Lifestyle Features

Loud at Heart

CHRISTOPHER GRAY — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:20:13 GMT

A centuries-old singing tradition inspires twentysomething hipsters to praise the Lord
Shape note singing requires that you forget most of what you know about reading music. It's different, but much simpler.

SACRED SPACE: Singers form a "hollow square."

I arrive at my first shape note singing session — held in Waterville's oldest public building, the white and gleaming First Baptist Church — at 2 pm. Once the last stragglers arrive, about thirty of us are seated in metal folding chairs in the building's lobby. The bulk of the crowd is middle-aged or older, but there are two clean-cut teenage boys and a few twenty- or thirtysomethings. Our chairs are arranged in a square: alto singers face tenors; trebles face bass singers. A few regulars scramble to find enough songbooks to pass out to those of us newcomers gathered here.

About two-thirds of us have never attended this shape note group — one of four formal groups in Maine — before; probably a handful have never been to one at all. I've heard and read plenty about shape note singing — how simple it is to learn, how unorthodox its tones and harmonies are, how communal and infectious these gatherings are — but I'm curious about why this devout, centuries-old tradition is gaining traction among young people in the Northeast.

Shape note singing requires that you forget most of what you know about reading music. It's different, but much simpler. Shape note departs from the structure of traditional solfège scales (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti); the seven notes remain, but you're only singing four corresponding syllables: fa, sol, la, and (sometimes) mi. (As the scale ascends, these syllables repeat in perfect fourths, so singing them at different pitches remains both harmonically appropriate and tuneful.) On the sheet music, each note is represented by a shape: triangle, circle, square, and diamond, respectively. At shape note singings — which are usually called Sacred Harp singings, after the main text of the shape note style — the first run-through of each song is done by singing those four syllables at the corresponding pitches on the page. Immediately after the run-through, participants replace their fas and las with the song's lyrics.

The regulars in Waterville seem surprised by the robust attendance, but I suspect many of the newcomers came for the same reasons I did. Sacred Harp singing — a style as devout and old-timey as it is jarring and unusual — is in the midst of a grassroots renaissance, particularly in the Northeast, where the tradition died off sometime after the Civil War as churches deferred to more scientific and classically beautiful choral music. (It persisted in the deep South, where the groups are largest today.)

Planning a promenade

DEIRDRE FULTON — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:10:01 GMT

Going green
Presumably, most people who enjoy the to-be-built Bayside Promenade will experience it differently than I did last Saturday.

Presumably, most people who enjoy the to-be-built Bayside Promenade will experience it differently than I did last Saturday. Rather than picking their way around trash, alongside looming scrap heaps and hazardous razor wire, they'll make their way down a manicured walking/biking path that connects the Eastern Promenade with Deering Oaks Park. (And I'd wager that many more people will utilize the trail during the warmer months, without cold November winds whipping against their faces, but that's a different story.)

But seeing the proposed promenade the way I did, when Portland Trails, a non-profit organization working to create an urban trails network in and around the city, took about 30 people on a walking tour of the route, was a rare chance to see the project in all its "before" shambles; once the trail moves into its "after" phase, the contrast will be that much more striking.

Public officials, interested neighbors, and a few journalists who gathered in the parking lot at the corner of Elm and Somerset streets on Saturday afternoon were led eastward along the unused railroad tracks that the $5 million rails-to-trails path will follow. Portland Trails representatives provided running narrative and explanations. We learned that the large scrap yard near Whole Foods will move to Riverside Street next year, and that once it does, the city will use grant money (hopefully) to clean up those brownfields. We were assured that railroad relics, such as the switches that line the tracks, will somehow be incorporated into the trail design. We squeezed into a more narrow formation as the path tapered after Franklin Arterial, and spread out again once we hit the grassy section that goes under Tukey's Bridge near Munjoy Hill. We were told that the preliminary "ribbon of trails" — the skeleton of the project — will be completed by the end of 2009, with the possible exception of the section near the new United Way/Maine Health building (which has yet to break ground).

Those in charge have their work cut out for them. I don't know what the Eastern Prom looked like before it became the Eastern Prom, but as it exists right now, the Bayside trail is scary. It snakes between buildings and along empty parking lots — not necessarily somewhere I'd want to run, walk, or bike alone. In addition to proper lighting and signs, the designers should consider opening up the path as much as possible, so that it's visible from nearby streets.

Sweet science Saturdays

RICK WORMWOOD — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:09:29 GMT

Balls, Pucks + Monster Trucks
The trick to finding the Portland Boxing Club for the first time is not giving up right at the end, when you’re getting close.

The trick to finding the Portland Boxing Club for the first time is not giving up right at the end, when you’re getting close. The tiny brick building, which looks too small for its purpose from the outside, is so far back in the parking lot of 33 Allen Avenue, behind Bruno’s Restaurant, that someone on a maiden voyage could easily get frustrated and turn around, thinking the directions are wrong. Keep driving across a long, bombed-out looking parking lot, even when it looks like nothing is back there. It will remind you of scenes from The Warriors, but don’t worry. The Riffs or the Lizzies aren’t lurking, waiting to pounce. Just aim for the tall smokestack with the word BOXING painted on it.

