Best of Portland 2010 Nominee

Just when you thought it was safe, the Department of Vulgar Self-Promotion is back, this time on the occasion of the Portland Phoenix's annual Best of Portland 2010 reader survey. I'm among the nominees for Best Author again this year, and even in the unfamiliar position of incumbent.

Truth be told, I'm putting my money on Phillip Hoose this time around. I mean, c'mon, the guy just won the National Book Award and the Newberry Honor. I haven't read his books, but I'm guessing he's gotta be pretty good. The other nominees are comic book artist Ben Bishop and novelists Ron Currie Jr. and Jessica Anthony.

While your voting for one of us (or writing in Stephen King's name), be sure to take the time to weigh in on other eclectic categories, like best politician, radio voice, dive bar and, my personal favorite, failed business.

Press-Herald: Journalism or Public Relations?

Lots of people in Maine have had questions about the direction of the Libra Foundation, the charitable institution created by the late Elizabeth Noyce, especially after they pulled the plug on the Portland Public Market and did so in a way that made it extremely difficult for anyone to try to save it. Last month they announced they were eliminating a popular grant program for poor kids to attend summer camp. Owen Wells, Libra's head, said they had other priorities.

So I was pleased to see the Portland Press Herald -- Maine's former newspaper of record -- has a front page story in today's paper. Until I read it, that is.

Check it out: here's an extensive Sunday news feature that makes absolutely no effort to explore (or even acknowledge) criticism of Libra's direction of late. It's a puff piece that could have been churned out by the foundation's own public relations staff, right down to its headline: "New age dawning for Libra generosity." (Mr. Wells, whose salary and benefit contributions come to well over $300,000 a year, is stepping down in 2011.)

Libra's priorities of late (and their conduct in the Public Market affair) might well make sense once properly explored and explained, but this article makes absolutely no attempt to do so, just taking it on faith that everything Mr. Wells has done in his tenure has been just dandy. (Why is he stepping down again?)

I want to see the Press Herald succeed, because this half of Maine desperately needs a competent and well staffed news gathering organization, but this sort of sycophantic reporting is just driving the daily further into irrelevancy. Even the pseudonymous blogger T. Cushing Munjoy -- a wide-eyed cheerleader for Richard Connor before he took over the paper last year -- has been repeating the essential question: "Is this really the best you can do?"

If so, maybe Connor should just close up shop.

Science expands on Portland waterfront, with taxpayer help

Here in Maine's largest city, the waterfront's been having a tough go of it. For nearly two decades now, the fishing industry has been reeling for lack of sufficient fish in the sea, the container port is hostage to the fate of a single paper mill, and fuel prices have just scuttled the high speed ferry service.

But one entity, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, has been thriving. They've just absorbed the distressed Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System and scored the funding needed to secure (by repairing) the pier behind their building from the U.S. Coast Guard. How do they do it? With federal-level political savvy, lots of public money, and an eye for synergetic opportunity.

As you can read in my column in the new Working Waterfront, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does show just what it takes to get the really big thunderclouds to rain these days.

A package for J.D. Salinger, and other tales

A few items worth reading this week:

J.D Salinger, who'd been hiding out for decades in a hilltop redoubt in Cornish, New Hampshire, died last week His desire for privacy was so complete that many residents of the tiny town didn't know he was there and, if they did, kept mum about it in that laudable Northern New England way. Turns out the Forecaster's very own Steve Mistler is from Cornish, and has this entertaining account of his chance discovery of his famous neighbor while on the job for FedEx.

Maine may have difficulty winning a replacement for The Cat, a high-speed catamaran that recently gave up the runs to Nova Scotia from Portland and Bar Harbor. Industry watchers have long said that a standard ferry makes more sense on the run (now that fuel prices are high) and that operators might seek to operate in or closer to Boston, which has a much larger customer base. MaineBiz has picked up on this. Meanwhile, Nova Scotia taxpayers have been surprised to learn that that they're on the hook to The Cat's owners for $3 million for not renewing a subsidy of $6 million to keep the service going. Looks like somebody hired a clever contract lawyer.

