“In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.”

Napoleon Bonaparte

The Windham town government didn’t meet last week, which gives me a chance to look at something else.

It’s not like I can’t find something to write about, it’s more of a challenge for me to get my brain into action when it doesn’t want to function at all. So let’s see, in  Congress the Republicans get along as well as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young after their breakup. To be truthful, I think Neil Young left first.

In Portland, as well as other cities across America, hypodermic needles are being discarded in every place imaginable.

And in Augusta, some have decided that Maine doesn’t make enough from the sales of alcohol so let’s increase the price and forget about competing for sales with the state of New Hampshire.

So my dilemma is where do I begin? I might as well start with alcohol in the state. I’m trying to figure out if our state senators and representatives should start drinking or if this is a case of them drinking too much. Last week the Press Herald had an article about Maine increasing the prices of liquor while the state continues to run commercials on how competitive Maine’s liquor prices are, which by the way, they really aren’t. I have to guess that Maine’s Liquor Commission or whatever it’s called is no different than the Lottery Commission’s advertisements showing how everyone wins with Megabucks. What’s even more hilarious is that those advertisements also state “please gamble responsibly” after showing everyone a winner. Does Augusta have any ethics at all or am I imagining things?

I also have to mention Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. He shut down public beaches and then ended up being photographed on one with his family. Maybe it was a good thing that he didn’t end up working somewhere in the Trump Administration. That’s the funny thing with politicians, the longer they are in office the better the possibility the voters will discover what they are really about. It happens in Augusta and Windham as well, so all us normal people can do is wait and see. I won’t even attempt to define what is normal these days after reading a recent article on the decline of Maine’s paper industry and no significant actions by any politician to improve it.

Now back to Windham, where I am sure future discussions on private roads will continue. I know for a fact one Windham town councilor sued the town over perceived problems with property purchased on a private road in Windham. He lost that lawsuit. I wonder, is that a personal bias if that town councilor votes for whatever the council as a whole decides to do with private roads in Windham? Windham’s government needs a huge boost in improving the relationship with its citizens. I will state this again, after moving to Windham and speaking out about our local government, 90 percent of the people who called me told me to crawl in a hole and shut up for good or suffer the consequences. That’s the wrong thing to tell me, that’s for sure.

All of that shouldn’t be surprising when the state of Maine flunked a state integrity investigation and was ranked 46th among our 50 states by the Center for Public Integrity. It is sad to state such a thing because if our state government doesn’t perform at the level it should, what does it say about the state’s ability to police what our municipalities are doing? I have witnessed at least one case in Windham where legal protocol was broken in the past and not one person in Augusta cared. Why shouldn’t that surprise me?

Lane Hiltunen of Windham knows one thing for sure, he will not vote for anyone running for governor in Maine who presently holds or held an elected office in the state of Maine or elsewhere.