We heart these people: Meet Portland's most influential

Published in the Portland Phoenix (an introduction and my segments of a larger piece, which can be found here and on subsequent pages)

We all know Portland is a busy, exciting place to live. It takes a lot of people's amazing energy to keep it going, though. Who's doing the moving and the shaking?

We started with a simple question: Who are the people without whom Portland would be the poorer? But that's not the only criterion. Who is making Portland, and Maine, great for all of us to live, work, and play in today, and even better for tomorrow? Who is spending their time and energy really contributing deeply, in a way we should all notice and appreciate (even if they're too modest — and busy — to seek that publicity themselves)?

We thought about this ourselves and talked about it (quietly) around town. One person we consulted put it perfectly when rephrasing what we had asked her: "Who do I look up to and admire the hell out of?"

Perhaps the best thing, though, is that this list (which we split into categories largely for logistical reasons — many of these people cross the artificial lines we created) could also have been called "Portland's Most Humble," given many of the responses we got after telling people they made the list. "Aw, shucks, thanks," read one e-mail. "Can't be that elite if I'm in it," wrote another PMIer. "Did you mean to send this to me?" and "Are you sure you've got the right person?" were also common responses — even from people with very prominent community roles. But we suspect that most of the people felt like the person who wrote "I'm embarrassed and very, very pleased."

And yes, we know we missed some people — any list like this will never be complete — so if this list is missing you (or someone you know), please let us know.

Activism
Even if you've never met RABBI AKIVA HERZFELD, when you call to introduce yourself, you might be invited to a Portland Pirates hockey game with the BlackBerry-toting leader of Portland's oldest orthodox Jewish community, Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh.

It's that sort of cognitive dissonance that makes him particularly well suited to be here now. While Herzfeld speaks about his elders, Jewish tradition, and the history of his people with deep respect and feeling — not least because his grandparents fled from the Nazis with his infant father — his eyes are clearly looking ahead, not backward. His congregation, he says with a smile, are "traditional, more than orthodox," perhaps "a little bit more liberal" than their fellow believers in larger cities, such as the Staten Island, New York, community where he grew up.

He works to connect the generations — allowing older members of his congregation to continue in aspects of Jewish life they have long found meaningful, while also reaching out to young people — as in his annual college-student get-together at Shaarey Tphiloh, when he invites Jewish students from colleges around Maine and New England to spend a weekend at the synagogue (and attend a hockey game with other congregation members, young and old).

Beyond his own community, Herzfeld is making a name for himself in the civic life of greater Portland. When Shaarey Tphiloh was vandalized by people who painted swastikas on the sign outside the building, he got in touch with a wide range of people — obviously the police, but also community organizations, and other religious groups — and held a rally to condemn hate as a way of responding to the incident. He's also willing to stop and chat when he sees people looking quizzically at his yarmulke, or is approached on the street to talk about Israel or Judaism. And he just gave an invocation at the NAACP breakfast for Martin Luther King Day.

"We try to be involved in every issue" where Jewish perspective can deepen people's understanding, he says. He has written and spoken publicly about issues that may seem far afield from traditional Jewish rabbinical studies, such as the problems with solitary confinement in Maine's prison system and security in the post-9/11 world.

"Jewish tradition and Jewish values have a lot to offer for people in Maine," he says, noting that one of the security issues he discussed was a report that an airplane passenger had become alarmed upon seeing a fellow passenger — a devout Jew, as it turned out — preparing for prayer by putting on tefillin, small boxes containing tiny copies of the Torah that are strapped to the arms and head during worship.

As governments and societies struggle with how to accommodate with such important and ancient traditions in the modern world, it's vital to remember that many people live those traditions daily. Into that conversation, Herzfeld injects a reasonable voice, not to mention a listening ear and an open mind. "I think our state has a lot to learn from diverse opinions," he says.


Business
It's kind of by accident that PHILIP RHINELANDER, owner of XPress Copy, has come by his influence. Once a musician and music teacher in Vermont, he relocated to Maine more than 30 years ago to open a copy shop on the advice (and the financial backing) of a friend.

"The first five employees were all musicians," he recalls, and he and they had "always felt the pinch of the nonprofits, of the musicians, of the arts groups." In the early years, XPress Copy helped them out by interrupting larger corporate jobs to do small reproduction pieces for art students and the like, making them feel taken care of. Rhinelander confesses to not seeing the benefit of this for a little while, but "within a few years, those art students were office managers" and making decisions about where their companies would get copies, enlargements, and other printing jobs done.

In the '80s, Rhinelander's growing firm gave people credit on their accounts for bringing in paper to be recycled, and even trademarked CleanPrint, an ammonia-free method for making blueprints.

And he always gave discounts to non-profits and arts groups. But it wasn't until the early 2000s that some friends and he hit upon the concept that has made XPress Copy's reputation in the arts and entertainment community around town. Bulk discounts are a given in reproduction, but what if they stopped viewing each organization as an individual? They adopted the idea that "if you're a non-profit, you're part of the biggest customer in Maine" and started giving even bigger discounts.

The program has grown — it has an official name (XPress Non-profit Program) and even a targeted-marketing brochure — and is now a sizeable percentage of the company's business, as well as a significant money-saver for countless non-profits and artists. It's now even serving sports booster clubs, an organization of Mayflower descendants, and pretty much any group that is "doing some good for people."

It's a clever arrangement, business-wise, because Rhinelander has structured the price sustainably: the discount is not so low that XPress Copy loses money — it's just enough to give a small profit that means he can keep expanding the service without worrying about hurting the company. Rather, as Rhinelander notes, "we've found our niche." Some of his most recent additions to the business have been inspired by asking — and answering — the question, "What do the non-profits really need?"

And it has been crucial for business overall, because, of course, pretty much everyone — including, importantly, people who make corporate copying decisions — is somehow involved in an organization that qualifies, whether as the parent of a kid who plays on a team, or a church, or some other community group. The discount gets them in Rhinelander's door, but the service and quality, he hopes, brings them back, with corporate accounts in tow.

Letters
The husband-and-wife team of TRISTAN GALLAGHER and MICHELLE SOULIERE could qualify for this category solely on the basis of creating amazing business names: "Fun Box Monster Emporium" and "Green Hand Bookshop" are not stores in JK Rowling or Roald Dahl books, but rather places exploring, from different angles, the fun, fantastic, pulpy, popular side of literacy.

Gallagher, drummer for Covered in Bees and frontman of Man-Witch, and co-founder of the We Hate T-shirts screen-printing company, also has five unpublished books (including illustrated books), some based on his Sam and Timmy zine.

Souliere, who used to work at the Portland Public Library and the University of Southern Maine, runs the Strange Maine blog and Gazette, and has a Strange Maine book in the works, too. She also runs a blog for her bookshop, and somehow manages to find time to work on the Portland Art Horde and any number of other projects she dreams up.

She reports that much of what she and Gallagher do comes from sentences that start with, "Wouldn't it be cool if . . ." and finish with some crazy scheme. For some of those plans, "it just happens."

Gallagher's latest project, the Fun Box Monster Emporium pop-culture trinket shop, has its beginnings in what he calls a "destructively stifling job" that he left to start the screen-printing company in some extra space in their apartment. But then they moved to a much smaller apartment.

"I had to find a place to put the stuff," Gallagher says wryly. He reinvigorated an old eBay business selling toys — which he had also stored around the place but had to relocate when they moved. Inspired by the crazy collective shops like the East Village's Toy Tokyo and Love Saves The Day (which recently moved to Pennsylvania), Gallagher decided to open a store like that here.

Like her husband's business, which shares space with Coast City Comics and lets each side benefit from the other's traffic, Souliere's effort, the Green Hand Bookshop, also pairs up with a complementary endeavor: Loren Coleman's International Cryptozoology Museum (which explains the giant Bigfoot figure in the front window of the store).

Her next idea is to hold events at the shop that are less directly related to books than typical bookstore events, such as a get-together where people use nice pens and nice paper to hand-write letters, encouraging people to focus on the written word.

And after that? Almost anything for Portland's busiest dreamers — who have a knack for turning their crazy concepts into reality. "We've just always been astonished by people being bored," Souliere says with a laugh.

Politics
Portland's police chief, JAMES CRAIG, arrived last May and wasted no time in telling us the often-unpleasant truths about life and crime in the Forest City. A transplant from Los Angeles with years of experience dealing with gang violence, drug-related crime, and people who can't get proper mental-health services, he has publicly announced that these and other problems exist in Portland, and asked for help dealing with them. That move removed the scales from many Portlanders' eyes and outright demanded that we look those and other challenges directly in the face.

But he's no "Media Mike" Chitwood — he's far less inflammatory, and much more thoughtful, than the last chief many Portlanders remember (the two in the interim were quiet, if not silent) — and he's not even close to declaring his efforts a success. "I'm optimistic," Craig will admit, but he knows there is a lot of ground yet to cover. He has more ideas, seemingly all the time, to help achieve these solutions, and, for a man whose career has been spent wearing a gun and carrying handcuffs, almost none of them involve arresting people or creating new laws. Rather, they're about drawing different groups of people — including immigrants and students, two groups that have traditionally had difficult dealings with the police — into discussions and activities with the police, sharing time together.

