I met David Flanagan in 1994 when he was conducting his first rescue mission for Central Maine Power. The electric company was in a funk: highly unpopular with the Legislature and a substantial portion of its customers, and hence the public. For CMP is practically co-existent with “public utility” in most Mainers’ minds. It really […]

Most consumers don’t pay much attention to the packaging that their purchases come in, unless it’s hard to open or the item is really over-wrapped. But packaging accounts for about 28% of U.S. municipal solid waste. Only some 53% of it ends up in recycling bins, and even less is actually recycled: According to trade […]

Theorizing about conspiracy theorists What if opposition to covid safety isn’t simply the result of “vaccine hesitancy”? What if it’s round two of an intentional attack on our country? I developed this conspiratorial belief in two days of Facebook I’ll never get back. A Maine father posted, “I get to decide if my kids wear […]

At one point in his running, four-year war with the news media, former President Donald Trump referred to it as “the enemy of the people,” a remark which rightfully drew a cascade of denunciations from news organizations, academics, members of Congress and the punditocracy which inhabits cable television opinion studios. The remark was needlessly provocative, […]