At a Chamber of Commerce breakfast this morning a person mentioned to me that they see me on TV all the time. What? Really? Yes, really ( Read more... )

There is a gas pipeline being proposed to run through our rural communities on its way to a port north of Boston.  Landowners were asked for permission to do some initial surveys to try to determine the best place to route it.  The proposed route was through the least densely populated places, which tended to be preserved land and/or state forests ( Read more... )

You know all those meetings I go to (more a few years ago than now) trying to turn my town into a resilient sustainable community to handle Peak Oil and the end of the dollar and the general issues associated with living in an undeveloping nation ( Read more... )

I've been reading up on the expected impact of climate change in our area and the island.  Mostly I've been untroubled by this; warmer winters don't trouble me particularly, although I'll be sorry to see the sugar maples leave our hillsides.  The pests have already destroyed my stand of five hemlocks, they can't do much worse to me now.  The longer ( Read more... )

I was at a meeting tonight where someone objected because we sold a lot in the industrial park to a firm that is planning on covering the empty lot with solar panels ( Read more... )

Whenever I see stats like "poverty rate increases in the Suburbs" I wonder if they are counting unmarried couples as two households.  I strongly suspect they are.  My experience with EITC going to households with $50K in income half the time makes me wonder if this isn't widespread across the country.  But why isn't the increase of single-adult ( Read more... )

You know I love public water and sewer, right?  You've heard me talk about how it saved children from dying of cholera and dysentery and any number of horrible diseases, one of the major blessings of modern civilization.  One of my local heroes is the person who pushed through a sewage treatment facility in Our Small Town 25 years ago.  Creating a ( Read more... )

One of the bright spots in my life right now is the stuff happening towards becoming resilient as a community.  Our town is shockingly active in a lot of fronts with an over-arching concept of becoming more sustainable in a Peak Oil world.  So we've expanded our bus and train access and we've put solar panels over the capped landfill and we've set ( Read more... )

One beautiful autumn day an impervious dome settled over a small Maine town.  No one could get in, and no one could get out.  Stephen King's "Under the Dome" ( is a horror story )

I just got invited to go to a meeting with the Governor and the Mayor tomorrow.  There'll be lots of people there, but I have a superpower that gets me access to the governor to ask one question, and only one.

Anything you think I should I ask him?

(I'm not joking.)