On this Thanksgiving, a holiday incomplete without the demise of iconic poultry, offer a moment of silence – between chews of white meat, if necessary – for another feathered symbol: the pink flamingo.November is the swan song for this objet d’art of suburban America, as the Leominster, Mass., factory that hatched the tacky totem, Union […]

For Tim Glidden and the Land for Maine’s Future, it’s all about feast or famine.Glidden is director of LMF, which funds conservation projects across the state. Since its inception in 1987, LMF has helped preserve public access to 444,000 acres of Maine, including 919 miles of shorefront.LMF’s funding, however, has remained at the will of […]

A mind is a terrible thing to waste. So is taxpayer money. And so is momentum, which Maine’s community colleges have generated since their makeover from the old vocational school system. Since their creation in 2003, community college enrollment has exploded, prompting officials to invoke the dreaded government F-word: funding.Twenty million dollars, to be precise. […]

America is a fast food nation. Just look at restaurant drive-throughs.Once a commuter’s convenience, it’s now a morass of endless idling lines. Walking inside, by comparison, takes mere seconds.The same is true for dozens of cookie-cutter fast-food joints. All are basically the same except for name, and all contribute to expanding waistlines.Now some companies are […]

Last week, the Natural Resources Council of Maine publicized stunning documents detailing forestry mismanagement and violations by Plum Creek. The Seattle-based company was assailed for aggressive logging that imperiled wildlife habitats, specifically deer wintering areas, across its sprawling land holdings in Maine.Individually, the violations seem minor. But as NRCM correctly notes, the breadth of the […]

Three towns – Rumford, Mexico and Peru – this month scuttled traditional town meeting votes for their municipal budgets. Now, questions of dollars and cents in those towns will be decided through the other bastion of American Democracy: the ballot box.“It’s the wave of the future,” said Peru selectman Bill Hine about the change. It’s […]

Skin droops off the jowls. The mouth shrivels, while the lips purse tightly. Jagged ridges crease the forehead, while fleshy ravines slash downward from the eye sockets across the cheekbones, like how ski trails look in summertime.Nothing should make a person quit smoking faster than watching their face melt.Thursday marked the annual Great American Smokeout, […]

Here’s what happens when there’s too little oversight: Lawmakers can slip language into a monstrous bill to eliminate an award-winning agency that has identified billions of wasted dollars.Now imagine the reconstruction of Iraq under the same minimal oversight. Scary thought.This week, a bill co-authored by Sen. Susan Collins and supported by a cadre of bipartisan […]

Androscoggin County commissioners know how to talk when they want to.Elmer Berry, Patience Johnson and Constance Cote – the commissioners – recently declined invitations from local municipalities to discuss the county’s 2007 budget. Johnson told the Sun Journal an Oct. 30 public hearing – which only lasted for 12 minutes, according to the county – […]

If Lewiston city officials want crickets to serenade downtown’s empty streets, they should re-zone a portion of Park Street to eliminate bars and nightclubs. It’s easy, after all, to sleep peacefully in a ghost town.Complaints about noise from patrons of Park Street nightspots have prompted city officials to consider prohibiting such establishments from the street. […]