If you were feeling snarky, and had web access this week, with little effort you could have surfed onto any one of a dozen different blog entries and essays sniping about how 2013 won’t be a Happy New Year after all.

If the Maine Municipal Association’s early information is right, and the state actually attempts to appropriate the excise tax municipalities typically rely on as a source of revenue, we are going to join with every other community commentator, town official and taxpayer howling in protest.

In response to Sen. Johnson’s and Rep. Devin’s letters to the editor on Jan. 24, please know that all military and civic service are applauded by all citizens. An appalling thing, however, is the ideology set forth by Democrats in the legislature both here in Maine and in Washington.

The confetti was still falling after the presidential election results in November when national media started turning its attention to 2016. Since then, we have heard the incessant drumbeat grow louder with one yet-to-declare politician after another being held up to the light.

To the Editor: In response to Sen. Johnson’s and Rep. Devin’s letters to the editor on Jan. 24, please know that all military and civic service are applauded by all citizens. An appalling thing, however, is the ideology set forth by Democrats in the legislature both here in Maine and in Washington. It is scandalous […]

In Dunblane, England, in 1996, a man who possesses six registered and legally obtained firearms kills 16 elementary school children. The media and public outcry is huge and in 1997, under the pretense of increasing public safety, Tony Blair and his Labor government pass the strictest gun laws of any Western democracy. Pretty much every firearm in British households except grandpa’s old bird gun gets confiscated by the government.

As we look ahead to 2013, we still have the horrors of the Sandy Hook School shooting in Newtown, Conn., in mind.

As a Connecticut Police Officer who has a family owned home in Chamberlain, I would like to commend Wiscasset Police Chief Troy Cline for his professionalism while placing town police officers at public schools (Dec. 14). As we found out here in Connecticut, “it can happen here.” Thank you Chief.

I just learned that the most recent graduating class of law enforcement officers from the Maine Criminal Justice Academy purchased and donated toys for underprivileged children rather than celebrate in a more traditional manner with a party.

I am a teacher. I have had the good fortune to be a teacher for 44 years. I, like everyone else, am saddened by the events of Dec. 14 in Connecticut.

Given the news from Connecticut last Friday, it seems almost disingenuous that we are preparing for our various Christmas celebrations.

In the well-publicized muddle in Washington over the “fiscal cliff,” there is one aspect of the debate that hasn’t received enough attention to my mind.

I read your article titled “Cove’s Edge employees see some changes” in the Dec. 6 edition with great interest. Medicare dollars seem to be stretched very thin these days and the impact is hitting the health care industry hard, especially here in Maine with its high proportion of senior citizens.

To be honest, the first time many of us heard who Russell Libby was and what he did, we read it in his obituary.