Instead of tired partisan canards or paradoxical rhetoric about Maine's new tax-reform legislation, voters should remember these two things:

1. This reform stabilizes Maine's tax system, which is too vulnerable to economic volatility.

2. See No. 1.

Maine is wallowing in the trough of another boom-and-bust economic cycle, which makes finding wiser and less oppressive ways of taxation not only needed, but inarguable. How many times must the state take this particular punch before it reacts? 

"Beware," Henry David Thoreau once said, "of all enterprises that require new clothes."

There's nothing pastoral about the Auburn City Council, though, nor Mayor-Elect Richard Gleason's encouragement of his council colleagues to have pride in their appearance. He's been asking them to respect the city's standing dress and meeting conduct codes.

Lewiston city councilors will convene a special meeting tonight, in executive session, to discuss two finalists for the city administrator position. Councilors-elect are expected to attend as "listeners."

Here's the problem: These councilors-elect are not sworn elected officials yet. They remain mere members of the public and, under Maine's Freedom of Access Act, with very limited exceptions, one member of the public cannot be privy to closed-door meetings unless all members of the "public" are invited to attend.

David Das deserves credit. In a letter to the Sun Journal, the chairman of the Auburn School Committee apologized for his reprehensible comment about Lewiston and Auburn parents. It was an ugly statement that deserved rebuke. Das has done the right thing by stating his regret.

Over the weekend, two more deaths in Maine were attributed to the H1N1 virus sweeping through the state. Swine flu has swiftly evolved from faraway fear into problematic pandemic, as schools and workplaces suffer from absence-related shutdowns and interrupted productivity.

There's little Mainers can do except be prepared. This can come through inoculation and preventative measures, like using the antibacterial squirters that are appearing everywhere. This also comes, however, through having enough practical information to make judicious decisions.

The suggestion from Jim Miclon, head of the dispatch center in Oxford County, to use land-line telephones instead of cellular phones to call 911 indicates a major problem for Maine. Prevailing, popular technology is making it more difficult to report, and respond to, emergencies.

And we all thought cell phones made our lives easier.

The saga of Camp Gustin is taking a turn. According to today's front-page article by Kathryn Skelton, the possible sale of the Sabattus camp is unrelated to the financial predicament of the Pine Tree Council, the Scout's governing arm in Southern Maine.

This revelation comes just days after a group of distressed Scouts in Lewiston were told the Council's debt and operating deficit were necessitating a sale. So, which is it? It cannot be both.

One of Maine's weakest laws is now one of its most useless.

Last session, lawmakers addressed Maine's pitiful statutes regarding teacher disclosure, under which nobody was told if a teacher had their certificate revoked or suspended, or even if that certificate was voluntarily surrendered. Now, the state will tell someone.

Cheers and jeers from around the news:

• Jeers to the Air National Guard, for doing a shoddy job with their official "Environmental Impact Statement" of low-level military flights across Western Maine. The governor and residents had requested a six- to nine-month delay for a better study, but the Guard pressed forward instead.

A public hearing is today in the student center at the University of Maine at Farmington, from 2 to 6 p.m., about the flights. This meeting is being held too soon, because the Guard's work is still too thin.

On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that,  to date, 4,000 Americans have died of H1N1, the so-called swine flu.

Flu deaths in Europe are doubling by the week, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

Clearly, the flu threat is frighteningly real. Which is why the Auburn School Department's less-than-speedy approach to inoculating students is so curious.

Did Maine's first Amber Alert work? Yes, but there is room for improvement.

Two-year-old Hailey Traynham of Sanford was found Wednesday, safe and sound, by an eagle-eyed New Hampshire hunter who knew about the alert and recognized her fugitive father's pickup truck. He started a conversation with the man, Gary, and helped convince him to give up.

"On some faces there is joy. But for many, it takes more than landfall to break a grim spell; it takes the sight of these American civilians waiting in the terminal to say thanks. 'You feel dull until you walk down the ramp and see these people,' one apparently battle-hardened soldier explains in a wobbly voice. Then 'you get tears in your eyes.'" — Nancy DeWolf Smith, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 6.

The details of the housing tax credit renewal were incorrect in the editorial of Monday, Nov. 9. Here's what's right: For first-time homebuyers (or those who haven't owned a home in three years), the credit remains $8,000. Now, there is another, $6,500 credit for people who have owned a home for at least five years. Both are available through April 2010.

It was the editorial writer's error.

Though notable, Saturday's vote by the House of Representatives on health care reform doesn't pack the same historic punch as the landmark creations of Medicare or Social Security. The bill lacks the momentum to get past the Senate, much less echo through time.

Still, the House bill is important because it moved the process forward. The Senate now has a strong foundation for its deliberations, which will likely focus on two points: employer mandates and the public option.

Congress has extended the popular first-time home-buyer tax credit. About 1.2 million people have received the $8,000 credit, at a cost of $8.5 billion. The program would have ended this month, without this intervention.