U.S., state, and municipal health authorities are working overtime and spending millions of dollars to stem the spread of Ebola, which has killed just one person here.

It is a sad state of affairs when a person[s] drive onto private property in the middle of the night to deface a political sign with an unprintable word on one side and ‘stupid’ on the other, and steal almost all of the remaining signs. The defaced sign was apparently too large steal.

All through this week and winding up on Monday, pumpkin enthusiasts far and wide will descend on the Twin Villages for all things pumpkin.

Wiscasset has a problem. The voters decided we were better off leaving the RSU than staying in. This left Wiscasset supporting a three school system with a dwindling student population. In order to support the school system, Wiscasset paid through the nose last year because there was not sufficient time to study our best options to control costs: quite understandable.

The Nobleboro Historical Society’s AppleFest Committee wants to thank all the folks who came to AppleFest last Saturday and the many community organizations and people who donated and helped to make the ninth revival another wonderful success.

I attended the special town meeting in the town of Bristol on Oct. 1. The purpose of the meeting was to vote on a non-binding resolution that would allow a cable from experimental wind turbines off Monhegan to cross prime fishing grounds and come ashore in New Harbor.

For the grand opening of our FARMS Community Kitchen in Damariscotta last Tuesday (Sept. 30), our local farmers, grocers, bakers and other food producers donated a great plenty of delicious, very local food and drink from the land and also from the sea.

I recently drove my step-mother to the Nobleboro-Jefferson Transfer Station to dispose of a truckload of garbage that included an old mattress (tied to the top of our truck), a sink, a car battery and numerous bags of heavy waste.

Do we really need to destroy “life as it should be” to be “open for business”?

We think that is a false trade-off, which is why the Friends of Muscongus Bay has taken the position that the use of the test site off of Monhegan Island is the issue, not whether wind power is good or bad. (That can be left for another time.) The question is, is this the best place for this test to be performed?

When it comes to short-changing ourselves, our economy, and, especially, our children we’ve done well in the past couple of years in the “penny wise & pound foolish” category. The latest example of promoting a continuation of that trend came in a letter that appeared in the LCN about the proposed bond issues that will be on the ballot in November.

As a child I was impressed when they added “One nation, under God” to our pledge of allegiance. I believed that meant everyone in America believed and honored the golden rule – treating others as they would want to be treated.

Later I learned that the golden rule was endorsed by all religions as a component of their moral and ethical teachings. Naively, I separated morality from ethics as if one meant blessed by God and the other meant blessed by man. Alas, research has confirmed that ethics are the same as morals. They are both an expected behavior of one to another.

There has been an abundance of candidate endorsements in these pages of late. How can these folk be so certain? Keep in mind the Old Master’s advice in Tao Te Ching 65 (as translated by Victor Mair): “Ruling the state through knowledge is to rob the state; ruling a state through ignorance brings integrity to the state.”

I address my concern to Governor Paul LePage and the Maine Republican Party. We see his ads on TV and they state he and his party are for small business.

There are a number of registered voters who are exhausted at the loud noises of campaigns. Phone calls are welcomed up to a point and then they are not answered. Walkers to the homes are often greeted kindly, but for some voters are one more contact and interruption in their daily lives.