumers. The… Read More
The route between tax relief and general prosperity has always been full of sharp turns, dangerous intersections and unexpected drop-offs. Road maps in the form of tax cuts presented recently by Republicans and the president contain the added travel feature of public-relations roundabouts designed to entrap taxpayers who… Read More
A decision by the U.S. Department of Commerce to investigate dumping by Chilean salmon producers is an important, penultimate obstacle cleared in Maine aquaculture’s race to survive and perhaps to thrive. Commerce last week found reasonable grounds in allegations by a coalition of Maine and… Read More
Sen. Olympia Snowe calls her two amendments to the Amtrak reform bill tough love, and rightly so. To many, the taxpayer-owned passenger rail line is a lot like a slacker 26-year-old child — it won’t get its act together and it won’t move out on its own as… Read More
Rep. Tom Allen has been soft-pedaling a campaign-finance reform package, calling it incremental change compared with more comprehensive reform proposed by others. His characterization allows him to claim the middle ground between a major overhaul and doing nothing, but the package produced by freshmen members of Congress is… Read More
If erstwhile presidential candidate and flat-tax maven Steve Forbes got a warm Maine welcome at a stop in Portland the other day, it’s probably because there were no archers, whalers, cider makers or owners of elderly cows in the audience. Forbes’ visit, while way too… Read More
The governor called it a significant issue. The director of the Bureau of Health vowed to make its reduction a priority of her tenure. Nothing wrong with trying to check the problem of unplanned teen-age pregnancies, but it is equally important to keep the issue in perspective. Read More
Any more legislative sessions like the last, and the tag “rarely used” can be erased forever from the ballot initiative known as the people’s veto. For the third time in recent weeks, irate citizens, an increasingly common breed, are taking up petitions to undo what… Read More
Maine lobstermen got 40 tons of help last week in trying to prove their point to federal officials — the fisherman is the whale’s best friend. The dramatic, dangerous rescue of an entangled right whale off Nantucket was textbook. Fishermen spotted the distressed whale. Fishermen… Read More
Below is a lengthy excerpt from the document this holiday is about. Two hundred and twenty-one 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
For $72 a night, you could stay at one of Portland’s nicer hotels, a quaint coastal B&B — or any one of Maine’s eight state prisons. A report issued last week found that Maine has the second-highest per inmate cost in the country (beating out… Read More
The lack of funds for treatment of juvenile offenders may be most serious for drug abusers, where early help could help save a life from crime and violence. Or save a life, period. A small but growing percentage of Maine teens in the last two… Read More
Members of Congress often begin talk about cutting the budget by attacking “waste, fraud and abuse,” the nebulous scourge for which there is no constituency. A Senate subcommittee examining Medicare has taken the sensible next step of quantifying some of the losses to this important program. Its work… Read More
When it comes to sprawl, the Queen City is a cover girl. Before and after photographs of Bangor make up the front and back covers of an interesting new report from the Maine State Planning Office that spells out the economic and environmental costs of allowing, and sometimes… Read More
Despite massive public indifference to the Maine-built Viking ship replica about to retrace Leif Ericsson’s voyage to the New World, the news media seems determined to keep us abreast of its progress, every tedious cubit of the way. At least the boat is aptly named — Snorri is… Read More
The Supreme Court took a drive out First Amendment way last week and got hopelessly lost. Among a flurry of decisions handed down by the Supreme Court late last week were three schizoid interpretations of the Constitution’s fundamental guarantee to freedom of expression: pornographers have the right to… Read More
T.J. Rodgers toils in anonymity as the president of Cypress Semiconductor, but he sounds like somebody worth knowing. Rodgers is one of 61 Silicon Valley executives who just signed an intriguing document titled “Declaration of Independence: End Corporate Welfare,” a petition to annul the unholy marriage between business… Read More
A Supreme Court decision Thursday will result in the Maine Legislature taking up one of the most difficult questions in recent memory. Writing for a unanimous court, Chief Justice William Rehnquist turned back to the states the decision on whether to permit physician-assisted suicide, but he did so… Read More
Fred Hutchinson completes his presidency Monday at the University of Maine, ending five years of profound change for the state’s flagship campus. In the future, these years are likely to be seen as a bridge between a scattered, grasping time at UMaine and a era of greater public… Read More
Sen. Susan Collins kept a campaign promise this year when she introduced changes to estate-tax law that would benefit the families of farm and small-business owners. A clear problem, however, is that estate-tax breaks do not help only, or even primarily, farmers and small-business people. Read More
Nothing better demonstrated the need for organizations such as Communities United for Reproductive Safety (CUReS) than the recent debate in Congress over late-term abortions. Surrounded by angry, insistent people from both sides of the abortion question, Congress muddled through unhappy and unsatisfactory hearings, with plenty… Read More
