Since 2009, sales of Allen’s Coffee Brandy (motto: If All Alcoholic Beverages Tasted Like This, You’d Be A Teetotaler) in Maine have been on a slow decline. No one knows why.

In fact, nobody knows why Mainers drink this stuff in the first place. Seems as if some university science types should be applying for grants to discover the cause. And maybe come up with a cure.

Thanks to prompt action by our legislators and governor, a shocking deficit in this state’s cultural heritage has been filled. Maine now has an official state march. It’s called “The Dirigo March,” written by Leo Pepin of Augusta, who named it after the official state motto: “March.” It sounds like this on the official state MP3. 

A few days ago, an inmate at the Cumberland County Jail in Portland allegedly proved himself to be a criminal mastermind. (Please note that I used the word “allegedly” in the preceding sentence, which is supposed to convey to the reader that, yeah, this guy probably did what I say he did, but he hasn’t actually been convicted of anything yet, so I put in that “allegedly” to convey just enough skepticism to prevent him from suing us.

About a decade ago, the computer at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (motto: Unhealthy and Inhuman and Not All That Servile) began to malfunction. For a long time, nobody noticed because the program manager in charge of noticing things went out to lunch one Tuesday and didn’t come back for five years.

The announcement this week that Republican U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe would not seek another term launched an avalanche of metaphors. Or maybe a landslide. Or a storm. A Snowe storm, get it. Those headline writers are so clever.