And who should be looking for the Portland Boxing Club? Local fight fans should, especially this month, because three Saturdays in November will feature great boxing here in P-town. That’s why anybody with even a passing interest in the sweet science (maybe you enjoy the big fights on pay-per-view, but you’ve never seen a live bout) should attend the 122nd annual USA Boxing New England Championships. Yes, you read that right. This tournament has been happening since Grover Cleveland’s first presidential term, in 1886. Tickets are fifteen bucks, beer is available, and you’re sure to have a few views of the always-compelling sight of a fighter prostrate on the canvas wondering what the hell just happened. As a bonus, your ticket price will support the Portland Boxing Club, a non-profit gym that helps kids avoid trouble by teaching them how to box. I, for one, won’t miss it.

The fights will be held at the gym at 8 pm on November 8 and 15. Only on the night of November 29, for the tournament finals (also at 8 pm), will the action shift to the larger venue of the Stevens Avenue Armory, which is much easier to find. Tickets are available at Bruno’s Restaurant — ask at the bar. First-time spectators will thrill to the electric atmosphere that accompanies a boxing card, especially for the fight nights at the gym, with its low ceiling, roar of voices, and an excited standing-room-only crowd of partisans.

The USA Boxing New England Championships are a departure for the Portland Boxing Club, which had hosted the Northeastern Regional Championships for the past 13 years, but the previous tournament did not allow winners to move forward. Boxers who prevail in the USA Boxing tournament’s open class will travel to Lake Placid, New York, to battle New York and New Jersey boxers for the regional title. Winners there go to Colorado Springs, for the US National Championships.

Staying warm

DEIRDRE FULTON — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:28:14 GMT

Going green
As we hurtle (rather unceremoniously, if you ask me) toward winter, many Portlanders are considering ways to stay warm without breaking the bank during the colder months.

As we hurtle (rather unceremoniously, if you ask me) toward winter, many Portlanders are considering ways to stay warm without breaking the bank during the colder months. The cost of heating oil might have gone down from its mid-summer peak, but it still sure ain’t cheap. This isn’t as much a problem for me, as I live in a larger, fairly well-insulated apartment building where heat is included in my rent. However, my dedication to the common good ensures that I don’t get lazy or inefficient. As such, I’ve got winterization on my mind, and with good reason.

According to the US Department of Energy, the average household in Portland spends $2090 on energy costs (mostly heating and small appliances) each year — but in an energy-efficient home, that number could drop by almost a grand to $1175. Most of that savings would come from cutting heating costs, which can be achieved in several ways.

Many friends and acquaintances are planning to put plastic shrink film over the windows in their rental apartments — a good call, because drafty windows can account for up to 30 percent of heating bills. Hardware stores sell basic window-insulation kits for about $10; aside from the fact that plastic-wrapped windows must stay closed all season, this is a quick and easy step toward energy conservation. To go even further, apply rope caulking and adhesive foam strips around window edges and doors (only one handyman-difficulty level up). DIYNetwork.com has several great tutorials on weathersealing windows and doors; see if your landlord will pay for these expenses, if you volunteer the labor.

The homeowners among us have more choices in terms of weatherization. Quality insulation is the most obvious, and cost-effective option — the Energy Department estimates that close to 45 percent of a home’s energy loss is through the attic alone; according to Popular Mechanics, most insulation fixes, big or small, will pay for themselves within two and half years, tops. One friend, who lives on Munjoy Hill, got insulation piped into his walls in October and expects his energy bill will drop close to 40 percent this winter. The best part is, it’s easy these days to find “green” insulation materials. Maine Green Building Supply (mainegreenbuilding.com) on Fox Street stocks several types of sustainable insulation products, including natural recycled cotton, Low-E reflective insulation, and non-toxic insulation foam.

Witch way

DEIRDRE FULTON — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:24:30 GMT

In honor of Halloween, I run a spell-check
After visualizing “financial security,” I readied for Ed McMahon’s knock. No such luck — but the next morning, tucked in a pocket, I found seven dollars !

“As I do this candle spell, bring thy enemy three nights of hell,” I timidly intoned, hoping my neighbors weren’t listening through our thin walls.

Of all the bizarre things I’ve done in the name of journalism, standing in my apartment dripping hot wax on a photograph of a co-worker while chanting a spell is probably one of the strangest.

“Candle black, black as night/bring him pains of flesh tonight./Lesions on his skin will afflict him,” and so on and so forth. Spooky stuff.

I did the spell on Saturday afternoon and he says that he didn’t feel cursed until I started pestering him about it on Monday morning, so I think the hex failed. That, and the fact that his skin is free of lesions. Damn. Possible explanations for said failure? I’d had to use a photocopy of his photograph (he wanted the original back), and I don’t actually harbor any deep hatred for the man (he was simply the first one who agreed to be the subject of a potential hex).

Or maybe it was because I’m not a believer; as with any spiritual endeavor, ritual is rather empty — and useless — if you don’t believe in its larger purpose. At least, that’s what I found as I embarked on a mission to live my life (for a week or so) by the spellbook in honor of Halloween. (Real witches, by the way, celebrate their “Samhain” in a variety of ways that don’t all involve spells and incantations.)

