A Little Comment(ary)...

Bidding adieu to the Olympics
By J.P. DEVINE
Freelance Writer Morning Sentinel

Is it true? Are the Olympics really over today? Hooray.

Finally we can get back to Obama, McCain, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.

MSNBC, the self- proclaimed "place for politics," has been round the clock sweat-obsessed. I miss "Hardball," and Keith.

I confess I have zero interest in anything sports related. I don't care if it involves a ball of some sort or gymnastics or swimming. I have zero interest in swimming. The last time I watched anything that wet it was June, July and August in Maine. OK, I did love Esther Williams' movies.

But in the interest of writing this column, I checked in on a couple of events. I watched the swimmers in their new pedal-pusher suits. They all looked alike, don't they? I can't remember who got what medals. Did they check the lead content before Phelps put the medald in his mouth?

The opening ceremonies were fun, incredible really, but not as good as the Winslow Family Fourth fireworks. I enjoyed that, but it went on too long. I liked the cute little Chinese girl who I'm told was dubbed by Debbie Reynolds. I'm told the real singer was in a "cone of silence," with John McCain.

Archery seemed to be fun, but it was better with Errol Flynn. We did that as kids, but we called it "bows and arrows." I put one in Alan Power's eye once. He's never forgiven me.

Fencing looked like fun, but again, am I obsessing with Errol Flynn?

Badminton? Is that really an Olympic sport? C'mon. Badminton was considered a sissy game when I was a kid. My sister gave me a set complete with net when I was 10. When Junie Reed lost the "birdie," we used rocks and wrecked the racquets.

My favorite in the Olympics, is, almost anytime they do it, the women's beach volleyball. Boy, oh boy. Don't you love that one? Now that's an inspiring sport to watch. I could watch that for hours. It made me proud to be an American. That should be our national sport.

http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/5328653.html

Building the 'USS Putin'
From the Bangor Daily News

One military analyst expert says the Navy's decision this week to pursue building a third Zumwalt destroyer is because of events in Georgia. Others attribute the change in direction to concerns about maintaining the country’s shipbuilding capacity.

Whatever the reason, it is not certain that a third destroyer will be funded and built. Before that happens, many questions remain about what types of ships should be built.

Last month, the Navy announced that it planned to build just two DDG-1000, or Zumwalt, destroyers. Originally, the Navy planned to build 32 of the destroyers, which were designed to avoid detection and to maneuver closer to shore than the Arleigh Burke destroyers they were meant to replace. That was later downscaled to seven and, in July, two.

This prompted concerns that Bath Iron Works, which has begun work on the first DDG-1000, would not have enough work. Similar concerns were expressed in Mississippi where Ingalls Shipbuilding was building the second.

Earlier this week, the Navy changed course and said it would pursue a third Zumwalt destroyer. The Senate has included funding for the ship in its defense budget. The House has not.

To end this deadlock, the key question to be answered is: What ships does the Navy need to fulfill its mission in coming years?

Answering that question is complicated by world affairs, says Jay Korman, a Navy-analyst for Avascent Group in Washington, D.C. The DDG-1000 was the culmination of decades of planning and design with a focus on fighting a “near peer,” like Russia or China. The stealthy ship was meant to get close to a country’s coastline before firing its weapons to clear the way for ground troops.

This mission faded in importance as the U.S. military moved toward a light and lean strategy to combat terrorists and insurgents in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq.

Then, two weeks ago, Russia attacked Georgia. Using military deterrence, in the form of more sophisticated and powerful weapons than Moscow has, was back in vogue. Mr. Korman was only partially jesting when he said the new destroyer could be called the USS Putin.

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/49378.html

Let's break the cycle at Kennedy Park
By JUSTIN ELLIS

Frank Williams III was chased and stabbed on this soccer field adjacent to Kennedy Park, a neighborhood where people are raising families and trying to get by each day. I just kept wondering "why?" Why does this keep happening?

It was dusk on Aug. 16, and less than 24 hours earlier a man had been stabbed to death in a soccer field next to Kennedy Park.

I found myself walking through the neighborhood doing what reporters do after violent crimes – asking people questions.

But the question I kept asking myself was why does this keep happening in Kennedy Park? Why does it seem like things don't change?

