Amazing Grace

Dinner at Grace was a great way to end First Friday. It's an incredibly beautiful space, and the view from the choir loft is really something - a great perspective on the bar and on the kitchen, too.

Starters were really strong - even the lettuce in the salad seemed special, and the scallops tartare and fried clams (from the bar menu) were like none we had ever tried. The mains were also really great - the duck with quinoa, fingerling potatoes, and hibiscus-ginger jelly was among the best duck I've ever eaten. (And the only one I can think of that I'd class better had crispier skin and different sides.) The hanger steak was tender and smooth, even done medium-well (as requested), and reports were that the lamb was also very good. The wine list is solid - as is the cocktail list (try the "Holier Than Thou") - and an old vines Sonoma County St. Francis was excellent value. The cinnamon chocolate mousse cake with a side of cinnamon ice cream was an amazing finish. (The pastry chef just came up from a four-star restaurant in New York City, so more desserts are on the way as she settles in.)

It's a massive space that must have cost a ton to renovate and clean up; it'll have to turn tables and keep people coming in the door to make it. Plans include offering a Sunday brunch by mid-July, and if the food is like the dinner, it'll be a serious contender for best brunch in town. If they can turn tables fast enough to get 6:30 reservations out the door for an 8 pm Merrill show, the place will have it made.

BTW, I also managed to try Peak Organic's pomegranate wheat beer with acai - Deirdre blogged about it the other day. It was light and refreshing, without too much fruitiness. Not exactly like a wheat beer, though - lighter (and clearer) - but still smooth.

Still no answer from FairPoint

In this week's Portland Phoenix, I wrote a piece about FairPoint and how bad its service is, as well as the fact that the company is projecting it may soon have to file for bankruptcy protection.

In that article, I also noted that FairPoint's public-relations department isn't much better at responding than its customer-service department appears to be.

My three voicemail messages for company spokesman Jeff Nevins begat an e-mail message asking for the questions. I don't usually like to ask questions over e-mail, given that it offers PR flacks a big opportunity to spin and not answer the questions. But Nevins said "the only way" I could get answers before my deadline was to e-mail them. That was Tuesday at noon. Still nothing.

So, as promised in the pages of the Portland Phoenix, here are the questions I sent. If and when FairPoint responds - and I have since called and e-mailed Rose Cummings, FairPoint's vice-president for corporate communications as well - I will post the answers. In the meantime, enjoy FairPoint's silence.

1) The 8-K filing says you want to capitalize the interest on the $531 million in loans when you reissue the new notes. You remain, however, obligated by rulings from state regulators to pay down a certain amount of debt before the end of this year. Will you be able to meet that commitment? And how does failing to pay interest on existing loans, and, in fact, borrowing more money affect that commitment?

2) Please confirm how much of the $531 million you are seeking to refinance is now accruing interest at an annual rate of 13 percent or greater.

3) Businesses in downtown Portland and around Maine are moving around; as some businesses close or reduce size, others are taking advantage of lower rents and vacancies in better locations to build their businesses. But they are being hamstrung, and losing business, as a result of delays in getting phone service - people can neither find their businesses nor call them to learn the new location. Several business owners I have spoken with have even been unable to get a FairPoint person on the phone to help them satisfactorily. When will FairPoint have these businesses fully connected?

4) Should they call your office for assistance, if they are unable to get what they need from customer service? If not your office, then whose? (Please include contact information.)

5) Many of these businesses are so frustrated with FairPoint that they are on the verge of contacting TimeWarner to get phone and Internet service. Given that FairPoint is already experiencing an attrition rate higher than Verizon's attrition when that company was here, and given that your business model is based on having a lower attrition rate than Verizon's, what are you doing to stanch the losses?

6) FairPoint has promised - and been ordered by the Maine PUC - to keep basic telephone rates frozen for five years. A common way for phone companies to handle financial challenges is to seek a rate increase. Will FairPoint commit to honoring its word, by promising not to seek to amend the MPUC order freezing phone rates?