The source of most of my enchantments was Ileana Abrev’s White Spells (Llewellyn Publications, 2007), procured at Borders; the rest I found online. Materials used were things I already had in my cupboards, or picked up at the grocery store or at the Magick Closet, a spiritual-goods retailer on Forest Avenue.

I chose spells that entailed the least amount of extra work and mortification on my part. I was not, for example, going to sprinkle crumbled bay leaves around the head of a potential new beau while he slept in an effort to get him to like me more. (“Oh, sorry, it was just for work,” I can picture myself saying sheepishly as he collects his belongings and hightails it outta there.) Nor was I willing to risk incurring the ire of my landlord by sprinkling “fresh alfalfa sprouts” in the front and back of my apartment building “seven times every Thursday” — even if it would have increased my prosperity. (Who has time for this? And I’d definitely fail to prosper if I lost my job for skipping out seven times in one day in search of prosperity.) And I don’t even know where the closest rose bush is, much less have such a need to “attract love” that I would bury a piece of rose quartz beneath one, then dig it up “on Friday at the stroke of midnight and leave a seed of a flower behind.”

What do you want to know?

DEIRDRE FULTON — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:39:49 GMT

Cha Cha
Have you heard about ChaCha?

Space cowboy

MIKE MILIARD — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:52:54 GMT

For more than 50 years, UConn physics professor Ronald Mallett had a secret. Now that it's out, we may be one step closer to traveling back in time.
Ronald Mallett wanted to build a time machine.

PERSONAL QUEST Since losing his father 53 years ago, Mallett has devoted his life to building a time machine in order to revisit him. Today, in a Connecticut laboratory, he’s developed basic equations and a prototypical experiment that may prove it’s possible.

The road not yet traveled: The science of time travel. By Mike Miliard.

Dr. Ronald L. Mallett was only the 79th African-American to earn a doctorate in physics. But being black wasn’t the only potentially complicating factor he faced on the road to becoming a tenured theoretical physicist at the University of Connecticut.

Another was his reason for choosing his vocation, one he kept hidden for years, fearful that its discovery would (at best) incite howls of derision from his colleagues, or (at worst) amount to professional suicide.

Ronald Mallett wanted to build a time machine.

Traveling into the future is easy. Anyone familiar with Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity knows a moving clock ticks slower than a stationary one. So it’s simple, really: all you have to do is build a spaceship that moves nearly as fast as the speed of light, pump it with enough fuel for a long — long, long — round-trip voyage, and head for the stars. By the time you return to Earth in, say, five years (as marked by you onboard your light-year-traveling spaceship, of course), you’ll have aged half a decade while everyone and everything else on Earth has aged considerably more.

But who wants to go to the future? (Nowadays, it’s terrifying even to ponder what the headlines will be tomorrow.)

Certainly not Mallett. For more than 50 years, he’s been obsessed with finding a way to return to the past. Specifically, to the Bronx, in 1955. That’s the year his father, Boyd Mallet, died. Mallett’s lifelong mission? To traverse spatiotemporal continuum and warn his dad to take better care of himself. To tell him to kick the two-pack-a-day habit that helped lead to the fatal heart attack he suffered at the age of 33.

The “overwhelming shock” of his father’s death caused Mallett, now 63, to “just disconnect from reality,” he says. So when, at age 10, he started building a jury-rigged jalopy, based on the gyroscopic contraption on the cover of the Classics Illustrated version of H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine, it might have seemed as if he had gone over the edge.

Power talk

DEIRDRE FULTON — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:46:19 GMT

Going green
Two upcoming debates will likely address environmental topics and how they impact jobs, climate change, and our national priorities.

Last week’s presidential debate had a foreign-policy focus, but two upcoming debates — one with a town-hall format on October 7, and a more formal event with a focus on domestic and economic issues on October 15 — will likely address environmental topics and how they impact jobs, climate change, and our national priorities.

At the town hall debate at Belmont University in Tennessee, moderator Tom Brokaw will ask Barack Obama and John McCain questions from the audience and from the Internet (submit your queries at myspace.com/mydebates). I’m thinking about submitting a green question, so I’ve been looking closely at each of the candidates’ stances on various environmental issues.

Take the question of “CLEAN COAL,” which author and Appalachia expert Jeff Biggers described thusly in The Washington Post in March: “Never was there an oxymoron more insidious, or more dangerous to our public health.”

The term refers to various processes that supposedly negate coal burning’s egregious environmental effects by “scrubbing,” liquefying, or gasifying its polluting by-products (namely, carbon). But aside from very real concerns about how effective that technology actually is, large-scale clean coal infrastructure (including how to store the sequestered carbon) is at least a decade away. When it comes to climate-change solutions, clean coal is more band-aid than visionary. Still, both Obama and McCain have publicly stated their support of clean coal projects — McCain to the tune of $2 billion per year, Obama only if they emit 20 percent less carbon than traditional methods.

