Visit Maine Air Museum
On Aug. 28, the Bangor Living Innovations Community Connections group had the privilege of spending our morning at the Maine Air Museum.
The museum is a nonprofit, educational institution located right beside the Bangor International Airport. Their primary focus is to preserve the state of Maine’s aviation heritage. From jet engines to link trainers, the museum has an impressive amount of displays that would be enjoyable for anyone in the Bangor community to see.
Our tour guide, Hank Marois, took us through all of the displays and was more than happy to answer any questions that we had. We walked away with new knowledge about aviation, and it was an awesome experience. We strongly encourage the residents of Bangor to support our town’s history and to pay a visit to the museum.
Heather Bacon
Milford
Women’s health
I have lived in Sangerville for the last 38 years and in that time there have been nearly 50 million abortions and I have noticed that everyone who is for abortion has been born, and those who call themselves “pro choice” stand for “nothing.”
Those who think women should have access to abortion and the birth control pill should change their mind after reading that in the early 1990s there were 26 major university and hospital studies published in the scientific and medical journals, not only establishing strong links between abortion and breast cancer, but also between breast cancer and oral contraceptives.
In the April 6, 1994 issue of the journal of the National Cancer Institute, for example, research showed that women on the pill for 10 years were 70 times more at risk of contracting breast cancer than those never using the pill.
How much money do you think the pharmaceutical and abortion industry make? Think about it. Is it women’s health they care about or is it the money?
Out of the 50 million abortions, do you think there could have been several men or women who could have found a cure for the many diseases that men, women and children die of at a very young age?
Joseph Rittano Sr.
Sangerville
Angus will build bridges
Having voted for the “person” rather than the “party” in the last 12 major elections, I have been especially troubled by the “party-certainty” and vitriol spewing forth from Washington.
Now Mainers have a chance to raise the level of dialogue in Washington by voting for independent Angus King for senator. Many of us remember his excellent work as our governor and his self-sacrificing approach to our needs. However, that is only part of why I support King. My major reason for voting for him lies in his strong support of family values coupled with education of our children.
To illustrate my point, when King was governor, I happened to attend a few post conference dinners at which he was a featured speaker. On many occasions, he asked if he could present his comments earlier (during dessert, for instance) so that he could be back home in time to read to his kids at bedtime. To me, this is an indicator of his real values.
I believe King will build bridges, not raise barriers in the Senate, bridges to a better future for our kids.
James Folsom
Hampden
Dad’s district run
I am very happy that my dad is running for the Maine House of Representatives, Bangor’s 16th district. My dad has an exemplary ability to promote positive change in all contexts. For example, at the age of 17, when faced with the death of his father, he stepped in and ran the family pest-control business until it began to affect his health.
At the age of 30, he went back to school on the GI bill and worked in big business. He is devoted to maintaining the Maine way of life, while creating an environment that encourages young people to stay and raise their families here. He embraces all of the beauty that the great state of Maine has to offer. He demonstrates an informed awareness of effective changes that would be beneficial to Maine from an economic standpoint.
My dad, John Schneck, a Democrat, exemplifies our Maine values in every enterprise he undertakes. Hardworking and conscientious, he realizes the importance of perseverance as a critical component to advancement and getting the job done. He is reliable, trustworthy and takes input from people in our community into careful consideration when planning for change. He is motivated and enthusiastic and knows what needs to be done so that Maine is able to live up to its full potential both economically and environmentally.
By running for the Maine House of Representatives, my dad has made a commitment to every individual who is fortunate enough to reside in this beautiful state. He will bring out the best in our state, so we can truly embrace “the way life should be.”
Katie Schneck
Bangor
Student loss
Last week John Bapst Memorial High School lost a student, Owen Krause, to a tragic auto accident. Owen was a junior from Stockton Springs. A wonderful friend to many, he was full of spirit and leaves a gap in our community that’s impossible to fill.
At the same time, we learned how far that community extends. Within hours of the sad news, the Brewer Schools offered counseling help.
Flowers, calls and emails poured in from Bangor, Hampden, Old Town, Hermon, Orono, MCI, Washington Academy, Erskine Academy and many other schools that I am afraid only of leaving schools out in a short letter like this. Acadia Hospital offered grief counseling, and our neighbor, St. John’s Episcopal Church, and the Independent Schools Association of Northern New England offered support as well. Sunday’s celebration of Owen Krause’s life drew nearly 700 people to John Bapst, and Sekera Auditorium was filled with flowers.
