The Cowan Mill may have taken years to build, and stood for many decades, but it was undone in one afternoon. Its rapid disappearance from Lewiston's landscape is proof that history is fleeting, and how endangered vacant properties really are, regardless of their community significance.

More than any city in Maine, Lewiston is arriving at a proverbial tipping point for its historical buildings and architecture. The city is losing much more than it stands to gain, with numerous irreplaceable structures falling victim to fire, neglect and decisions of policy.

The scene: Gov. John Baldacci has just finished speaking in Augusta, at the first Maine Wind Energy Conference. He steps down from the dais; an aide hands him a cellphone. It's the people of Maine calling. They exchange greetings and ...

The editorial of Oct. 6 needs correction and clarification. The Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices did order Maine Leads to disclose expenses related to ballot initiatives, contrary to the editorial. The attorney for Maine Leads says this disclosure will include names of donors. The disclosure was ordered due to the facts of this case, not the statutes governing ballot question committees.

Maine's ethics commission has Jonathan Wayne, but it needs John Wayne.

No offense intended to the executive director of the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices, but he's no frontier lawman. Nor is cleaning up lawless territories part of his job, yet this duty has become his.

The success (or failure) of national health care reform does not balance on the fate of a "public option" for health insurance. If the votes for its existence do not exist in Congress — by all accounts, they don't — hanging onto its inclusion could sink other, important changes.

An under-card on this November's star-studded referendum lineup, Question 3 — on whether to repeal Maine's school district consolidation law — demands attention. Since its introduction in 2007, consolidation has arguably sparked more legislative disagreement than any other issue.

• Jeers to Bethel and its bizarre saga regarding its police chief, Alan Carr. It has been impossible to get a straight answer about his job status. Is Carr still the chief, or isn't he? Town administration and Carr himself are mum.

The Bethel Citizen reported the chief's desk has been "stripped of his personal belongings." And the town's rumor mill is spinning furiously, since Carr's sudden job insecurity coincides with the acquittal of a suspect in the murder of Scott Libby in Bethel last year.

A federal tax on soda is a good idea. Sugary, syrupy beverages are linked to obesity and other maladies, so taxing them would help reduce their consumption and improve health. (If it were only that simple.)

The 2009 "Maine Piglet" book, from the Maine Heritage Policy Center, is billed as the encyclopedia of the pork in Augusta. It is filled with indiscriminate criticism; it attacks Dirigo Health and playgrounds equally, under the banner of waste.

The Lewiston Police Department has picked a curious case to deviate from its policy on providing documents to the public, and has created the impression that political connections earn preferential treatment.

Maine communities facing ugly facts and unsure futures will falter, if they believe their best days are behind them. It may sound a little hokey, but the best antidote to this fear or uncertainty is a strong dose of civic pride and relentless optimism.

It's time for this country to have a serious conversation about debt.

On Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported that homeowners with perfectly good credit scores, affordable homes and affluent incomes are "strategically defaulting" on their mortgages at rates unpredicted and unpredictable by any available financial information.

Getting arrested at a government meeting to protest the wanton destruction of Planet Earth makes for great television. There's that super-cool sense of nobility in cause, yelling truth to power, sacrificing for the greater good and, of course, the mugshot for posterity.

• Jeers to Stand for Marriage Maine for attacking the credibility of school boards. Two spokespersons for the group, which is advocating for repeal of same-sex marriage, recently derogated school boards as being unresponsive to concerns of parents.

According to a new federal evaluation, Portland and Lewiston received middling marks for their preparation and planning to prevent and treat pandemic disease. The cities were two of eight in the United States investigated by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Michael Heath, the inflammatory executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, announced his resignation this week. The league, which changed its name to the Maine Family Policy Center last year, said Heath was "moving on."

It's said a camel is a horse designed by committee. If so, the "free rider" insurance provision in the Senate's Finance Committee health care reform bill is a definite dromedary.

The free riders, in this case, are employers who would allow the government to pay for their employees' health insurance, if their employees are eligible. Meanwhile, the employer would pay a penalty to the government roughly equal to the cost of that insurance.

Easy. One either plays or pays. That's the horse.

Government shutdown days are an unpopular necessity. State government now has them to offset its budget shortfall, and we wish it didn't. Their scheduling into a string of extended weekends is proving convenient to nobody beyond the bureaucracy.

Yet we grudgingly agree with their existence. The fact is, for "nonessential" government offices, the cumulative effect of shutdown days on the public is as minimal as possible as a bid to avoid raising taxes. A perfect compromise, in other words: pleasing to few (if not none).

Gov. John Baldacci is heading to Spain, Germany and Norway this week on a wind power trade mission. The mission's overall goal, according to The Associated Press, is to "cultivate business contacts and attract investors." He's joined by 23 representatives of Maine industries and organizations involved with wind energy.  

The American system of delivering and insuring health care needs to change. The only question is how much.

If starting a health care system from scratch, the current U.S. employer-based, private insurance model would not be endorsed. Its present status is not only inequitable and oppressive to business, but unsatisfying and underperforming for those covered by it.

• Jeers to stupidity. So there are a few nuts in Acorn, the low-income advocacy group. Two young, conservative filmmakers masquerading as a pimp and prostitute caught Acorn workers dishing out advice on cheating the tax system and evading capture.

Will same-sex marriage be taught in schools, if it becomes legal in Maine? No — nothing in law, or curriculum, mandates any Maine student be taught about marriage, same-sex or otherwise.

Should same-sex marriage be taught?

Again, the answer is no. Marriage should not be part of a curriculum. Either as a secular tradition or a religious sacrament, marriage is better left to families to teach, or provide examples of.

The title "czar" in American politics has become tired. It's the Russian word for king; the last time we looked, the "czars" in our government are neither Russian nor royalty.

Czars were once good things, when first used to describe the nation's "Drug Czar" under the Reagan administration. Then, the title was quite apt, as the American public demanded a non-bureaucratic, decisive authority to combat the scourge of illegal drugs. We wanted a tyrannical czar, not some egghead political appointee. A czar is what we got.

Anyone who has ever cooked for a child knows this paradox: simple food is healthy food, children love simple foods, but children dislike simple, healthy foods.

Now, this isn't true of every child, but it is true of every parent who has ever uttered "eat your insert-vegetable-name-here" to a pouting face across the dinner table. Being aware of nutrition and health in diet is hard for parents to manage, given this paradox.