March 2008 - Posts - About Town

March 31, 2008

Earth Hour
By webteam
We did it on Saturday, and enjoyed it so much we did it again on Sunday. Here's what one companion had to say about our power-free hours:

"Instead of being distracted by videogames and movies and music and TV, we talked. And laughed. And it almost felt like a drag to turn the lights back on. There's something really simple about sitting around in candlelight."

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March 28, 2008

Declaring "Rock War"
By webteam
Topsham-based rock band BlackBridge have been invited to the "Live Indie Rock Wars" in Las Vegas the final weekend in April to compete with 19 other bands from around the country for a $50,000 recording contract with Black Mountain Records. They're hoping to do a bit of a "Road to the Rock Wars" tour on the way out to Vegas, perhaps to be kicked off by a show in Portland in a couple weeks.

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March 27, 2008

Blethen bad news gets worse
By webteam

We know the news hasn't been good for the Seattle Times folks of late, or for their soon-to-be ex-colleagues at the Blethen Maine Newspapers (the Press Herald/Sunday Telegram, Kennebec Journal, and Morning Sentinel).

It's been bad for a while, but it just got even worse. Sure, we told you back in August 2006 that the Press Herald would soon be for sale, and we told you (20 minutes before the Press Herald's own Web site told you) when that became official company policy on St.

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Media, Portland Press Herald

March 27, 2008

Three for Thursday: A short roundup of items
By webteam
ITEM 1: Hillary's Snowe Job It turns out that the story Hillary Clinton told about when she visited Bosnia (you know, the made-up one about landing under sniper fire and running off the tarmac - the following video from CBS is the best) is true - just not for Hillary.

It actually happened to US Senator Olympia Snowe, the Washington Post reports today

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March 26, 2008

Jan Schakowsky comes to Maine
By webteam
Just got word that Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, a stalwart progressive, anti-war legislator, will be campaigning in Portland tomorrow night (18 Neal Street, from 5:30-7 p.m.) for Congressional District One candidate Chellie Pingree.

While this Colbert Report appearance has little to do with Schakowsky's politics, it's worth watching if only to see how elegantly she handles herself when the comedic genius dips a pork rind into a jar of Fluff -- and eats it.

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March 26, 2008

I Quit chronicles quarterlife dilemma
By webteam
It's a scenario that's all too familiar to some of us: The post-college-graduation blues, marked by professional aimlessness, financial instability, and romantic insecurities. We jump from job to job, we live with our parents and depend on them to pay our bills, we wait forever to get hitched. Confusion, and sometimes depression, ensues.

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March 26, 2008

Candidate debate @ SPACE tonight
By webteam
All eight Congressional District One candidates are confirmed to attend tonight's League of Young Voters debate at SPACE Gallery tonight, according to the League's Katie Diamond (although Charlie Summers, who is currently serving in Iraq, will send a stand-in). The event is co-sponsored by the League and the Professional Firefighters of Maine

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March 25, 2008

Handing over the reins - Mad Horse changes riders
By webteam

As longtime Mad Horse Theater Company artistic director Andy Sokoloff leaves the company in pursuit of a new career, some longtime members are stepping in to take over.

Barb Truex, who has helped with Mad Horse for several years, will be the new executive director. Christine Louise Marshall, a veteran performer and costume designer for Mad Horse, will be the artistic director.

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March 20, 2008

Let's Talk About Our Pasts
By webteam

If Carl Wilson hadn’t mentioned Elliott Smith in his book about Celine Dion (reviewed here), I don’t think Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste would have made such an impact on me. I spend about one paragraph of the review hinting at the emotional ton of bricks Wilson’s book heaved upon me:

“Those who bemoan it [naked inspiration and catharsis in popular music] aren’t necessarily averse to emotion - the artifacts of indie culture are, by and large, quite sensitive - but they recoil at seeing it laid bare.

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March 19, 2008

Trying to save a big-business handout
By Jeff Inglis
Maine lawmakers, having cut $140 million from the state's education, health, human services, and the criminal-justice system budgets, have asked the business community to contribute $10 million to the $200 million in cuts being sought to balance the state budget, according to state Senator Lynn Bromley (D-South Portland), who is the senate chairman of the Legislature's Business, Research, and Economic Development Committee.

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March 18, 2008

Rustic Politics - Overtones of Protest
By Jeff Inglis

Rustic Overtones have released a video from a song off their once-and-future "new" album, Light at the End (reviewed by Sam Pfeifle back in July), in honor of today's national release on Velour.

The song is "Letter to the President," which is in rotation on the Overtones' MySpace page if you want to just listen to it.

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March 18, 2008

Press Herald sale - who would buy?
By Jeff Inglis
UPDATE: With Crosscut Seattle story link (also here). Definitely read that story - it has great analysis and some new ideas of who might buy the papers - including a possibility of the union taking it employee-owned.

Yesterday's announcement that the Portland Press Herald and the rest of the Blethen Maine Newspaper group are up for sale has a lot of attention in the expected arenas.

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March 18, 2008

Prison life ain't so good
By Jeff Inglis
Well, we knew that. But here's an edited transcript of a talk Phoenix freelancer Lance Tapley gave last week at the Meg Perry Center, home to Peace Action Maine and the Foglight Collective.

By the way, you can hear this talk online at ThinkTwiceRadio.com (mp3 here) or rent it and many other progressive videos from Roger Leisner's Radio Free Maine at Videoport in downtown Portland.

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March 17, 2008

Press Herald For Sale - For Sure
By Jeff Inglis

In August 2006, we used the above graphic to illustrate a story called "Press Herald For Sale?" in which I posited that all signs were pointing to an impending sale of the Portland Press Herald, and quoted owner Frank Blethen as asking, in a September 2003 Press Herald article, "Can you just keep going?"

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March 14, 2008

Cleaning up
By Jeff Inglis
It's kind of a strange day here at the office, as we're all making sure we vote for Portland in the Bushmills 400 Years contest (at www.Bushmills400years.com), which you can read about in Deirdre Fulton's story in this week's paper.

But then I look at the pile of mail from yesterday and notice that strange box I picked up, opened, and left on the couch in the middle of the afternoon.

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