It is true that he has brought aspects of big-city policing to our small burg. Having seen how well Tasers can help defuse situations with distraught people, he introduced them, complete with a trial run and among the strictest guidelines in the country. It was not a slam-dunk proposal, but his moderate approach — including his insistence that no officer would carry a Taser without special training — quieted many potential critics long enough for the officers to demonstrate that they would not Taser people willy-nilly, as we might have feared from watching trigger-happy cops on television.

Craig brought in CompStat, a computerized tracking system that shows when and where crimes occur, and meetings at which he and other department leaders regularly review the information. It helps him decide where to allot resources, and gives the senior lead officers in each neighborhood (also a Craig idea) a real leg up in spotting trouble and stopping it before it gets out of hand.

He has announced that this year the department will focus on gangs, graffiti, and drugs, linking them not only to each other but to street robberies and car and home burglaries that dramatically increase people's fear of crime.

Which gets at the question that seems to be on Craig's mind all the time: Having assured himself that the department is working hard at keeping people safe, he wonders whether the public perception is changing: "Do people feel safer?" If not, he suggests, then the police have to work all the harder.

Look for upcoming efforts including expanding the Police Athletic League to non-sports activities for kids and teens (including possible a late-night cybercafe during the summer), and a play by Portland officers about relations between them and community members — inspired by a similar play put on for Craig and others by Portland High School students.

Press Releases: Protecting liberty

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Newspapers need to be stronger watchdogs about government attempts to intrude on individual rights.
Let's look at how five local newspapers (the three weeklies covering the city, and the two Portland-based dailies) covered a recent civil-liberties debate.

The South Portland Police Department purchased a car-mounted system that can take digital images of every license plate it passes (whether the cars are parked or moving) and compare them to an electronic database, immediately alerting officers if a nearby vehicle has been reported stolen or otherwise involved in a crime. The system will store all the images — not just those it alerts on — in a searchable electronic database for up to 30 days.

Proponents say the technology will help make people safer, by helping cops identify wanted cars instantaneously, and by allowing them to search through past records to find vehicles that were not flagged in real time, but are later being sought for some reason.

Opponents (including Democratic senator Dennis Damon of Hancock County, who has introduced a bill that would outlaw use of the system) say this kind of monitoring, and especially the storage of the data collected, amounts to excessive government surveillance, mostly of innocent citizens.

Most of the papers had the same basic information, but reading them all revealed useful information that reading any one would have failed to provide.

The CURRENT offered the most substantive coverage, including lengthy interviews with parties on all sides, and even sending a reporter to ride with police to observe the system — with a bonus for getting the cops to scan her license plate as a demonstration of what personal information would and would not be recorded or accessible to police. Nevertheless, the piece downplayed the police's desire to keep data on innocent drivers.

The PORTLAND DAILY SUN distilled the question most clearly and simply: whether the technology simply allows police to improve performance of a routine task, or whether it amounts to a massive new surveillance program. The paper also, in a quote, pointed out that people give massive amounts of personal information to corporations (such as Facebook), but did not note that they do so willingly, and that those corporations don't have the power to lock you up, as cops do.

The PORTLAND PRESS HERALD put out the first story on the issue, and explained it clearly, noting importantly — and exclusively, as it turned out — that the police want access to more data on cars and drivers, to expand their ability to do real-time searches.

The SOUTH PORTLAND SENTRY offered anemic coverage, quoting five people and a Web site. The story was published a week later than its competitors' versions, and omitted important facts that had been previously reported and that could be easily verified (such as the fact that a lawmaker the paper quoted supporting the system had initially co-sponsored the bill to outlaw it).

The SOUTHERN FORECASTER, despite being third to press (after the PPH and the Current), broke the news that Democratic senator Larry Bliss, who lives in South Portland and represents part of the city, had originally co-sponsored the bill banning the use of the system, but had seen a demonstration and reversed his position. However, it failed to capitalize on that scoop, allowing Bliss to explain his change of heart with vague platitudes rather than specific things he saw during the demo. ("I think people will be safer," the paper quotes him as saying, without detailing what he learned that changed his mind 180 degrees.)

Time to step up the skepticism, people.

(Two disclosures: I live in South Portland. And from 2001 to 2005, I worked for the Current, whose ownership remains the same but whose editorial staff is entirely different than when I was there.)

Not a modest proposal: The US Supreme Court has saved us from financial ruin

Published in the Portland Phoenix

There has been powerful criticism of the recent US Supreme Court ruling that corporations are truly people, and deserve all the rights people have, including the right to spend as much as they wish to support or oppose candidates in elections. But we should stop this sniping and thank the justices for their guidance: They have offered us a way out of this financial disaster we are in, with state spending plummeting, taxes rising, and an increasing federal debt load. Here's how it works:

-According to the recent Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission ruling, corporations are people.

-People can be charged with crimes. Let's use murder as an example.

-Corporation-people can be charged with murder (and not just negligence or wrongful death).

-When people are convicted of murder, they are typically imprisoned. (Though sometimes they're put to death, and other times involuntarily committed to mental institutions.)

-When a corporation-person is convicted of murder (it's only a matter of time before a smart prosecutor uses the bizarre logic of the Citizens United ruling to accomplish this) it will launch a new sub-specialty in the practice of law: Arguing about how to imprison a corporation. We can hardly lock up every employee, so who do you choose? The CEO? The board of directors?

-This is where we can learn from the Supreme Court's Citizens United logic: People have the right to speak without restriction from the government, and money equals speech, so corporation-people can spend unlimited amounts of money to directly influence elections.

-Following this argument, money equals freedom, so we should not bother arguing about whom to lock up when a corporation-person is convicted, but simply fine the company an amount appropriate for the crime committed.

-And now let's do as the Supreme Court did one more time, and take this logical progression to its logical conclusion, no matter how ridiculous it might sound: If corporation-people can pay fines in lieu of imprisonment, there's no reason people-people shouldn't be able to.

This presents us with the glorious situation that will extract us and our governments from this horrendous financial disaster. Not only can we abolish the prison system, which costs billions in taxpayer dollars every year (with little actual rehabilitation to show for it), but we can use the new revenue from all these criminals' fines to cover all sorts of wonderful programs, like schools, roads, and police officers.

Thanks, justices! Who would have thought that among all the people in Washington and around the country wringing their hands about the state of the economy, that you would turn out to be the geniuses who showed us the way?

Show Your Work: Nickelodeon to screen local flicks

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Eddy Bolz, a projectionist at the Nickelodeon Cinemas, wants local filmmakers to send him their feature-length movies for possible showing on the big screen.

He's shown a couple — David Camlin's documentary about the 48-Hour Music Festival, and Allen Baldwin's Up Up Down Down — and gotten good response, so now he reports the Nick's management have given him the green light to solicit more.

It won't be a regularly scheduled feature — "every two months roughly," Bolz reports — likely a double-showing on a Thursday evening, in the Nick's largest theater, which holds 220 people.

David Scott, whose family owns the Nickelodeon and affiliated cinemas around New England, says the company has in the past shared box-office proceeds with the filmmakers (or, as with last weekend's Maine African Film Festival screening of a movie about Haiti to benefit earthquake relief, donated all the money to charities).

We'll keep you posted as the films are scheduled. In the meantime, drop them off or mail them to Bolz at the Nickelodeon, 1 Temple Street, Portland ME 04101.

Mapping the Internet: Starting to clear Maine’s broadband backlog

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The biggest obstacle between Mainers and more, better, faster broadband Internet access (or, in many rural communities, anything better than dial-up) is actually a very basic one: there's a lack of information about what kind of Internet service is already available where. But $1.3 million in new federal money may help solve the problem.

The public has an interest in knowing as much as possible about the state's Internet infrastructure — where it is, how fast, who offers it — because of how much that information can affect the spending of tax dollars and economic-development efforts. It's almost a truism among business and state-government leaders that high-speed Internet access is key to saving what remains of Maine's economy. (For example, Democratic 

Governor John Baldacci said back in October, "As we work to grow Maine's economy and provide opportunities to our people, improved broadband access is critical.")

But big businesses like TimeWarner Cable and smaller ones like Maine Wireless in Waterville know where their own coverage areas are, but keep it to themselves as proprietary information that could help competitors.

Last year the state's ConnectME Authority began a two-part project to map the companies providing Internet access in Maine and the types of service they provide. The first part, worth $450,000, was to be paid for with state funds over three years beginning in September, with James Sewall Company, an Old Town-based mapping and engineering company, compiling a list of Maine providers, getting basic information from them, and updating the records every six months.

The second phase, which was contingent upon the $1.3 million in federal funds just awarded to ConnectME as part of the Obama administration's stimulus package, will expand the amount of data gathered and make the maps far more detailed.

The goal, according to ConnectME executive director Phil Lindley, is to get "granular data" on where Mainers do — and don't — have high-speed Internet access. The idea is that a person could come to a state Web site, enter their home address, find out what companies provide what types of service, and even connect directly to those companies to learn more details, such as monthly cost and installation fees.

Lindley's organization (he's the only staffer, but he has a board of advisers) is primarily focused on giving state money (collected from Internet and telephone users in their monthly bills) to projects that extend broadband services to areas presently without it. He doesn't have much money — over the past three years he has given out less than $3 million, and is accepting grant applications for roughly $1 million in new money to be given out later this year.