As big of a "small city" as Portland is, it seems like crime has been concentrated on the stretch of land between Munjoy Hill and Bayside.

Armchair social anthropologists and Internet trolls are likely to say it's because Kennedy Park is a public housing development, or simply "these people bring it upon themselves."

But that generalization is simplistic (if not ignorant). While Kennedy Park may have generated a file folder overstuffed with problems, it's still a neighborhood where people are trying to raise families and generally get by each day.

It's a trait the neighborhood shares with blocks you'd find in Gorham, South Portland or Biddeford.

I've lived in Portland for as long as I've worked at this newspaper, and I can't pretend to know what it's like to live in Kennedy Park. But I've visited often, usually with notebook in tow.

Many times it was for this column. There was the time I popped into the study center when Blunt Youth Radio's teen producers were working on a piece to give people a better picture of Kennedy Park.

I've been down to visit the bike shop to see what kids in the People's Regional Opportunity Program Peer Leader program were tinkering with, and watched as the neighborhood garden was prepared for planting by Cultivating Community – a program that encourages young people to explore agriculture and organic foods.

On the Saturday evening after the attack on Frank Williams III, I saw many of the same things I often see when I visit the neighborhood: kids riding bikes and chasing each other, people playing ball at the basketball court and neighbors walking between houses to talk.

But I also saw the things you don't always find in other neighborhoods: run-down buildings – some boarded up – and police cars.

Police are still searching for suspects and canvassing the area for leads in the Williams case. That's a phrase that sounds familiar to the people who live in the neighborhood.

In October 2007, a resident of Anderson Street was charged with killing his girlfriend in their apartment. In June of that same year, three men were arrested after Kennedy Park residents reported gunshots.

In 2006, an undercover police officer was held up at gunpoint and beaten by two men during a drug buy. In 2004, a group in a sport utility vehicle drove up to one of the housing development's parking lots and opened fire. No one was injured.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=206564&ac=PHnws


Doug Jones/Staff Photographer

Close to Home: Genealogy turns into a trilogy and more
By JULIANA L'HEUREUX
Portland Press Herald

In 1989, Biddeford native Doris Provencher Faucher began researching her family's Franco-American genealogies. Nearly 20 years later, she's still writing about her family's genealogy and history by publishing novels.

Faucher's research led her to a craving for learning more about the historical events involved in the French colonial settlements of New France and beyond.

She wrote and self-published three historical novels about her ancestors and the times in which they lived. She's now in the middle of writing a fourth as-yet-untitled novel in the series.

"I thought about writing the family stories in one novel but soon discovered it would take several volumes to cover the information," said Faucher.

Her fictional characters are descendents of a French couple named Sebastien and Marguerite, an indentured laborer and a King's Daughter. The King's Daughters were a group of selected French maidens who were given dowries by the king of France in exchange for sailing to Quebec to marry men already living in the colony.

Each novel describes well-researched historical events occurring during the colonial times of the first-generation couple and their children beginning in the middle 17th century.

"My characters are reflective of my own family, but they're also a good representation of all Franco-American history," said Faucher.

Working in partnership with Norman, her husband of 52 years, and their four children, Faucher self-published each of the three novels and plans to do the same for each sequel. Although the entire historic epic could take up to 10 novels to complete, Faucher realistically wonders if she can really finish the entire series. "I write one book at a time," she said.

Together, the Fauchers market and sell the books at personal appearances, genealogical society lectures and through direct mail. She also teaches courses in Franco-American studies at the University of Maine's Senior College in York County.

Faucher's first novel, "The Virgin Forest," was published in 2000. She followed with "The Rapids" in 2002, and "Imperial Conflict" in 2006.

Her fourth book explains how the English were finally able to take control over all of Canada, she said. "In many ways, the war for control of Canada was a world war because European countries were involved, plus the impact of Britain's victory over the French extends into modern times," she said.

Accuracy is a passion with Faucher's writing. She uses both English and French historical sources for researching her background material.

Her books have been sold in 36 of the 50 United States plus Great Britain and Canada.

