A billion gone and clunking

We need to get Congress out of the car business. It has no idea what it's doing.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Adam Lee, of Lee Auto Group in Maine, says his dealerships have struck 100 deals under the new "Cash for Clunkers" program, which offers a maximum incentive of $4,500 toward a new car, if you trade an older and inefficient car to be junked.

Cleaning out the inbox ...

 Cheers and jeers from around the news:

• Jeers to maintaining a proper diet. Here's what the Senate architects of landmark health care legislation, which includes Sen. Olympia Snowe, have snacked on during meetings, according to The New York Times: Doritos, Oreos, beef jerky and, the coup de grace, chocolate-covered potato chips.

Second chance, wasted

How much would you pay for a second chance?

They come along so rarely, after all. It is not every day that a person receives, in golfing parlance, a mulligan for their past bad actions. A second chance is a precious asset, but only for the lucky souls who get one. It's non-negotiable currency. One either uses it wisely or wastes it.

A teachable moment, and an old lesson

L'affaire de Gates et Crowley, which has dominated national headlines, has been called a "teachable moment" by President Barack Obama. Unfortunately, by offering his thoughts, the president ignored an old lesson of politics: Sometimes, it's wisest to leave things alone.

There was little need for Obama to interject an opinion into the controversial arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. — he said the Cambridge, Mass., police, which included arresting officer Sgt. Jim Crowley — acted "stupidly."

The text message can wait

"It's convenient," said Robert Smith, 22, a recent college graduate in Windham, Me. He says he regularly texts and drives even though he recognizes that it is a serious risk. He would rather text, he said, than take time on a phone call.

"I put the phone on top of the steering wheel and text with both thumbs," he said, adding that he often has exchanges of 10 messages or more. Sometimes, "I'll look up and realize there's a car sitting there and swerve around it."

Energy to make, and move

Maine has a manufacturing economy for the 21st century that will create a product nobody can see, but everybody needs.

What is this magic product? Energy.

This state has tremendous potential to create energy, through peak and offshore winds, waves and waters, sun and skies, and trees. If developed to its fullest output, the state could create more energy than it can use — by a sizable margin.

Instead of allegation, offer facts

Two city councilors in Lewiston have gone public with their reasons for firing former City Administrator Jim Bennett.

Robert Reed and Denis Theriault gave a lengthy interview to a local publication that covers politics; Reed, as well, authored a letter to his constituents.

There's no need to rehash it here. We appreciate their forthrightness; firing Bennett required explanation beyond what was provided. But one assertion made by Reed and Theriault demands further clarification. They claim Bennett would withhold information from the council.

Speed isn't the enemy of reforms

They say speed kills, but nothing will kill America faster than foot-dragging on health reform. The country is traveling head-long toward fiscal and systemic oblivion under current conditions, yet our leaders are bogged by endless discussions about which countermeasures to endorse.

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Cheers and jeers from around the news:

• Cheers to Auburn Mayor John Jenkins. Usually, when a politician announces they won't seek re-election, it guarantees they won't be back. There's no surer way to lose a seat than saying I don't want the job anymore.

A fresh view of the city

It's been 159 years since anyone stood on the river in Auburn, looked across at Lewiston and didn't see the Cowan Mill.

Without its features, and those of its late sister the Libbey Mill, creasing the skyline, Lewiston is reclaiming its natural, pre-industrial, form. Back then, it was a city with an undeclared future. Some visionaries then saw the riverbank, watched the rushing Androscoggin, marveled at the power of the falls, and realized this was the perfect spot to build themselves a legacy. And did they ever.

Separate the policy from personal

In May, two authors from the University of Maine published an essay in the Sun Journal about the decline of public discourse. The writers, Michael Hastings and John Mahon, said the gradual disappearance of civics from the classroom was the culprit.

Neither rain nor sleet nor ...

...budget crisis should keep the U.S. Postal Service from making its appointed rounds.

Just ask the good people of Otisfield how they feel about the USPS. They parked a backhoe in front of the town's only mailbox to stop its removal. The Postal Service yielded, and unless some blue-shirted bureaucrats descend on the town to drag it away, it will probably remain.

The United States of America needs a strong, efficient and revenue-neutral Postal Service that adapts to changing trends, not one that gets destroyed by them.

Lobster is (not) forever

While news of another "tie-up" by Maine lobstermen to protest low boat prices may prompt recollections of the great lobster wars of the 1950s, the era that needs reflection — and interpretation — is the lobstering boomtime that just ended.

Until the economy crashed, taking prices of luxury items with it, lobstering enjoyed a period of prosperity unequaled in its history. More millions of pounds of the tasty crustacean was hauled from Maine waters than ever before, creating great wealth in communities all along the coast.

The giant dragging feet of mankind

Space, the great purposeless frontier.