So far, he has been limited to areas where there's no doubt about a lack of Internet access. But as the work progresses, those areas shrink, and a map becomes more necessary to determine where future projects should receive public funding. (The authority is barred from funding projects that would be built independent of public money.)

He's not sure how much of the information the survey gathers will be public in the end — those companies are often quite secretive about the actual equipment and speeds they offer, not wanting competitors to know or guess their plans for the future.

No laws require the companies to cooperate — unless they receive federal funds to expand their own broadband operations. And federal and state laws and rules allow lots of protection of company data. "A lot of it's going to be moral suasion on my part," Lindley says. But apart from some basic questions about the rules for confidential and proprietary information, "we haven't gotten any pushback yet."

A key piece of information is about the actual speeds available to customers. While at the moment, state efforts are focusing on getting broadband to where people are still suffering with dial-up, at some point state efforts will need to boost broadband speeds too. (And there's no time like the present, in the wake of the latest Akamai "State of the Internet" report, which shows that other countries — even non-tech-mecca places like Romania and the Czech Republic! — are boosting broadband speeds far faster than the US, which actually saw speeds fall in 2009.)

Lindley is hoping to get very detailed information that will at least be available to state officials planning where to spend public money, even if it's not available to the wider public.

He expects preliminary results before summer, which will give a taste of how much Maine's 21st-century utility companies support openness. What info there is will be online at www.maine.gov/connectME.

Quake Response: Boston organization fighting good fight in Haiti

Published in the Portland Phoenix and the Boston Phoenix

Good news from Haiti: the catastrophic earthquake that struck this Caribbean nation last week did no damage to the 10 Haitian-run hospitals and clinics aided by the Boston-based charity Partners in Health (PiH). Each of the 10, which offer free care to all comers — and were founded by Paul Farmer of Harvard's medical school, in conjunction with Haiti's health ministry — swung into action immediately after the quake struck.

Bad news from Haiti: those clinics and hospitals, which are staffed almost entirely by Haitians, are in the rugged rural interior of the country, hours — and in some cases days, on rough roads and mountain paths — of travel from the hard-hit capital city of Port-au-Prince.

Even worse news from Haiti: conditions in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere are so terrible, and medical help so scarce, that quake victims, some with grievous injuries requiring amputation, have no choice but to make the difficult overland journey to the PiH centers.

"It's been a horrifying catastrophe," says Pulitzer Prize–winning author Tracy Kidder, whose 2003 best-selling book Mountains Beyond Mountains (Random House) introduced the world to the dauntless, tireless Farmer and his organization.

Many outlets offering relief and support to Haitians were headquartered in Port-au-Prince and were effectively decapitated by the January 12 quake, which struck just 16 miles west of the capital city and measured 7.0 on the Richter scale. But PiH, which employs more than 100 Haitian doctors and thousands of community health workers, is intact — its major hospital is in Cange, several hours northeast of Port-au-Prince.

In the aftermath of the earthquake, that hospital has expanded to make use of space in a neighboring church and a school. "There are patients all over the place," says Kidder of the reports he and PiH are getting from the clinics, adding that PIH is also striving to send medical workers to the urban-relief efforts even while handling the massive influx of new cases.

Kidder, who lives in Massachusetts and Maine, is adamant that Haiti needs not just relief money, but a societal change in which its people have more of a say in how the nation develops. He has argued that the international aid now pouring into one of the world's poorest countries be the start of a new chapter for Haiti, rather than just a temporary boon to assist with rescues.

Many people — worried about the looting and civil disorder in Haiti in the wake of the earthquake — are skeptical of giving aid and about Haiti's future, but Kidder asks, "how would New Yorkers, or any Americans, respond" in identical circumstances, with no food, shelter, water, and only the clothing on their backs — and with no certainty that loved ones were safe, or even alive?

The relief effort has also been hindered by the racism and religious intolerance of those like evangelist Pat Robertson, who blamed the tragedy on a "pact with the devil." Kidder's response to Robertson? "If there's an Antichrist, then he might be it. You can quote me on that."

Kidder remains hopeful about Haiti's future, but only so long as international support is both generous and concerned about the long term. He recalls the Haitian proverb that inspired the title of his book on Farmer, PiH, and Haiti: "Beyond mountains there are mountains." Haitians use this proverb in two ways, he says: "There is no end to obstacles — but there is no end to opportunities."

To make a donation to Partners in Health, visit http://www.pih.org/.

Good starts: Maine journalism shows some promising new lights

Published in the Portland Phoenix

It's a new year, and Maine journalism is worse for the battering it took in 2009. But there are some new lights appearing on the horizon that might just make things a little brighter.

The first is a new endeavor founded by yet another of those recently-unemployed daily-newspaper journalists, the MAINE CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEREST REPORTING, led by former Kennebec Journal/Morning Sentinel publisher John Christie.

From his first story, published last week, it appears Christie will be resurrecting a journalistic endeavor long missing from Maine's mainstream press: holding powerful people accountable for their actions.

The debut story was based on an age-old premise: money and personal connections drive politics. But exactly how that happens in Maine has been under-covered, thanks to pols' and journos' often-friendly relations (see "Our Journalism Echoes Our Politics," by Lance Tapley, August 3, 2009).

In a story posted online at PineTreeWatchdog.org and printed in the Bangor Daily News, the Lewiston Sun Journal, and two weekly papers in the midcoast, the Ellsworth American and the Mount Desert Islander, Christie made clear how Governor John Baldacci thanks his friends.

Specifically, people who raised money for Baldacci's political campaigns and have known him for many years can get special favors from him, even — indeed especially — in tough budget circumstances.

Christie fills his story with quotes from State House players asserting that, as we all know, politics is personal. And when Baldacci weakly protests claims that he made a political decision — carving out an exemption to a new sales-tax expansion — to help his friends and benefactors in the skiing and real-estate businesses, Christie not only quotes his anemic reply ("the facts don't bear it out") but shows those facts clearly, as they do bear out the very allegation Baldacci denies.

It is a bit sad to be singling out this effort. It is basic, straightforward, workaday journalism that should never have been missing from Maine's daily newspapers. It should not have taken a startup nonprofit to ask why the governor's demands were so specific, and limited to inside players. But it did, and we're glad it's back.

And while the Portland Press Herald and its sister papers are not publishing Christie's work (Christie was let go when Richard Connor took over the company), there are small signs of a NEW WATCHDOG MENTALITY at Maine's largest newspaper company, too. It's not just that Connor has added one more capitol reporter — which he has done.

Over the past week, the Press Herald newsroom has been on top of a small-potatoes story, but in a way that portends better government scrutiny than officials have been used to of late.

Starting on January 5, with a front-page story entitled "At Deering Oaks, That Familiar Sinking Feeling," the PPH has demonstrated an institutional memory many feared lost. That first story reported that a snowplow machine had sunk in Deering Oaks Pond the previous day. But it went much deeper, digging up PPH archive photos from three previous times Portland's public-works department had done the same thing, all the way back to 1987. Two days later, the paper reported that the estimate for fishing the Bobcat out of the pond was not the $500 city officials initially claimed, but rather $5000. One day after that, the paper reported that the city's policy for clearing snow from the pond requires the ice thickness be checked before the plow sets out, and quoted city sources saying that hadn't happened. It's not government waste or incompetence on a grand scale, but it's a beginning.

These are excellent signs, and we look to a bright future in which we learn who else is courting our governor (and the candidates to replace him), and the discipline meted out to whomever it was who violated Portland's snow-clearing policies and cost taxpayers $5000 they don't have.

50 ways to leave 2009: Get your New Year's Eve down to an Auld Lang science

Published in the Portland Phoenix
Your usual lackadaisical approach to New Year's Eve — just see what happens and go with the flow — is not going to cut it this year. Sure, the end of this decade may not have the same kind of new-millennium pressure as the last one, a year that sent you scurrying to your basement Y2K bunker or out on a Strange Days-like celebration of impending global collapse. But the plunge into 2010 is a milestone nonetheless. So to help you make this one count, we sent a team of future-thinking Predator drones all across the state of Maine, and a little ways down into Seacoast New Hampshire to sniff out any NYE happenings. We threw the results in our data centrifuge to spin out the good from the lame. And from that, we've distilled the 50 best goings-on, broken down by distance from Portland, from barely-off-the-couch to the Maine mountains, all the way to interstellar travel (we're not kidding!).
If you really can't be bothered to move for New Year's, stick tight to your computer and visit newyears.earthcam.com to see LIVE WEBCAM FEEDS of what everyone else is doing. Use that, and the party footage on www.newyearsnation.com, as motivation to get your butt in motion.
Don't get distracted by all the MUSICAL ACTS on TV: JLo and the Black Eyed Peas on ABC, Rihanna, Jay-Z, and Green Day on NBC, and American Idol-ists on FOX. Seriously, head out of your living room and see the world as a new decade begins.