"Sales of the books follow the migrations of French Canadians," Faucher said. As a result, states with large French-Canadian populations are the best responders to direct mail marketing. Sales are obviously best in the New England states, especially in Maine but also in Louisiana, Florida and California.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=206755&ac=PHnws

No easy answers in police probe
By BILL NEMITZ
Portland Press Herald

Another shooting by police. Another investigation by the Maine Attorney General's Office. And, if history is any guide, another pronouncement that the officers involved -- in this case, two members of the South Portland Special Reaction Team – had legitimate reason to fire their weapons at Michael S. Norton outside his home early Monday morning.

"We look at whether or not the action by the officer was legally justified," said David Loughran, spokesman for the AG's office, when asked Wednesday to describe the scope of the mandatory investigation. "We look at the specific incident that took place."

In other words, the AG will determine only whether South Portland Officers Benjamin Macisso and John Sutton reasonably believed that they were imminently threatened with deadly force when Norton, 29, reported to be suicidal, came out onto his deck with a knife and ignored the officers' repeated orders to drop it.

Left for the South Portland Police Department to decide – and this is the much stickier part – is whether there were better means to subdue Norton than with a lethal shot to the neck.

"The primary purpose for (an investigation now under way by the department's Office of Professional Standards) is to determine whether or not our policies were complied with," said South Portland Police Chief Edward Googins. "This is about as open a process as you can have."

We can only hope that South Portland's internal probe, which will be reviewed by a three-member panel – two civilians and a chief from another department – will address not just what happened to Norton, but also what could have happened.

Sources already have told this newspaper that one of the two officers fired his service revolver, while the other fired a nonlethal "bean bag" weapon. Who fired what has yet to be made public, but why not just fire the bean-bag gun?

Beyond that, Googins said that it's department policy for all patrol officers to be equipped with Tasers when they head out for a shift. If Tasers were presumably available at the scene, why wasn't one used before a real bullet was fired?

To their credit, South Portland police have plenty of successful experience with the Taser, which temporarily disables a person with 50,000 volts of electricity and is designed to cause no permanent harm.

In late June, they used a Taser to subdue a man with a knife who had threatened to blow up a home to which he'd fled after crashing his vehicle into another building.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=206984&ac=PHnws

The Addict Next Door
Bangor Daily News

When someone decides he or she finally wants to be free from the death-grip hold of substance addiction, there are — thankfully — places for them to turn in the community. Many of these support systems — Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and various counseling groups — were established decades ago. And they work. But for the most part they operate in a kind of underground world. That is part by design, especially with the importance of the anonymous component of 12-step recovery groups. But it is also because the lifelong recovery from addiction is invisible.

The Bangor Area Recovering Community Coalition wants to change the low-profile nature of the recovery process, not so participants can bask in the glow of public attention, but because recovery is just a little bit easier if the overall community is aware of its rigors and pitfalls. The coalition is hosting the Bangor Area Summit on Addiction Recovery on Sept. 4 at the Bangor Civic Center to explore the topic, “Broadening the Base for Recovery.”

A community that is aware of the challenges recovery presents has good reason to want to help. The coalition estimates that in Penobscot County 1,789 years of life were lost among the 145,000 county residents in 2005. That mortality resulted in $40 million in lost productivity in the local economy that year. Add on medical, crime, treatment and child welfare costs and the total hit for the county for 2005 was $99 million.

People need to see what recovery looks like, said a woman active in the coalition during a recent meeting with the BDN. They know all too well what addiction looks like, she said — the police summoned to the house next door, the dissolution of a marriage, the loss of employment, the neighbor stumbling home or the lethargic co-worker. Someone battling cancer may be bald from chemotherapy, and that elicits a “hang in there, what can I do to help?” response from friends, family, neighbors and co-workers. The recovering addict is not so obvious, but has similar needs: a ride to an AA meeting, a reference for a job, a home-cooked meal, help with childcare.

Those in the recovery business note that recent studies of the process have found some interesting traits that seem to separate the successful from the unsuccessful. The difference between two trauma victims is the amount of resilience each has. The components of that inherent resilience are having problem-solving skills, a hope for a brighter future, a certain amount of personal autonomy and social competence.

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/49685.html

Terror in the daisies!
BY J.P. DEVINE
Freelance Writer Morning Sentinel

So, these two ticks walk into this bar, and one tick says to the bartender, "You ever been through three cycles in a washing machine?" And the other tick says, "Make sure you avoid it. It's not as much fun as it looks."

