Her personal story is touching, starting from a hardscrabble background in a rural, cold-weather state with a reputation for independence, an impressive quality of life, political pragmatism and excellent recipes for moose meat.She knows what it’s like to serve as a Republican governor in the aforementioned state – intimately – but lacks the breadth of […]

In a recent editorial about the proposed Oxford County casino, we accused Evergreen Mountain Enterprises and Seth Carey of lacking a plan. We were wrong.Apparently, there is a plan. Only Carey and a few Rumford selectmen, however, are privy to it. The rest of us – including the voters of Maine, who will decide the […]

Most measures used to evaluate public officials are subjective, like background or ideology, for example.Such variables are scrutinized because the actual criteria for holding an office are weak. The presidency has a minimum age, but mostly, the top criterion for any elected official is that he or she reside within the community they represent.It is […]

The annual troubles of the Lewiston school system’s diversity and the strict standards of No Child Left Behind are growing worse. This year, four schools failed to make “adequate yearly progress,” which some consider equal to a “failing school.”Yet the one-size-fits-all approach of the federal guidelines cannot allow for such a designation. When it comes […]

Pardon us for being a little stoic this Labor Day.Too many friends and neighbors are losing their employment for us to celebrate.Wausau Paper is shutting down its No. 10 machine at the Otis Mill in Jay, which has been the economic heart of the community for more than a century. At one point, just prior […]

The campaign “Fed Up With Taxes” has premiered its first television ad, which features a convenience store owner from Richmond displaying his coolers of soda and criticizing higher taxes on such a “large part of his business.”“We don’t need to be increasing our prices on everything so people will go to southern states to save […]

The Bureau of Motor Vehicles should take a lesson on license plates from credit card companies, where the latest craze is cards on which consumers can place whatever picture they desire and voila! A one-of-a-kind credit keepsake.It could be called the “CreateME” plate lab, maybe. Why not? The proliferation of new Maine license plates with […]

Barack Obama has denigrated Washington experience, pooh-poohed traditional foreign-policy credentials and rued negative tit-for-tat exchanges in campaigns – in fact, these things were close to the core of Obama’s message during the past year. Note the past tense.When it came time to choose a running mate, Obama went with a senator who has been in […]

JoAn Karkos should go to jail if she fails to produce the library book, “It’s Perfectly Normal,” in a Lewiston courtroom today.It’s the only fair outcome for her refusal to return the sex-ed tome to the Lewiston Public Library, where she removed it last year. Since then, she has repeatedly declined to bring it back, […]

On its Web site, the Farmers’ Almanac keeps a running tally of when its predictions have turned into realities:• In 1954, the Almanac predicted Hurricane Carol, which battered the New England coast, caused 80 mph winds to buffet Central Maine, flattened cornfields in Livermore and left six counties in Maine disaster areas.• The Almanac foresaw […]