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1. Did you read in the paper that a hypnotist was sent to prison for doing naughty things with a young girl who wanted to stop biting her fingernails and came to him for help? Isn’t that just what we need in prison? --- A convict who will be able to augment his income by teaching 300 eager young men how to cure nail biting.

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2. Once upon a time there was an old man who lived in a tiny village on the coast of Maine. Seventy or so years before when the man was a little boy he used to go into many of the houses in that village to visit the old people who lived there. He’d visit Captain Thomas and Henry and Frank and Phoebe and Percy and Lena and Harvey and Aunt Grace and Alex and Captain Freddy and Uncle Frank and Old Man Elo and Gram Elo and just about everybody else in between. But the world had changed and children didn’t come around to visit old people anymore and you never even saw children playing in the neighborhood because the world had changed. But one day when the old man walked out into the sunshine on his old granite back steps he saw a little dog. The dog was very frightened and quickly ran away when the old man came out on his back steps. And the old man thought to himself how nice it was to have someone from the neighborhood stop by so he went into the house and got --- well, it might have been a cookie. In any case it was something dogs like to eat, and the old man put that little scrap of goodie on the ground over where the dog had been standing. And within a few days the little dog was hanging out in that old man’s back lawn on a regular basis looking for good things to eat like dogs or skunks do. Well, if you’ve read many stories about old men and dogs who make friends you already know without being told that every day that dog was getting more and more comfortable with the old man and would come closer and closer to those old granite back steps. And the old man would talk a peculiar brand of Swedish to that dog and say things to that dog in five or six other languages because the dog understood every one of them just as well as he did English. Then, finally, one day the old man stepped out of the house and what do you suppose he saw right there on his old granite porch? --- Only one of his shoes because that rotten little dog had carried off the other one. If there is a moral to this story you are going to have to figure out what it is for yourself because I am not one to impose my opinions on others.

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3. You might have read about the toilet fire in Rockport. Of course, when one reads of a fire in a toilet one eagerly reads the letters to the editor below it. Because isn't the obvious comment by every person who sees it going to be, "Well, there are a lot of hot somethings in Rockport." So I was surprised to read this instead: "Would Officer Smith please provide the name of the arsonist to Governor LePage. He might want to name him State Fire Marshal."

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4. We hear that although Bin Laden is dead, his demise will not bring an end to terrorist attacks. " Who expected that it would? You might consider me to be a peculiar, uncivilized kind of person, but if foreign troops were occupying my neighborhood here in St. George, even at my age I’d be out there blasting away at them with anything I could get my hands on. And I wouldn’t quit until the last unwanted person carrying a gun either finished me or had smartened up and gone home. The invaders could set up a puppet government here in town and they could call me an insurgent or a terrorist or anything else, but, to my way of thinking, they don’t belong here, I don’t like to see them walking around in my rhubarb patch out back, and I’d be out to nail ‘em. You might recall reading that a while back when we were trying to expel the British “Five other soldiers would declare seeing the wounded man with the skin over his eyes cut and also the top part of his ears cut off. As word spread among the British troops in Concord that Americans were scalping and mauling the dead and wounded, attitudes turned from contempt to fear and hate.” We New Englanders have a 200 yearreputation for being a pretty creative bunch when it comes to dealing with unwanted military people who carry guns into our home towns. And should an occupying army kill your parents, wife and kids, isn’t there at least a chance you’d consider giving up your day job?

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5. It must be tough to live in a country that has just been defeated by a world war. As you might expect, the country that wins tries to impose its values on the losers. This happened in 1945 when Eisenhower and his victorious allies set up a German constitution that would eliminate what they considered to be the evil elements of fascism. I recently learned this when, after opening the Encyclopedia Britannica at random, I read that in Germany “After World War II [,] the right to organize trade unions and to strike was constitutionally guaranteed.“ This must have changed things around 180 degrees for rich and poor alike in 1945 Germany, because “The Nazis [had] abolished trade unions, collective bargaining and the right to strike. An organization called the ‘Labor Front’ replaced the old trade unions, but it was an instrument of the Nazi party and did not represent workers.” So I was suddenly awakened to the realization that in 1945 the right to organize trade unions and to strike was one of the basic rights that --- in 1945 --- seemed to be one of the basic differences between a democracy for the people --- and a fascist military-corporate state. This is such an interesting concept, that I quickly Googled and learned that “Japan [also] has the right to strike enshrined in its Constitution. It was put there after World War 2 as a protection from fascism.” Ok. We, the victors, wrote constitutions for Germany and Japan to ensure that this military-corporate run type of government called fascism would never again raise its ugly head --- in Germany and Japan. So we’re safe, right? Well, who would know? We hardly ever hear any talk about fascism nowadays. Although we certainly honor our few remaining venerable veterans and their buddies who died fighting fascism, we’re not even sure what fascism is. But --- if you’ve heard anything lately about people going on strike and the official reaction to it, could it be that there are a lot of folks out there who really don’t want you to be able to recognize fascism when you see it?

