Literati: So you thought you were special

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Reading Hannah Holmes's work is enlightening and entertaining — even when it's at its most depressing. And that is how the South Portlander's latest book, Quirk, starts. The intro smacks you with it: There is no "divine spark" that makes humans more special than other animals. Mice, which are as much a subject of the book as people, can be bred to have any of the behavior variations that we call "personality." Holmes goes for the jugular: "Personality isn't personal. It's biological," she writes. There is no "nature-versus-nurture" debate — 90 percent of what we think makes each of us unique is, in fact, embedded in our genes.

When you're done crawling under your rock, though, if you've managed to bring her book with you, it's a real treat to learn exactly how similar we are to cuddly, furry mammals — and cold, slimy reptiles — after all. But Holmes disputes the idea that we're being somehow demoted. Rather, she argues, animals are being promoted to the level of wonder we people have previously reserved for ourselves. (It's not just animals, either — Holmes is presently working on an article about the personality of bacteria.)

It turns out that's the only way we've managed to survive — and it may be the only way anything survives. "Every living thing contends with an unstable environment," the energetic, affable Holmes says over coffee. "The world is too chaotic for one personality type to be adequate for every situation, every challenge."

As a result, you're in luck: "for the most obnoxious person you can think of, there is a role in this world," she says cheerfully. For Holmes, these discoveries, laid out in her clear, smooth, amusingly self-aware prose, are "liberating," because they give us more to appreciate about the world as a whole. "We love what we love and there's no arguing it," she says, noting that no matter who we love, we have to get along with the wider group to stay alive in a world of threats, limited resources, and changing surroundings.

And at the end of the day, what we really have to do is behave as if personality is just like the color of our eyes, hair, or skin — something we're each born with, that we didn't choose and can't really change. So we're better off quitting sniping, and just getting along.

Hannah Holmes | reads from Quirk | February 23 @ 7 pm | Nonesuch Books, 50 Market St, South Portland | February 26 @ 2 pm | Bull Moose, 456 Payne Rd, Scarborough | March 2 @ noon | Portland Public Library, 5 Monument Square, Portland | March 8 @ 7 pm | RiverRun Bookstore, 20 Congress St, Portsmouth NH | March 10 @ 7 pm | Longfellow Books, Monument Way, Portland | hannahholmes.net

Gubernatorial scorecard: LePage’s numbers

Published in the Portland Phoenix

This week, we introduce a regular feature, Gubernatorial Scorecard. We'll evaluate Governor Paul LePage's recent moves. We'll score him from 1 to 10 on his political savvy, and on whether what he's trying to do is good policy, and keep a running total. This first marking period, LePage got 43 out of 100 possible points. For a minority governor who garnered only 38 percent of the vote, that might not be too bad.

RACE RELATIONS | LePage has rhetorically run roughshod over the state's minuscule but vocal population of African Americans — it will be a long time before anyone forgets his "kiss my butt" moment with the NAACP.
POLITICS • Making enemies unnecessarily | 3/10 POLICY • Anti-equality | 1/10

BUSINESS RELATIONS | LePage has made no secret of the fact that he's going to be a pro-business, pro-industry governor. That includes courting wealthy out-of-state interests (many of which bankrolled his election campaign). He has promoted business-centric industry insiders to every cabinet post yet announced, and proposed environmental-protection rollbacks that please the chemical industry.
POLITICS • Doing exactly what he said he would | 4/10 POLICY • A scorched-earth job-creation effort | 4/10

MEDIA RELATIONS | LePage made a joke out of a claim he doesn't read newspapers. He has previously said he doesn't care about editorials.
POLITICS • Good play to his base, but overlooks that supporters too can use the media | 7/10 POLICY • Palin-like wilful ignorance is silly | 1/10

FEDERAL RELATIONS | For a guy who said he would tell President Obama to "go to hell," he's certainly asking for a lot of federal money, including disaster-relief funding that could give four Maine counties more than $1 million in federal cash to recover from December flooding.
POLITICS • Mixed message: Sensible people will applaud but rabid Tea Partiers might be disappointed | 7/10 POLICY • More help cleaning up rural Maine is always welcome | 10/10

EMPLOYEE RELATIONS | LePage has complained that some people he approached with offers of government positions declined because the pay cuts to move from the private to the public sector would have been too steep.
POLITICS • Not getting who you need could have consequences down the road | 3/10 POLICY • A pre-emptive defense that the best people won't serve? | 3/10

Running total | Politics 24/50 | Policy 19/50

Press releases: Talk time

Published in the Portland Phoenix


The state's largest newspaper company is about to negotiate its contract with its employees. With workers seeking a share of the company's newfound profitability, and owner Richard Connor striving mightily to stay in the black, this could go very smoothly, or be a bloody, destructive battle — with the quality of information available to Mainers hanging in the balance.

Let's start with the basics. When Connor bought the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, Kennebec Journal, and Central Maine Morning Sentinel in 2009, he did so with the help of the local chapter of the Newspaper Guild (part of the Communications Workers of America union).

To make the sale work, Connor not only laid off 100 people (a quarter of the company's unionized workers), but gave those who remained a 10-percent pay cut (under an agreement expiring June 30) and terminated company contributions to retirement funds. In exchange, the workers created an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, under which collectively the employees would own 15 percent of the company's value, in accounts that can be tapped for income upon retirement.

With the 15-percent stake, the papers' employees are the largest shareholder in Maine, according to Tom Bell, president of the local guild chapter and a staff writer at the Press Herald. (Larger shares of the company, he says, are held out-of-state by investors affiliated with the Texas-based HM Capital investment firm.)

