The Internal Revenue Code now contains 3.8 million words, or the equivalent of 13,000 pages of a 300 words per page book. The Internal Revenue Service Rules and Regulations are about twice that size. With all the exemptions, deductions and incentives, this vast tax code is much too complicated and makes it very difficult for citizens and corporations to calculate and pay their taxes without computer software, or an accountant, or lawyer.

I am writing this article to all those companies who want you to pay your bills online. If, however, there are those of us who prefer to pay by check, it takes you at least an hour of your time to straighten out a mistake. It is almost impossible to get a representative to help you understand what is going on.

That poverty disappeared is hard to believe, but true. Not here in the United States, where elections are won by how much we can condemn those receiving benefits, but in Manitoba, Canada during the 1970s.

Governor Paul LePage laid out a convincing case for his proposed budget in Waldoboro last Wednesday. Granted, he had a receptive audience in the form of the Lincoln County Republican Committee, but it was still an impressive performance given the budget’s complexity.

The state of Maine spends millions of dollars every year fighting drug abuse; from enforcement to care and treatment to broken families and ruined lives.

On Feb. 18, at the Bristol Consolidated School, a propane leak was discovered and reported during the early morning hours. Bristol Fire & Rescue, under the leadership of Paul Leeman and Jared Pendleton, worked in great collaboration with mutual aid towns Bremen, Newcastle, South Bristol and Damariscotta to identify the issue, cordon off the area so that no one had entry to the building and assured the safety of all.

An interesting chain of events has been occurring in Wiscasset.

On Feb. 3 the Wiscasset Waterfront Committee was presented with a Maine Department of Transportation Alternative Waterfront Concept group of drawings, apparently their first public appearance.

It’s a funny thing, how life’s coincidences seem to bunch together. Almost everyone has had those occasions when, for some unknown reason, you just hit a specific run of luck.

By any standard, pumping 2,087 gallons of No. 2 heating oil into a septic system is a monumental screw-up.

It saddens me greatly to report that Janet Elwin’s magnificent quilts have been removed from the Miles Hospital Gallery due to circumstances beyond our control.

Words cannot express the amount of love and support we have received from our friends and neighbors in Whitefield and beyond.

I am just a bit disturbed by the front page story of the Jan. 21 issue. (“Damariscotta woman injured after being knocked down by spooked deer,” Page 1)

We can’t think of a more difficult job in Maine public service right now than that of overseeing county corrections.

Reading the paper is often difficult, but researching stories worldwide can bring tears of sorrow and a lack of understanding why treatment of the poor and homeless seems so cruel and unkind.