At Friday’s football game at Cameron Stadium, the Hermon team crossed the field to express their condolences to our students and coaches, the truest expression of sportsmanship. On Saturday in Old Town, cross-country teams arrived wearing ribbons in our school’s purple or
headbands like the ones Owen used to wear, and Caribou’s team brought a generous donation to the school’s scholarship fund in Owen’s name.
Thank you to all of the wonderful schools, organizations and individuals who have reached out, recognizing that when a young person passes away, the loss is everyone’s, as is the opportunity to help us heal.
Mel MacKay
Head of School
John Bapst Memorial High School
Angus King will build just as many bridges as the current president..not one more or less….
James I am with you. I do not want my representatives in Washington being pressured by a party caucus. I want them to do what is right for Maine and America.
Ahh, but he will have to choose with which party to caucus. It is the way of the Senate.
James Folsom, I agree, but for different reasons.
Two years of Governor LePage and four years of watching Senator McConnell dedicate himself to nothing other than making President Obama a one-term president convinces me that today’s Republican Party has lost its way.
McConnell will fail in his goal, but, until the Republicans return to a semblance of moderation, I will cast no vote that might lead to yet another Republican Senator from Maine. This is a two-way race and a vote for Cynthia Dill increases Charlie Summers’ chance of becoming a LePage-type plurality winner.
SO…as you deploy your parachute and are nearing the ground only to discover you are faced with a choice..either land in the pirahna infested stream where your fate, due to what you know and watch on National Geographic TV, is pretty much known…rarely do Pirahna do anything than what thier nature tells them…or land next to the stream, knowing you are still lost and must face some hardships but your chances of success are a lot closer than landing in the stream. Go ahead, take the stream…maybe you can change the nature of Pirahna….
Before using such an awkward metaphor, learn to spell piranha and learn that its ferocity and alleged voraciousness is largely a matter of myth.
oohh, a spell checker and nature revisionist…you dont see that combination often….nicely done…
“There are various myths about piranhas such as how they can dilacerate a human body or cattle in seconds. These myths refer specifically to Pygocentrus nattereri, the red-bellied piranha.[16] A recurrent myth is that they can be attracted by blood and are exclusive carnivores.[17] A Brazilian myth called “piranha cattle” states that they sweep the rivers at high speed and attack the first of the cattle entering the water allowing the rest of the group to traverse the river.[18] These myths were dismissed through research by Helder Queiroz and Anne Magurran and published on Biology Letters.[19] Nevertheless, a study in Suriname found that piranhas may occasionally attack humans, particularly when water levels are low.[”
“Many myths surround this species. The 1978 film Piranha by Joe Dante shows these fish in a similar light to Jaws. Piranha was followed by a sequel, Piranha II: The Spawning, in 1981, and two remakes, one in 1995, and one in 2010. Films such as these, and stories of large schools of red-bellies attacking humans, fuels their exaggerated and erroneous reputation as being one of the most ferocious freshwater fish. In reality, they are generally timid scavengers, fulfilling a role similar to vultures on land. “
Your hyperbole deserves the scorn with which I have treated it.
There are all those ellipses again, used instead of periods. I wonder where people learn that?
Conservatives believe in neither correct spelling nor correct punctuation. It smacks of too much government regulation.
To Joseph Rittano, Sr.:
The World Health Organization, the US National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have all come to the conclusion that abortion does NOT cause breast cancer.
As for your assessment of oral birth control, you should have done a bit more research with the National Cancer Institute. According to their website, birth control REDUCES the risk of endometrial and ovarian cancer. You are correct in saying that birth control does increase the risk of breast cancer, as well as cervical and liver cancer, but not by 70% as you claim.
Breast Cancer: “A 1996 analysis of epidemiologic data from more than 50 studies worldwide by the Collaborative Group on Hormonal Factors in Breast Cancer found that women who were current or recent users of birth control pills had a slightly higher risk of developing breast cancer than women who had never used the pill”
Ovarian Cancer: “Oral contraceptive use has consistently been found to be associated with a reduced risk of ovarian cancer. In a 1992 analysis of 20 studies, researchers found that the longer a woman used oral contraceptives the more her risk of ovarian cancer decreased. The risk decreased by 10 to 12 percent after 1 year of use and by approximately 50 percent after 5 years of use ”
Endometrial Cancer: “Women who use oral contraceptives have been shown to have a reduced risk of endometrial cancer. This protective effect increases with the length of time oral contraceptives are used and continues for many years after a woman stops using oral contraceptives ”
Cervical Cancer: “Long-term use of oral contraceptives (5 or more years) is associated with an increased risk of cervical cancer (12). An analysis of 24 epidemiologic studies found that the longer a woman used oral contraceptives, the higher her risk of cervical cancer. However, among women who stopped taking oral contraceptives, the risk tended to decline over time, regardless of how long they had used oral contraceptives before stopping ”
Liver Cancer: “Oral contraceptive use is associated with an increase in the risk of benign liver tumors, such as hepatocellular adenomas (16). Benign tumors can form as lumps in different areas of the liver, and they have a high risk of bleeding or rupturing. However, these tumors rarely become malignant ”
Source: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/oral-contraceptives
You stated: “Out of the 50 million abortions, do you think there could have been several men or women who could have found a cure for the many diseases that men, women and children die of at a very young age?” – I could just as easily claim, out of the 50 million abortions, do you think there could have been several men or women would would have gone on to be mass murderers, rapists, etc.?