File under F, for fair is fair, but not necessarily female. Gov. Angus King today will announce Take our Sons to Work Day, a day of recognition for the sons of state government employees in Augusta but also further indication that the battle of the sexes knows no… Read More
As a question of civil liberties, there is something deeply troubling about keeping criminals locked up after they’ve served their time. But when it comes to protecting society’s most innocent from its most predatory, extending the confinement of unrepentant sex offenders may be the only answer. Read More
Five years after the first international Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1990, 2,500 scientists taking part in the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change settled, for now, the most contentious question of the summit. The scientists decided that man-made emissions contributed to a small increase… Read More
Any time Congress goes bipartisan, it’s a good sign we’re in big trouble. Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee last week reached a unanimous agreement on Medicare reform and we, indeed, are in the jam of a lifetime. The committee’s plan would make… Read More
The best that can be said about the doubling of Maine’s cigarette tax is that Maine doubled its cigarette tax. Beyond that, the deal worked out between the Legislature and the governor last week is about as convincing as a county fair card trick. It… Read More
President Bill Clinton was properly cautious last week about the announced tobacco settlement. The historic agreement is too large and will affect too many people to be taken lightly. Congress should similarly go slowly in considering the package. The president’s training as a lawyer emerged… Read More
Kudos, with reservations, to the University of Maine of System for deciding, at least in principle, to do right by its clerical workers and their retirement plan. And kudos all the way to the workers for having faith in the system. googletag.cmd.push(function () { //… Read More
As Congress tries to convince itself the public really isn’t all that disgusted with the money-gobbling, influence-peddling obscenity known as campaign finance, it may want to to consider this: Even the Fat Cats are fed up. In separate announcements last week, three major corporations —… Read More
It was an interesting juxtaposition on Wednesday’s front page — a story about a national problem paired with one about a company’s local solution. Bottom left we read that the already high cost of a college education in the United States may double by 2015,… Read More
Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins joioned the fight for cleaner air in Maine last week by informing the White House that they would support its Clean Air Act update under certain conditions. Their support was important for helping the state address legitimate concerns about regulating dirty… Read More
Gracious, how easily an impromptu comment about Bangor’s downtown can stir up the local economic developers. Before the city starts decorating a Main Street student union building for University College, however, it had better take a harder look at the situation. A move to the downtown could be… Read More
Let’s talk business. Forget, for the moment, about whether doubling the cigarette tax to 74 cents will help cut Maine’s teen smoking rate, the highest in the nation. Forget about whether using a smidgen, say $3 million, of the $30 million the tax would raise… Read More
It comes as quite a shock to hear the National Weather Service predict a foggy summer for the coast of Maine. What next from these fearless meteorological seers — declining temperatures come winter? Increasing darkness around nighttfall? Gov. King celebrated signing the river-cleansing dioxin bill… Read More
The improvements in Brewer during the last few years have been a small miracle of common-sense politics and economic focus. City employees who have helped make that change happen should not be thrown off by the recent public outbreak of back-biting. City employee Kenny Rankin… Read More
Back when Congress was debating the North American Free Trade Agreement, critics, from Ross Perot to Big Labor, warned that the deal would sacrifice American sovereignty on the altar of free trade, that our environmental and labor laws would be held hostage by less-stringent trading partners. Read More
Three people are killed, two others injured, with one maimed for life, and the man responsible will serve two years or less in prison for a premeditated act of violence. It can only be a drunken driving case. The grieving families and the damaged survivors… Read More
Twenty-five years ago this morning, five bumbling burglars were in custody, caught red-handed rifling through Democratic headquarters by an alert security guard at the Watergate Hotel. Within two years, a third-rate burglary had blossomed into a constitutional crisis and a presidency was in ruins. This… Read More
Lawmakers due back in Augusta this week to consider the cigarette-tax question also are going to take another try at passing several bond proposals for the fall ballot. The bond money requests are sound proposals for capital expenses and should be sent to voters this fall. Read More
Drivers accustomed to watching municipaltiies turn axle-breaking roads into smooth asphalt will see more potholes and less new tar this summer. The decision in Augusta to change the way towns and cities receive local road-assistance money sets a poor precedent for funding this mundane but important service. Read More
Mooch. Before amateur budget-cutters slash their way through federal spending tonight, they may want to pause and consider: our ruggedly independent, tough-minded state is, per capita, the seventh biggest hog feeding at the public trough. As such, we stand to be the seventh biggest loser… Read More