Bear landfill
Imagine the hue and cry if a landfill were proposed in which to dispose of the millions of pounds of jelly doughnuts now purportedly fed to Maine’s black bears during every hunting season. Better vote no on Question 1.
Paul Smith
Orono
End of life
Attention current and would-be legislators and governors: It’s high time for you to make legal physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia.
Why have such laws failed to pass so far? Religious beliefs? No religious body has the right to impose their beliefs on any individual. Moral reasons? Unless my morals adversely affect others, they are nobody’s business. While an unwilling physician should not be compelled to assist, there are empathetic ones who would.
Ezekial J. Emanuel, in “Why I Hope To Die at 75”, talks of 75 as the optimal age to die, citing the onset of diminishing capacities then. As an active, healthy 80-year-old, I disagree. But while I am of sound mind, I should be able to dictate the conditions and method under which my life ends. I want that to be a quick, painless and certain event. Doctors know how to do that. Laws prevent them from performing this humane act.
Emanuel argues against suicide because it is brought on by feelings of depression, among other reasons. True, in some cases. But I would choose suicide as a logical, rational option to a prolonged act of dying while in a state of dependence on others, or while suffering from a debilitating disease. That does not come from a depressed state. That comes from a clear vision of my wishes.
My powers of attorney and living will are in place. My loved ones know of my wishes. I would like to add a dying will. How about it, lawmakers?
Alfred P Webster
Dedham
Missing climate coverage
I was unable to attend the climate march on Sept. 21 in New York. I not only felt it was a long trip but was reluctant to increase my carbon footprint. But I and many others in Maine and around the world held moments of silence in solidarity with the marchers at 12:57, hoping to send our vital energy to support the global effort to combat climate change.
I was astonished to see that there was not one single word in the Sept. 22 BDN about the march, which was the largest climate rally in history with over 400,000 people, or the United Nations summit (or the issue of climate change). Yes, on Tuesday, Sept 23 there was an article about a climate protest on Wall Street, which highlighted that a few people were arrested and in which only a couple of sentences mentioned the previous day’s peaceful rally.
I guess the BDN believes we in Eastern and Northern Maine prefer the endless stories of arrest news, drug busts and child abuse that we have to suffer through in every paper every day but have to look elsewhere for the world and national news that is changing the world. No wonder our electorate is so ill informed.
Lesley Fernow
Dover-Foxcroft
Right landfill decision
Gov. Paul LePage may be — OK, OK, is — more than a little bumptious in his demeanor, but it’s worth noting two things: 1) The LePage administration did what the Baldacci administration never did, in all its eight cozy years: Put Casella under oath. (This happened at a public benefit determination hearing for expanding the Juniper Ridge Landfill, which led to Casella not being granted its more extreme demands.) And, 2) The LePage administration just turned down an application for the determination of public benefit for the Municipal Review Committee’s proposed landfill in Argyle.
Both these actions were good for the Penobscot Watershed, where water is a non-renewable resource that most of us drink and many use to grow food. Both these successes were driven by civic engagement from local residents, and so we should give a shout-out to them. We should also give a shout-out to former state Rep. Bob Duchesne, through whose efforts the determination of public benefit for state-owned landfills like Juniper Ridge was written into law, while he took a break from his main career as a bird maven.
Sam Hunting
Orono
Kindness to animals
I must take exception to the recent “Right to Hunt” letter published in the BDN, which listed several businesses that depend on income from bear hunting. I have no sympathy for anyone whose business plan is based on cruelty, any more than I feel sorry for the southern plantation owners who had to give up their slaves or for those who profit from forced child labor, dogfighting or cockfighting.
People who believe in kindness to animals can hardly be faulted for “arrogance” or “meanness.” But we do wish humans could empathize with the suffering of other sentient beings. Cruel hunting methods have been banned in Washington, Oregon, and Colorado, yet their bear populations have remained stable. Truly skilled hunters know how to search for and track bears and don’t need cruel methods such as trapping, hounding and baiting.
Again, no one is saying you cannot hunt or should not hunt, we are saying if you are a real skilled hunter you do not need these sad extra means to catch your prey. A truly skilled marksman does not need gimmicks to show his or her prowess in the hunting field in order to take his or her mark and I am sure the businesses do not make their only living from the bear hunting season.
Kathy Pietra-Santa
Searsmont
Voting for Poliquin
While I’d have to say my couple times meeting and chatting with Emily Cain have been very pleasant, I can’t see myself, given the challenges we’re facing as a state and a nation, pulling the lever for her next month. I hear her empty sloganeering (a promise she’ll stay with me at the table. What does that even mean?) and think “this is someone who understands big-picture problems with our economy and national security?” Quite the contrary, she proposes doubling-down on the causes of our problems.
Because of runaway spending, we’ve gone in my lifetime (and I’m not yet 50) from creditor-to-the-world to the shameful position of being deeper in debt than any nation in history. Far from recognizing the need to reign in this dangerously unsustainable spending, Ms. Cain actually advocates increasing government outlays. While our country’s economic engine, small business, struggles with the burdens of taxes and regulation, Cain is literally making increasing their costs a campaign promise.
The stakes are too high to send another status-quo rubber stamp to Washington. I’m voting for Bruce Poliquin.
Paul Tormey
Orrington