However, Obama proposes investing more than seven times that much ($150 billion over 10 years) into other RENEWABLE ENERGY sources and efficiency measures — which he hopes will translate into five million “green-collar” jobs, and 25 percent of US electricity coming from renewables by 2025.

McCain supports renewables as well, but hasn’t proposed any substantive public financial investment in their production. (The only alternative fuel that McCain specifically targets for government support is NUCLEAR ENERGY. Obama is open to discussing nuclear, but doesn’t support it outright.)

Of course, even the most robust push for renewable energy must be accompanied by a strategy to deal with existing polluters. To that end, both Obama and McCain support a CAP-AND-TRADE SYSTEM that would issue “emissions permits” to companies; no company could exceed the amount of greenhouse gases outlined in its permits, and if it had extras, that company could trade (i.e., sell) its permits to a higher-polluting entity. Over time, the number of permits issued, and therefore emissions, would drop. The candidates disagree on the specifics, however: Obama wants an 80 percent emissions reduction by 2050, while McCain aims for just 65 percent. Plus, McCain wants to give the emissions permits away for free (at first, at least), while Obama wants the federal government to auction them off and make polluters pay from the get-go.

Murder by numbers

SHAY STEWART-BOULEY — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:10:39 GMT

Diverse City
Murder isn’t a common occurrence in Maine. You knew that, but let me remind you just how uncommon. In 2006, just 21 murders in a state of around 1.3 million people.

Murder isn’t a common occurrence in Maine. You knew that, but let me remind you just how uncommon. In 2006, just 21 murders in a state of around 1.3 million people. That’s 0.02 people out of every thousand.

Even aggravated assault struck a mere 0.59 people out of every thousand that year. Maine is pretty damned safe. The animals around here, notably the moose coming out to lick salt off the roads, might pose a bigger risk than humans.

I wanted to point that out before I remind you about the murder of a Sudanese security guard on September 7 in Portland.

On break at his job at Mercy Hospital, this unarmed guard, James Angelo, was shot dead. In addition to the grief of the family and friends of Angelo, we are seeing grief among the roughly 2000 Sudanese immigrants who live in Maine, most of them in Portland and Lewiston. But sadness and loss aren’t all they’re feeling.

Add fear to the list of emotions, too.

With seven violent attacks against Sudanese immigrants over the past six years, people in that community are worried that they are being targeted simply because they are Sudanese.

Edward Laboke, one of the more prominent members of Portland’s Sudanese community, recently outlined for city leaders the list of assaults: Angelo’s shooting; shots that were fired at a home in March, narrowly missing a child inside; a shooting in 2007 and another in 2002; and three beatings, one of which ended with the death of a Sudanese man.

Now, it would be easy to say, “Well, what’s the big deal? An average of one violent attack a year against an entire community. That’s nothing.”

Perhaps it’s nothing if you live in Chicago, as I once did. Or in Philadelphia. Or Detroit. Or New York. Or just about any other city in the nation. But if you are scratching your head and wondering how the Sudanese immigrants can possibly be jumping to a conclusion of race-related crimes against them (and I wondered, too, for a brief moment in time), let’s revisit those figures I mentioned earlier.

In Maine, only about half a person out of every thousand was a victim of an aggravated assault. I guess by that standard, the Sudanese are right on track with the rest of the population, with an average of one attack against their 2000 people each year.

But wait! In the past six years, two Sudanese people have been killed as a result of violent crime. One person per thousand. In a state where each year, nowhere near one white person in a thousand gets murdered.

Fallopian follies

KARA BASKIN — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:38:51 GMT

While celebrity sages salivate over Hollywood babies, Beltway pundits are spinning the latest wave of ovarian escapades. Have girls really gone wild?
Speculating on celebrity baby “bumps” is Hollywood blood sport.

Speculating on celebrity baby “bumps” is Hollywood blood sport. Ashlee, Nicole, the much-maligned Jamie Lynn Spears — all were outed by the press before they could even register for Diaper Genies. (A moment of silence for Lisa Marie Presley, who appeared on the cover of a tabloid looking like Wilfred Brimley in a muumuu and subsequently admitted to carrying twins.) Now, thanks to Sarah Palin’s impregnated teenage daughter, Bristol, trashy baby fever has come to the nation’s capital — a place where, until recently, sex had its proper place: under Oval Office desks and in airport-bathroom stalls. But suddenly, babies have become a campaign-trail tool, like George W. Bush’s cowboy act or Bill Clinton’s saxophone. Will it work?

I hope not — it’s a pretty thin MO for someone with as much diplomatic experience as, I don’t know, me. In searching for a vice-president, John McCain sought someone with no knowledge of Iraq, social views befitting a Victorian mixer, and a vagina. I can just picture the crusty Arizona senator sending his minions scampering to find a nice lady politician, someone those pesky women voters could get enthusiastic about after all that Hillary Clinton hullabaloo. If this election is going to be about change, the blustering ex-POW can play with the best of them. “Hey, Obama, you might be black — but I’ve got a girl on my team! And from Alaska, too!” Who cares if she’s a lightweight with as much foreign-policy expertise as Tom Arnold? McCain needed a strident hockey mom as the antidote to Hillary Clinton’s power pantsuits and Obama’s rousing rhetoric. Can you really blame the old geezer?

