As a prostate cancer survivor, I was buoyed by the Sept. 15 Maine Voices column (“Prostate cancer is ‘the good cancer’ – or is it?”). No cancer is good, least of all prostate cancer, whose treatment can be speciously delayed by the old chestnut that a man will die of old age before he dies […]

As a retired teacher (Thornton Academy, 1975 to 2007, and University of Southern Maine’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, 2010 to 2020), I enjoyed reading about a Sanford teacher – Bill Ferguson – who turned a student on to poetry and changed that student’s life by enriching it (“Maine Voices: Remember the inestimable power of a […]

While the Sept. 16 article “Groups hope to lift Muslim voter registration with events in Portland and Lewiston” mentioned two times that only American citizens are permitted to vote, it made me curious as to how these voter registration groups establish the citizenship status of the people they register. At the risk of being called […]

Prostate cancer PSA tests are not obsolete (Maine Voices, Sept. 15). I’m alive because our Brunswick hospital lab made an error. At every annual examination before 1994, my prostate-specific antigen blood test was 3.5. My doctor said that was OK. Then the lab lost my PSA sample, so another was submitted. The lab found the […]

I read Matthew Yglesias’ Sept. 17 column about the climbing costs of solar and wind projects, as well as a possible labor shortage, and think that part of the solution is in a carbon fee imposed on oil, natural gas and coal. These are the fuels we need to replace if human beings are going […]

This state’s indigent legal representation arrangements are in violation of the United States Constitution (“Civil rights board seeks Department of Justice investigation of Maine indigent defense services,” Sept. 15). How much longer is this to be tolerated? The onus is on our legislators and, more importantly, on our governor, to establish a permanent system of […]

I find the obituary section of the Portland Press Herald oddly missing whole elements of our population. The Portland area has a significant immigrant population and has had for a good while. Do they not die? Their life stories can be compelling, but their deaths do not regularly feature. If they were, we all might […]

201 Federal Street, at the corner of Temple and Federal streets in the Old Port, is topped out. The windows are in and the cladding, for the most part, is installed. This seems like a good time to say that I am not sure I could be more underwhelmed by the finished product. I will […]

In the Sept. 15 story about the Portland Community Chamber of Commerce’s “forum” on Pine Tree Power (“Portland chamber slams public power proposal as activists demonstrate”), a key detail was buried in the middle of the piece: The event was sponsored by Central Maine Power. One side of the issue sponsored an event and didn’t […]