Close by
For an early start without leaving the peninsula, stop by the PHYZGIG show at the Portland Performing Arts Center. Starting at 2 pm (there's another show at 7), clowns, jugglers, slapstick, music, and a general variety show will take over the stage. $18, $16 students & seniors, $14 under 13 | 25A Forest Ave, Portland | phyzgig.org | 207.854.0065
If you're anticipating more silliness later in the night and want to start with sweet, swing in to Aucocisco for one of the two FOFER SHOWS (at 3 and 7 pm), featuring artist, musician, and storyteller Shana Barry and her creations, the Maine-island-dwelling furball Fofers. 89 Exchange St, Portland | fofers.com

Fuel stop
It's going to be a long night, so take a break for sustenance (and be sure to call for reservations anywhere you go!). At PEPPERCLUB, there are two seatings (5:30 and 8:30 pm) with five courses of their scrumptious vegan/vegetarian/omnivore cooking for $35 (plus drinks). 78 Middle St, Portland | 207.772.0531
Just up the block at HUGO'S is a five-course meal of Chef Rob Evans's locavore-based cuisine for $75. 88 Middle St, Portland | 207.774.8538
VIGNOLA has a $48 prix-fixe upscale Italian menu with free prosecco at midnight. 10 Dana St, Portland | 207.772.1330
Portland's newest classy restaurant, GRACE, has a 6 pm seating for $70 per person for a five-course meal from their excellent menu. There's also an 8:30 pm seating but to that one you can add (for $20 per person) an after-dinner-party, complete with housemade chocolates, a champagne toast at midnight, and even a balloon drop! (Or get into the 10:30 "just the party" for $25.) 15 Chestnut St, Portland | 207.828.4422
Warm-up huts
Get the blood flowing with an Old Orchard BEACH BONFIRE and FIREWORKS DISPLAY, starting at 4:30 pm (fireworks at 5:30), and visit other local shops and restaurants, which will be open to try to convince you that OOB doesn't totally die in the winter. 207.653.8479
If you're less into gunpowder, maybe stop by the NEW YEAR'S EVE PEACE VIGIL with Seacoast Peace Response down in Portsmouth from 6 to 7 pm. Market Square, Portsmouth, NH | 603.664.2796
Portland's MUSEUM OF AFRICAN CULTURE will wake you up another way at 6:30 pm with a traditional ETHIOPIAN COFFEE CEREMONY, with stories and history to boot from the cradle of caffeination. 13 Brown St, Portland | $10 | 207.871.7188
If you want to try to double-up on the champagne toasts, start at the Stone Mountain Arts Center, where STEVE RILEY AND THE MAMOU PLAYBOYS will blast out some Cajun spice to keep things warm starting at 8:30. Get there for the 6:30 dinner (extra cost); everybody gets champagne at intermission, and you're still out in time to come back to town for more. 695 Dug Way, Brownfield | $39-99 | 866.227.6523

Musical interlude
Okay, so here's the run-down on live music, real quick-like:
At Blue is the Mark Tipton-Chris Sprague-Gary Gemmiti JAZZ TRIO from 7 to 8:30 pm. 650A Congress St, Portland | 207.774.4111
They wrap up there and move over to the Apohadion to take part in an 8-to-11-pm variety show including saw-fiddler Tim Findlan and OVER A CARDBOARD SEA, the Portland Saw Orchestra, ID M THEFT ABLE, and the Dolly Wagglers (an amazingly named puppet-show group from Vermont). Also, juggling, we're told? 107 Hanover St, Portland | $5 donation suggested | 207.450.8187
Andy's Old Port Pub will have letter-quality notes from THE A BAND. 94 Commercial St, Portland | 207.874.2639
Go to Bray's Brewpub to hear guitar-rocker PETE FINKLE. 678 Roosevelt Trail, Naples | 207.693.6806
Buck's Naked BBQ will play host to original-and-cover rock band GIRAFFE ATTACK. 568 Route 1, Freeport | 207.865.0600
Bull Feeney's has a double-bill: reggae from EAST WAVE RADIO upstairs and folk from DAVE ROWE downstairs. 375 Fore St, Portland | 207.773.7210
The Big Easy is home to a 9:30 pm SIDECAR RADIO show (with a live-concert DVD being filmed!), accompanied by Sandbag and Stationeightyfive. 55 Market St, Portland | $10 | 207.775.2266
Guess who shows up at Geno's? You got it: COVERED IN BEES arrive at 10 pm, well equipped with Designer Drugs, Murder Weapon, and Ghosthunter. 625 Congress St, Portland | $8 | 207.221.2382
And the mellow-pop stylings of RACHEL EFRON will be at Slainte at 9 pm. 24 Preble St, Portland | 207.828.0900
If it's some corny Maine laughs you're after, there's always BOB MARLEY, who does a pair of early shows (6:30 and 9 pm) at the Merrill Auditorium. 20 Myrtle St, Portland | $44 | 207.842.0800
He moves to the Comedy Connection for an 11 pm show ($35). Or you can check out his protégé, GEORGE HAMM, there at 8:30 pm for $20. 16 Custom House Wharf, Portland | 207.774.5554
  On the town
And now we're ready for the big-time parties. The top ten are these. Options include downscale, upscale, and outright ridiculous — but we'll let you figure out which is which by taking them in order of proximity to downtown Portland.
51 WHARF starts with a $15 two-dance-floor, two-DJ extravaganza offering champagne-bottle specials (no complimentary toast at midnight, though). Be warned: there will be a house photographer getting evidence (or alibis) to be posted online afterward. But they really they set the bar high with a $600 (well, $500 plus an 18-percent mandatory gratuity) VIP package, with "expedited VIP entrance," 10 tickets and passes to a Red Bull "VIP party," a private table in the middle of the dance floor on a raised platform(!), private security(!), "velvet rope service" (whatever that is), and a "private hostess," which we'll hope means just a dedicated waitress and not anything more... 51 Wharf St, Portland | 207.774.1151
Over at the OLD PORT TAVERN, there's a DJ dance party with drink specials and a champagne toast. Or go next door to the Mariner's Church for a $10 live rock show with Modus, with party favors and complimentary snacks and champagne. 11 Moulton St, Portland | 207.774.0444
ASYLUM has super-popular '80s cover band The Awesome upstairs at 9 pm, with a light show and a midnight champagne toast. 121 Center St, Portland | $20 | 207.772.8274
PORT CITY MUSIC HALL hosts a pop-rock night for the ages with perennial local faves Rustic Overtones as headliners, backed by Headstart, Gypsy Tailwind, and Gavin Castleton, with projections by VJ Foo. It's $25 at the door and $50 for a VIP ticket (which gets you reserved seating and access to another bar). 504 Congress St, Portland | 207.899.4990
Moving up the road a short piece, we arrive at SPACE GALLERY, whose $50 Icing party features another pop-rock, multi-media, DJ-folk-funk fest with Spencer and the School Spirit Mafia, Matt Rock and Kate Cox, Olas, Frank Turek, Bam Bam, and Pine Haven Collective — plus photos by Jonathan Donnell and videos by David Meiklejohn and David Camlin. 538 Congress St, Portland | 207.828.5600
Down at the EMPIRE DINE AND DANCE, Zach Jones and Kyle Gervais lead the ultimate Clash of the Titans — music of the '80s versus music of the '90s — at 9 pm. 575 Congress St, Portland | $12.50 | 207.879.8988
At BUBBA'S SULKY LOUNGE, DJ Jon hosts an ultra-'80s dance party, starting at 9 pm, complete with 99 Luftballons dropping at midnight, plus a champagne toast and party favors. 92 Portland St, Portland | $10 | 207.828.0549
Now, leaving town and heading a bit north, VENUE will host an 8 pm-to-midnight classic-rock show with Misspent Youth, with champagne and hors d'oeuvres included in the $25 cover ($40 for a couple). 5 Depot St, Freeport | 207.865.1780
South of town, the LANDING AT PINE POINT will have a world-cuisine party (Thai, French, and Caribbean tastes are on offer) with music from owner Jim Ciampi's band and — the main reason to stop by — a heated cigar tent! Starting at 8, apps, dinner, dessert, and champagne at midnight are all included in the $75 charge (or pay an extra $25 for a VIP private-dining experience). 353 Pine Point Rd, Scarborough | 207.774.4527
MAINESTREET cuts loose with a White-Out Party, at which all guests (preferably wearing black-and-white outfits) will get white LED lights upon entry, and every so often the house lights will go out! DJ Ken will spin, with free copies of his "Hits of the Decade" disc to early arrivals. And everyone gets a champagne toast. Doors are at 8 pm. 195 Main St, Ogunquit | $10 | 207.646.5101
Down the coast
If you're closer to Portsmouth, head down to First Night Portsmouth, where for $20 you can get into all kinds of venues and misadventures. There's a STREET DANCE running from 5 pm to midnight, with a Market Square countdown. Among the highlights are FIREWORKS at 7:30 pm at the South Mill Pond; WEST AFRICAN DRUMMING at the Connie Bean Center; DANCERS performing parts of The Nutcracker at the Great Bay Academy of Dance; the GENERIC THEATER'S READING of Thornton Wilder's one-act The Long Christmas Dinner at the Players' Ring; a BEATLES TRIBUTE BAND at Temple Israel; CHRISTMAS 1910, a Pontine Theatre performance based on South Berwick woman's memoir of a childhood Christmas in Portsmouth; and a THEATRICAL CELEBRATION OF THE NEW YEAR at the West End Studio Theatre. $20 includes all events | proportsmouth.org