Too bad Bristol’s fickle fallopian tubes are likely to be her mother’s undoing. You don’t get to campaign as a family-values, pro-woman candidate who also opposes abortion and sex education — because those stances do more for unplanned pregnancy than cheap wine and Barry White. And you can’t exactly sing the praises of abstinence education when your own 17-year-old daughter is a waddling testament to its impotence.

Palin’s handlers would have you believe that she’s just itching to become a grandma. Her office released this statement, which would throw a diabetic into convulsions: “Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby, and even prouder to become grandparents.”

Ask me anything

CAITLIN E. CURRAN — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:50:30 GMT

A free instant answer to any question is just a text away. But what do ChaCha’s guides have that , say, librarians don’t?
It used to be that, if you had a burning question, you had to a) ask your mom; b) consult a Magic 8 Ball; or c) trek to the top of a mountain to seek out a sagacious, all-knowing guru.

It used to be that, if you had a burning question (depending on the degree of difficulty), you had to a) ask your mom; b) consult a Magic 8 Ball; or c) trek to the top of a mountain to seek out a sagacious, all-knowing guru. Now all you have to do is search the Interwebs.

But while most knowledge seekers turn to Google and other search engines, newer sites like Yahoo Answers utilize an approach that’s so archaic, it’s practically Luddite: they employ actual people to answer your questions, via wiki-style community contribution. ChaCha, a new company that launched this past January, is taking that idea one step further, by having employees (ChaCha calls them “guides”) personally research your questions online, and text message you an answer. It’s like having a smart cabana boy. And it’s free.

Here’s how it works: anyone in the US with a cell phone can send a text message to 242-242 (“ChaCha,” get it?), asking any question: will it rain today? What’s in hummus? When will Guns N’ Roses release Chinese Democracy? Within about 10 minutes, a guide should text back the answer. (Probably. Mainly chickpeas, tahini, and olive oil. Maybe never.)

“Most services out there just take what’s on the Web and refit it for a text message,” says Susan Marshall, vice-president of marketing for ChaCha, on the phone from their Indiana headquarters, in reference to similar, but automated, question-answering services, such as Google SMS. Hence the often frustrating and irrelevant answers Google SMS can return — like wrong places or “no results” — when all you want is the name of that damn pizza place on Brighton Avenue. “People want simple answers to questions, and with the guides, we’re able to give them that.”

Marshall says ChaCha currently employs approximately 15,000 guides, who field millions of calls each month — about 500 answer questions each hour. Typically, a guide earns 20 cents per text-message answer, though ChaCha seems to be in a constant state of re-valuating its payment system and its guide-training process, and restructuring its Web site. The whole operation is funded by advertising sponsors (whose one-line ads appear at the bottom of some of Cha Cha’s texts) covetous of an aggressive text-messaging demo.

I texted ChaCha on a Thursday afternoon. “What’s the best strategy for kickball?” I queried, smart-assedly. Moments later, my phone buzzed to life with a text reply: “Surprisingly, it’s best to kick low toward third base, as outfielders will catch most harder kicks.” It was almost like texting with a very wise friend — except that my friends don’t usually send advertisements for Coke Zero with their messages.

100 things to do

DEIRDRE FULTON — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:25:19 GMT

Want to call yourself a true Portlander? Here's a checklist.
A checklist for true Portlanders.

Now's the time

DEIRDRE FULTON — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:07:17 GMT

A primer on Opportunity Maine
Opportunity Maine is that rare type of public policy — one that enjoys true bipartisan support, and one that is expected to actually work.

It’s been rated one of the top 10 best public policies in the nation, and compared to the GI Bill, which helps finance the college educations of war veterans. It’s been called “a program that promises great things for Maine’s economic future.” And it could save you thousands of dollars.

Opportunity Maine is that rare type of public policy — one that enjoys true bipartisan support, and one that is expected to actually work. Signed into law in July 2007, the program serves both to lower young people’s debt and to keep them in Maine by providing graduates of Maine colleges (two- or four-year) with tax credits as reimbursements (a check, like your tax refund) for student loan payments, as long as they continue to live, work, and pay taxes in-state. Alternately, if a Maine business decides to take over a graduate’s loan payments, that employer can benefit from the tax credit. The program applies to loans taken out since January of this year.

Ultimately, program advocates (including the League of Young Voters and several state legislative candidates) say that Opportunity Maine will raise Maine incomes and employment rates, which are suffering due to the state’s low education levels and degree-completion rates.

“This will raise aspirations and, intern, increase degree enrollment and completion, economic development, and average incomes,” Opportunity Maine executive director Rob Brown wrote in a Bangor Daily News op-ed earlier this year. “By virtually eliminating the burden of debt for Maine’s workers, we will strengthen our economy for the long haul.”

However, student, college, and business awareness is still a major hurdle for the program, Brown says. Some Maine colleges and universities, such as Colby College and the University of Maine system, encourage all students sign the Opportunity Maine form as a matter of course, knowing that it’ll help them if they choose to stay in the state, and won’t apply if they don’t. But lots of students don’t know if they’re eligible, or don’t understand how the program works. The program’s Web site (opportunitymaine.org) is extremely helpful in this regard, but here, we’ll try to clear up some of the major questions.