7) The people of northern New England want assurances that you can meet your obligations to us. I'm not talking about making promises here, but actual evidence. How much cash do you have now available for paying down debt, for building out DSL, for investing in other infrastructure projects, and your other obligations under the order allowing your takeover of Verizon's business? How much cash do you yet need to raise to meet this year's obligations? How, precisely, do you plan to do raise that amount of money? And what about next year, and the years to come?

Serious about buying Press Herald property?

If you are, now might be your chance to throw your hat in the ring. John Cacoulidis, who has a signed agreement for the rights to purchase the buildings - which expires later this month - has just spent $10 million buying some other real estate in greater Portland. Dennis Bailey, spokesman for Rich Connor, the Press Herald's new owner, hadn't heard about the deal when we called to ask him about how it might affect the pending Press Herald property sale.

Something to keep your eyes on.

Called out by Tom Friedman

In today's NYT:

"And then there is We the People. Attention all young Americans: your climate future is being decided right now in the cloakrooms of the Capitol, where the coal lobby holds huge sway. You want to make a difference? Then get out of Facebook and into somebody’s face. Get a million people on the Washington Mall calling for a price on carbon. That will get the Senate’s attention. Play hardball or don’t play at all."

Learn more about the climate / energy / environment bill here:

Grist

The Times

The Hill (Um, language!)

More on the Burmese monks

Many of you came to see the film Burma VJ at SPACE Gallery last week, and many more of you may be interested in finding out more about the Burmese monks who spoke after the film.

Recently, a New York Times photographer spent some time with the monks and prepared a beautiful video report.

Also, if you want to support the monks, you can visit their Web site. You can also keep up with what's going on in Burma through the US Campaign for Burma.

How smart is GrowSmart?

Al Diamon took GrowSmart Maine to task a couple weeks back. The anti-sprawl, pro-Maine's-future group is having money troubles. Mainebiz reports today that the organization is moving to downtown Portland. 

Why, you might ask. Well, it seems, as Mainebiz says, "The smaller and more centralized space will reduce rental expenses and is expected to cut staff commuting costs by thousands of dollars."

So an anti-sprawl group has figured out that driving from Portland to Yarmouth costs money. Maybe their new location will be on a bus line, or somewhere bikeable. Or maybe they'll just get parking spaces for the staff.

Calling on Snowe to stand up for healthcare reform

Earlier this month, we told you about the key role Maine Senator Olympia Snowe is playing in the healthcare-reform debate.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media isn't telling you the whole story. Here's the lead in today's Associated Press piece on the subject:

"Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, a key figure in shaping federal health care legislation, says a government-run plan that would take effect if the private insurance market fails to deliver affordable coverage could bridge the partisan divide that threatens to derail President Obama's efforts to reform the system."

Where the article - and, crucially, Snowe - falls down is in failing to recognize that the private insurance market has already failed "to deliver affordable coverage." For years, Americans have been suffering under the thumb of private health-insurance companies, paying higher and higher premiums for fewer and fewer benefits. The numbers of the uninsured and underinsured have grown. Efforts to reform our broken, diseased, death-factory of a healthcare "system" have been stymied for years by private interests, who though split among several companies nevertheless operate as an exploitative monopoly, toying with Americans' very lives.

That's why President Obama has included a government-run plan in his reform package - expressly to compete with the private sector, which has failed so badly. His hope is that the government plan will force the private insurance companies to step up and actually provide service, or risk losing customers. It may one day become a single-payer system, if the private companies continue to wreck Americans' lives, as they have done for so long.

But Snowe says we should give them another chance to give us what they have failed to give us for decades. Snowe says that if they still don't take that opportunity, then we can put in a government plan. How many Americans will get sick and die between now and then? How many Americans will lose their health insurance, or become unable to afford it?

Let's be extremely clear: Healthcare is a basic human right. Justice delayed is justice denied.

Senator Snowe, it is time for you to stand up and force private insurance companies to provide what they advertise - actual healthcare for actual Americans. Give Americans a real option, and give the insurance companies real competition. That is their last chance. If they can't get it right in the face of real competition, in an actual marketplace, then they should indeed fail and fall by the wayside. If they can get their acts together and compete, more power to them. But it is long past time for one last chance.