Now, before you start throwing Tang at us, hear us out. It is not space's fault that it has no prescribed purpose. Rather, it is ours. In 40 years, since we, mankind, put life where life is forbidden, the moon — our thirst for manned exploration and achievement has been slaked.

To save dealers, save GM

The restoration of General Motors depends on the U.S. government, its savior, remaining a silent partner during the company's emergence from bankruptcy. Taking an activist approach toward managing GM's affairs would be disastrous — there are no car dealers in Washington.

Well, at least not technically. What is lacking is a cogent notion of how to revive the American automotive industry, as evidenced by the hamfisted attempts of Congress to influence the sector through shortsighted policies such as "cash for clunkers."

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Cheer and jeers from around the news:

• Cheers to Maine Attorney General Janet Mills, for joining with 17 other state attorneys general, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice to target fraudulent home foreclosure-rescue companies. These unsavory firms are victimizing desperate people and must be stopped.

In fire, heroism on display

Finally, around 6 p.m. Wednesday, in spite of a blanketing, ashy haze and burning aroma still choking the downtown neighborhood, the shell-shocked city was free to breathe again.

This freedom comes courtesy of dozens of local emergency responders, whose training, experience, wits and determination contained the tremendous inferno in Lewiston's Cowan Mill. It was truly heartbreaking to see that precious landmark destroyed, after standing tall for more than 150 years.

It was a mistake to fire Bennett

On Tuesday, the Lewiston City Council made three mistakes.

This shouldn't surprise; this is the same council, after all, that instituted a strict moratorium on downtown development during the worst economic crisis in modern American history. Errors by this council are not only commonplace, but expected.

Let them eat cake, Paris?

Selectmen in Paris should brush up on their history. The last time a populist insurrection occurred in a community with that name, the results for the rulers weren't so favorable. (And ironically enough, Tuesday was Bastille Day.)

It all stemmed from failing to listen to the concerns and needs of the people. We don't imagine townspeople in Western Maine are sharpening their guillotines over the current crisis in Paris, the controversial firing of town manager Sharon Jackson, but their tongues sure have a razor's edge.

Maine's summer of red

It's an unfortunate colorful coincidence that Maine's summer of crippling red tide has come during a budget season of oppressive red ink.

The state's finance commissioner, Ryan Low, is talking about the possibility of a $100 million budget deficit, even before saying the governor also wants plans for the worst-case scenario. (Low said this in a July 13 story by Mal Leary of the Capitol News Service.) Times are going to be rough.

New word with a bad message

In honor of its enshrinement into Merriam Webster's dictionary, let us consider the "staycation."

First, it's a contradiction. A prerequisite of vacationing is getting away. If the homefront afforded opportunities to relax, there would no reason to leave it.

Second, it's a vapid buzzword of the recession. Nobody talked about "staycationing" during strong economic times. The phrase is a sorry byproduct of a mindset that says, hey, instead of spending vacation dollars in somebody else's tourist trap, be cheap and spend them close to home.

Go ahead, lie to ME

Now, a few words about the Farmers' Almanac.

We expect honesty from our politicians, governments, families, friends and ourselves. And, of course, we expect it from the Almanac. As we've said, "The Almanac is trusted to be right. Those of us who consult its wisdom are hoping its forecast is bulletproof."

But not now. Last week, when Almanac editor Peter Geiger said June's weather misery would last through July and August, leading to record-low September temperatures, our hearts sank. (The 25 of 30 days without sunshine wreaked havoc on our mood.)

Too early to judge FairPoint

The struggle of FairPoint in northern New England lends to making sudden, impassioned judgment calls. In recent weeks, a theme has emerged: The three states, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont made a huge mistake by approving FairPoint's purchase of Verizon's landlines.

It's too early to say this with certainty. FairPoint, unarguably, is not fulfilling its stated service promises since switching its systems on March 31. FairPoint is struggling financially, is having leadership upheaval and is seeing its reputation in northern New England torn and frayed.

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Cheers and jeers from around the news:

• Cheers to George Schott. Is there anything the man won't buy? On Friday, the Sun Journal reported his investment in trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Schott has the trailers sitting at the Auburn Mall for sale (but definitely not for housing). Then, the Forecaster newspaper in Brunswick reported his interest in buying 702 units of housing at Brunswick Naval Air Station.

Remember Charlie Howard

"[Homosexuality] is a pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality, a pitiable flight from life. As such it deserves fairness, compassion, understanding and, when possible, treatment. But it deserves no encouragement, no glamorization, no rationalization, no fake status as minority martyrdom, no sophistry about simple differences in taste-and, above all, no pretense that it is anything but a pernicious sickness."

— Time magazine, "The Homosexual in America," Jan. 21, 1966