Gov. Baldacci dodged serious injury during a highway crash, but his car doesn’t deserve the credit. I don’t care what type of chariot the governor of Maine arrives in.Important politicians used to travel in Lincolns and Cadillacs. Today, big, dark SUVs are favored, and that’s OK by me.I will, however, take issue with the idea […]

“I’m not a member of any organized political party, I’m a Democrat!”Will Rogers, American humorist and columnistMore than 50 Maine municipalities won’t be holding a caucus today.Democratic voters in those towns are out of luck because the state party wasn’t organized enough to find conveners.It is absolutely appalling.There’s still a six-man race for the party’s […]

Before we rush to judgment that there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq (not counting Saddam Hussein), and that our intelligence services gave the Bush administration incorrect information and so heads should roll, let us consider that David Kay, the former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, may have reached the wrong conclusion, […]

Bangor Daily News, Jan. 30Perhaps the walls of security going up around Maine’s border are required to alert the state to how much it depends on a region that is not defined by state or national boundaries. But just as some Maine residents living along the border with Canada need to move freely and easily […]

Oops, they did it again. Appeasing the elderly vote by adding a prescription-drug benefit to Medicare will cost one-third more than the Bush administration said. Instead of $400 billion during the next 10 years, it will cost $534 billion. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson has said he knew the figures were going […]

MaineCentric, an Auburn company that lost out during the bidding for the state’s liquor distribution contract, is appealing the decision.Augusta-based Maine Liquors also is challenging the outcome.The appeal is wholly appropriate and should be embraced by the state – and by the Massachusetts firm, Martignetti Co., which won the lucrative contract.Talk of privatizing liquor sales […]

Do workers have the right to work in sweatshop conditions if they so choose? Does the state have the right to protect workers by locking out those who would work longer hours for less pay?In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court, deciding the case Lochner v. New York, struck down a statute that limited the workweek […]

Great ideas can be diminished by the way they are carried out.Such it is with the program, College Goal Sunday.The Finance Authority of Maine will hold seminars at 12 sites around the state for families navigating the maze of college financial aid. Experts will help seniors, their parents and other college-bound adults fill out all […]

This is an open letter to black men.I suppose I could as easily have addressed myself to the broader world, but I know how the response to that would go. Folks denying, rationalizing and arguing that facts are not truly facts.That’s how it always is when the subject is crime and you.Last week, The Miami […]

A mistake was made in the paycheck of a fourth-grade teacher in Greene – for 14 years.When Nancy Flick joined SAD 52 in 1990, she didn’t check to see if the amount she was offered for a salary jibed with the school’s pay schedule. Turns out, she has been undercompensated for her level of education. […]