It seems that fall this year will persist until the official first day of winter. I can’t recall a year when mild temperatures held on this long since I’ve been here. Nor do I recall a fall during which I could let the fire go out in the middle of the day. Despite its normal […]

Education is changing. The nation has come to realize that while the three R’s provide an indispensable foundation, students must also be taught specialized skills that make them attractive to employers. In Old Orchard Beach, an ocean-front community that depends largely on the hospitality industry, the need is right in front of them ”“ and […]

The brutal but overdue exits of both Osama bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi suggest that 2011 was a bad year for evil folks and a good one for the rest of us. But 2011 also saw the deaths of many notables who spent their lives engaging in activities far more beneficial to their fellow human […]

At the next Old Orchard Beach Town Council meeting, the council will be voting on whether to allow a College Futures League baseball team to come to town, where it would play its home games at The Ballpark. We urge the council to approve the team. Last summer Old Orchard Beach was home to the […]

Thumbs up to the Kennebunk businesses and organizations that took advantage of facade grants from the state. Thanks to approximately $115,000 in funding, upgrades were made at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church, the American Legion, Andrews Milligan real estate company, the Kennebunk Free Library, the former Kennebunk Five and Dime store on Route 1, […]

Congress should have stepped in to solve the problems with the United States Postal Service long ago, but they didn’t. So now consumers are faced with a significant decrease in service that will occur beginning this March ”“ only a few months away. The postal service is waiting for Congress to grant it authority to […]

As we approach the new legislative session, I would be remiss not to reflect on the previous session as a benchmark from which to look forward. When the Legislature and the governor are more concerned about placing an “open for business” sign out by the highway and making whoopie pies the state dessert, clearly there […]

If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels ”“ and it is ”“ then telling other people’s jokes is the last refuge of columnists ”“ who are often mistaken for scoundrels, for some reason. Let me tell you a joke. It’s a terrorist joke that belongs to John Cleese, the British actor and Monty Python […]

It seems we’ve been proven wrong on Biddeford’s approach to help improve the downtown. A group of local landlords say they’re pleased with a new ordinance designed to crack down on apartment buildings that are nuisances. The disorderly housing ordinance was approved by the city council in August, and according to those landlords, now holds […]

Jobs are the backbone of our economy, but they are in short supply right now. Even though the official unemployment number dropped to 8.6 percent last month, according to the Dec. 2 U.S. Department of Labor Press Release, and the government announced a decline in new workers seeking unemployment compensation benefits, this doesn’t tell the […]