A toddler just toddled by at the coffeehouse carrying a sippy cup and wearing a down vest with little hearts on it. She brushed my leg because, well, the leg was in the way. I’m not sure if she had French roast in the sippy cup.
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Posted in Coffeehouse Observer
Tagged brew, coffee, coffeehouse, down vest, French roast, java, joe, sippy cup, toddled, toddler
Maine summit seeks
ideas from businesses
AUGUSTA, Maine — Legislative leaders called on Congress Tuesday to pass another stimulus package featuring tax breaks for small businesses that add employees, investment in infrastructure improvements and additional financial relief for states.
Gov. John Baldacci, meanwhile, held a jobs summit with business leaders from around the state on Tuesday to solicit ideas on steps government can take to help companies and the state grow their way out of the recession.
“That’s why every one of you gets up every day and it’s certainly before me every single day,” Baldacci told representatives from 80 businesses across the state.
At a midday press conference, Democratic leaders from the House and Senate urged Congress to move forward with a jobs stimulus bill reinvesting money from the federal bailout of financial institutions, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.
Click on the link for the rest of today’s story by Kevin Miller of the Bangor Daily News.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Augusta, bailout, business letters, Congress, employees, employment, federal bailout, financial institutions, financial relief, Gov. John Baldacci, House, infrastructure improvements, investment, jobs, jobs summit, legislative leaders, recession, Senate, small businesses, stimulus package, TARP, tax breaks, Troubled Asset Relief Program, unemployment
MADAWASKA, Maine — Having just completed a painful contract negotiation with its largest American union, Fraser Papers Inc. now will work to heal divisions within the local paper mill and to finish the company’s emergence from bankruptcy protection, its chief contract negotiator said Tuesday.
“We are pleased that the agreement is ratified,” said Bill Peterson, Fraser’s human resources director. “We know it was difficult for people and it is one giant step that had to occur in order for [a new company] to be born, or to emerge into existence.
“We are obviously closer to the finish line today than we were yesterday,” Peterson said Tuesday.
About 65 percent of the 460 members of United Steelworkers Locals 291, 365 and 1247 approved a new three-year deal Monday that put into effect an immediate 8.5 percent wage cut. Union votes on Nov. 22 and Dec. 30 had rejected the contract overwhelmingly.
Management declared last week that the new deal is among three conditions the re-formed, post-bankruptcy Fraser company, temporarily called Newco, must meet to prevent the closing and scrapping of the 680-worker mill and its sister pulp mill across the St. John River in Edmundston, New Brunswick.
Click on the link for the rest of today’s story by Nick Sambides Jr. of the Bangor Daily News.
Posted in Economy, Environment, Maine
Tagged bankruptcy, Edmundston New Brunswick, Fraser Papers Inc, Madawaska, Newco, paper, paper mill, St. John River, union, United Steelworkers, wage cut, workers
Posted in Disaster
Tagged aid, Bay St. Louis, constuction, damage, devastation, earthquake, Falmouth, Falmouth High School, Habitat for Humanity, Haiti, Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi, rebuilding, relief, students
(Maine lawmakers and regulators have to figure out how to fix the problems and get wind power going. Otherwise, there may be no other choice than to hand over the keys to the nation to the Saudis or the Chinese. — KM)
Activists’ appeal to put wind rules in spotlight | Portland Press Herald
Posted in Economy, Environment, Maine, Outdoors
Tagged activists, lawmakers, opponents, proponents, regulators, wind energy, wind farms, wind power
From across the globe,
they come seeking
freedom and opportunity
FALMOUTH — The last time Lisa Cooke of Falmouth watched the Olympics with her husband and children, she realized it was time to become an American citizen.
Cooke, a native Australian, rooted for Australia while her English husband, Paul, cheered on the United Kingdom’s athletes. That left their two children, Douglas, now 8, and Adelaide, now 11, to support the U.S. teams.
“They were not too pleased with us,” said Cooke.
That was part of the reason why Cooke swore the oath of U.S. citizenship Tuesday with 46 other people from 24 countries in a naturalization ceremony at Falmouth Middle School.
Every year, about 1,100 foreign residents in Maine become U.S. citizens. Most take the oath in administrative ceremonies held in courtrooms.
The ceremony at Falmouth Middle School, which has become an annual event, is a much more elaborate observance. This year, it featured performances by the school chorus and a speech by Reza Jalali, a writer and refugee activist who lives in Falmouth.
The group was surrounded by hundreds of camera-toting friends, family members and fifth graders, who acted as hosts after studying U.S. immigration.
Click on the link for the rest of today’s story by Beth Quimby of the Portland Press Herald.
Posted in Maine
Tagged administrative ceremony, Falmouth Middle School, freedom, immigration, opportunity, U.S. citizenship
Melting Arctic Could Cost $2.4 Trillion by 2050
Posted using ShareThis
The coffeehouse is toasty in the winter and cool in the summer. Just perfect for consuming hot, steamy coffee and tea during the cold, dark winter months and iced beverages in the dog days of summer.
Go to Coffeehouse Observer for more coffeehouse observations.