Into the distance
For the multiculturalists, visit our neighbors to the north (and east!). Celebrate with Canadians by taking a ROAD TRIP TO EASTPORT for their cross-border party. Just make sure you don't get there late — local restaurants, shops, and galleries are open during the day and early evening. And even if you miss dinner in town, make sure you get there before 11. The locals drop both a large maple leaf and a sardine (in locally flavored tributes to the ball in Times Square), but the maple leaf goes at 11 pm for us here in Eastern Time, in deference to the Canucks, who are one hour ahead, on Atlantic Time. With a soundtrack provided by a brass quartet, the event is sure to freeze and please. tidesinstitute.org | 207.853.4047
Perhaps that's bit far. If you'd rather walk to your party than drive, head up to Carrabassett Valley and meander into the hills, to VISIT THE POPLAR STREAM FALLS HUT, run by Maine Huts and Trails. Beer and wine will be available on New Year's Eve, and with groomed trails for skiing and snowshoeing, home-cooked meals, and staff to wash your dishes, it's hard to imagine a Mainer New Year. $93 per person, dinner + breakfast included | mainehuts.org | 877.634.8824

Had enough of this year, and need to get away? See stuff that you can't see anywhere else at the Southworth Planetarium. INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL begins at 7 pm with "Black Holes," followed at 8 by "Extreme Planets" (looking for planets orbiting other stars), at 9 by "Eight Planets and Counting" (exploring our solar system), at 10:30 by "Ring World" (with close-up views of Saturn and its moons from the Cassini-Huygens robot mission), and end the night with the 11:15 showing of "Cosmic Collisions" (showing what happens when asteroids, comets, and even galaxies collide). A single admission gets you in to any and all of those shows. $6 | 96 Falmouth St, Portland | 207.780.4249

The aftermath
Still haven't had enough? Start the recovery at YOUR FAVORITE BRUNCH place. Lots of them are open their Sunday-brunch hours on New Year's Day, even though it's a Friday — your best bet is to call your top spot and see what they have to say.
And lest any of us forget, January 1 is also the first Friday of the month, which means the FIRST FRIDAY ART WALK will kick off at 5 pm. Make sure you've had a nap so you don't stagger into the exhibits. all over downtown Portland | firstfridayartwalk.com
And finally, head to Slainte for the HANGOVER BALL with indie-folker Sarah Wallis and Dover, New Hampshire-based soul family Moon Minion, starting at 9 pm. 24 Preble St, Portland | 207.828.0900
Now go home and sleep it off. You've got Saturday and Sunday still on the way!

Music Seen: Out on the town

Published in the Portland Phoenix

It was an impressive year in live music in Portland and Southern Maine in general. The party began with the Kino Proby homecoming show at the Big Easy, where Russian-speaking fans rocked out with folks who just loved a great time. There was February's 48-Hour Music Festival at SPACE Gallery, with impromptu bands showing off the amount of creativity Portland's musicians keep in reserve. Anthony's Idol at Anthony's Italian Kitchen highlighted Broadway talent, and Clashes of the Titans kept mixing up live and tribute performances,

Our writers covered karaoke with big talent (Christopher Gray wrote of DJ Annie's at Bentley's Saloon in Arundel, "many of the singers were fantastic. If you were outside . . . you'd swear you were listening to the radio"), with a live band (Kill The Karaoke at the Empire), and for the holidays (Christmas caroling at a Franciscan monastery in Kennebunkport).

We saw hip-hop legends (El-P, Brother Ali), hard-rockers (Ogre, Man-Witch), indie-folk (Christopher Teret, Neko Case), and many more.

Among the high points were Wilco on the Maine State Pier (which Chad Chamberlain said showed a model for Portland's up-and-coming bands to make it without losing their edge), Sufjan Stevens at Port City Music Hall, and a way to enjoy Portland's live-music scene on those evenings when you just can't make it out of your apartment (Sonya Tomlinson said the videos made by Nick Poulin and Krister Rollins at [dog] and [pony] — viewable at dogandponymusic.net — look deeper into the music than many get a chance to).

But let it be said that if watching videos online is how you experience Portland's music scene, you're missing out.

Press Releases: Crossing the line

Published in the Portland Phoenix

When an increasingly conservative newspaper company fires an already publicly conservative employee for apparently offending a liberal interest group, it leaves some people scratching their heads.

Larry Grard, a self-described Christian who told Fox News last week that he was "the lone conservative wolf" in the Morning Sentinel newsroom, was fired November 10 after 18 years at the paper.

Grard, amplified by coverage from Fox News and various Christian-right bloggers, is claiming he was fired for his conservative views opposing same-sex marriage, which in turn are based on his religious beliefs.

His paper and its sisters, the Portland Press Herald and the Kennebec Journal, editorialized in favor of same-sex marriage in November's election, with owner Richard Connor's support. But Connor's viewpoints are generally conservative: He endorsed John McCain in the November 2008 presidential election, and has opposed the public option as an obstacle to progress in the healthcare reform debate.

But Grard's offense was not that he upset the political apple cart. He himself says he was openly conservative in the newsroom for years. And his name is also listed on the Maine Marriage Alliance Web site as part of a group "coming together to amend the Maine Constitution to define marriage as the union of one woman and one man."

Rather, Grard knowingly crossed an ethical line, and is now upset at the consequences.

The morning of November 4, the day after Maine's same-sex marriage law was repealed, Grard arrived at work and found an e-mail message from the DC-based pro-gay Human Rights Campaign, quoting HRC president Joe Solmonese as saying "Although we lost our battle in Maine, we will not allow the lies and hate — the foundation on which our opponents built their campaign — to break our spirits."

Upset, he wrote a reply from his personal e-mail account (though on a company computer): "Who are the hateful, venom-spewing ones? Hint: not the yes on 1 crowd. You hateful people have been spreading nothing but vitriol since this campaign began. Good riddance!" Grard signaled that he knew he was crossing a line, by trying to make his e-mail message anonymous, by not signing his name or identifying his employer. But he either didn't realize or simply forgot that the message would include his name as the sender.

Trevor Thomas, the Human Rights Campaign employee who received the note, Googled Grard's name and then sent the message to Morning Sentinel editor Bill Thompson with a complaint — though not a demand for his firing or any other discipline, according to both Thomas and Kathy Munroe, administrative officer for the Portland Newspaper Guild, which represents Grard and most of the other employees at the company's papers.

Thompson fired Grard for "a serious breach of the legitimate employee and journalistic expectations of Company management," according to a two-page company statement on the matter. (Read the full statement at thePhoenix.com/AboutTown.) Munroe, who says Grard had no history of disciplinary problems, says the Guild offered, on Grard's behalf, to accept without objection a lesser disciplinary action for a first offense, such as a reprimand or a suspension without pay, but got nowhere.

The Guild has filed a grievance objecting to the firing on procedural grounds, but distances itself from claims of viewpoint discrimination. "We're not seeing this as pro-gay-marriage or anti-gay-marriage," Munroe says. "This is an internal contractual dispute."

But Connor is caught in a deeply ironic trap. Either Grard stays fired and conservative Connor is labeled anti-conservative, or Grard is reinstated and Connor thereby suggests that Grard was fired for his views — not his poor judgment about when, how, and to whom he expressed them. Whatever the outcome, it won't be a banner day for freedom of speech.

Hat tip to Al Diamon.

GNU and the free-software movement: You may not know it, but the free-software movement has changed your life

Published at thePhoenix.com

You use Firefox for Web browsing. You know it's a free Web browser that's safe, quick, and has all kinds of add-on modules (there are thousands of these — for chatting, bookmark management, social networking, image-processing, and even federal court-file browsing — at addons.mozilla.org). It has frequent updates to fix bugs, and every new version seems to find a new cool way to make the Web easier.

Thank Richard Stallman and the GNU project for all of those things. Apart from their programming skills, the genius of all their work is really the GNU General Public License (GPL), the legalese rubber where the free-software movement hits the intellectual-property-law road.

The GPL is one of several "copyleft" efforts, in which creators assert their copyright to something, but only for the purpose of ensuring that it — and any future works based on it — can always be distributed for free. (People can, and do occasionally, charge for their adaptations, but there's a disincentive: anyone who pays for it can, under the license, turn around and give it away for free themselves.)

It is legally different from placing a work in the "public domain," from which any person can take, repackage, and sell freely (that's how book publishers can reprint Shakespeare's plays, for example, and charge for copies). The GPL is a license to a user from a copyright holder, granting permission to use the material, but only under certain conditions (namely, free distribution of anything made with the material).

For example, while Firefox development is not coordinated by the GNU group, it uses some basic code that was first created by them. Programmers don't often want to bother creating the nuts and bolts — they want to make the machine. So they reach for the nuts and bolts, locate GNU-created free code, and find themselves in GPL-land, where all code is free, but all modification or adaptation of that code is also free. They are effectively enlisted in the free-software movement, even if their users don't know it.

Not all programmers want to start with GNU-created code (or something built on its foundations). Some actually do start from scratch and write all their own stuff. But the GPL is available to them, too — they just have to declare that.

It is the GPL that allows all of this — it is the key to the success, expansion, and future growth of the free-software movement. Courts in the US, Germany, and France have upheld the license's terms, requiring people who were charging for the software to stop doing so, and enabling out-of-court negotiations with companies that have also succeeded in affirming the GPL.