OK, it's a joke, but this is the true dark story. It begins like this.

For some time I have become, due to media pressure, terrified of Lyme ticks lurking in the vicinity of my African daisies and unsuspecting petunias. I knew they were out there, howling in the way ticks howl, like nature's tiny banshees. What could Noah have been thinking, to allow two of them in steerage?

I never for a moment supposed they would find their way into my personal life. I had followed all precautions when walking in the yard, Ralph Lauren cuffs tucked into my New Balance sneakers (product placement soothes me), sleeves rolled down, a mosquito net over my head. Yes, it's uncomfortable, but it works.

Then, two nights ago, I found one of them on the blue tile of my bathroom, lurking there as though waiting for a tick streetcar, waiting to sample my blood, a multilegged mini-Dracula.

Was it a coincidence that I was sitting there reading Daniel Defoe's "Journal of the Plague Year"?

With rubber gloves on, I quickly imprisoned it in an empty Tylenol vial to take and be identified by my dog's veterinarian.

Meanwhile, another tick was found in the bathroom on the tub. OMG. I joined them together in the container. In a moment of drollery, I named them Harry and Sally. Even a paranoid needs a laugh now and then.

After a quick stop to do my wife's laundry, I set out. Arriving at the vet, I found that I had lost the tick vial. Panic ensued.

Where had they gone to?

Were they in the carpets?

The laundry?

The coffee grounds?

I went home and discovered that I had dropped the vial in the washer. But they had survived, high and dry, after having gone through three rinses ensconced, as it were, in a mini Captain Nemo submarine.

Back at the vet's office, I presented them to one of the assistants.

"Those are not ticks," she said, peering over glasses. "They're beetles." I insisted on a second opinion, so she gave them to a doctor. He said they were baby beetles. He flashed his official tick-identification card that showed four stages of tickdom.

"I know these are ticks," I snorted.

http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/5357405.html

Churchgoing widower hopes personal ad answers his prayers
By BILL NEMITZ
Portland Press Herald

OLD ORCHARD BEACH — The way Fred Wheelock sees it, you've gotta have faith. And when you're 85 years old and looking for a new bride, it doesn't hurt to wear your faith on your sleeve.

"Good news for a struggling church-going widow, for there is a hopeful, 85-year-old church-going gentlemen wishing to start courtship leading to possible marriage," reads the personal ad Fred took out recently in his hometown weekly newspaper.

It continues, "Was deacon at First Baptist Church of Portland for 9 years. Took care of craft shop projects at Bible Camp for 40 years. Was board member for New England Camp Cherith in Alfred, Maine for 45 years. Call anytime 207-934-7252."

It's the fourth such ad Fred has taken out since last winter and yes, he's getting results. But more on that later.

First, a little about Fred.

He was, and still is, a devout Christian. He was, and still is, an architectural draftsman who designed and built all three homes in which he's lived for the past 60-plus years, not to mention five churches and countless other projects large and small. He was, and most definitely still is, a ladies' man.

And an energetic one at that.

"I'm not shooting for the moon, you understand, but I sure as hell can try," Fred said last week, perched on the edge of his living room couch like a sprinter in the starting blocks. "And trying hard I am!"

Fred, you see, enjoys marriage. Always has. He raised a son and four daughters with his first wife, Glenna, before she died from a blood clot in 1985 after 33 years of wedded bliss. To assuage his grief, he sought refuge at the most important place in his world – The Bible Speaks Church, then in Scarborough.

Enter Ella May Corbit, who was the recent widow of one of Fred's best friends and fellow deacons at the church.

Fred, ever the gentleman, asked Ella "for the privilege of sitting with her in church." Ella consented. And before long, even the pastor could see that this was a match worth a clerical nudge.

"The pastor came to me," Fred said. "And he said, 'You know, you two, you don't have years to spend thinking about getting married. You'd better get busy with it.'"

Ella, until then worried about how such a quick courtship with Fred might look, relaxed. Fred, painfully aware of how much he missed having a woman around the house, immediately popped the question.

"It was a blessing for the both of us," Fred recalled.

Meaning life's too short?

"Yes," he replied. "Especially when you're getting old."

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=207570&ac=PHnws

Lewiston closes the book on sex-ed fight
By BILL NEMITZ
Portland Press Herald

Pack up the tents. There will be no national media circus in Lewiston after all.