Posted in Coffeehouse Observer
Tagged brew, coffee, coffeehouse, iced beverages, iced tea, java, joe, summer, tea, winter
JACKSON, Maine — Residents this weekend approved a controversial wind turbine ordinance that would impose strict regulations on industrial wind power developments.
Among other things, the ordinance — written by the planning board and the wind energy subcommittee — stipulates that any 400-foot-tall turbines erected must be at least a mile from any houses.
Although the 111-75 vote Saturday morning at a special town meeting has cheered many who oppose large-scale wind facilities in Maine, it also has dismayed some in this rural town of about 500 people who feel the ordinance is too restrictive and shortsighted.
“I was disappointed,” said Duane Lahaye of Jackson, a past member of the planning board who uses several small windmills at his home. “We have to think as an entire nation. We can’t just think as people who don’t want it ‘in my backyard.’ For the better good of everybody, these windmills would have been great.”
The new ordinance replaces a moratorium on wind energy projects that has been in place since January 2009 and was enacted in response to proposals to erect a series of wind towers along Mount Harris and Ricker Ridge in Jackson, Dixmont and Thorndike. Dixmont voters last November approved an ordinance requiring a 1-mile setback between wind turbines and homes.
Click on the link for the rest of today’s story by Abigail Curtis of the Bangor Daily News.
Posted in Economy, Environment
Tagged Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power, Energy, Fair Wind, moratorium, ordinance, turbine, wind energy, wind farms, wind power, windmills
Fraser officials say
3-year pact critical
to survival of paper mill
MADAWASKA, Maine — The United Steelworkers union will take an immediate 8.5 percent wage cut in accepting a new three-year contract Monday that Fraser Papers Inc. management calls critical to keeping the town paper mill going.
About 65 percent of the 460 members of USW Locals 291, 365 and 1247 approved the three-year deal in voting Monday. They didn’t do it happily, said Duane Lugdon, Maine’s USW international representative.
“The members have been running in and out all day voting and expressing their dismay. They don’t consider this a fair deal but they recognize that the company has a gun to their heads,” Lugdon said Monday.
Click on the link for the rest of today’s story by Nick Sambides Jr. of the Bangor Daily News.
Coalition will provide money,
materials or expertise once
greatest needs identified
Some well-known Maine businesses have formed a coalition to identify needs in Haiti and determine how they can be met with resources from Maine as that country attempts to rebuild from last month’s earthquake.
The leadership of MaineLine Haiti includes Preti Flaherty, Unum, Kennebunk Savings Bank, Reed & Reed, CD&M Communications and Mainebiz. Other companies that have signed on are Baker Newman & Noyes, Organic Fair Trade Coffee and Woodard & Curran.
The coalition will work with Darcy Pierce, senior partner at Envoy, a Maine-based firm that attempts to connect the corporate world with work in developing nations. Members of the leadership committee will meet Thursday to talk with Pierce.
The plan is to have Pierce go to Haiti, work with non-governmental organizations there to identify the greatest needs in the rebuilding, and determine needs that MaineLine could address.
Pierce has been an early responder and provided on-site assessment after disasters, including the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean and the earthquake last year in Indonesia.
Pierce said he has seen what happens in the wake of a disaster.
“Everybody floods it with money, everybody floods it with food and water, which is important – but there’s going to need to be services and solutions that are out of the box,” he said. “There’s not a great system set up to connect corporate America into that. That’s where this coalition idea came from.”
Click on the link for the rest of today’s story by Matt Wickenheiser of the Portland Press Herald.
Learn more about MaineLine Haiti at http://www.maineline.org/.
Tagged aid, Baker Newman & Noyes, CD&M Communications, coalition, Darcy Pierce, developing nations, donations, earthquake, Envoy, Haiti, Haitians, Kennebunk Savings Bank, Maine businesses, Mainebiz, MaineLine Haiti, non-governmental organizations, Organic Fair Trade Coffee, Preti Flaherty, rebuilding, Reed & Reed, relief, Unum, Woodard & Curran
Posted in Economy, Environment, Maine
Tagged Ecomaine, Maine at Work, Ray Routhier, recycling, recycling sorter
The other day I was walking to the coffeehouse and a song by Prince – is he Prince or the Artist Formerly Known as Prince or the Artist Formerly Known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince? – and it came out slightly, um, different. “She wore a rosemary beret …” I suppose that is not the type you find in a second-hand store.
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Posted in Coffeehouse Observer
Tagged Artist Formerly Known as Prince, brew, coffee, coffeehouse, java, joe, Prince, Rasberry Beret, rosemary, second-hand store
The WiFi at coffeehouses often are not the best option for surfing the Net or Web or whatever it’s called this week – slow or weak connections are typical. And some coffeehouses limit the connection to, say, two hours, which is not nearly enough time. But if you add coffee and pretty woman or two walk in the door, things are OK. Yep, coffee and pretty women make even a slow WiFi connection OK.
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Posted in Coffeehouse Observer
Tagged brew, coffee, coffeehouse, Internet connection, java, joe, Net, pretty women, slow connection, surfing, Web, WiFi
Letters From Away 