My father was a complicated man ”“ smart, thoughtful and generous. Yet he was seemingly unfazed by his own racial prejudice. Like many people, he would say things in private that he knew he shouldn’t. Among his targets of choice were blacks. When I was in high school, my father would utter racial epithets at […]

A sum of $2 million is being sought for expansion of the Edith Belle Libby Memorial Library in Old Orchard Beach, and we would urge voters to support this project. The Old Orchard Beach Town Council has already given its unofficial nod to the library’s request to send a proposed bond before voters in November. […]

When one thinks of college, they might think of dorms, study-groups, late night parities ”“ but voter fraud? The chair of the Maine Republican Party, Charlie Webster, has recently come out with accusations that more than 200 out-of-state college students, who pay tuition to public Maine universities, carried out voter fraud in the 2010 election […]

At least one consensus was reached over the debt ceiling debate that was resolved this week: Lawmakers disappointed voters across the country. According to national poll released Monday by the Pew Research Center, only 2 percent of people polled described the negotiations as positive. Seventy-two percent of respondents described the recent negotiations in negative terms, […]

Where should our economy go next, after the compromise agreement to increase the national debt limit? The far left liberals of the Democratic Party still are pushing to have wealth redistributed to the bottom 50 percent of the nation’s population. The far right wing of the Republican Party wants no tax increases on anyone, regardless […]

Biddeford’s Solid Waste Commission is to be commended for its ongoing efforts to increase recycling in the city, with its most recent campaign being a series of informational signs. These new sandwich-board signs can be seen around the downtown, delineating how much money the city saves by recycling some waste rather than sending it on […]

Four local teens are pushing for a ban on smoking at Old Orchard Beach. The group ”“ Hattie Simon, Sabryna Deshaies, MaryKate Slattery and Sarah Jenkins ”“ recently proposed an ordinance to the Old Orchard Beach council citing the dangers of second-hand smoke. The teens attended the annual Maine Youth Anti-Tobacco Summit in 2009 and […]

And so it begins, the slow and imperceptible, yet inexorable, progression of summer toward fall. Daylight’s hold is weakening, and the sun’s morning and afternoon rays penetrate the tree canopy from a slightly different angle at slightly different times each day. Oh, there is much left yet of summer, of those bright days and warm […]

Op-Ed By JONATHAN CARTER Director, Forest Ecology Network Mountaintop industrial wind development in Maine is both an ecological disaster and economic boondoggle. The mountaintop wind developers, or as I like to call them, “the mountain slayers and profiteers,” are foisting upon the state an Enron-like scam. The only questions are: When, how much damage will […]

We all share a world that can be so incredibly dark, from the personal suffocation of depression to the outright violence in acts of terrorism and war that impact entire communities and countries. Sometimes it’s overwhelming not only to deal with our own personal struggles but also to see the devastation and suffering in the […]