Prostitution in the old Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628-92), which then ran north into southern Maine and included the seaside town of Kennebunk (“So Close, Yet Worlds Away”), was a hanging offense. Times have changed however. And so on Friday a state judge in Portland accepted a plea deal from alleged Zumba dance madam Alexis Wright [...]
“Gentlemen, we have run out of money. It’s time to start thinking.” – Ernest Rutherford, British explorer – quoted sometime after 1910 Political analysts unaffiliated with The Onion suggested Monday that Silvio Berlusconi and upstart challenger Beppe Grillo may have enough votes between them to form a new, coalition government in Italy. If this [...]
As infuriated and embarrassed as I am at how the 2012 elections are quite rapidly devolving into a warped and unsettling religious revival, bent on banishing from the earth not just the Kenyan Socialist, but the majority of Americans who supported him, I’m considerably more chagrined at the pretense in the media that nothing has [...]
Each day, I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for the UK’s Guardian. Where else can an American go to find out what the rest of the world thinks of us? Certainly not Kaplan’s loss leader, the WaPoo, and undoubtedly not Judy Miller’s old place, the New York Times. That unusually worthwhile newspaper reported today that, [...]
The GOP has a knack for invoking desperate times, which invariably call for desperate measures, as a last-ditch effort to sell the unpopular and damaging policies they’ve espoused for more than a hundred years. Of course, this approach is considerably more problematic when times are good: take the 2000 election, when George W. Bush [...]
As we approach the 2012 elections, I have to admit grudgingly sympathizing with the poor Republican contenders on some level; everywhere you look, one (hilarious) presidential aspirant after another has to deal with the fact that large blocs of their party hates them, for one reason or another. The reasons, to a sane person at [...]
There was this annoyingly triumphant song we used to sing in school about what a keen place Oregon was back in 1915 or so, and even as a kid I thought it was weird. The chorus ended with, “Forward on and on… Hail to thee, land of heroes, my O-re-gon.” Never mind that the lyricist [...]
Here’s a Portland picture I found at Digby, and it’s my old bank branch, where they used to retroactively explain their many fees to me. Nice to know somebody’s got their back.
They’re everywhere – these little men. No tendentious description of the phenomenon is required, nor is a detailed and boring historical context necessary, since they (like the poor) “have always been with us.” But the sudden “surge” of poseurs, fakers, demagogues, deadbeats, and crooks stands out right now, as our vaunted world economy teeter-totters, [...]
Well, even though Condi is still patting herself on the back for Iraq and whatnot as she runs around hawking her hilariously titled book, No Higher Honor, it turns out that she does have a teensy regret or two, and Ferragamos and Hurricane Katrina are involved, not necessarily in that order. I remember those [...]