Well, a big thank you to the Portland City Council and the Peaks Island Transportation System. They singlehandedly wiped out a teenage entrepreneur and budding capitalist with his golf cart taxi on Peaks Island (“Council: Peaks golf cart ‘taxi’ must be licensed and insured,” Aug. 17).

We absolutely need more rules and regulations to stem the tide of innovative young people trying to make a buck for college.

We certainly need a level playing field to assure government subsidized business thrives. Hurrah for increased government control; the great burden has been lifted off the Peaks Island government taxi.

It is now time for the Portland City Council to turn its attention to the growing number of unlicensed lemonade stands being operated by Peaks Island’s child capitalists.

Larry Davis

Hallowell and Peaks Island

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So, in a home game in Portland after four innings, the Sea Dogs trail Binghamton 5 to 7.

The Portland City Council hastily convenes a meeting in the lobby at Hadlock Field and passes a ruling that visiting teams can only score a run on home runs and are limited to just one run per hit no matter how many players are on base.

There! Playing field leveled. Game won.

Considering the way the City Council recently dispatched the competition for the Peaks Island taxi service, had they been in charge of the development of Western Civilization for the past few centuries, we would still be riding horses, using outdoor plumbing and reading books by firelight.

Whoops. Silly me. There wouldn’t be any books because the council would have taken care of that upstart Gutenberg and his press for unfairly competing with the subsidized, slow and over-priced scribes.

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Between now and November we are going to have to endure a lot of gassing off by all the political candidates about creating jobs and how small business is the backbone of the economy.

Keep in mind, however, when it comes to having to produce, these same politicians will cave to their special interests every time!

David Wallace

Gorham

Ribaldry too ribald for some at Oaks’ Shakespeare

Our church decided to go as a group to the event, “Shakespeare in the Park” put on by the Fenix Theatre at Deering Oaks on Aug.12. We were to see “Twelfth Night.”

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We expected to experience a wonderful evening of entertaining theater that was welcoming to all, including the children who accompanied us. We soon realized that this production was not what we expected.

This production included drunkenness, grabbing of a woman’s breast, depiction of a man urinating, someone giving the middle finger gesture, remarks alluding to masturbation and prostitution.

We realize this theater company can exercise its freedom of speech, but we feel they should be more upfront about the actual content they are presenting, especially considering the fact that families with children will be in their audience.

Nothing in the advertising of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” would have led us to expect to see the content that was presented.

One more point. Several people from our church are recovering from addictions to drugs and alcohol, and were very taken back by the overdramatization and glamorizing of drunkeness as comical and basically harmless.

Pastor David Perkins

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Living Hope Church

Portland

State looks worried in Dechaine drug indictment

I am baffled about the motives of Maine’s attorney general and local prosecutors for deciding to indict Dennis Dechaine for “drug trafficking.”

No drugs were found on Dennis or in his cell. There is no evidence that he bought or sold drugs. He ingested drugs in order to try to commit suicide. Had Dennis tried to hang himself with a sheet, would he have been indicted for trying to commit suicide or perhaps trafficking in bed linens?

I can only suspect that state government is concerned that Dennis will in fact be granted a new trial and be acquitted. Do they want to make sure then, that even though he would have served 22 years for a crime he did not commit, that they can stick him with five more years?

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Or do they just want to try to make him look bad to a potential jury pool? If these are not their fears, why are they wasting their time and our money indicting a man for trying to commit suicide who is serving a life sentence without the chance of parole?

As for Bob Dorr’s Aug. 7 letter to the editor, he only gives credence to someone’s opinion who heard trial testimony about Dennis’ drug use.

What is more important is what was not heard as trial testimony: DNA evidence, alternate suspects and the truth about investigators’ notes. One can only ask why people who are convinced Dennis is guilty are so afraid of a new trial where all the evidence is finally heard.

Betty Chase

Portland

 


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