HOW TO SIGN UP Students enroll in the Opportunity Maine program by signing a contract that reads, in part: “The student agrees to live and work in Maine during any period where he/she seeks to claim the educational opportunity tax credit. He/she may move from Maine at any time, but may not claim the credit for tax periods while a non-resident.” The form can be printed off the program’s Web site, or students can ask for it at their financial aid office. The contract doesn’t force those who sign it to stay in the state. But if a student does sign and graduate, the contract serves as paperwork to ensure the tax credit will apply.

Oh, you like Melville?

CHRISTOPHER GRAY — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:38:55 GMT

Five books to land your first college mate
We cannot stress this enough. As much as no one cares about your laptop or iPhone, everyone sneaks a peek at what their peers and classmates are reading.

Pick what you eat

DEIRDRE FULTON — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:09:56 GMT

Fans of organic food: Stop talking, start weeding
In just a few hours, go beyond the agri-tourism of picking berries or apples, and actually learn something about the land.

When I arrived at Rippling Waters Organic Farm in Standish around 8 am last Wednesday, several young women in their 20s were clustered around their farm manager, Julee. They were going over the morning’s tasks, which involved weeding Field D, removing juicy, leaf-devouring caterpillars from tomato plants, harvesting chard, and bagging produce for a Portland food pantry.

“Who wants to do hornworms?” Julee asked, referencing the caterpillars. This is not a particularly popular chore, it seems. I said I’d do it.

So began one of my days volunteering at a local farm, a surprisingly easy gig to set up, and one that increasing numbers of young people, both in New England and nationwide, are pursuing with varying intensity (see further down, “Levels of Commitment”).

Many of this generation’s locavores have read the requisite Michael Pollan tomes, developed relationships with their favorite farmers’ market vendors, and maybe even taught themselves some elementary food-preservation techniques — to keep yummy veggies year-round rather than having to buy produce out of season from some far-off place. What comes next, in the quest for sustainable-food street cred?

For some, it’s working on a farm, planting seeds, cultivating what grows, and pulling ripe produce straight from the ground. How better for this generation’s sustainable-food junkies to put their pitchforks where their principles are, than to actually learn (by doing) on small organic farms?

Of course, we recognize that not everyone who’s interested in sustainable agriculture is willing to don overalls for the long haul, or to buy a farm and become a full-time farmer. That’s why we’re sharing this well-buried secret: With just a few hours, you can go beyond the agri-tourism of picking berries or apples for personal gustatory enjoyment, and actually learn something about the land. Organic farms are so chronically understaffed that there’s always room for an extra set of hands, especially during these late-summer weeks, when harvesting is at its peak. In most cases, all it takes is a phone call and some free time to set up a volunteer gig. (To that end, we’ve included the names and contact info for some New England farms that welcome volunteers.)

Though you might go home with a few surplus tidbits, the bulk of the food a volunteer harvests ends up in someone else’s belly. But the increased understanding, however superficial, of what it takes to put that food on our plates? That stays in the harvester’s brain with as much tenacity as the dirt under her fingernails.

The truth is up there

JAMES PARKER — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:58:32 GMT

Clouds, sun dogs, and the dream of an atmospheric education . . . How one former TV reporter brought his sky gospel to the people
The sky’s on the move again, he can feel it.

Clouds, "Motion of the Ocean" (from We Are Above You) (mp3)

Slideshow: Cloud life: Cameraphone cloud pics from around town. By k bonami.

The sky’s on the move again, he can feel it. Mute, significant dramas of cloud in the late summer — huge manifestations, each one different, churned by its own bucking thermals and pockets of glare.

“This has just been the lengthiest skein of towering cumulus clouds,” says Jack. “In 30 years of almost excessive sky watching, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

And as to his mission, his vocation, there have been the usual celestial hints. Drifting serendipities. Prods of light, directing him.

“That’s the way it’s always worked with this thing,” he says. “Sometimes it’s like going up a glass mountain in Vaseline shoes. But there are connections, things falling into place, constantly. And then you have to follow them.”

There’s the organization — For Spacious Skies, a culturally mobile philosophical/meteorological think tank dedicated to the promotion of “sky awareness” — and then there’s the man: Jack Borden. And at this point, three decades into the story, there’s really no telling them apart. Who hasn’t Jack talked to, lectured, belabored, over the years, in his stop-start jazzy/professional cadences? Who hasn’t he laid his sky trip on? Educators, aviators, politicians, weathermen, mental-health professionals, prison administrators, conservationists; TV, radio, print . . . he’s crisscrossed the continent, pitching for the heavens, puffing his cloud patter. And the message? It’s really very simple.

“There are benefits — moral and aesthetic and educational benefits — to be derived from just being aware of what’s going on over your head.” Borden’s slogan Number One: “No kid who appreciates the beauty of the sky is ever going to mug a Cumberland Farms cashier!”

