Maine links

 Maine Almanac Why Maine matters ACTION Occupy MaineChanging Maine AGRICULTURE Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners  Maine Farmland TrustPortland Food CoopSlow Food Portland  ALTERNATIVE MEDIA Maine Beacon   ALTERNATIVE SEX  EqualityMaine  ARTS Maine International Film Festival  CIVIL RIGHTS & JUSTICE ACLU of Maine Immigrant Legal Advocacy ProjectMaine Equal JusticeMidcoast Restorative Justice NAACPResorative Justice Institute COASTAL Save Our Shores   COOPERATIVES Cooperative …

Learning laughter in Maine

Sam Smith - Long before Bert & I, I started collecting Maine humor during my summer visits. One of my sources as a boy was Walter Stowe for whom I worked on various projects. Mr. Stowe appreciated having someone to instruct and demonstrate his immunity to poison ivy by chewing on some its leaves. He …

Hurricane Island

Sam Smith, The Idler, October 1964 - There are several places in this world that I own. Not because I paid cash for them, nor because I can produce any deed to support my claim. I own these places because when I go to them no one is there. No one seems to want them. …

My bi-polar week

Sam Smith, February 2016 Earlier today my wife and I went to the funeral of a Maine farmer we’ve known for almost 50 years. Several of his grandchildren lived with us this past week as Charlie was winding down in hospice. Back in the 1940s and 50s, Charlie had become one of the first people …

Dowsing with Henry Gross

Sam Smith - Water witches - aka dowsers are thriving in drought stricken California. Odd as it may seem, it's a topic about which I know a bit. For example, there was that day in the 1950s when the actress Bette Davis came to my parents' Maine farm to help us find water. Actually, she …

Learning to laugh in Maine

Sam Smith Long before Bert & I, I started collecting Maine humor during my summer visits. One of my sources as a boy was Walter Stowe for whom I worked on various projects. Mr. Stowe appreciated having someone to instruct and demonstrate his immunity to poison ivy by chewing on some its leaves. He had …

Getting ready to vote

Sam Smith - Fortunately the national and state candidate choices  this year are easy , so I've had plenty of time to try to figure out the far more overwhelming issues in my Maine town. Maine still takes democracy seriously. According to NPR, Nielsen ranks the hearby Portland media market 91st in the country. But …

Why Maine matters

Sam Smith We hear a lot these days about Maine’s economic problems: not enough job growth, not enough young people, the decline in farming, fishery problems and so forth. There is merit in all of this but it is only part of the story. After all, if the sought after economic improvement is to take …

Potluck with neighbors

Sam Smith, 2013 – On Sunday we had our monthly supper at a community club that once was among our Maine town’s nine one room schoolhouses. Pot luck, no program, and thirty odd attendees ranging from third graders to the retired. After the supper we sat around and discussed a few matters of mutual import …

Bipolar America

Sam Smith Some days, when I finish editing and writing stuff about our nation and its politics, I get in my car and drive “up street” – the five miles on a two lane country road to the center of our Maine town. I am on my way to run  errands or to meet someone, …

Maine Almanac

ACCENT How to speak like a New Englander, including Maine BEARS Sun Journal - Maine has a large and healthy black bear population estimated to exceed 23,000. . . Each year hunters take about 10 percent of Maine'''s bear population. Over the past few years, a couple of bears have been taken taken that weighed …

The ghost ship of Harpswell

Sam Smith - Maine is one of the few places that still remembers the War of 1812. As Wikipedia explains: British army and naval forces from nearby Nova Scotia captured and occupied the eastern coast from Eastport to Castine, and plundered the Penobscot River towns of Hampden and Bangor. Legitimate commerce all along the Maine …

The hazards of estivation

Sam Smith, 2011 - A reader - and Democratic candidate for a New England state legislature - writes: "I have been a subscriber to both Progressive Review as well as Undernews for some time now. Recently the issues have become sporadic and now nothing. As a convert to SHAFARism I feel my 'faith' has abandoned …

Down East Diary: Can you trick instant runoff voting?

Sam Smith A couple of Portland friends have raised the question of what is the best way to cast your ballot in an instant runoff vote with 15 candidates, as they will have to do shortly. For example, should you vote for the one most likely to come in last so your second choice will …

When Green matters

Sam Smith An election race you may have missed last November found Fred Horch losing to the Democratic candidate, Alex Cornell du Houx, by less than 150 votes. Horch also beat the Republican candidate by over 250 votes. Horch was the Independent Green candidate and the reason you may not have heard about this race …