In the twilight of my life, the Boy Scouts of America – its teachings, its values, and the fun of it all – still evoke a warm glow in my overflowing storehouse of special memories.

Majority rule is the basis of democracies around the world. However, over a century ago, Maine chose to allow state elections to be won with less than a majority of the vote, in order to save the time and expense of runoff elections. Ranked Choice Voting avoids the time and expense of runoff elections while at the same time allowing majority rule.

U.S. Sen. Angus King does not have the people of Maine’s best interests at heart by saying he would vote against Gina Haspel to become director of the CIA. Instead, King has decided to play obstructionist games with our national security.

Shawn Moody's sudden conversion to conservatism has Maine people scratching their heads. Moody was anything but conservative when running for governor as an independent. As a political appointee of the Governor, he managed to keep a low profile within the LePage political machine.

The Mayo Regional Hospital Emergency Medical Services (EMS) department is celebrating EMS Week from May 20-26 by expanding its community paramedicine program. Community paramedicine is a program where a physician can have a paramedic visit with a patient in a non-emergent situation to provide a variety of services including wound checks, lab work, and assisting patients with their medications and a variety of other similar services.

On May 16 Dover-Foxcroft Police Department officers were called to investigate a suspicious person, associated with a domestic case of harassment and stalking. The suspect Edward Crooks, 40, of Dexter, was suspected of continued harassment of a female victim. Officers were seeking to make contact with Crooks who was believed to be intoxicated at the time and driving a silver or tan colored Chevy Trailblazer.

Why are Maine Republicans so adamantly opposed to ranked-choice voting? There are four Republican gubernatorial candidates on the June primary ballot. Hypothetically, if the first choice votes resulted in a 26 percent, 25 percent, 25 percent and 24 percent apportionment, and ranked-choice voting was not in place, the candidate with 26 percent of the vote would be declared the winner for receiving the most votes (a plurality). That would mean that 74 percent of voters did not favor this candidate.

Seems like everyone is pulling out dams these days. It certainly makes sense in areas where anadromous fish species have been prevented from accessing important spawning and nursery habitat. These fish have been severely impacted by dams with no fishways.

On Monday, I had an opportunity to spend two hours with the Democratic candidates for governor, co-hosting a radio forum on Portland's Newsradio, WGAN.

The man accused of stealing a Dexter police cruiser while handcuffed last week and leading police on a high-speed chase down rural roads remained in jail Wednesday, May 16 after making his first court appearance earlier in the day at the Penobscot Judicial Center.