Jack, at 80, is avid, dogmatic, wry, ebullient, tireless. At 50, he must have been formidable; at 30, a maniac. His conversation is fast-moving and tangential. He has crystalline recall. We pass six overheated and talk-filled hours as interviewer and subject, in the course of which I fortify myself with (tallying it all up) a PowerBar, a mug of tea, a bottle of water, a swordfish steak, a Caesar salad, a Heineken, and two French rolls. Jack’s total intake: a cup of coffee and a root beer.

Through race-colored glasses

SHAY STEWART-BOULEY — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:49:18 GMT

Diverse City
Folks, we have an elephant in the middle of our national living room. And I don’t mean the Republican Party. It’s race.

Folks, we have an elephant in the middle of our national living room. And I don’t mean the Republican Party. It’s race.

Oh, we try to ignore him. Political correctness has most people in this country afraid to get into true, in-depth discussions about race. Worse yet, being PC has people trying to come off like they are really “colorblind” in their daily dealings.

Pardon me while I try to stop laughing.

No one is colorblind, neither the minorities nor the Caucasians. We just don’t want to admit that color matters — for some of us only a little; for others a lot — but it does.

And it will keep influencing our thoughts, particularly with the bombshell from the US Census Bureau that non-Hispanic Whites will cease to be the majority as soon as 2042, eight years earlier than previously predicted.

I’ve already noticed a lot of Whites fretting about this fact. They are saying they will be a minority in 2042. They’re already panicking and missing the point that they will simply be less than half the population. They won’t truly be the minority; Hispanics will clock in at one-third and Blacks will be around 15 percent. Truth be told, everyone will be a minority in 2042, just some more minor than others.

I also find that a surprising number of Whites seem worried that if Barack Obama becomes president, he will somehow elevate all Blacks to positions of power and demote all the Whites, as if that were even possible. Of course, I also see a frightening number of Blacks who think a darker-hued president will suddenly mean an end to race inequities — oh, it’s a small number, but any number of my people being that delusional about race relations scares me.

So, like it or not, we are still ruled by color-vision.

Racial decisions of the past and racial inequities of all sorts that continue today impact our lives deeply, in both subtle and dramatic ways. Slavery is gone and the Civil Rights movement made great waves in the ’60s and ’70s, yet we still tend to define each other by skin.

Even here in Maine, where my six years have taught me that overall folks here are good and decent people, perceptions about people of differences abound. Certain areas or towns with higher numbers of people of color tend to be called “bad” areas, I’ve noticed. In Portland it seems the Kennedy Park area wears that crown; I’ve only been there a handful of times but I it reminded me of a more urban and multicultural area and that’s neither good nor bad, to me. Sure, a transient was killed by a group of young men there recently, and that is tragic, but the sketchy details say it was a “multicultural group” and I’m already waiting for some groaning about “See, that’s what happens when non-whites move in.”

Mound wisdom

MIKE MILIARD — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:29:12 GMT

Cartoons of pitchers and catchers talking are a New Yorker staple. What is so funny about rubbers?
The first pitcher/catcher cartoon in the New Yorker was also the simplest.

The first pitcher/catcher cartoon in the New Yorker was also the simplest. Drawn by Garrett Price, in the June 14, 1941, issue, it depicts a catcher, decked out in the tools of ignorance, face mask still on, approaching his pitcher for a powwow.

His advice: “Strike him out.”

“I’ve always loved that one,” says New Yorker (and, we should note, Boston Phoenix) cartoonist David Sipress. “When the manager or the catcher go out to the mound to talk to the pitcher, everyone in the world, on some level, is thinking, ‘What the fuck? What in the world could possibly be useful or relevant in what he’s saying?’ ”

This past June, Sipress drew another one-panel for the New Yorker on the same subject. Standing on a sandy mound in the middle of Shea Stadium, a right-hander complains to his backstop: “I know I could keep my slider down if they would just fire the manager.” (For those not up on the minutiae of New York baseball, that’s a sly commentary on the travails this summer of since-canned Mets skipper Willie Randolph.)

Between Price and Sipress’s cartoons, there have been at least 20 other visits to the pitching rubber in the pages of the New Yorker over the years.

In April 2001, Michael Crawford made light of Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez’s remarkably acrobatic wind-up. “Gimme a hand,” the Yankees righty, his cleat lodged inside his elbow, said to his approaching battery mate. “I’m stuck.”

In October 2006, Leo Cullum imagined a catcher’s novel remedy for a bases-loaded jam: “Let’s go slider, fastball, curve, beanball, fight, ejection, shower, beer.”

This past June, Danny Shanahan sketched a pitcher peering plateward, a pigskin in hand, about to go deep. “There’s your problem,” the catcher opined.

Cartoonists often indulge in certain visual tropes, over and over again, notes Sipress. The Grim Reaper. Aliens. Cats and dogs. Snowmen. The Pearly Gates. Medieval prisoners hanging from shackles in dungeons. The wild-eyed street prophet wearing a sandwich board.

The pitcher-catcher conversation is just another example of that grand tradition. In fact, Sipress sees the pitching mound as analogous to another classic set piece. “The mound is a little like a desert island, in that there are these two people in an isolated place.”

