Letters to the Editor

Life-sustaining resources are not infinite

To the Editor:
    In the 10,000 years since the glaciers withdrew all across America from their ice tongues below St. Louis, leaving an upper-continental gravel pit, transient birds and animals deposited enough body wastes to create the 7 feet average topsoil we used to call the Breadbasket of the World. That nutrient cushion has been exhausted so that it only functions as farmland because of finite fossil fuels, which we use to be chemically converted to fertilizer.

    But, fossil fuels are finite, and when they are gone, so too is farming, and so too are we. The Koch Brothers are investing in tar sands to pipe, infrastructure, anything to make them richer than sin. Should putting super-rich Charlie and Dave Koch behind bars and burning their assets be an extreme necessity to preserve all other human life?
    By 2100 we will likely be on the verge of starvation with two billion more Earth Inhabitants, and no way to fertilize our necessary farms. We will lose our farmers, then our people, perhaps down to the last family.
    We should do something about the wastrel rich. When a resource is in steep decline, pumping and piping faster is not good business for anybody.

Charles Mac Arthur
Sangerville

Penny wise and pound foolish

To the Editor:
    After installing a heat pump this winter, I have been very impressed with its performance — and the oil it saves. I am now buying a second heat pump.
    I note that the bill to allow low-income families a $2,000 subsidy on heat pumps and solar installation would have cost the average electricity user .5 cents a month extra on our bills. I do not know about solar energy, but the time for heat pumps has arrived. With many low-income families needing assistance to buy oil to keep warm, it should have made sense for all the legislators in Augusta to support this bill.
    The foreign firm that was prepared to invest millions of dollars in Maine’s world class ocean electricity generating capabilities, was chased away by Gov. LePage. It did not appear that UMO, who was working with this company, asked for this action. If the Senate had overridden LePage’s veto on this bill it would have generated millions of dollars in new business for Maine’s business, and saved these struggling families thousands of dollars on their oil bill.
    It is time for some legislators to wake up and do something worthwhile to help Maine’s people and our economy, rather than sit on your duffs in Augusta!

Bob Tweedie
Westfield
Aroostook County

Vote protest related to East-West corridor?

To the Editor:
    After reading the article in a recent weeks Piscataquis Observer (reported with fairness and objectivity), on the Sangerville selectboard member’s election, I find that the controversy is brought forth by a minority of those that probably voted against the past RBO ordinance.
    Though their numbers since that vote have grown from that issue, to this issue as to who should hold the elected seat of select person, it does not go without notice that one of the most outspoken opponents is the same person that sought the seat on this board.
    The quest for this elected seat was unknown until the nominations at the meeting by the citizens at large — probably only known by those organized to support the candidate nominee. Rigging of a ballot? Maybe!
    Those in support of the incumbent most likely stayed home from the meeting due to an unawareness of a challenge for the seat and willing to accept the re-election of that incumbent.
    Not so! So it turned out to be …
    An organized effort, without knowledge in full, of all the citizens of Sangerville took place.
    An effort, had they known to be organized, may have yielded a much different outcome.
    Maybe an overturn of the incumbent, welcoming back a prior seat holder or maybe a more overwhelming vote for said incumbent.
    A write-in candidate would have been a surprise win. Also less obvious. But a last-minute nomination and such a close vote suggests an organized overthrow.
    Maybe due to vengeance, through a dislike or for other reasons by the challenger, or maybe due to personality conflicts.
    No matter the case, the purpose of selection is to determine who may best serve with the interest of the community in mind and within their heart felt intent.
    I would suggest a better participation in voting within your communities; stand up and be counted, if nothing more than a monitor of that which transpires.
    Bad choices provide an effect which may affect your life.
    Though they (the challenge) lost by 1 vote, it is still a simple majority as prescribed by law.
    A simple majority is as minute as .000000276813 percent of the whole citizenry, that which (George) Bush won in the contested Florida debacle.
    About 637 votes out of over nearly 300 million citizens of this nation determined that election.
    Not all of whom voted. Having not done so, held no right of complaint as to the outcome.
    Simple math may elude simple persons, if it should be to their (rigged) goal or advantage.
    The person won the election per rules prescribed by law. By 1 vote …. simple and fact.
    We “are” The People.
    We subscribe to a form of government called a Republic, thus we are all Republicans
    Even the Republic needs a voice to change itself to meet the needs of those that support it.
    Thus we have freedom of speech.
    In having such, as a democracy, that which we somehow come to a consensus to ascertain our betterment, we are allowed to modify laws within the Republic to better serve,
    ‘We The People.’
    Within our voices, thus we are also Democrats.

Eric Tuttle
Guilford

Tendency

To the Editor:
    Paths
        worn wider with use
        tend to become pathways.
    In time local foot traffic
        gives way for ‘Goodyear,”
        “Bridgestone” and “Michelin” in motion.
    And, as our nature finds going gets easier,
        tire tracks get graded, graveled.
    Then widened and paved,
        re-widened and paved again.
    Shaving hilltops, filling hollows, bridging rivers
        becomes a thriving enterprise.
    All, we are told — so more of us
        can find our way back to narrower, less used paths
    Which now
        are harder and harder to locate.
    Thus, before we extend further contracts for paving,
        collectively — let’s be certain additional “lanes”
    Are truly in the best interest
        of our common wealth.

Bruce McAfee-Towl
Dover-Foxcroft