Archive for ‘Opinion’

  • Closing the Budget

    By State Senator Bill Diamond The Maine Legislature is heading into the last few weeks of this year’s session and much remains to be done. Chief among this unfinished business is the completion of a balanced budget for the next two years. The Appropriations Committee has been working on this for months, and, in terms […]

  • The Maine Brand

    By Bridie McGreavy Maine: The way life should be. Maine: The pine tree state. Maine: Vacationland. These three slogans accurately capture the Maine brand, a state known for its quality places, stunning scenery and great recreational opportunities. People visit Maine on their vacations to experience the way life should be among the pines and other […]

  • Is this the way to reform insurance?

    By Bill Diamond State Senator, D-Windham Last week, the Maine House of Representatives gave initial passage of LD 1333 by a margin of 76-72. The bill, entitled “An Act To Modify Rating Practices for Individual and Small Group Health Plans and To Encourage Value-based Purchasing of Health Care Services,” is being advertised as an attempt […]

  • A world without double-negative nitrogen

    I’ve been writing this little column for over five years now, and just when I think I’ve got nothing left to say, my wife opens her mouth. Like most women, she doesn’t do this intentionally, it just happens. And after three decades, she still cracks me up. I was passing Karen in the kitchen last […]

  • Toward a Way to Make People Care

    By Frank Daggett Special to The News On April 21, this paper carried Gail Geraghty’s “Viewpoints” piece, “We need a way to make people care.” She briefly reviewed local Earth Day plans, noted the strong environmental conscience in our region, and gave a very comprehensive listing of many problems that beset the environment. But she […]

  • No Billboards for ME

    By State Senator Bill Diamond When you drive down the road in Maine, you are free to see broad, clear vistas all the way to the horizon.  Your vision isn’t cluttered by large advertising signs and billboards, as is the case in so many other states. Maine has strict limitations on the size and placement […]

  • The Brush Pile

    When I came downstairs this morning to make tea, there were four little gray birds on the ground outside our kitchen windows. Two were in the garden poking around at something, a third little gray bird stood on the lawn soaking up the warm rays of the early morning sun, and a fourth one stood […]

  • Correcting Our Flawed Sex Offender Registry

    By State Senator Bill Diamond It was almost exactly five years ago, on April 16, 2006, that two Maine men who were on the sex offender registry were murdered by a man who had used the registry to pick his victims. While the registry can be a valuable instrument for keeping citizens informed of convicted […]

  • The state of the onion

    All seasons are unpredictable, but spring may be the most fickle — it just can’t make up its mind (pardon the blatant anthropomorphism). I have written proof. I am an ardent journal-keeper. A series of speckled composition notebooks have been following me for decades and I seem bent to write everything down: to-do lists, sketches […]

  • Make your trip count

    By Jen Deraspe One of my mother’s many mottos was, “Make your trip count.” If I was running upstairs to my bedroom, her voice would echo off the walls, “Take up the laundry, Jenny. Make your trip count!” If I was heading down to the cellar (old school Mainers’ don’t call it a basement.), I […]