‘Support the troops’

license plate a great idea

In this season of election angst, something most of us can agree to support is our brave troops fighting the terror war in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

To this end, and to promote a mentality very dissimilar to the post-Vietnam era when returning soldiers were treated shamefully by their countrymen, it is right that we show our solidarity by supporting Saco representative Donald Pilon’s effort to institute a Support the Troops license plate here in Maine.

However, Pilon needs to raise quite a bit of money before the state of Maine will start printing the Support the Troops plates. He needs to raise $40,000, which will enable the production of 2,000 license plates that will have a “Support the Troops” label stamped across the bottom. The plate will certainly prove popular, and it will prove a welcome addition to the list of vanity plates Maine offers.

But before the Troops plate can become part of our vehicular landscape, Pilon needs to get some support from ordinary citizens like us in the Lakes Region. Various fundraisers have been held throughout the state in recent months, and there will be another in Standish on Saturday. The event starts at 1 p.m. at Two Trails Diner. It’s a chance to donate some of your hard-earned money for a worthy cause.

Not such an idle threat

The girl who threatened Windham High School this week with a bomb should be embarrassed for her actions.

The Windham police and school department should be praised for quickly finding the alleged perpetrator, arresting her and then releasing her to her parents. She nows awaits a November court date in Maine juvenile court.

It is against our policy to print the names of juveniles unless they are charged with a Class A crime. The bomb threat is a Class C crime. The names of the two brothers who were arrested for dealing drugs earlier this year were similarly withheld since their crimes were not Class A felonies. But the fact that the newspaper did not print the name of the girl who wrote a bomb threat doesn’t mean the act wasn’t serious. It was very serious. It scared kids and teachers and administrators. It was an unwise act and one that should be dealt with severely by police and school officials.

Silly signs

It’s the height of campaign season once again. Anyone who drives anywhere would have to be blind not to see the campaign signage scattered throughout the Lakes Region. Wouldn’t it be nice if these signs were banned from public places?

Instead of a few candidates gumming up the roadsides with thousands of campaign signs, couldn’t we institute a law banning the use of public property and also requiring candidates to receive the consent of a property owner? That way, the signs would actually mean something. The number of signs would directly correlate to the number of citizens who thought highly of a candidate.

Right now, all we see along our beautiful roads is a more-is-better sort of adolescent popularity contest. It seems whoever can buy the most signs and replenish them as wind and rain and robbers take their toll has the best chance at winning over voters. What kind of superficial game is that? If we remove the ability of sign-stickers to place their signs on public property, the signs may yet again mean something. Now, they are just red, white and blue names crowding the roadsides, meaningless letters meant to influence your vote in some sub-conscious way.

And while we’re changing the rules for candidate signs, couldn’t we re-institute the tradition of adding which party a candidate belongs to? If we must deal with these signs every other fall, that would at least offer a little bit of useful information.

-John Balentine, editor