News

We're killing the oceans

Is it too late to save the seas that sustain us?
I meet world-renowned undersea photojournalist Brian Skerry at Legal Seafoods, across from the New England Aquarium, where he's the explorer in residence. He orders a chicken Caesar salad.

By MIKE MILIARD | November 18, 2009

Objecting to marriage control

Letters to the Portland editor, November 20, 2009
“The Emperor is wearing no clothes” on both sides of the marriage war.

By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS | November 18, 2009

Taxing Catholics

Should the Church lose its exemption?
Should the Roman Catholic Church, and the various subsidiary groups and organizations that exist under its umbrella and operate at its direction, be entitled to state- and federal-tax exemptions?

By EDITORIAL | November 18, 2009

Road to riches

The Pike gouges
The Maine Turnpike Authority wants to pay between $34 million and $56 million to build a new toll plaza in York. Don't let that huge price tag fool you.

By AL DIAMON | November 18, 2009

Brown Bird in Williamsburg

Road Trip
Along with other Mainers in Brooklyn this weekend playing at the Slumberland Records 20th anniversary celebration, Maine/Rhode Island chamber-folk standouts Brown Bird were also in the borough, playing the narrow Williamsburg bar Spike Hill Sunday night.

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | November 18, 2009

Taking gay rights to Obama

All Politics Is Local
You might have seen Chase Whiteside and Erick Stoll, seniors at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, around town in the days leading up to November 3.

By DEIRDRE FULTON | November 18, 2009

Ex-USM staffers claim age discrimination

Litigation Watch
In complaints filed with the University of Southern Maine's Office of Campus Diversity and Equity, a state legislator and five former colleagues allege they were discriminated against in a recent department restructuring because of their ages. The complainants' ages range between 56 and 63.

By JEFF INGLIS | November 18, 2009

Campaign crash

Press Releases
The single biggest factor contributing to the repeal of same-sex marriage in Maine was how pro-marriage forces used — or failed to use — the media to their advantage.

By JEFF INGLIS | November 18, 2009

Peace Plants?

Drug cartels versus the military-industrial complex
Dank nugs, nukes

By DAVID KISH | November 18, 2009

Holy terror?

Cutting through the muddled thinking about Nidal Malik Hasan's faith and its role in the Fort Hood shootings
On the afternoon of November 5, Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan walked into a building at Fort Hood, the sprawling military base in central Texas; sat briefly in solitary silence; and then opened fire with a semi-automatic pistol, shooting roughly a hundred rounds and killing 12 soldiers and one civilian.

By ADAM REILLY | November 16, 2009

Has Obama peaked? Yes, he has

Yes, he made history. Unfortunately, it’s all downhill from there.
To listen to some pundits, Barack Obama's public image began taking a serious beating when the off-year election returns came in a week ago. Or maybe it was the undeserved Nobel Prize, his approach to the war in Afghanistan, or when he revved up his pursuit of national health-care reform.

By STEVEN STARK | November 12, 2009

Has Obama peaked? No, he hasn't

Obama’s days of greatest power and popularity lie before him. But be warned: he might not do what you want with it.
Barack Obama's popularity should not be judged by the day-to-day, media-driven vagaries of politics — nor by the wishful thinking of his opponents.

By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | November 12, 2009

Courthouse bomber to speak about social change

Censorship averted
After it was initially canceled, a controversial talk by a radical activist will go on Thursday at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Ray Luc Levasseur, who grew up in Sanford, Maine, and became a radical in part due to his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam, will talk on campus in connection with a symposium on “social change.”

By RICK WORMWOOD | November 11, 2009