Rail before E-W highway
The privately financed east-west highway is a boondoggle that will financially enrich a few and cause major readjustments for many. Communities will be split, farms severed, drainages disturbed and wildlife ranges disrupted.
Rail transport is far more energy efficient than highway transport and environmentally less intrusive. Better to upgrade our rail system to handle the supposedly large volumes of traffic. That corridor is in place and can be upgraded and protected for far less money and disruption than a high-speed roadway. Upgrade rail service to Eastport and develop container facilities.
Ben Hoffman
Bradford
Russian problems
The comments by Brian Milakovsky, in his Feb. 6 OpEd “A Mainer’s perspective on the ground: Arming Ukraine isn’t the solution,” are one-sided. Should Mexico with superior weapons and a large army invade California and insist in reclaiming the territory, would we give in? After all, Donetsk and Luhansk is Ukraine’s industrial heartland. Invasion of Crimea to recoup Russia’s territory from times immemorial is misinformation and Sevastopol is a city of Ukrainians’ pride and glory, not Russia’s.
Crimea under Tsarist and Soviet rule was essentially a desert and was only developed into an agricultural and maritime success after it was transferred to Ukraine’s administration. There was no ethnic confrontation in eastern Ukraine until after the invasion of Crimea and Igor Strelkov, a Russian FSB colonel, occupied government buildings and declared separation from Kiev’s government. This act resembles the attempt by Chechnya’s separatists, who tried for independence from Moscow, and we know how that conflict ended.
In my opinion, the current conflict is not so much concerning Ukraine as it is concerning Russia. Russia keeps complaining about NATO’s threat, but there was a very close cooperation between Moscow and NATO and President Vladimir Putin was well aware that NATO countries seriously underfunded their military defenses. Putin was also very much aware of the dismal condition of Ukraine’s army that was systematically destroyed by its former corrupt President Viktor Yanukovych. Consequently, Putin was making his advances very cautiously while evaluating NATO’s response. The first challenge was the Georgian war, the second was invasion of Crimea and now we have the third challenge in eastern Ukraine.
Bohdan Slabyj
Brewer
Constitutional vs. moral
Morality is defined as principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad. Its definition is pretty black and white. However, it’s interpretation is anything but.
I’ve heard many Americans interchange the words constitutional and moral when debating political and social issues. And I agree, in a way, that the Constitution was designed as a set of moral guidelines for the United States government and the citizens it governs. But it does not extend beyond that. It is not absolute. It is reliable but not definite.
The assumption that words are harmless is a dangerous disposition. This has been proven time and time again. Expressions of intolerance should not be condoned just because the Constitution allows it. Truth and fairness exist if it is encouraged. Animosity grows when it is nurtured.
Just because you fall within the boundaries of the Constitution does not mean you fall within the boundaries of morality. Prejudice is not acceptable just because the First Amendment allows it.
I often hold my tongue because I was taught tolerance. However history reveals people who hold their tongue in the fight against injustice hardly ever make a difference. Bigotry is always wrong, and its time we realize the Constitution is not a moral compass.
Nicole Chasse
Fort Kent
Wood smoke dangers
I just read your health editor, Jackie Farwell’s, Feb. 5 article regarding coming restrictions on wood burning in Maine. I am a former Orono resident.
I smoke nicotine, but had been deprived of it for over a week sometime in the deep winter of the 1980s. I thought a brisk walk might help relieve my nicotine deprivation. Walking along College Avenue, I took a deep breath and, wow, I took in my lungs a near-nicotine hit — from the wood smoke coming from all those fireplaces and wood-burning stoves.
Of interest to me now are all the wood-burning systems that will be exempt from new regulations. I know Mainers can’t run out and buy new stoves, but be advised that the new regulations won’t do diddly to clean the air.
Congratulations to the American Lung Association for having finally, in 2013, noticed poisonous effects of wood-burning emissions. Try long walks in wintertime. In upscale neighborhoods.
Marjorie Tsurikov
Middlebury, Vermont