Healthcare seems to be the topic of the day.

In the news, in Internet chat rooms and local coffee shops, it seems everybody is talking about it, worrying about it, or fighting over it. Well, not so much fighting over it. Fighting about fighting about it is more like it.

To the Editor:

I have read with some interest the several letters in this and the other local weekly that lash out at Wiscasset because of traffic backups in that village.

Back in 1989, Diane and I moved to Damariscotta from Florida during the coldest and snowiest December Maine had experienced in years.

Beginning in early July, the Dept. of Transportation Wiscasset Traffic monitors have been in operation and they generate a lot of data.

Here’s the thing about lies: If you tell them loudly enough and often enough, people will believe them. Especially the vulnerable, the powerless, and those who get their “news” from blowhard talk radio.

As a member of the Edgecomb Fire Department and current Asst. Chief I am the one used to responding to people in need of help but in the early hours of Fri., July 3, I found myself in need of help.

If we were in a boxing match, it would have been stopped by now.

If the State of Maine were in the ring with all-time champ Mother Nature, by now the ref would have pulled her off of us as we hang helpless on the ropes; wrapping his arms around us to keep us from falling and muttering into our ear, “It’s not your night, kid. It’s not your night.”

This is written in response to last week’s letter by Gearry Ranger which called Carl Scheiman to task for his earlier letter on these pages.

Things are pretty quiet down on Rutherford Island on a holiday. So it was as my other half was at work on July 4. I was home alone, in the garden and wishing I had gone to the parade.

On Thursday, June 18 at 1:30 p.m. while driving on Main St. toward Newcastle I stopped at a crosswalk by Renys to allow pedestrians to cross.

What would our Founding Fathers think if they could see us now?

Our Founders deserve a lot of credit and rightly so for creating a form of government that, for the first time in history, recognized the rights of all (free, white) men, and gave all (free, white) men a say in their form of government.

The Maine State Senate has defeated a bill, LD 1438, which would have approved allowing charter schools to operate in Maine, as 40 other states already do.

Charter Schools are public and do not add to the tax burden of either the state or local governments. Not all parents approve of their local public school for their child and charter schools offer another educational choice.

Saturday’s education budget meeting in Windsor set a budget that many will not be able to afford. The end result for each of the eight member towns in the RSU will be a 17.75 percent increase ($2,225,130) in the funds they need to raise in property taxes to pay for the increase in the budget.

In response to Paul’s [Marseglia of Dresden] letter last week about gas and cigarette taxes. I know what you’re saying Paul, but what’s the alternative?

I hear a lot of complaints about taxes but seldom do folks offer solutions. We have to raise money somewhere to keep roads, state parks, schools, etc. operating.