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6. You are always reading about someone who gets hurt while riding a motorcycle. It’s too bad. Biking might be considered fun by some, but, like playing with toys from China or eating Mexican food, you take your chances. My best friend has scars on his leg because someone cut him off --- and they were creeping along in downtown Rockland. A few days ago in Freeport I saw a man walk into the hotel with all-too fresh scars on his knees --- and it was obvious from his costume that he had come into town pumping a bicycle. The largest audience I ever entertained was 5,000 members of a motorcycle club. They had driven in from all over the country --- or flown in from Europe. At the time it was my understanding that when so many bikers drive so many miles, statistically speaking, they expect at least one fatality. Please correct me if I was misinformed. Anyway. Driving on four wheels scary. Driving on two wheels scarier. Look twice for bikes.

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7. Here it is right out of the newspaper: "As Congress moves to cut federal spending, state and local officials say some of those cuts amount to shifting costs from the federal budget to local taxpayers." So some of you folks are finally catching on. "Oh yes, consolidate your schools. Not only is it cheaper, the government will pay." Let me read the first part again: "As Congress moves to cut federal spending, state and local officials say some of those cuts amount to shifting costs from the federal budget to local taxpayers." Remember this the next time they try to close a school in your town. Shutting down your local school and going in with another town is a good way to not only lose control of your school but to have to reach down into your pocket to pay for it twice.

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8. Thank goodness. Here’s something I can tell you about that came to me by way of television and not an email. It was an ad for losing weight and I can’t tell you if it is a pill or a system or a machine because I didn’t notice. But you can be sure that it will cost you money because they aren’t going to be telling you about something on TV unless they want to separate you from your money. The only part of the ad I saw or remembered was people saying: “I lost 26 pounds.” “I lost 42 pounds.” “I lost 34 pounds.” And it flashed pictures of happy, smiling people on the screen. Please listen to me, my friend. I will tell you how to lose 42 pounds, 34 pounds or however many pounds your body will accommodate and guess what? --- it’s not going to cost you a cent. As a matter of fact, it will cost you less money than you are spending now to stuff your face. Over the past few years I have lost 15 or so pounds simply by not eating the good things that my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, likes to make. Soft ginger snap cookies. Warm moist banana bread that melts in your mouth. Blueberry cake all warm and crumbly. Juicy red rhubarb pies that make your jaws ache just thinking about them. For a year I have not had any ice cream or donuts or sausage or bacon. And of course, as a result, even without getting any extra exercise, I have taken in my belt two notches and I am as proud of this as any old man can be. The other night --- up in our bedroom --- just before I slipped into my pajamas, I walked down to the foot of the bed and stood sideways to Marsha, who was already sitting up reading in bed, and I sucked in my gut as far as I could. And of course it gave me the profile of a 55-year old kid with a tiny thin waist and a huge massive chest. I cleared my throat, “ahem ahem.” And Marsha looked up from her book and said, ---- “Wow! I need to trim your eyebrows.”

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9. A reader writes a letter to the editor that says: "Its not surprising to me that there exists a strong correlation between the size of a state's prison population and the degree to which its prison system has been privatized. ... I think privatized prisons are, at least in part, responsible for the inordinate number of prisoners in these states (especially Texas) and the inordinately long sentences imposed for what would anywhere else be petty crimes." Quite a few of us have already figured that out. Prisoners are one of America's most lucrative cash crops. Some day when you have time, Google around and see how many different businesses it takes to service your average state-run prison. Your eyes will open wide, and you'll probably say, "I never realized that." If it weren't for the great amount of money to be made by putting people in prison and keeping them there for as long as possible, pot would have been legalized many years ago and half the prisons in this country would be empty. On the other hand, if you've got a lot of spare cash that you'd like to double in a short amount of time, you might consider investing in privatized prisons. We’re talking here about a growth business that you probably won't see go under in the next 10 or so years. Think about this. Do you know of any other big-money operation that hasn't moved its operations overseas? But how much you want to bet they’re thinking about it?

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10. The other day while driving into Maine I saw it for the first time--- Maine’s famous Open For Business sign. The Open For Business sign made me laugh out loud and if you can get people to laugh, they will probably like you even if they don’t care for your policies. I liked Reagan with his tax breaks for the rich, his comical trickle-down theory, and the political imbalance he gave us that is enjoyed by talk radio and the far-right “news” broadcasts of today. The road that leads into Maine is a good place for the Open For Business sign and the next time you drive into Maine and see it you might laugh, too. Because what does Open For Business mean but low wages for not only Maine people but Maine children? A “favorable business environment” means no more than a conservative nanny state: socialism for business in the form of property tax and income tax incentives. --- A license to dump most anything you want in the air, on the ground or in the sea. It is no secret that illegal immigrants are attracted to low paying jobs like Castine cadets to coffee. If you don’t believe how a big casino can ruin and bankrupt a town, ask some of your friends who live in Ledyard, Connecticut next to that big casino. Anyway, isn’t it great that people driving into Maine now can’t help but smile? If you don’t smile the next time you see that sign, you don’t really know what Open For Business means.

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11. The dirtiest hotels in the world. That was what the junk email said. Of course I had to Google The dirtiest hotels in the world so I could see where they were. Number one is in San Francisco. Let me read you a sample of the reviews: “First and foremost no one should ever walk into a hotel only to find prostitutes walking around the inside.” Think about this. What reason would anyone have to complain about a prostitute who was on her feet?

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