Local Letters to the Editor
Congress for rent
To the Editor:
The fault slippage off Fukashima was said to be only 200 miles long and look at what its tidal wave did to Japan.
Greenland’s fault, when it happens, could easily be 4,400 miles long, so the resulting Atlantic Basin Tsunami might be 22 times taller, maybe 660 feet?
Bye-bye Bermuda. No more Netherlands. Glacial ice two miles thick is holding Greenland down, but its melt water is rushing into the sea, diluting the salt and slowing the Gulf Stream. Palm trees in northernmost Scotland will not survive the increasing cold there.
How many of our East Coast shoreline nuclear reactors are there being cooled by coastal waters?
How much of the East Coast is below 660 feet?
Will Florida be swept clean, its flotsam washed up on Mexico?
All that ancient carbon, solid, liquid and gas that the Republican Party’s rich folks dig up for us Democrats to burn is trashing the very thin 10-mile layer of sky, which just last spring was touching 400 parts per million.
The sky is filling.
More moisture up there, too. More clouds. More rain. More snow, but less and less of it cold, easy to drive-on stuff. More salt on sloppy winter roads. Harder to drive. More saline near-roadside wells, too salty to drink. Ice on birch trees will cost us the future saw logs when their saplings are ice-bent to the ground.
Maine will be hard hit. We, the people.
Too bad our Congress “of the money, by the money and for the money” was, and is, for rent.
Charles Mac Arthur
Sangerville
Thank you Sen. Collins
To the Editor:
On behalf of AARP’s 230,000 members in Maine, I am writing to thank Sen. Susan Collins for signing on as a co-sponsor to the Preventing and Reducing Improper Medicare and Medicaid Expenditures (PRIME) Act.
Medicare fraud and abuse is undermining the health of seniors and costing taxpayers an estimated $60-$90 billion every year. The PRIME Act would combat fraud by cracking down on identity theft, improving systems for tracking fraudulent billing, and punishing billing errors and overpayments. Last year, the Medicare fee-for-service program made almost $30 billion in improper payments, an 8.5 percent error rate. For decades, Medicare has operated under a system that pays providers first and investigates suspicious claims later. The PRIME Act would require that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services more closely track the overpayments and implement solutions to address them such as closing loopholes, stopping patterns of double billing, and other steps.
The PRIME Act is bipartisan legislation which will make significant inroads in the efforts to strengthen Medicare through responsible, sustainable solutions. Senator Collins should be commended for signing on to this important and timely legislation.
Lori Parham
AARP Maine state director
Portland
Trip Down Memory Lane
To the Editor:
I certainly enjoyed the trip down Memory Lane as provided by the special section of the July 31 Observer dedicated to its 175th anniversary. Tom Lizotte’s piece made me laugh out loud.
My summer internships at the newspaper in 1969 and 1970 were fun. I learned a lot and enjoyed working for Jim Thompson and with the wonderful staff. Although my career path led me away from journalism and into human resources, I have never lost my love of newspapers.
I look forward to the “Observer” every week as I always have. Yes, I know I could read it online, but it just wouldn’t be the same. I am sad to see newspaper journalism struggling in the iPad, iPhone, instant everything era. I wish the “Observer” a happy 175th anniversary and continued success.
Lorinda Annis Schrager
Upper Montclair, N.J.