I suggest that two people talking in private, each counting on the other in an intimate codependent relationship, suggests another cartoon cliché: the husband and wife in bed. Sipress agrees, adding that “it’s like two people in bed in the middle of a stadium. The absurdity of them having a private conversation in the most public arena is ultimately what’s so funny.”

Beijing sting

JAMES PARKER — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:48:00 GMT

Exposed: A top-secret government memorandum, obtained this past week by the Phoenix, gives the games away
Greetings, faithful steward of information!

FROM General Administration of Press and Publication, Communist Party of the People’s Republic of China

TO All organs of the National Press

8.8.08

Greetings, faithful steward of information!

On this auspicious day, this day of mighty augury, replete with the promise of the lucky number “8,” we commence the noble proceedings that will most certainly not be remembered by all the world as the Clusterfuck Olympics, Worst Idea Ever, Historic Environmental/Sporting Disaster, etc.

Beijing 2008: Special Issue: China, Tibet, and the Olympics

Beijing is ready! The air sparkles with asbestos crystals, mighty industrial hoses are sluicing the public toilets, and in the Olympic Village, the apartment buildings that fell down last night have already been rebuilt. All dissent has now been neutralized! Four million pollution-producing vehicles have been impounded. The embargo against hair-dryer use continues to be energetically enforced. And the People’s Internet remains secure — the glorious firewall whose protective coils encircle our Republic like those of the celestial dragon Tianlong will never be breached, never!

What, you ask, can you do? What is your part in this magnificent popular effort? Read this handout carefully, comrade. Read it again, even more carefully. As the “eyes of the world” turn upon China, you have an important role to play! “No news is good news,” says the American. He is incorrect. All news is good news, and the Republic looks to you, as a state-approved news propagator, to draw the attention of our international guests to the famous “silver lining.”

No doubt by now it has not rained upon the opening ceremonies, drowning the occasion in sulphurous yellow-dog precipitation that raises a strange foam upon the scalp. Thanks to the preventive actions of our farseeing Weather Modification Program, whose stirring and masculine arsenal of silver-iodide rockets already will have been fired into the looming clouds to “empty” them, such an eventuality will assuredly have been avoided!

But if not, it will be your job as a journalist/news outlet to emphasize the distinctively Chinese character of the ensuing downpour — its plum-scented richness and softness, and its hygienic properties! The choreographed appearance of 80,000 government-issue umbrellas will also be splendid beyond imagining. All press officers have been issued with a copy of “Rain,” by our great seventh-century poet To Fu: “Bright drops descend/Lacing with jewels my lonely pomegranate bush./ Generous heavens,/ Send this old man a bride, will you? Damn!” For your convenience, the poem has been translated into 47 languages.

Ready or not (mostly not)

SARA FAITH ALTERMAN — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:50:40 GMT

Beijing says it's ready for the Olympics. Uh, really, Beijing?
Oh, Beijing. You’re like the ex-boyfriend that I wanted so badly to love, but just couldn’t bring myself to face in the morning, once the booze wore off.

Photo by Sara Faith Alterman.

BEIJING — On television images and in photographs, Beijing looks ready for the surge of athletes, government officials, VIPs, and gazillion visitors who are about to cover this city like white on Olympic rice. The international media has fractiously scrutinized China’s capital for the past few years, allowing the Western world to look over Beijing’s shoulders as the city prepared to host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. We watched as it put the finishing touches on state-of-the-art athletic facilities; fought air pollution; and equipped taxi drivers, hospitality workers, and public servants with the English skills they’ll need to communicate with the thousands of foreigners who will be flitting about Beijing during the month of August.

Except . . . not.

Beijing 2008: Special issue: China, Tibet, and the Olympics

I’ve been living in Beijing since the beginning of July, covering the mad month-long preamble to the Games. My experience has been the polar opposite of what I had read and seen in news stories about how the Chinese are ready and willing to accommodate the Olympic athletes, coaches, spectators, media, and volunteers. How silly of me. I should have known that a country that vehemently denied SARS and tried to poison our pets and children might be a little less than forthcoming about the asinine, algae-scented shitshow that is the 2008 Olympics.

Oh, Beijing. You’re like the ex-boyfriend that I wanted so badly to love, but just couldn’t bring myself to face in the morning, once the booze wore off. I wish I could break it off with you (and go home), but I’ve vowed to stick it out, so I’m trying to make the best of it. Really, I am. But you lied to me, Beijing, and that hurts. It hurts my heart, and it hurts my pride. And it hurts my tender lungs and sinus cavities, too.

Hack attack
I have literally seen the sun once since I have been here, and not because it’s been rainy, or cloudy, or because I sleep off my one-dollar-draft-beer hangovers until the following evening. The gray haze that hangs over the city like a burdened conscience is the result of years of pollutants being wafted to the sky, tits to the wind. Hacking up black mystery gunk has become an accepted part of my daily routine, and I’ve grown to actually find a cathartic satisfaction in hawking a chunky loog — though I’m not sure that Olympic athletes will find that as hilarious as I do. How any of the outdoor competitors will complete their events without developing a nasty case of emphysema in the process I’m not entirely sure. I can’t even walk three blocks without sputtering and wheezing like a dying engine.