Since taking over, Connor has announced that all three papers are profitable. Bell says the employees want to see some of the profits of the streamlined company.

"Our members' expectations are pretty high," Bell says. "We make 10 percent less . . . and our health-care costs are higher." (The company still pays 80 percent of employees' premiums, but co-pays and deductibles have increased, Bell says.)

In case there's any doubt, he clarifies: "The papers' finances have stabilized, and we'll be looking for raises" to make up the lost cost-of-living ground.

It's an unclear proposition, even in a company that looks stronger on paper than it was two years ago. Connor has sold off significant real-estate holdings (including the landmark building in Portland), but the proceeds have largely gone to pay down debt incurred in buying the papers. It's unclear how much of the company's profitability is due to an increase in revenue, as opposed to cost-cutting measures. That may mean that despite the lower debt load, there is no more operating cash than there has been.

Connor's not talking — he didn't return multiple requests for an interview for this piece, and Bell says he "had expected by now to have met with the company," but neither the union nor the company has yet asked the other to come to the table for a discussion.

• For those enjoying the spectacle that Governor Paul LePage and the Republican leadership in the State House have been creating, an excellent resource has been MAINEBIZ, the state's twice-monthly business newspaper. Most of its material, whether online, in print, or e-mailed to readers, has been culled from other media (with links and attribution). And that has its own usefulness. But when doing its own reporting, the publication has the sterling reputation and strong business-community connections to allow it to ferret out what really is — and isn't — affecting Maine businesses' efforts at job-creation. Since the LePage inauguration, Mainebiz has put out only two print editions, so a lot remains to be seen. But if the paper can separate itself from the business community enough to clearly discern what is partisan rhetoric claiming to be pro-business, and what is really something that would help Maine businesses and residents, Mainebiz will be a must-read.

Music Seen: Marie Moreshead + Ellen Tipper at Blue, January 28

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The dual CD-release party for Ellen Tipper's The Juggler and Marie Moreshead's self-titled full-length album was a stripped-down affair, which was a relief because Blue was packed to the gills.

Tipper opened with her keyboard folk, playing several songs based on her experiences spending time in other countries (Vietnam and England among them). She proved a mellow mood-setter for Moreshead's soulful guitar-based ballads.

The pair of duets they sang — one from each's album — showed the stylistic contrast between the two. When backing Tipper's song, Moreshead seemed to handle the literal story-telling lyrics awkwardly, as if missing the metaphors that season her work so richly. When playing Moreshead, Tipper's fingers flowed more smoothly than when her keyboard was center stage.

Despite a few technical problems (ably handled by semi-official roadie Pat and honorary roadie Drew), Moreshead's performance was strong and smooth, and well received by the standing-room-only house. (Her first show at Blue, a few years back, was in front of her mother and just one other person, Moreshead announced.)

Her words are often happy, but then laid over spare, sad melodies. In some ways it's an inversion of the work of 10,000 Maniacs, which told horrific stories in catchy riffs. And the deep, twangy edge in Moreshead's vocals also evokes Natalie Merchant (with perhaps a sprinkling of Erin McKeown). But whether set up that way or aligned on a single emotional axis, as in "Romans" and the brand-new "Secrets of the Bluebird," her songs really shone.

Out of the woodwork: John Birch Society alive and confused in Maine

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The Maine arm of the John Birch Society, founded in 1958 to combat communist influence in government, visited the State House in Augusta last week, calling for legislators to, well, do nothing, as it turns out.

But that's not how it started. On January 20, the local Birchers joined a nationwide effort asking state legislators to rescind longstanding legislative calls for a federal constitutional convention. At various times state legislatures have raised issues with the US Constitution by passing resolutions asking Congress for a constitutional convention to address them, such as in the early 20th century when many states called for direct election of senators, legalized in the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913.

Patricia Truman of Hallowell, who has been a JBS member since 1964 and is a longtime local-chapter leader of the society here in Maine, was unclear when asked by the Phoenix about what requests Maine has made, but she was sure she wanted lawmakers to rescind them anyway, fearing that revisiting the Constitution could result in reversal of important protections now enshrined there.

Mike Hein, a John Birch Society member and publicist who is a former spokesman for the Christian Civic League of Maine, a right-wing advocacy group, issued a statement claiming Maine has four outstanding calls for a convention. He later specified three, adding that he had "heard from others" of a fourth. First on Hein's list was Maine's 1911 call for direct election of senators, which is no longer outstanding because that request passed as the 17th Amendment in 1913. Second was a 1941 call for repeal of the 16th Amendment (which allows a federal income tax). Third on his list (with a specific Congressional Record citation of "CR 099, page 04434"), is not a new call for a convention, but rather a 1953 resolution rescinding the 1941 repeal request. Which leaves no active calls to be rescinded by Maine lawmakers.

Birchers have a long history of ill-informed beliefs about government. They considered President Dwight Eisenhower a communist, and objected to his policies; they also opposed the civil-rights movement in the 1960s on the conspiracy-theorist grounds that the movement's leaders were, or were influenced by, communists. (Conservative icons Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, and William F. Buckley repudiated those claims and made clear that Birchers are on the extreme right wing of the right-wing movement.)

And that string continues. Truman claimed that during her visit to Augusta she learned of a call she said was proposed by Seth Berry, a Maine House Democrat representing Bowdoin and Bowdoinham: "He wanted our state to call for ConCon," she said. "I just know that Representative Berry does want to have the state call a ConCon," and insisted Berry's move related to the US Constitution and not the state's, she said.

But she's wrong. When reached on his cell phone, Berry said he had indeed proposed a convention, but to discuss the state constitution, saying anyone who thought otherwise "probably should have called me before they assumed that."