FARMINGTON - A candidate in Maine’s 2008 congressional race said an aide who helped during his campaign is the same man accused of killing three people in northern Maine on June 23.

In a written account posted below, John Frary of Farmington, said that during his campaign for Congress in 2008 he had three live-in aides, one of whom was Thayne Ormsby, 20, of Orient. Ormsby is charged with three counts of murder in the stabbing deaths of 55-year-old Jeffrey Ryan, Ryan’s 10-year-old son Jesse, and 30-year-old Jason Dehahn at Ryan’s mobile home in Amity.

We start by considering the raw politics, Republicans v. Democrats. According to a Gallup Poll survey last year 36 percent of Maine’s voters identify themselves as conservative, 24 percent as liberal, 40 percent as “moderate.” Ergo, 60 percent our state’s voters may be called “immoderate” if we take these labels seriously. So why is it [...]

When I was an undergraduate at Orono I got to know an ethnic Chinese from Indonesia who was studying papermaking in grad school. He aimed to settle in the United States and, very naturally, wished to retrieve his wife.

I’d like to start by making four points completely clear.

First, I support the right of boobs to air their opinions in public places.

The issue at hand seems simple enough at a superficial glance. Men are free to wear bras and have breast enhancements, so women should be free to expose their torsos to the warming rays of the sun. But unless you are fanatical enough to equate equality with uniformity and ignorant enough to believe that equality and equity are synonymous you will see there are complications.

It was a pleasure to attend the fund-raiser for Haitian relief co-sponsored by St. Joseph’s Catholic Church and the Farmington Rotary on Thursday. It was crowded with people anxious to help and the food was prepared with much care and skill.

There are some points I would like to make about this event. The help will be handled by the Catholic Church which has an organized structure in that devastated country and by the Haitian Rotarians. This is the best assurance that the aid will reach those who desperately need it.

The ACLU is tree tolerant and wants everyone to know it. This year, just for example, the Hawaii Civil Liberties Union has brought suit in defense of that state’s holiday tree display.

Forty-five years ago I read a campaign speech by Lyndon Johnson in which he called upon the voters to have “faith” in their government. That is the point at which my dislike for the man turned to loathing.

Two hundred and twenty-one years ago Thomas Jefferson wrote to Edward Carrington that “the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”

Last Friday Sen David Trahan (Rep. Wiscasset,etc) and Charles Webster, the Republican State Committee Chairman, presented the secretary of state with 60,473 signatures by citizens petitioning to veto LD 1495.

Back in 2006 the liberal Brookings Institution published Charting Maine’s Future with a portfolio of economic development recommendations. Governor Baldacci welcomed it as a “blueprint for Maine’s future” and all the legislators received copies. The loud “buzz” it set off at the time, seems to have subsided at present to a low hum inaudible to [...]

Years ago Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, wrote an essay arguing that successful government programs had to be simple, with minimal bureaucratic entaglements, to succeed. His models were social security in its original form and the mortgage interest deduction designed to encourage home ownership. Moynihan, a supporter of affirmative and expansionist government, was concerned to analyze [...]