Many programs — even those on Windows or Mac platforms (against which Stallman rails) — are GPL-covered. The GPL is not only more widespread than GNU/Linux machines, but has the power to invade and co-opt those private platforms, making them more open over time, and showing developers and users alike the possibilities of open and free software.

Go to gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html for more information.

On the Ropes Dept.: Catching up with FairPoint’s decline

Published in the Portland Phoenix

We've been telling you for ages how bad the FairPoint deal was for residents of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. To avoid beating a nearly-dead horse, we've held off on reporting some things for a while, but it's time for a quick catch-up on several fronts.

Most importantly, after months of narrow escapes, FAIRPOINT FILED FOR BANKRUPTCY PROTECTION in late October, seeking a federal judge's permission to turn over most of its debt to its lenders and try to restructure itself out of the deep debt and operations troubles the North Carolina-based company is mired in.

That was after seeking $30 MILLION IN CONCESSIONS FROM UNION WORKERS in northern New England. (You may remember that way back when FairPoint was trying to close this deal, it promised to stick to Verizon's old contract, and state regulators believed them, despite union representatives' fears to the contrary.)

Shortly after the bankruptcy filing, several of FairPoint's biggest lenders asked the judge to appoint an investigator to determine, as the lenders argued in court filings, IF THE COMPANY'S DIRECTORS AND TOP EXECUTIVES WERE TRYING TO PROFIT PERSONALLY FROM THE BANKRUPTCY. The lenders also alleged that company officials were not completely honest about the company's financial prospects, and paid out millions in dividends to shareholders, and to a key vendor, depriving the company of cash that might have helped avoid bankruptcy.

Great Works Internet, the Biddeford-based Internet company that featured prominently in the opposition to the FairPoint-Verizon deal, has revealed that a dispute with FairPoint that began in the Verizon days threatens its business. Apparently, the companies never agreed on what price GWI should pay to Verizon for using certain types of Verizon-owned circuits for Internet traffic; now, unless GWI caves and forks over millions in alleged back payments, FAIRPOINT IS THREATENING TO CUT OFF GWI from portions of FairPoint's network. This is already in court, where, naturally, GWI is asking that FairPoint be barred from cutting off service until the matter is resolved.

FairPoint's requests for $38 MILLION IN FEDERAL STIMULUS MONEY to expand broadband connectivity in northern New England have RECEIVED STATE OFFICIALS' BLESSING in all three states (see "Here Comes the FairPoint Bailout," by Jeff Inglis, September 4).

Despite that prospect of additional cash (and because the bankruptcy filing has called the wisdom of such grants into question), FAIRPOINT HAS ADMITTED IT WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FULFILL THE BROADBAND-EXPANSION PROMISES it made, which were crucial to convincing state regulators to approve the deal, and has ASKED THE FEDERAL BANKRUPTCY JUDGE TO RULE THAT THOSE COMMITMENTS WERE NOT REALLY PROMISES AT ALL (though they carry the power of state law), but soft agreements that can be renegotiated. That almost certainly means delays in rolling out broadband — if FairPoint were going to meet its deadlines, it wouldn't be seeking the additional negative attention associated with breaking its word.

In mid-October, FairPoint announced it was HIRING 45 NEW CUSTOMER-SERVICE EMPLOYEES to be based in a Portland call center, in hopes of improving the company's disastrous service record, which has been criticized by customers, regulators, and lawmakers in all three northern New England states. The company claims it has created 400 new jobs in Maine, but has not drawn much attention to the fact that its business plan anticipated four percent of all workers, including new hires, leaving each year and not being replaced (see "No Raises — It Gets Better," by Jeff Inglis, November 20, 2007).

We can be sure things will get worse before they get better, largely because of the jurisdictional disputes that are almost certain to arise between a federal judge in New York City and regulators, lawmakers, and courts in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. If we had to make a prediction, it would be that this will end up before the United States Supreme Court before rural northern New England gets FairPoint's brand of broadband connectivity — which the rest of the country is already phasing out.

Press Releases: Campaign crash

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The single biggest factor contributing to the repeal of same-sex marriage in Maine was how pro-marriage forces used — or failed to use — the media to their advantage. The No On 1 campaign was experienced — the same groups, led mostly by the same people, won the Maine Won't Discriminate campaign in 2005. It was well funded, as it was four years ago. And again it was defending an existing law enacted by the Legislature and signed by the governor.

But as the campaign to save same-sex marriage from a California-style repeal wore on, it became more diffuse, less focused, and, ultimately, too negative to win.

At the beginning, the No On 1 message was clear and defined: this was about love, family, fairness, and equality.

But while that message stayed constant among the volunteers doing the calling and street work, the campaign's official statements and advertising strayed very far, giving the campaign a public persona that was not loving, warm, or open — but rather, at times, defensive, dismissive, and annoyed.

The Yes On 1 campaign claimed that "homosexual marriage will be taught in Maine schools" (which was loose code for "your kids will be taught gay sex"). But No On 1 did not produce any of the countless Maine teachers who would have said publicly that no matter the outcome of the election, they would always teach what they had always taught: that all students, and all families, have value, and that all people deserve love and understanding, no matter how different they are from us.

Rather, No On 1 got defensive and expressed "outrage" at the ridiculous claims, which — as polls showed — the public wasn't buying. No On 1 even aired TV ads — by far its most expensive and widest-reaching resource — attacking the Yes On 1 message and leadership. (Beyond confusing the point, it violated Rule 1 of campaigning: "If you're talking about them, you're losing.")

And after those ads started airing, the poll results shifted. After No On 1 validated those utterly false claims by repeating them, the fear-of-education message began to take hold. (That confirms Rule 2 of campaigning: "Message repetition is vital. It doesn't matter by whom.")

Some positive, hopeful, family-oriented ads from No On 1 also aired sporadically, embodying the best spirit of the No campaign — declaring that Maine is and should remain a tolerant, loving place where people do not discriminate. But the lack of focus on this core message meant it took time to sink into the public mind.

When it did, it was too late. With less than a week to go, the Yes On 1 campaign showed its first sign of weakness, even backpedaling. New ads promoted the state's domestic-partner registry (creation of which the Catholic Church, a Yes On 1 backer, had strenuously opposed), saying people could support "traditional marriage" and still protect people's civil rights. Those were admissions that the equality message was finally taking effect.

Imagine if the No campaign had spent all its money and time standing on principle, moving on offense: "Some people want to overturn a law that our Legislature passed and our governor signed. That law is an important one granting vital civil rights to a minority population who have been discriminated against for too long."

Even ads asking "What minority are you?" would have been amazing: "How would you feel if someone tried to deny you the right to marry, just because you're left-handed (or blue-eyed, or blond-haired)? You'd vote No too."

But ultimately, the No campaign was too slow, Yes didn't have to respond until too late, and the No campaign never unleashed the most devastating counterattack they had available: the "separate is not equal" message that very well could have carried the day in the state that Won't Discriminate.

Litigation Watch: Ex-USM staffers claim age discrimination

Published in the Portland Phoenix

In complaints filed with the University of Southern Maine's Office of Campus Diversity and Equity, a state legislator and five former colleagues allege they were discriminated against in a recent department restructuring because of their ages. The complainants' ages range between 56 and 63.

Chad Hansen, the attorney representing all six — including state senator Larry Bliss, the former director of the career services office — says while he is at "just the very beginning of the process," additional complaints have been filed through the USM employees' union, and filings are in the works with the Maine Human Rights Commission, a possible prelude to a settlement or lawsuits.

In the restructuring, which combined three departments tasked with helping students handle academics, plan for careers, and handle non-academic issues, eliminated 21 jobs and created 19 new ones — but left six of the new slots vacant — "all the older folks were let go; the younger folks were retained," Hansen says, which "totally stripped the system" of experienced people.

A big part of the problem for the complainants is the six positions left unfilled — "it's not as if they're saying, 'we had to make tough choices between good people,'" Hansen says. The university just simply didn't hire anyone for those positions, though they "hired back all of the younger folks," he says.

Messages left for Daryl McIlwain, associate director of Campus Diversity and Equity, were returned by USM's public affairs department. Spokesman Bob Caswell says three departments — one each handling academic advising, career counseling, and non-academic student needs — were merged into the Office of Student Success, in "one of the most significant reorganizations of an administrative structure ever undertaken here."

Caswell says the search was "open and fair" and found to be equitable by human-resources staff at USM and the wider University of Maine System, as well as by representatives of the employees' union.

While Caswell says the purpose was to improve student retention and graduation and "was never to save money," he did admit that the six unfilled positions were left "open for budgetary reasons." The university has faced budget crunches and student-retention problems for years.

"Advising has kind of been like a nightmare for me," says student Matt Dodge, describing requirements that students meet with advisors before registering for classes each semester, and frequent changes in who his advisor is.

Artist Statements: Recalling genocide

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Painter Stephen Koharian has international relations on his mind when he’s in his studio. Four of the works at his upcoming show at Portland’s Two Point Gallery are responses to the Armenian slaughter of 1915-23, in which 1.5 million Armenians (and a million more Assyrians and Greeks) were killed by the Ottoman Empire, and which Turkey has never acknowledged as a genocide. (Candidate Obama promised he would during the campaign, but President Obama upset Koharian and many other Armenian-Americans when, during an April visit to Turkey, he refused to use that word in front of his hosts.)