Further afield, read what happens when a journalist leaves his notebook on a suburban train in Japan's teeming capital at The Blog of Rob, and what my Bratislava-based colleague Michael J. Jordan, recently returned from Hong Kong, thinks his Chinese journalism students will take back with them from exposure to the less restrictive island, with its Twitter access and all the rest.

Ethics Commission rebuffs group hiding ballot measure money

An update for those interested in who funded the successful ballot measure to repeal Maine's same sex marriage law:

As you'll recall, the National Organization for Marriage gave nearly two thirds of the money behind the effort, but has not only refused to comply with Maine law and reveal its donors, it has sued the state in federal court to try to get our campaign finance laws declared unconstitutional, a tale you can read about in the current Down East. In October, NOM lost a preliminary ruling, clearing the way for the state ethics commission to investigate the group and presumably reveal their donors.

But on Thursday, NOM asked the ethics commission to suspend their investigation for months or years while their case works its way through the federal courts. To increase the heat on the commissioners -- each of whom NOM has sued -- their attorney, James Bopp, Jr., is the very same attorney who argued the recent U.S. Supreme Court case which removed restrictions on corporate spending in elections.

For those who believe that transparency is essential in politics, there's good news: four out of five commissioners voted to deny NOM's request, clearing the way for the investigation. (The holdout, Belfast Republican Francis Marsan, argued the investigation wasn't worth the money if it could later be blocked.) Curiously, one of the two commissioners who in October voted against investigating NOM -- Edward Youngblood (R-Bangor) -- now supports the probe, as does the new independent commissioner, Margaret Matheson of Augusta. For hardcore political wonks, the audio of the entire commission meeting is here, along with the official agenda.

Ironically, the recent Supreme Court ruling may undermine NOM's case against Maine, as it bolsters the argument that political contributions must be transparent. Keith Shortall at Maine Public Broadcasting reported on this last week.

Antarctica's penguins, 12 years later

Flying back from Prague, I had a chance to catch up on my reading and ran across this New Yorker piece on the retreat of Adelie penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula and the work of penguin expert Bill Fraser.

In 1998, I visited many of the same locations on the Antarctic Peninsula while researching my first book, Ocean's End: Travels Through Endangered Seas, and interviewed Fraser about how climate change was turning the regional ecosystem upside down. Penguins were being attacked by fleas (whose eggs were now surviving the winter) while snow was overwhelming the Adelie's breeding sites. On the islands around the United States' Palmer Station, the penguins were in retreat, as was the 10,000 year old glacier behind the station.

What's astonishing is just how quickly things have gone from bad to worse, as the New Yorker piece makes clear. The pace of change -- be it penguins, glaciers, or floating ice shelves -- has exceeded the wildest dreams of the glaciologists, ecologists, and climate experts I spoke with in 1998-99. Indeed, the same is true for many of the other issues I raised in Ocean's End, including the pace of sea level rise threatening small island states like the Marshall Islands, the decline of coral reefs in Belize and other countries and, most dramatically, the hurricane threat to New Orleans.

On the bright side, the Black Sea is showing clear signs of recovery and the U.S. appears to have finally turned the corner on fisheries management. Unfortunately, neither will be much help to the penguins.

Hiding the Money behind Maine's Question 1: a full report

Regular readers know I've been following the money behind the successful effort to overturn Maine's same sex marriage law last fall. In short, about two-thirds of it comes from a single source -- the National Organization for Marriage -- which not only refuses to reveal its donors as required by Maine law, it has sued Maine in federal court in an effort not to play by the rules.

I'm on assignment in Europe, but I understand that the February issue of Down East is now on the newsstands back in New England. Inside, anyone interested in this issue will want to read my Talk of Maine column, "Hiding the Money." It's also available online. I posted some additional details back in December here at World Wide Woodard.

I'll be continuing to follow the Maine Ethics Commission investigation of NOM and, of course, the federal suit challenging our state's campaign finance laws. Stay tuned.