What do Oguquit Playhouse, Eartha, Damariscotta’s Norumbeg Oysters, Tucker Auto Musuem, Wild Blueberry Land, the Madawaska Festival, Nubble Point Lighthouse, Ellsworth Candlepin Bowling, Penobscot Narrows Observatory, and The Maine Solar System Model, have in common?

They are some of the historical, and culturally significant, attractions along Maine’s Route One, and they are the subjects of Bob Krist’s new film, "100 Years of Route One: A Centennial Roadtrip." The film is scheduled to air on PBS stations from Thursday, March 26 through Sunday, March 29 in various time slots.

America’s

It’s more than a little mind boggling. Consider dreaming up a way to monitor, with statistical rigor, the populations of virtually all the hundreds of bird species that breed in the U.S. and southern Canada. It probably goes without saying that this will require credibly identifying and counting birds in more than four thousand locations following a careful and time-consuming protocol. Every year it will require more two thousand people highly skilled in the identification of birds by sight and sound. Then it will need to be done year after year after year for decades (forever?).

Now, find

Who: Are you glad Trump attacked Iran or are you with those who oppose the start of another war? I, personally, am against any kind of war. Has the human species, after thousands of years on this planet, not evolved enough to solve problems without killing people, destroying property and setting civilizations back for decades? It’s too bad we haven’t.

What: Are you glad that winter is slowly coming to an end? Moving the clocks ahead one hour on Sunday may help with our moods – it will stay light later in the day – but these pesky small snowstorms seem to push us back into grumpiness. So will

By the time you read this, online or in our print edition, Wiscasset's selectboard might have a policy on the sometimes helpful, in some respects scary, entity that has washed over the internet and elsewhere, artificial intelligence. Town Manager Dennis Simmons had language ready for the board to consider March 3. A policy could not come too soon.

AI is great at pooling information and doing certain other things more quickly than a human can; but any technology can have bugs, such as inaccuracy and, say, a lack of scruples. Is there such a thing as artificial scruples (AS)? If not, I'm sure

Here we go again.

We went to bed Friday evening with the dulcet tones of the chattering class reminding us of the word of the week - Epstein. By the time we sat down to Saturday morning’s coffee, their tune changed. We were at war - again.

Once again, Uncle Sam showed the world we could hammer another nation into submission. Or did we? By all accounts, our military jets and missiles killed the leader of Iran and many of his top allies, smashed some of their expensive defense hardware, and tore up buildings. Of course, they shot back, firing off rockets and drones that hammered some posh high

Breeze Kidder is one of our most wonderful family friends. She and our oldest daughter Megan were classmates at the Harbor Children’s Center at the tender age of 3. The Children Center, which closed some time ago, was located on School Street in Boothbay Harbor. It is now the home of Coastal Payroll. Megan and Breeze attended under the watchful eye of Debbie Butterfield, the lucky recipients of her care. We were very grateful parents, happy for experiences shared with a substantial group of youngsters. And when a bug entered the building we all got to participate, building resistance to future

Results starting with Tuesday, Feb. 3, with 14 players: 1st Place: Larry Rines, 837; 2nd: Stuart Wyman, 828; 3rd Place: Pam Frenier, 811. High Hand: Nancy Whitney, 24. Low Score: Nancy Whitney, 729. 

Thursday, Feb. 5, with 25 players: 1st Place: Sheldon Leonard, 847. 2nd Place: Dick Grondin, 834. 3rd Place: Jessie McDodge, 819. High Hand: Joe Campbell, 20. Low Score: Phil Hindahl, 709.

Monday, Feb. 10, with 16 players: 1st Place: Nancy Perry, 833. 2nd Place: Larry Rines, 831. 3rd Place: Rita James, 829. High Hand: Marty Fox and Larry Rines, 18. Low Score: Ann Pinkham, 748. 

Thursday, Feb. 12

Dear Editor:

Countries grow to greatness with brave and resolute leaders supported by citizens united in a national pride. Countries, once great, then fail. They grow fat, lazy, and corrupt, and rot from within. Occasionally great leaders arise, think Lincoln and Churchill who saved their nations. Sometimes there are visionaries like Monroe and Roosevelt, who kept enemies out of the Americas. More recently, Eisenhower promoted unity and Christianity, built the interstate system, strengthened our military, and aligned the US strategically to win the Cold War.

Two years ago, I could not

Last year the New England Aquarium in Boston announced that over half of their African penguins have reached senior penguin status. Six of the penguins are over 29, very senior indeed! The aquarium has risen to the challenge of caring for their older penguins by making modifications to their habitat, allowing these senior penguins to “age in place” in their birdie community.  

Aging in place refers to not only living but to thriving in our homes as we age. For some this could mean making adaptations in their homes to accommodate changing physical needs. For others it means moving to smaller

In illustrator and humorist Rosemary Mosco’s new book, “The bird●ing Dictionary,” she defines a seabird as “A bird that gazed upon the sea with its violent storms, endless roiling waves, lack of shelter, and extreme temperatures—plus sharks, colossal squids, deadly jellyfish, and other assorted horrors of the deep—and said, This seems like a nice place to live.’”