umm….you were on a roll…until the last paragraph…..its impossible to compare abortion, and the lives that are changed forever by every single abortion….out of 50 million aborted babies, relatively few will go on to the crimes you list and not one of those who become ‘mass murderers’ will ever do anything more for society than fulfill thier debt to society. On the other hand the scientists, researches and people who care for those who are affilcted with diseases would have been many out of those who were aborted., and 99.99% would have been loved by families and embraced by society all of thier life and they would have passed on these traits to the next generations…
The odds are in the favor of good that 50 million people who were aborted would have become solid members of society….500,000 Americans per year inquire about adoption with a steady 140,000 per year adopted…How many of those aborted would have been taken into a loving home?? i’m guessing that if you think abortion has just as many positives in peoples lives and to society as negatives you have been sorely taught about what is right and wrong..great news, we can learn new stuff in life until the day we die..
The main reason why I brought up crime is that it is just as easy to claim that a number of aborted fetuses would have gone on to do terrible things as it is to claim that a number of aborted fetuses would have gone on to do great things. I have just as much evidence to back up my claim as the original poster. I would also point you to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect
There hasn’t been much done, but there is some evidence to suggest that legalizing abortion contributed to a decrease in crime.
That is a ridiculous claim…but you made it……
Just as it is riddiculous to say that a majority of aborted fetuses would have grown up to be productive members of society. The point is, unless you can read the future in an alternate reality, no one can know what would have happened. All we can know is that there was a corrilation between abortion being legalized and a drop in the crime rate. That could have most certainly been due to a third, unknown, factor, but it is still possible that abortion and crime rates are, in fact, related. More research is required on this topic.
With poverty the most likely connection. But speculation is only speculation, worthless unless you’re a stock speculator.I think they used to call it navel gazing, which is what the letter writer is doing. Let us eculate on what a society might look like in which the need or desire for an abortion never arises. It might be something we could work toward.(apologies for typos, I am unable to correct them on this iPad.)
It is a myth that outlawing abortion will end it. It will simply increase the likelihood of death of the mother in a now illegal procedure.
As we are hardly an endangered species, I am less worried about the “unborn genius” than I am about the overburdened planet.
The odds are that the wealthy will continue to have abortions the same way they did before Roe v Wade. Of course it won’t be called abortion. The wealthy women have what is called ‘Female Problems’. This of course requires a visit to the hospital for a procedure called a D&C.
In the mean time you can sit back all self satisfied with your power to subjugate women.
yes, its the wealthy who are secretly getting all the abortions and none of the pro-life blowback….
Your immature class warfare rhetoric really advances your view.
Please don’t let your anger cloud your comprehension skills. Re read what I said. There is class warfare and always has been. That has nothing to do with the situation prior to Roe v Wade.
Good points. However, many of the abortions could have been prevented by better family planning, ridiculous pronouncements against contraception (sin, etc.), less possessiveness by men, etc. Also, many of those avoided abortions would have led to children unsupportable and a further drag on society (especially this “I got mine” culture).
No one is pro-abortion. It’s often a tough decision, between a rock and a hard place, often preventable but a last resort.
I think there is a 0% chance that you comprehend the statistics and demographics involved here. To state that 99.99% of unwanted babies would have been loved by families and embraced by society had they not been aborted is ridiculous hyperbole.
If that were true, we would not have any reports of foster care abuses, poor parents out there, etc… Or is it just those aborted babies who would have been in the loving, embracing homes?
The same could be said of those people who die from lack of health care, particularly young people. Who knows what they could have accomplished with their lives if their medical problems could have been solved before they died. Take care of the living before you dictate that every pregnancy end in a child, especially an unwanted child.
respect of all life is a pretty major tenant of society…protect that first in every way you can. Parental notification, cant cross state lines, increased abstinence education. These are tools the left uses to create distance toward more abortions instead of moving toward less abortions.