JoAn Karkos, the city's self-appointed moral gatekeeper, got the worst possible news late last week as the 4 p.m. Friday deadline approached for her to either hand over a sex education book she'd filched from the Lewiston Public Library or possibly go to jail.

The city, much to her irritation, dropped the case and walked away.

"Quite frankly, I wasn't willing to spend the money to wage that battle," said City Administrator Jim Bennett. "That's money we could use somewhere else, maybe buying oil for someone this winter."

Smart man, that Bennett.

Since she first checked out a copy of "It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health" last summer and told the world she had no intention of returning it, Karkos has dreamed of that day she'd be led away in handcuffs while the TV cameras rolled.

Her argument – that kids have no business looking at the book's cartoon-like depictions of naked bodies and various sexual activities – had already attracted a fair share of attention before she flat-out ignored District Court Judge Valerie Stanfill's order to return the book by the end of business Friday or else.

"She really wanted to be arrested," said Bennett. "She begged to be arrested."

Of course she did. The sight of Karkos, a 64-year-old grandmother, being checked into the slammer over a book about adolescent sex had 24-hour cable news coverage written all over it.

The city, on the other hand, accomplished all it needed in district court last week.

In finding against Karkos and slapping her with a $100 fine, Judge Stanfill upheld the "fundamental principles of the library," Bennett said, including its ability "to provide access to the variety of thought and opinion to all."

Contacted Tuesday, Karkos said she's not sure whether she'll pay the fine. (She also said teenage sex causes, among other things, brain cancer.)

As for the book, Karkos said, "I'm keeping it. If any adult wants to look at it, I'd be glad to show it to them."

The story thus ends here – without the much anticipated perp walk. Karkos said she's been encouraged by at least one group – the religion-based American Center for Law and Justice – to appeal, but she's leaning against it.

"It would take at least a year," Karkos said. "And I'm just not sure I want to do that."

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=208177&ac=PHnws

Lifelong Republican sees something special in Obama
By BILL NEMITZ
Portland Press Herald

He knew he was leading with his chin. So Robert A.G. Monks wasn't surprised last week when, only hours after he publicly endorsed Barack Obama for president, his fellow Maine Republicans disowned him.

"If Bob Monks is the kind of player the Obama campaign wants to associate with, they can have him," huffed Maine Republican Party Chairman Mark Ellis in a press release.

"That," a smiling Monks later replied, "was not one of (Ellis') best political remarks."

Maybe not. But it does raise an interesting question about Monks' decision to co-chair Maine Republicans for Obama with Election Day just 58 days away: If Obama indeed is his guy, why not make a clean break from the Republican Party, to which he's belonged since Wendell Willkie ran for the White House in 1940, and enroll as a Democrat?

"Stubbornness," Monks said. "I've been an honorable member of the party all my life. And I'll be damned if I'm going to let people with what I think are disreputable policies take over my party."

Monks, the Cape Elizabeth multimillionaire whose lengthy resume ranges from three-time unsuccessful U.S. Senate candidate to longtime advocate for corporate shareholder rights, has two major bones to pick with the GOP.

One is the Bush administration's all-but-invisible energy policy - and in particular, its failure to promote conservation as the first line of defense against sky-high oil prices.

Noting that ExxonMobil Corp. spent $96 billion buying back its own stock, paid its most recently departed CEO $400 million and still has $26 billion in cash sitting around, Monks said Republican opposition to a windfall profits tax (as opposed to Obama's support for one) is nothing short of "obscene."

"How are you going to have a fair country if you don't do that?" Monks asked. "It's good luck for the oil companies and terrible luck for the people of Maine. You can't tolerate such a thing - at least I can't."

His other pet peeve is the success with which the Business Roundtable, the Washington, D.C.-based organization of the nation's top corporate executives, has rendered employee pension plans almost extinct over the past eight years.

"They get five times as much pay for the CEOs and they abolish pensions," he said. "It's so obscene, you have to say something."

In short, Monks said, it's not the Republicans who truly ran this country during the first six years of the Bush administration - it was corporate America. And as a lifelong Republican who once worked for Ronald Reagan as head of the Labor Department's Office of Pension and Benefits, that offends him.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=208707&ac=PHnws