Last Thursday, some 100 hardy souls braved the deep freeze to attend the funeral of Mary Estelle Blake, a pillar of the Yarmouth community who passed away at the great age of 97. Mary Estelle was a cranky old Yankee with some hard bark on her protecting a tender soul and a good heart. Her […]

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins published a defensive position in Maine newspapers to explain her wrong-minded vote in support of the Republicans’ tax cuts for the rich. Unfortunately, her explanation did not explain how the tax cuts will recover the $1 trillion the GOP plan will add to the national debt over the next 10 years. […]

I urge U.S. Sen. Susan Collins to oppose the nomination of Kathleen Hartnett-White to lead the Council on Environmental Quality. I was relieved to hear that Hartnett-White’s nomination was sent back to the White House, so the president will need to re-nominate her. But when that happens, and a vote goes before the Senate, I […]

Shame on former Maine State Police Trooper Jeffrey Linscott, 51, of Buxton. Linscott is charged with trafficking in fentanyl and heroin. Fentanyl is a powerful opioid and just a tiny bit of it can kill. Linscott was arrested Dec. 20 in Gorham, where he allegedly sold the drugs to an undercover agent. It’s bad enough […]

Does it ever occur to candidates for governor that the glowing essays about themselves they post on their websites ought to make some kind of sense or contain actual positions on issues? Apparently not. Here are some perplexing examples. According to Republican Garrett Mason’s site, “His mom worked at home, raising a family that pinched […]

My favorite Christmas story is “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” by poet Dylan Thomas. We own two copies. One is a little hardcover edition with pictures by Trina Schart Hyman, one of the best children’s book illustrators ever. The other is a little paperback with simple woodcuts by Ellen Raskin. I bought the little paperback […]

There’s no better way to start a new year than by making predictions. The act of future-telling is fraught with peril but since fools rush in, here we go with my 2018 predictions: 1 — The term “Happy Holidays” will have committed verbicide by Christmas 2018. In the 1980s, everyone said “Merry Christmas and Happy […]

It’s been a memorable year at The Forecaster. New ownership, new reporters, new columnists, and a new partnership between our four legacy editions and two former Current Publishing papers – the American Journal and Lakes Region Weekly – kept us from getting too comfortable with the status quo. What has remained constant, however, is our commitment to […]

The trouble with political moderates is all that moderation. By definition, moderates are flexible, accommodating, compromising, obliging, acquiescing, pliable, conceding – whew, this list just gets worse and worse the more it goes on. No wonder nobody can stand a moderate for very long. Sooner or later, they’re going to vote in a way you […]

My mother taught me that polite people do not discuss money, religion, politics, sex or their health in public. But since I am already guilty on several counts and my dear mother has been gone four years, I guess a health column couldn’t hurt. After all, health care is a hot topic these days. This […]