Koharian, a 27-year-old Portland native and Maine College of Art graduate whose great-grandparents escaped the genocide and came to the US, wants “Turkey to admit this,” and hopes to provoke more discussion with his art — including two pieces entitled “Turkishness.” One of them shows two skeletons, a mother and a child, in a dark environment alone. The other shows three figures in fezzes, one holding a chain leading to the neck of a skeleton lying at their feet.

“To insult Turkishness is illegal in Turkey,” Koharian says, by way of explaining the pieces’ names.

Some of the works are his own illustrations of survivors’ tales he has read in online archives or at the Armenian Library and Museum of America in Watertown, Massachusetts. Others are his own responses to what he has seen and heard and read on the subject. And many of the works that will be on display are not related to the Armenian genocide at all, but nevertheless depict what he calls “atrocities” — such as environmental destruction.

But beyond the depth of feeling in his conversation about the topic, and in his art, is his chilling choice of an artist statement. Quoting Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, it reads: “Our strength lies in our intensive attacks and our barbarity . . . After all, who today remembers the genocide of the Armenians?”

Legislate by Deed, Not by Breed: Breed-specific legislation and policies pose challenges to dog owners

Published in Downeast Dog News

As the city of Denver reassesses its 20-year-old ban on Pit Bull-type breeds, and begins to question its longstanding official assumption that all dogs of that type are hazardous to people, it’s worth remembering that some dogs are strong and may require particular skills to handle them better. But any dog, even a toy chihuahua, has the potential to be dangerous.

The opposite also holds true—any dog has the potential to be harmless and friendly.

In fact, the heart of the American Kennel Club’s guideline is “Legislate by deed, not by breed.” Rather than restricting certain types of dogs, this approach suggests examining each dog’s behavior individually and responding appropriately. While this may sound like common sense to a responsible dog owner, when motivated by fear and misconception, policy making organizations such as city councils, insurance companies or landlords often turn to breed bans.

Maine law does not specify breeds and even goes so far as to prevent cities and towns from enacting breed bans. It “took months” to devise that legislation, according to Heather Jackson, a dog owner and insurance agent from Augusta, who helped work on the bill more than a decade ago.

Authorities are allowed to deem a dog “dangerous,” and even seek a court order to euthanize it, if it seriously injures or kills a person, but exempts dogs defending their owners’ property, including vehicles, and farm dogs defending livestock. (See sidebar on page 10.)

Apparently, the law has worked pretty well. “No one has really wanted to mess with it since,” said Jackson. And the complaints that have come in have largely been handled without new legislation. One small change to the law was proposed in the most recent legislative session. It would have allowed authorities to classify a dog as “dangerous,” and even euthanize it, if it attacked not just people but domestic animals. The bill died in committee.

“I think we’re in pretty good shape here,” said Ken Marden of Whitefield, a former AKC president, who acts as an advisor to the Federation of Maine Dog Clubs, an umbrella organization for many dog-related interest groups in the state. However, the public perception of dangerous breeds and dangerous dogs, and how it plays out beyond government regulation, is not in such good shape.

“It can be a real problem” for dog owners to get insurance, said David Favre, a professor at Michigan State University School of Law and editor-in-chief of animallaw.info, a Web site that catalogues animal-related laws from around the country. Often, insurers are concerned with breeds, and not whether a dog is trained to defend territory or to cuddle with a newborn.

Some towns around the country require additional coverage for people who have dogs that have been classified as dangerous or that are specific breeds. But that doesn’t mean insurance companies will offer coverage, or that people will be able to afford it if it is available.

And some insurance companies will cancel their policies rather than insure particular types of dogs. “You have people losing insurance just because they have a Pit [Bull],” Favre said.

The AKC Web site does offer links to insurance companies that are not breed-specific, and Jackson said that her insurance company, State Farm, will even offer umbrella liability coverage for dogs with certain bite histories, although owners should be prepared to pay extra for it. Some states have laws preventing insurance companies from canceling insurance for homeowners on the basis of the breed of their dog. Maine considered that in 2005, but it failed.

Sometimes, however, if a tenant can get insurance, that may not be enough. Carlton Winslow, vice president of the Maine Apartment Owners and Managers Association, said that landlords run into insurance problems, too.

“The insurance companies have gotten tougher” over the last 10 years, according to Winslow. They may restrict landlords from renting to tenants with dogs (or specific breeds of dogs) or tenants who smoke. Even apartments with working fireplaces are now harder and more expensive to insure for landlords.

And then there are the landlord’s own policies. Winslow, for example, rents to dog owners only at his single-family properties and not in multi-unit housing. “In a house, the tenant is pretty much responsible for everything,” he said. Multi-family buildings have common areas, and neighbors are placed closer to each other, so there’s more opportunity for problems.

Plus, “some people take great care of their pets and other people do not,” said Winslow, a former dog owner. And housing-fairness laws make it hard to make decisions on a case-by-case basis without risking legal threats.

Other businesses, of course, can’t get by if they restrict dogs too tightly. Robin Bennett, a Virginia-based consultant for off-leash dog daycares and dog daycare section chair of the Pet Care Services Association, which rates daycares and kennels nationwide, said that daycares and kennels have to be more discerning, but they are prepared to make the necessary distinctions, because they are animal professionals, unlike insurance employees and landlords.

“Sociability,” a term Bennett uses to describe how much a dog expresses interest in humans or other dogs, is something that dog professionals look for. Bennett suggests that owners and trainers be aware of dogs’ warning signals, such as growling, that may signal stress, which can escalate to something more serious. Mostly, look for a dog that will engage with others, and has manners when greeting other dogs. Like many dog pros, Bennett is not a “big proponent of breed bans.”

Screenings for kennels can be less rigorous than those for playgroups, simply because kennels where dogs don’t mix just have to be sure its staff can handle a dog. A playgroup, because dogs mix more freely, requires a more careful screening, according to Bennett. But even then, it’s rarely “good dog, bad dog,” she said; rather it’s “good moment, bad moment.”

Unfortunately, that’s not how many in the public perceive things, which is where lawmakers get caught up in the idea of breed bans. Favre said that there is no evidence to show that any of these kinds of laws, whether breed-specific or not, have actually reduced dog bites.

In fact, Denver’s dog-bite numbers “are not down,” despite the draconian law there, according to Marcy Setter, owner and founder of Understanda-Bull in Massachusetts, who added that most bites in Denver are from German Shepherds, which are not covered in the city’s breed ban.

All the research shows “it’s an owner issue, it’s not a breed issue,” Setter said. “No specific breed is any more dangerous than any other.” Citing an average of 21 dog-bite fatalities annually in the United States, Setter said that there are many other more serious causes of widespread injury, such as walking down the street, and driving. She also said that while parents of newborns often are sent home from the hospital with piles and piles of material detailing how to keep the baby safe, there is almost never any information on dog safety, whether there is a dog in the home or not.

And that may, in the end, be a key issue. “Without understanding basic canine behavior, people immediately think ‘these dogs are aggressive,’” Setter said.


Definition of a “Dangerous Dog” under Maine Law
“Dangerous dog,” under Maine Law, means a dog that bites an individual or a domesticated animal that is not trespassing on the dog owner’s or keeper’s premises at the time of the bite, or a dog that causes a reasonable and prudent person who is not on the dog owner’s or keeper’s premises and is acting in a reasonable and nonaggressive manner to fear imminent bodily injury by assaulting or threatening to assault that individual or individual’s domestic animal.

“Dangerous dog” does not include a dog certified by the state and used for law enforcement use. “Dangerous dog” does not include a dog that bites or threatens to assault an individual who is on the dog owner’s or keeper’s premises if the dog has no prior history of assault and was provoked by the individual immediately prior to the bite or threatened assault.

For the purposes of this definition, “dog owner’s or keeper’s premises” means the residence or residences, including buildings and land and motor vehicles, belonging to the owner or keeper of the dog.

The waiting game Congress is making progress. We think.

Published in the Portland Phoenix

We know, we know: Last week, Olympia Snowe made history by being the only Republican in 2009 to vote for any sort of healthcare reform, even in committee-level draft language far from its final form. And after she made her “when history calls, history calls” remark, fellow non-nutjob Republican senator Susan Collins decided she might be hearing things as well.

Snowe, of course, voted for the healthcare-reform bill being discussed in the Senate Finance Committee, parting ranks with her fellow Republicans in that group, and defying those GOPers who threatened to deny her a senior post on the Senate Commerce Committee if she approved of the plan. The Finance Committee’s bill, the last of five proposals to make it through a congressional committee, has been roundly criticized by conservatives as being too expensive, by liberals as not making care affordable (and giving hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to insurance companies), and even by Snowe herself for being “far from” what she wants to see in a reform package.

Nevertheless, she has been lauded around the country for the move, which definitely put her in the “independent Republican” category — if it didn’t strike “Republican” from her affiliation entirely.
And she has left herself more than enough wiggle room for voting for or against future revised proposals, saying in the committee meeting, “My vote today is my vote today. It doesn’t forecast what my vote will be tomorrow.”

