Government secrecy is the enemy of participant democracy. That’s why we’re committed as a newspaper to fighting this scourge at every level of government.And that’s why we’ll continue to question the widespread practice of discussing local government appointments behind closed doors.Tuesday, we reported that the Auburn City Council had received a mild rebuke from the […]

Experts say the price of a gallon of gas will have to hit $5 before it has an impact on consumers.We don’t believe it. Already, Mainers, with an average round-trip commute of 37.63 miles per day, are starting to carpool. And, according to a story in Monday’s Sun Journal, 3,251 Mainers are registered in Go […]

Building a casino in Oxford County – and falsely building up the hopes of the people who live in and near the River Valley – is a bad idea. Even if it were a good idea, Seth Carey is not the guy to pull this off.Years ago, despite widespread local support for the jobs and […]

As a story in Sunday’s paper revealed, Americans spend nearly twice as much as other industrialized countries on health care but, in some cases, we are only half as healthy.Go down the list: diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, myocardial infarction, stroke, lung disease and cancer. In each case, the study found, Americans had higher rates than […]

In Jay, as in many towns, students are regularly surveyed on all kinds of social issues. It’s important to peek into their world so we can better spot trouble as it unfolds.In a study released last week, 92 percent of Jay elementary students say they enjoy going to school; 8 percent do not. In the […]

Bill Yeo and John Bagnulo are pulling their own weight – literally.The two local men have hauled more than 600 pounds of their own gear up to the 25,000-foot mark on the world’s tallest rock pile, the fabled Mount Everest.And, like the real Mainers they are, they have made necessity the mother of invention: They […]

Libraries are the ultimate equalizer. They store vast information and make it available to everyone, regardless of age or wealth, at no cost. They provide entertainment and they educate us. They make our democracy work.Andrew Carnegie knew that, which is why he helped establish libraries across this nation.Auburn’s Carnegie library was constructed in 1904. Additions […]

A group of Western Mainers had reason to celebrate Tuesday. In Weld, Nichols Custom Welding Inc., shipped its first 12 fuel trailers, all destined for U.S. military use in Iraq.That’s a dozen down and about 200 to go. The size of the order landed by the small company is a good problem to have, but […]

Emily Payne is a third-grader in Darlene Letourneau’s class at Martel School in Lewiston. She has learned something that she wants to share with other students, something that she thinks will make them happier and healthier.For the better part of this school year, Letourneau has assigned her students lessons on obesity – what contributes to […]

For years now, in the lingering shadow of the war in Iraq, the Armed Services – including the National Guard – have been plagued by dropping recruitment numbers. The Army has taken its aggressive recruitment machine to the professional racetrack, recruiting Joe Nemechek to market GoArmy.com around each turn.If the Army, with NASCAR in its […]