Rename Columbus Day
The Orono Town Council and Maine Legislature will consider renaming Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day. The bill in the Legislature that would make this change is LD 914.
Columbus did not discover America. America already had been “discovered” before 1492. Many tribes of indigenous people had been here for thousands of years, and the Vikings and others also had come here.
Columbus’s own journal states that ” before them all, he took possession of the island, as in fact he did, for the King and Queen, his Sovereigns.” This was an invasion, not a discovery. He kidnapped 10 to 25 Arawak people and took them back with him to Spain. Altogether, he sent about 5,000 slaves across the Atlantic Ocean to Spain.
In 1499, Columbus discovered gold in Haiti. He forced hundreds of thousands of indigenous people to mine the gold for the Spanish. In 1516, the Spanish settlers brought smallpox from Europe to Haiti. A Spanish settler wrote in 1518, “Although these islands had been, since God made the earth, prosperous and full of people lacking nothing they needed, they were laid waste, inhabited only by wild animals and birds.” Between the slave trade, forced labor and smallpox, several million indigenous people were killed in Haiti.
Columbus Day should be renamed Indigenous People’s Day. We should not celebrate a man who invaded and exploited people and their land.
Kathryn Bourgoin
Orono
Don’t weaken the bottle bill
Our bottle law does everything it was meant to do and more. It keeps tons of items out of the trash stream. It makes everyone a bit more conscious of the kind of slobs people can be.
Every man, woman and child thinks twice before chucking plastic or glass bottles on nicely groomed lawns, the ditch beside the road or the esplanade on our city streets. He or she can regain the 5 cent or 15 cent deposit that was paid when they purchased the moment of cheer, and the coins add up. And if they are thoughtless enough to still toss it anyway, there are plenty of other people who will gladly pick up the bottles to get the deposit back.
It means that small and large hands help in keeping our state a bit tidier and healthier. It is the closest thing that we have for broad community participation of a worthy goal.
Some lawmakers have proposed legislation — LD 683 — to exempt 46-ounce or larger bottles from being covered under the bottle bill. Exempting those big bottles under the bottle law is very poor policy.
The only tinkering this bottle law needs is to add the nips — 50-milliliter alcohol bottles — to it. A case in point: Within a 100-foot perimeter of a retail store that sells them, I found five scattered on the ground by unthinking consumers. The next goal is to get these marked with 15 cents as well. Doing otherwise is a step backward.
Linda Stearns
Bangor
Share concerns with lawmakers
I went to Rep. Bruce Poliquin’s office recently with six other interested citizens from the Blue Hill peninsula. We went with the intention of sharing our concerns about our representative’s views on the situation in Washington. We talked about health care, the military budget, the environment, the state of our prisons and other issues.
We met with two young staffers, under the age of 26, who are still on their parents’ health insurance policies. They were attentive and polite, and they assured us that they would pass on our concerns to Poliquin.
Will we change Poliquin’s mind about his support for the Republican repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act? Maybe, maybe not, but I do feel like we made an impression on his young staffers and, let’s face it, they are the future.
The trip made us feel better for trying to do something about the frightening situation we are facing in this country. I encourage everyone who is uncomfortable with the current trend in Washington to let their members of Congress know their feelings. They work for us, and they need to know what we want them to do for us.
Deborah Wiggs
East Blue Hill
Trump budget cuts
The Lincoln Town Council wants part of the old Lincoln Paper and Tissue mill site to be designated a federal Superfund site to get federal assistance for the clean up. This is not likely when President Donald Trump’s proposed budget calls for a 30 percent cut for the Superfund program. In Lincoln, 64.48 percent of voters went for Trump.
But all is not yet lost. Trump voters, and others, can call for protecting the federal programs that their community needs. The cuts are a long list from Superfund to education programs for children.
Contact Rep. Bruce Poliquin and Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King. You know how to support each other, and now is the time.
Barbara Kates
Bangor
Reject the GOP health care plan
If the American Health Care Act becomes law, a low-income, older couple in Washington, Hancock or Aroostook County would have a monthly premium increase of $1,456, according to the Maine Center of Economic Policy. A low-income family of four would pay $584 more per month in those same counties. A low-income young adult in these counties would pay $170 more per month.
I am 62 and live in Washington County. My family members are small-business owners, fisherman, builders, health care workers and students working part-time jobs. Most will not be able to afford health insurance under the American Health Care Act. They will not be able to pay for truly life-saving treatments and prescription drugs they need and receive for chronic, serious pulmonary disease; chronic autoimmune disease; and mental health care.
My unsubsidized premiums will rise from $950 a month to more than $1,500 a month because insurers would be able to charge me five times more than younger clients, up from three times under the Affordable Care Act.
My rural hospital will be hit hard by the proposed Medicaid funding caps, as will badly needed mental health care and opioid addiction treatment programs. Primary care providers will be even harder to find and keep.
Rep. Bruce Poliquin must not ignore the more than 157,000 residents of Washington, Aroostook and Hancock counties. The American Health Care Act does not improve anything for Mainers, no matter what county they are from. Congress should vote no and come up with something better.
Myra Eachus
Harrington