Sky is falling
Fuel prices are still falling; what a way to end the year. Anyone got a guess with the state of Maine covered with wood, why most of the paper-making mills are disappearing like shoes, chickens, sardines?
Who better to manage and harvest our Maine wildlife then our state biologists and Department of Inland Fish and Wildlife. While still on the subject of North Maine Woods, what do people want to see here in Maine? That is moose. We need a moose farm in the Greenville area, for sightings and rehabbing moose. We have a couple of shows produced in the state — North Maine Woods Law and Down East Dickering. While still in the area, why isn’t the land for the national park given and added to the Baxter State Park, so the black flies will have more people to chew on?
Maine has sent a message to rest of the nation, but we are still on a slippery slope (just ask the Blue Angels?) So let’s shop Maine this season.
Ron Bennett
Camden
Park benefits
I urge Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins to back the creation of a national park and national recreation area to the east of and adjacent to Baxter State Park.
There are two main reasons for supporting this idea. It would bring needed dollars to this area. When Acadia was closed, millions in revenue were lost. National parks bring money to their surrounding areas.
Second, the designation of a national park and national recreation area would increase the total square miles of contiguous preserved land in Maine. The land Elliotsville Plantation Inc. owns abuts Baxter State Park, the Appalachian Trail, the Debsconeag Wilderness, the 100 Mile Wilderness, the Allagash Wilderness Waterway and lands protected from development by conservation easements south and west of Baxter State Park. This is good from a biological standpoint. Habitat fragmentation is detrimental to many species, and this would provide a large area of unbroken land.
Bronda Niese
Woolrich
Christmas significance
Regarding the OpEd by the elementary school principal Todd Nelson, “The Universal Liturgy of Light,” (BDN Dec. 3): Nelson’s practice of downplaying Christianity and promoting paganism, modernistic alternatives and self-styled atheism as equally enlightened beliefs regarding the meaning of Christmas would be sad enough if he weren’t representative of a legion in a faithless generation seeking to marginalize the very roots of our nation’s founding belief in God (not to mention the establishment of hope for every soul).
Surely Nelson can think of some historically significant exceptionalities that have come about in the 2,000 plus years since Christ’s birth that would justify a teaching emphasis over, say, Kwanzaa or candle lights on the mulberry bush. And, if Nelson considers a fourth grader saying merry Christmas to the teacher (or anybody) an “oops!” moment, his “wrestling” on this subject appears far from fruitful.
Donald Mendell
Palmyra