August 13, 2007

Maine Public Radio's new State House reporter is a familiar name to the state's political junkies. A.J. Higgins, who covered Augusta for the Bangor Daily News for 13 years and spent more than three decades at the newspaper, will start at MPR on August 27, covering government

Fred Bever has resigned from his position at the Maine Public Broadcasting Network to hook up with another organization with "public" in its name. Bever, who spent the last six-plus years as Maine Public Radio's State House reporter and the past couple of years as co-host of Maine Public TV's "MaineWatch"

It's painfully difficult to sit inside on a gorgeous, sunny day like today. Yet that's precisely what more than a few of us are doing, despite a forecast that claims we'll see less and less of the sun in the next few days. I suppose retirees in Cape Elizabeth and trustafarians in Camden can wander outside whenever they please, but the rest of us need an excuse, and that's just what people up in Augusta are trying to give us. The city's historic preservation commission wants to create a walking

It's tough to figure out if your state representative and senator are driving the state into destitution or pedaling it toward prosperity. Short of devoting a lot of time to studying the political maneuvering in Augusta, there's no convenient way to assess how your legislator has represented you.

So a few weeks back my wife announced that I was taking her to a Red Sox game. There was this deal with the Marriott, a room and two tickets for a reasonable price. If you get the chance to stay at the Marriott in downtown Boston, by the way, get an even-numbered room on one of the upper floors, 30 or higher. They overlook the river, the MIT campus, and Cambridge, and in the morning you can watch the sculling crews skim down the river. It's all very uber-urban for a guy from Maine.

Rather

The Associated Press ought to know better. The wire service's Augusta bureau chief, Glenn Adams, got snookered by the spinmeisters on June 12, when he filed a story claiming a bill passed by the Legislature "sets Maine ahead of other states in taking a stand for nondiscriminatory access to the