Abstinence education does NOT work. The states that have abstinence only education are the same states that have the highest teen pregnancy rates. The best way to combat abortion is to combat unwanted pregnancy. The best way to combat unwanted pregnancy is comprehensive sex education. Abstinence may be the only way to 100% prevent pregnancy (99.99% if you are Christian), but teenagers are going to have sex regardless. The sooner we stop ignoring that fact, the sooner we can effectively lower teen pregnancy.
Great post. I always wonder why there seems to be no journalistic integrity when it comes to publishing wildly disinformative letters to the editor.
Free speech just like the BS of the political ads. It would seem to me there should be a law that it must be facts not lies.
Yes but then we democratically would have to appoint an arbiter of facts, which would be impossible.
Then it would no longer be free speech.
It would be responsible speech.
And who gets to decide what is “responsible” speech? Some countries have laws that say that criticism of the government is not “responsible” and so is not permitted. Those countries have no free speech.
I don’t think it’s too much to ask a writer of a letter to the editor to be personally responsible for the truthfulness of what they write. I understand the difference between opinion and fact. You may think he’s entitled to his own facts, but I don’t.
I’m not defending anything the letter writer said.
I’m simply saying that censorship is a dangerous idea.
You say below that “an arbiter of facts” would be impossible. But you argue against yourself above by saying that censorship would create “responsible” speech. So I’m agreeing with HonkytonkBob below while I disagree with HonkytonkBob above.
LOL. I just grew up with this naive idea that newspapers only printed facts and letters to the editor were sincere.
I don’t know about that. I think that if an ad or an editorial like the one I commented on tries to present something as fact, the ad or editorial should come with a disclaimer of whether or not the content has been fact checked.
It’s opinion, not journalism. Only excuse.
I think men really don’t have much say in the abortion issue unless he is a health expert.
So, I guess you think men shouldn’t care about the life of the unborn children. That’s heartless and cold. It’s a shame in this nation that it’s gotten to the point where an unborn child is as worthless as a bag of garbage.
What is the unconditional value of a human life, in your opinion?
All God’s creations have a right to life. It’s what they do with their lives that determines their destiny.
“All” God’s creations?
All God’s creations may have a right to life, but you and your fellow right-wing conservatives generally oppose, as I’ve said before, maintaining, much less expanding, the safety net to help the born. All you folks care about is the unborn. And don’t preach your love of equal right to life when you deny gays and lesbians the right to marry because it conflicts with your personal religious beliefs. But then we know that you are sure that gays and lesbians could change their sexual orientation simply by willing it.
God doesn’t seem to think so, given that the spontaneous abortion rate is 15-20% — and that’s only including women who *know* they are pregnant.
So you’re a vegetarian? How do you react to mosquitos?
Men will never know what it’s like to be pregnant. We can think we know, but we never will, so how can we really say anything?
And YOU are the one making that comparison.
If a man does not want to be in a situation where he may not have control over an unborn child, he should not have sex, ever.
It’s the woman who is pregnant who should hve control over her own body — not the government, not her father or husband or boyfriend, not even her priest of pastor or rabbi (although certainly she should consult with the important people in her life, including medical personnel and any pastor, rabbi or councilor she chooses).
In the end, the woman herself should have control over her own body.
When the fetus becomes a baby — a baby that is naturally viable — then I am opposed to abortion, except to save the life or health of the mother. Before that time, while I believe abortion should not be taken lightly or used as a form of birth control, the woman herself has to make her own decisions about her own body. Abortion should be rare, safe, and legal.
How about if he is the father? Still no say in the abortion decision?
He shouldn’t have had sex then. Isn’t that what the RW says to women?
Good point.
Joseph Rottano Sr.:”Those who think women should have access to abortion and the birth control pill should change their mind after reading that in the early 1900s there were 26 major university and hospital studies published in the scientific and medical journals, not only establishing strong links between abortion and breast cancer, but also between breast cancer and oral contraceptives”
If I’m not mistaken Oral Contraceptives weren’t around in the early 1900s. In fact it’s only been in the last 50 years that the diagnosis of Cancer hasn’t automatically been a ‘death sentence’.
Joseph Rittano Sr.–I think if one took a poll it would show that very few approve abortions, I do not approve of them and I am basically pro life but in the same breath I don’t feel I should, nor should the government be allowed to tell a women she is not allowed to have an abortion.This to me is a freedom that should not be tampered with by anybody.
Heather bacon, James Folsom, Mel MacKay: good letters.
50 million abortions in Sangerville – that’s got to be a record of some kind.