Letters submitted by BDN readers are verified by BDN Opinion Page staff. Send your letters to letters@bangordailynews.com.
A slap in the face
I was amazed and disturbed after reading a letter written by Stefan Nadzo in your Nov. 18 edition where he encouraged Gov. Janet Mills to appoint Sara Gideon to the U.S. Senate as a replacement for Sen. Angus King if King is given a post in national intelligence.
Gideon and Democratic groups ran an almost 3-year, $100 million campaign to unseat Sen. Susan Collins using ads that were personal, many times untrue, and I believe unethical. But the voters in Maine saw through all this and reelected Collins. If Mills did appoint Gideon to an open Senate seat, this would be nothing but a slap in the face to the majority of Maine voters and the worst kind of partisanship that Gideon and Mills speak out against.
Merle Cousins
Southwest Harbor
Weather section suggestion
I have noticed that the weather section of the BDN omits much of the U.S. in its “National Cities” corner. If you examine the cities listed, they run down the West Coast, along a swath across the South and the rest mostly to the east of the Mississippi River. Almost 23 percent of the U.S. is missing, to wit: cities in Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa. Add to that the eastern halves of Washington and Oregon, northern half of Nevada, and the western half of Colorado and it covers perhaps 30 percent of the U.S.
Add a few of these cities and you would have a much better coverage: Spokane, Boise, Salt Lake City, Billings, Bismark, and Pierre or Sioux Falls South Dakota. There is also poor coverage of the Northeast; there are no cities listed north of New York City or Boston. And, there is a lot of redundancy in the area between New York City and Washington, D.C. — New York City, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Atlantic City and Washington, D.C. cover a relatively small area of the U.S.
Ken Deal
Swan’s Island
Thankful for the Constitution
In keeping with the spirit of Thanksgiving, we should all be thankful to the U.S. Constitution and James Madison, the creative genius behind it. The Constitution provides for a separation of powers, and to date, the courts and the rule of law have been holding firm against the lies and paranoia of Trumpism and the Fox noise machine.
Personally, I am hopeful that the establishment clause in the Constitution will guide the Supreme Court to uphold Maine’s ban on funding religious schools. The establishment clause was meant to protect the Baptists, Catholics and other minorities in colonial America against the prevailing majorities of Congregationalists in the northern states and Anglicans in the southern states. Today, America is much more diverse in religious beliefs, and in a broader analogy, it is more important than ever to protect minorities against the establishment of a government sanctioned religion.
Once we start funding Christian religious schools with public money, the door will be open to funding non-Christian schools, and then in an ironic twist, the free exercise clause in the Constitution will be used against those who try to close the door.
Stephen Freeman
Presque Isle