People as property
We are a nation of laws. In our culture, and not all that long ago, we made a law we later knew as horribly, horribly wrong, that allowed certain people to be considered as “property.”
Our culture has made yet another law that allows people — this time certain babies — to be “property.”
But is there not, simply, a certain higher law? Did not Jesus Christ, who created all life, say, “Render under Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” [Matthew 22:21]? Are we not once again simply swept away by personal wants and conveniences for our modern day lives?
And doesn’t it then beg the question: Which law do we really need to heed most: man’s or God’s?
So, might we not ask ourselves: Is not all life sacred? Will we again later sorrowfully allow that this new law is wrong, too?
Linda E. Pletka
Orono
Pro-park falsehoods
The Jan. 13 letter by Steve Jacques shows again how misguided those are who push for a Maine Woods National Park. The “beautiful land mass” he speaks of could be many locations in the Maine woods. Nothing about Elliotsville Plantation Inc.’s land is more outstanding than many other areas in northern Maine, aside from occasional views of Mount Katahdin. This is not the criteria for a national park.
Roxanne Quimby’s pro-park team ignores the fact that visitors to Elliotsville Plantation holdings are making use of open access on private landowners’ abutting land to even reach Katahdin Woods and Waters land.
To believe promises about the major ITS corridors being preserved and half of the land being open to snowmobiling is folly. Once the National Park Service has control of an area, they do as they please.
The case for “respecting the landowner’s decisions” does not fly when that decision threatens the forest economy of the region and takes away local control of the area by giving it to the federal government.
Mitchell Duncan
Tomhegan Township
“Deflategate” questions
Where were the refs in “Deflategate”? Don’t they have the responsibility to evaluate the game balls? Did anyone evaluate the Colts’ footballs? Were they all properly inflated?
If all the balls were inflated in a 70-degree locker room and then taken out onto a 40-degree field, that could easily have changed the inflation but would have equally affected both sets. The refs should have detected this and had the balls re-inflated on the sidelines.
Christopher Easton
Dixmont
ACA works for me
Throughout my life, I’ve had a crazy patchwork of health insurance coverage (or lack thereof). As a child, it all depended on my parents, who worked various jobs, some with benefits and some without. In my early 20s, I had health insurance through college, and then through an office job. Then I worked on a farm and in a kitchen, and I went many years without. I had health insurance for six months last year and then lost it in November. These days, who actually works one steady job with benefits their whole life? That model is a thing of the past.
Like me, most people make transitions from one job to another, one location to another, one lifestyle to another. That’s normal, that’s human. What’s not human(e) is a health care system that either forces people to stay in one role their whole life to have coverage or denies health care coverage if their job, finances or health changes.
For me, the Affordable Care Act means I can weather the changes that come my way without having to worry about health insurance and how I would pay if I got sick. I found it easy to get signed up, and 90 percent of Mainers qualify for a subsidy to help cover the cost. Visit enroll207.com to get started and find local help. The deadline is Feb. 15, so don’t wait.
I was pleasantly surprised by the low costs and high-quality plans.
April Thibodeau
Newcastle
Social Security trap
As for “social insecurity,” as mentioned in a Jan. 22 letter, it has hit home with me. I worked and paid into Social Security for 30 years and then worked for Maine Military Authority for almost 10 years. After losing my job to a layoff, I received a state pension of $611. I finally gave up looking for a job and just recently took early retirement because it is impossible to live on my pension.
Because of the windfall elimination provision, my Social Security is less than my pension. There is a clause that if you pay into Social Security for 30 years, the windfall elimination provision would not count. But it also says that the amount paid every year must be substantial. Because I lived in Maine and worked for just above minimum wage most of those years, only 11 of these years counted.
A bill proposed last year, HP 5697, would do away with this injustice.
Glenn Violette
Littleton
Madison mill logic
Regarding the market closure of UPM Madison, I am quite familiar with UPM-Kymmene being a former employee of UPM-Kymmene Miramichi, which was closed permanently. My mill was purchased to obtain the coating recipe to supply Time magazine. It was not shut down for productivity because our production capability index was higher than five other machines UPM owned at the time.
The question Madison employees should be asking themselves is: “Why did UPM purchase Madison?” It obviously isn’t because it is a low-cost producer. Does it have state-of-the-art wide machines running 4,000-plus feet per minute?
I bet Madison’s staff has been reorganized and staff cut, and no one can fathom the logic on some of the moves made. UPM looks for “key potentials,” those under 40 years of age with one university degree, preferably two. They fill in the rest of the shift positions with everyone they deem worthy to hold on to.
UPM wanted something from their former parent company or the Madison mill itself. Once it can replicate that elsewhere, I believe the Madison mill will be shut down permanently and the mill torn down as is UPM’s way.The mill employees, the town and the state should be asking some hard questions of UPM and demanding some cast-in-stone assurances.
Brian Ellick
Fredericton, New Brunswick