McNaboe on MJ

 Over the weekend, we got the following message from local musician Tony McNaboe. It seemed worth sharing, which we are doing here with Tony's permission:

....This is surreal... Last night on the way back from NH the band and I played Off the wall, Thriller and Bad in their entirety and celebrated Mike's life. We had several hours to take it all in and more than a couple times I fought backs tears. Still, that couldnt have prepared me for the overwhelming response that I woke up to on my television. 

The Pope believes in science? Not so fast

Stop the presses/electrons/bits/telepathic waves!

Pope Benedict XVI has declared that scientific tests actually prove something! This from a man who disputes the scientific benefits of birth control, and who challenges scientific evidence about homosexuality.

So what, you ask, does the Holy Father agree with scientists on? Actually, now that you mention it, it's hard to tell.

Seems scientists tested some material taken from what Catholic tradition holds is the tomb of St. Paul, one of Jesus's disciples. What they found, CNN reports the pope as saying, is that bones in the sample "belong to someone who lived in the first or second century."

And, therefore.....?

"This seems to confirm the unanimous and undisputed tradition that these are the mortal remains of the Apostle St. Paul," Benedict said in Sunday's announcement.

Let's follow the pope's scientific logic here:

1) Bones are in an ancient sarcophagus that is, traditionally, believed to be St. Paul's tomb.

3) The bones are tested and found to date to "the first or second century," or somewhere between 1 and 200 CE.

4) No one but St. Paul lived during that period. Ignore the theory suggesting that Jesus and 11 other disciples (plus a few folks that Jesus guy encountered) were alive somewhere around then.

5) The next reported human appeared after 200 CE. Ignore the theory that suggests others must have lived then.

6) Therefore, the bones must be those of St. Paul.

QED.

Health care debate comes to Maine

 This just (kind of, Friday afternoon) in from the US Department of Health and Human Services, on why Maine needs health care reform:

Congress and the President are working to enact health care reform legislation that protects what works about health care and fixes what is broken. Mainers know that inaction is not an option. Sky-rocketing health care costs are hurting families, forcing businesses to cut or drop health benefits, and straining state budgets. Mainers are paying more for less. Families and businesses in Maine deserve better.

MAINERS CAN’T AFFORD THE STATUS QUO

• Roughly 783,000 people in Maine get health insurance on the job¹, where family premiums average $14,304, about the annual earning of a full-time minimum wage job.²
• Since 2000 alone, average family premiums have increased by 105 percent in Maine.³
• Household budgets are strained by high costs: 15 percent of middle-income Maine families spend more than 10 percent of their income on health care.⁴
• High costs block access to care: 10 percent of people in Maine report not visiting a doctor due to high costs.⁵
• Maine businesses and families shoulder a hidden health tax of roughly $800 per year on premiums as a direct result of subsidizing the costs of the uninsured.⁶

AFFORDABLE HEALTH COVERAGE IS INCREASINGLY OUT OF REACH IN MAINE

• 9 percent of people in Maine are uninsured, and 75 percent of them are in families with at least one full-time worker.⁷
• The percent of Mainers with employer coverage is declining: from 63 to 60 percent between 2000 and 2007.⁸
• While small businesses make up 79 percent of Maine businesses,⁹ only 45 percent of them offered health coverage benefits in 2006.¹⁰
• Choice of health insurance is limited in Maine. WellPoint Inc. (BCBS) alone constitutes 78 percent of the health insurance market share in Maine, with the top two insurance providers accounting for 88 percent.¹¹
• Choice is even more limited for people with pre-existing conditions. In Maine, premiums can vary based on a modified community rating structure, and coverage can exclude pre-existing conditions in some cases.  

MAINERS NEED HIGHER QUALITY, GREATER VALUE, AND MORE PREVENTATIVE CARE

• The overall quality of care in Maine is rated as “Average.”¹²
• Preventative measures that could keep Mainers healthier and out of the hospital are deficient, leading to problems across the age spectrum:
  • 13 percent of children in Maine are obese.¹³
  • 15 percent of women over the age of 50 in Maine have not received a mammogram in the past two years.
  • 27 percent of men over the age of 50 in Maine have never had a colorectal cancer screening.
  • 77 percent of adults over the age of 65 in Maine have received a flu vaccine in the past year.¹⁴

The need for reform in Maine and across the country is clear. Maine families simply can’t afford the status quo and deserve better. President Obama is committed to working with Congress to pass health reform this year that reduces costs for families, businesses and government; protects people’s choice of doctors, hospitals and health plans; and assures affordable, quality health care for all Americans.

