The following are excerpts from The South Portlander, a daily blog by Current reporter Linda Hersey. Find it at southportlander.com:

McCain to Visit POW Museum in SoPo

(Posted July 15)

Republican presidential candidate John McCain is scheduled to visit South Portland on Monday, July 21.

McCain will visit the Maine Military Museum, in Mill Creek, with doors opening at 12:30 p.m., according to the candidate’s Web site. The public is invited to attend.

The museum honors POWs from the Vietnam war, with an exhibition of artifacts donated by veterans and their families. McCain is a former prisoner of war.

Earlier Monday, McCain will be at a private Kennebunkport reception.

Maritime Music Fest Planned at Harbor Museum

(Posted July 14)

Portland Harbor Museum, located on SoPo’s waterfront, is hosting a maritime music festival Aug. 2 that will feature Gordon Bok, Castlebay, Julia Lane, David Jones, Kendall Morse, David Coffin, Marc Bernier and others.

The free outdoor concert is from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. at a site that overlooks Portland Harbor at Spring Point.

The performers will sing about the seafaring heritage of New England, with Bok (as the headliner. Bok, who plays the guitar, grew up in Maine and worked on ships as a deckhand and mate, learning folk tunes and ballads about the sea.

Other performances will include Julia Lane on the Celtic harp; and Kendall Morse, who is both a Maine humorist and folk singer.

Admission to the festival is free, with donations to the museum and/or artists accepted.

The festival will move to South Portland High School if it rains.

Beekeeping Buzz Draws National Media

(Posted Friday, July 11)

South Portland’s beekeeping flap caught the eye of The Wall Street Journal, which reports today on the conflict between hobbyists and municipalities that try to regulate them.

The newspaper also discusses the mysterious decline of the honeybee population, which puts the nation’s crop production at risk and may be caused by chemicals in the environment, such as lawn sprays, pathogens and parasites.

The reporter interviewed SoPo resident Omid Ghayebi, who has moved his beekeeping operation out of town since the Council adopted a beekeeping ordinance in May.

“These days there is only one registered beekeeper in South Portland, and it is not Mr. Ghayebi. By the time the ordinance finally passed, he had mended fences with his neighbor and moved his hives to a friend’s farm in a rural area outside of town,” according to the Journal article.

The reporter also notes that SoPo is not alone in regulating beekeeping.

Mirage, Calif., bans beekeeping. Garden City, Mich., requires beekeepers to live on at least a quarter acre.