While we have to wonder if Mosco is much of a sailor, her characterization of the challenges of living a life on the open ocean seems fair. For seabirds of the winter seas of northern oceans, perhaps especially so.

We are writing

I recently called Ms.Pigette to see how she was doing, as she, and the rest of us, are buried in a new batch of snow.

“We live on the Maine coast. It is winter. What do you expect, Bozo, tropical breezes, some creamy French cheese, and a nice, cool gin and tonic? Are you thinking about getting out your Speedo, nut job? Geeze, that would be a sight,” she said.

“Of course it is cold, the snow is over my bum, again. The guy down the way had to call the plow guy over so he could get the snow blower out of the garage. In case you don’t get my point, I am damn tired of winter, period, paragraph.”

We

Awaiting a winter storm is like watching bread rise: You know it will happen, but when exactly depends on the ingredients. For me, my bread formula (which is actually passed down from my Irish grandmother) generally behaves better in a warm kitchen. The dough rises, gets kneaded, then rises again. Patience is paramount,  just like waiting to see what shows up in a winter storm. All preparations don’t guarantee results. In both cases, with bread and storms, the finished product is the final measure. Sometimes my bread takes forever to rise and sometimes storms arrive when they are good and

Dear Editor:

Election integrity is a concern of most voters. The majority believe cheating has affected voting results. The most recent Gallup poll shows that 84% want voter ID. The Breakdown is 98% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 67% of Democrats want to implement the worldwide standard of requiring an ID to vote. Elected Democrats and the Democratic National Committee are opposed.

Recently two videos of Shenna Bellows, Maine’s SOS, appeared on The Maine Wire. In one video she admits that some non-citizens are registered to vote. A second video shows her seated on a stage under an

Right now, the cost to live, work and raise a family in Maine is too high. That’s especially true here in Lincoln County. Family budgets just don’t go as far as they used to, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for everyday Mainers to get ahead, no matter how hard they work. It shouldn’t be this way.

This legislative session, my colleagues and I will be focused on doing everything we can to address the real challenges families are facing, from the rising costs of housing and health care to energy and child care. 

One of our biggest priorities will be to pass a supplemental budget, which

Planning a winter escape? Don’t let criminals ruin your trip with bogus deals, fake booking sites, or schemes designed to steal money or personal information.

Scammers create fake vacation rental listings, apply pressure to pay upfront through wire transfers, gift cards, or other hard-to-trace methods. If a host asks you to pay outside the official platform, it’s a scam.

Be cautious of steeply discounted offers and use a credit card whenever possible for added fraud protection. Before booking, verify the company or property. Search the name along with keywords like “scam,” “complaint,” or

In the Clint Eastwood movie, “Pale Rider,” a group of independent gold prospectors live and pan for gold in a picturesque canyon rimmed with tall fir trees in northern California. The number of miners increases, and eventually some of the miners find gold, and this gets the attention of the wealthy owner of a large, industrial mining company operating upstream who uses his men to try to intimidate the prospectors to get them to give up their mining claims and leave.

Spoiler alert: Clint Eastwood’s dusty, leather-clad, tough, loner character shows up, beats up the bad guys, and dynamites

After walking into the media entrance at Augusta Civic Center on Saturday morning, I sat down on an empty bleacher after a familiar face, Maureen Cooper, cleared my credentials. I was there to cover the Wiscasset/Carrabec boys Class D quarterfinal basketball game for the newspaper.

The Monmouth/Telstar game was still in progress (turned out to be a pretty good game, with Monmouth finally pulling away for the victory). As the Wiscasset crowd made its way past me to sit in its designated section, I also looked around to see many other familiar faces – two coaches I used to coach against, Doran

So done with winter. The cold, the extra cold, the wind, the little wind when the forecast said calm wind, which I think is supposed to mean no wind; and done with the bigger wind when the forecast said light wind.

Wind has its purposes, especially drying mud, and supposedly mixing up the air to "warm" it; but every wind I feel just makes me feel the wind chill factor.

Tired of hand and foot warmers, too; but not done with them.

The sun helps and is cheering, but it does not stick around enough before that white sky of winter returns.

Done with ever-developing models of where and how much it

Last weekend, as I drove back home from (never mind), I stopped to chat with Ms. Pigette. It has been a tough winter, and she was sort of frozen shut, except for the pigtail (sorry) hanging through the outer coating of ice and mud. You guessed it, it was the charging cord for her iPhone, so I pulled a solar charger from the glove box and hooked her up. A day later, my phone rang. Of course, it was herself, and she proceeded to read me the riot act for not stopping sooner. She liked the solar charger, but said it took too much time to charge her phone.

Then she got right to the point. “Are we