The same day, I recieved an email from Doctors for America, denouncing a Conservatives for Patients' Rights TV ad that's currently airing in Maine (aimed, of course, at Maine's swing-vote senators, who could play a big role in the healthcare debate [seems like every time I mention these two recently I mention how important their votes are]). The ad (you can watch their ads on YouTube) claims that healthcare reform will add one more layer of bureaucracy to our already-miserable healthcare system. The DFA release counters: “Health reform, like a sound public option, will make sure that Americans are able to get the health care they desperately need. This scare tactic is a lie, the plans on the table will make sure more people can get the preventative care and long term treatment they need for a better quality of life,” said Dr. Vivek Murthy, President of Doctors for America.

Baldacci - Sanford - Ensign?

The Washington Post has an interesting article about a bizarre and secretive home/boarding house/"Christian prayer group" in Washington DC to which unfaithful South Carolina governor Mark Sanford and unfaithful Nevada senator John Ensign are connected.

But way back in May 2003, we told you that John Baldacci was connected to it too - he lived there when he was a congressman. Does this mean anything? It is unclear. Is it fascinating? You bet.

Guitar Hero bands go on tour

I have discovered why REO Speedwagon, Styx, and .38 Special would go on tour together. (Well, really, I have discovered that someone else has discovered why.)

When I was a kid, I didn't know anybody who devotedly listened to any two of the three (though some radio stations did play all three), and so it struck me as odd to learn they're coming to the Meadowbrook in Guilford, New Hampshire tomorrow night.

Turns out it's because they have found all kinds of new fans through Guitar Hero, which features songs from each of the bands, and want to play live to them - as well as let the fans play along, on a Guitar Hero mini-stage during the concert.

Just another way video games are changing the music industry!

Las Vegas paper talks lobster

I'm not sure why, but the leading paper in the land-locked state of Nevada editorialized about Maine lobstermen and lobster dealers yesterday.

It's under the headline "An economic lesson from the Northeast," but frankly reads as more on point - and more solidly stated - than many local editorials on Maine issues.

Have a read, and see whether you agree that the lobster dealers are trying a new tack to stick it to their suppliers - the men and women we know as lobstermen.

Beer + Berries

We've all seen the ads on our Facebook pages for the "Acai Miracle Diet" -- so what luck that a local beer now fits into our summer diet plans, with Peak Organic's seasonal Pomegranate Wheat Ale with Acai. 

The eco-friendly organic brewery, which is based here in Maine, is capitalizing on the superfood popularity of such antioxidant-heavy fruits as acai (pronounced Aah-sigh-ee) and pomegranate. The bottled result, according to a press release, "has a soft, round mouthfeel from the local, unmalted wheat. The spice from the coriander and the subtle sweetness from the Pomegranate and Acai are a perfect complement, making this beer refreshing, yet complex."

No first-hand reports to offer, yet, but maybe after tonight's Shakespeare in the Park extravaganza.

Focusing on Female Vets

Just got a press release from Maine Representative Mike Michaud's office, touting the probable passage this evening of H.R. 1211, the Women Veterans Health Care Improvement Act, which Michaud cosponsored. The bill specifically addresses health care services available to women veterans, who comprise almost 15 percent of the active military. At least 20 percent of those women will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and between 30 and 70 percent of returning female veterans report some type of sexual assault. 

The bill provides money for:

• a study of barriers to women veterans seeking health care;
• assessment of women's health care programs;
• medical care for newborn children of women veterans;
• enhancement of VA sexual trauma programs;
• enhancement of PTSD treatment for women; and,
• establishment of a pilot program for child care services.

"Women now make up 14% of the active military," said Michaud.  "VA data shows that the amount of women who are expected to use the VA health care system is will likely double within the next four years. This bill takes the necessary steps to ensure women veterans get the care they need."

It's about time.