Snowe has repeatedly objected to plans that include at their outset a “public option,” most frequently envisioned as a Medicare-like program for people of all ages, to compete with insurance companies’ plans. Public-option proponents say it is the best way to bring down insurance rates and improve coverage and service.

But she is not ruling such a plan out entirely; she has advocated for a “trigger,” in which a public option would be created if certain affordability and coverage targets were not met through the private market alone. (She told Charlie Rose last week that she wants to see what the market does with the restrictions and reforms the bill would put in place first.)

But she also made a clear declaration of principle: “The status-quo approach has produced one glaring common denominator, that is that we have a problem that is growing worse, not better,” she said in the meeting.

Collins may have heard the call, too, signaling in interviews after the Finance Committee’s vote that she too might be open to some form of healthcare reform. However, a statement by her office was almost completely critical of the Finance Committee’s bill, saying it stifles job creation and does little to control costs; it also completely dismissed the Senate Health Committee’s bill and the three House bills that need to be combined. And Collins has repeatedly opposed any form of public option.

If Collins is willing to go along with some version of reform, that might give the Democrats enough votes in the Senate to get something passed, but certain terms will likely be dictated by Snowe, who is the only Republican still at the negotiating table. While congressional Democrats spent the weekend saying they weren’t going to “cater” to her needs in drafting the final bill, Snowe is in a powerful position, and the actual picture that develops as the five committees try to combine their divergent bills (the other four do include a public option) will definitely have a great deal to do with her.

But until there is a bill passed — and anything that passes will take years to have full effect — we are still waiting. 

Press Releases: Numbers game

Published in the Portland Phoenix

If you take a close look at the latest polls, you will find that supporters and opponents of November's same-sex marriage referendum question are locked in a neck-and-neck battle. The state's major media outlets, however, did not report the news this way. In fact, they got it backward. Here are some samples:

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD "A new poll shows an edge for supporters of same-sex marriage in Maine's Nov. 3 referendum, with 51.8 percent of those surveyed saying they plan to vote to uphold the law legalizing it and 42.9 percent planning to vote for repeal."

BANGOR DAILY NEWS "The results of a new poll released Wednesday show growing support among voters for Maine's gay marriage law."

LEWISTON SUN JOURNAL "Mainers planning to vote on Election Day favor keeping Maine's law allowing same-sex marriage."

WGME "A slight majority of Mainers support same sex marriage."

MPBN "A majority of Mainers in a new poll say they're ready to uphold the state's new gay-marriage law by voting 'no' on the people's-veto referendum question."

At first glance, they'd all appear to be right. The poll itself, by Pan Atlantic SMS Group in Portland, says 40.9 percent of people surveyed said they would vote to repeal the new same-sex marriage law; 2 percent said they were leaning toward repeal the law; 50.6 percent said they would uphold the law; 1.2 percent said they were leaning toward upholding it; 5.2 percent said they were undecided.

The total of all those wanting to repeal the law is 42.9 percent, and those who would uphold it is 51.8 percent.

The key fact, though, is the survey's margin of error, plus-or-minus 4.9 percent. All of the news outlets reported it, but failed to accurately describe what it means: it's a statistical dead heat.

If you take the numbers for people saying they plan to vote a particular way, those in favor of the law are between 45.7 and 55.5 percent of the likely voters; those desiring repeal are between 36 and 45.8 percent.

That 0.1 percent overlap is bad enough, but when adding the "leaning" voters in to each category, the media outlets failed to recognize that the dead heat actually gets closer: voters plus leaners favoring the law are between 38 and 47.8 percent of the population; voters plus leaners for repeal are between 46.9 and 56.7 percent of likely Maine voters -- an overlap of 0.9 percent.

Now you see: It is quite possible that the poll has found more people wanting to repeal the law than supporting it.

And it actually gets worse. Patrick Murphy, Pan Atlantic's president, says it is a nationally accepted fact among pollsters that surveys unavoidably under-report the number of people who oppose same-sex marriage. The reason is that people who oppose it fear being thought of poorly by the person interviewing them, and so they answer that they will support it. But when it comes to actually voting, they vote the way they feel, not the way they said they would. (Pollsters call this the "Bradley effect," after an African-American man who led in the polls but lost to a white man in the 1982 California gubernatorial election.)

And while many pro-marriage young people may be landline-less and therefore left out of the survey, Murphy says the 18-to-34 age group was properly represented in the survey, and studies have shown that young people with landlines are not statistically different from young people who have only cell phones.

All of this gets us to a position that is radically different from what the mainstream media told you. The real story should have been: A new poll shows voters who oppose same-sex marriage outnumber supporters in Maine. While the results themselves show a statistical dead heat, survey experts know that opponents are often under-counted because of unavoidable imperfections in the polling process.

Gatherings: Join the Scooter Rally!

Published in the Portland Phoenix

If your current ride is a bit too motorized for Critical Mass, but still not loud enough for Laconia's Bike Week, don't miss Monday's scooter rally, starting at noon at the East End Beach parking lot in Portland.

Phuc Tran, local tattoo artist and scooter-souper, has been flyering scooters around town for a couple weeks now, trying to get a group of "like-minded scooter riders" together. Tran and about 10 or so others went on regular rides together over the summer, and now they want more company.

It'll work better if people bring vehicles with engines at or below 150 cc, because bigger ones make it hard for the smaller types to keep up, Tran says. (Apparently, alternative transportation does have its limits.)

"I think scooter/moped riders are a self-selecting group," he says, and hopes to meet more people who are actively "choosing to ride a scooter" rather than a bike or a motorcycle. If the group is large enough, it might spawn a future ride to benefit a local charity.

"Hopefully the weather will hold out," Tran says, adding that he's not sure what route the group will take, but is coming up with something he hopes people will enjoy.

Scooter Rally | October 12 @ noon | East End Beach parking lot, Portland | Free 

Protestors vs. Police: Anarchists claim victory in G-20 marches

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Safely home after protesting for two full days, and being among the first American civilians ever attacked with a sonic cannon, two Portlanders are calling their efforts a success.

Wearing black T-shirts reading "The G-20 is full of jagoffs" (a common Pittsburgh insult, apparently), Paul McCarrier and fellow Portlander Jordan (whose last name we are withholding) recounted their experiences in the Phoenix office on Monday, just hours after returning home (see "Protestors Head to the G-20 Summit," by Jeff Inglis, September 25).

During an unpermitted march on September 24, police used a sonic cannon (technically known as a Long-Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD) in an attempt to disperse 1500 or so marchers protesting against capitalism and G-20 policies they say harm the world's people. A high-volume combination of high and low pitches, the sound made McCarrier "sick to my stomach and weak" when it was directed at where he was standing. Jordan, who was not targeted directly, says the low frequencies bounced off buildings and echoed throughout the area. "You can feel it in your skull, rattling your eardrums around," he says. (Hear a sample of the sound, recorded by McCarrier, at thePhoenix.com/AboutTown.)

But both pronounced the device a failure, because it did not break up the march. Police also used rubber bullets and pepper gas (a vaporized form of pepper spray).

While police were eventually able to split up the march, protestors regrouped a short while later and continued on their way, according to news reports from Pittsburgh. "It was empowering," McCarrier says of his realization that a group of unarmed protestors was able to stay on the streets in the face of overwhelming police strength. (And in the face of emergency ordinances that allowed people to openly carry assault rifles but not gas masks or PVC pipe.)

They were able to do so, McCarrier says, by being collaboratively organized and by using technology, such as Twitter and text messages, similarly to how Iranian protestors communicated back in June.

The following day, protestors also succeeded at keeping the streets, even as violence flared. It began peacefully enough, with Buddhist monks and others marching to protest the harsh military junta ruling Burma. Even that group was surrounded by armed riot police, to intimidate "anyone who wants to even be associated with any sort of dissent or protest," McCarrier says.

Later in the day someone broke a window at a BMW dealership, and that likely provoked a startling move, caught on a bystander's video camera: Military personnel clad in camouflage snatched a protestor off the street in broad daylight, stuffed him (without bothering to search or handcuff him) into the back of an unmarked car, and sped away.

"They probably did that to scare the shit out of people," McCarrier says. "It was after that that people started throwing rocks at the cops."

"We stretched them thin," says Jordan, noting that on Friday night, police radios carried messages indicating vehicles had run out of fuel and officers' radios' batteries were running low. At one point, dispatchers announced that cops were no longer responding to calls throughout most of the city, to be able to focus on activities in the university area. There, police surrounded dormitories and fired pepper gas through the hallways and into the courtyards.

McCarrier says police also fired pepper balls, which the Boston police stopped using in 2004 after one killed a 21-year-old college student celebrating the Red Sox clinching the American League pennant.

A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter covering the protest and police response was arrested, according to the paper's report, which described police surrounding a group, ordering the people to disperse but giving no route for them to do so, and following them even when they tried to leave.

But despite the difficulties, "the anarchists won," McCarrier says, basing his claim on the fact that marchers were in the streets for more than 12 hours on both September 24 and 25. Police spent an estimated $32 million on security and equipment for the weekend, which amounts to roughly $16,000 per protestor. McCarrier and Jordan say that money could have been much better spent helping the people who live in Pittsburgh and building up community organizations.

They are both looking forward to future opportunities to exercise their "rights to freedom of speech and assembly," and wondering what the police will do differently next time.