[Found this article the other day; it's an older piece I freelanced for The TimesRecord, in Brunswick, Feb. 2005—jb]
Taking history from past to the present
news@TimesRecord.Com
02/07/2005
Lisbon students use technology to learn about Lisbon’s past
By Jim Baumer, Special to Neighbors LISBON – With options galore available to capture the interest of today’s teens, history – particularly that of the local variety – often falls off the youthful radar screen. With popular culture placing more value on the 15 minutes of fame of the superficial and the sordid, it’s easy to see why the study of the past no longer captivates.
Don’t tell that to Richard Moore and his seventh- and eighth-grade gifted and talented students at Sugg Middle School, however.
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by admin on March 5, 2010
I know firsthand that writing involves labor—obviously not the physically exhausting kind that accompanies the manual variety—but the difficult mental and often similarly taxing kind that must shadow the stringing of words together in attractive, cogent patterns. I think this knowledge of how difficult this can be has kept me away from my craft longer than is usual for me.
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by admin on February 16, 2010
I’m now in my fourth year of working for a small nonprofit, focused on workforce development issues. Until I was hired by the Central/Western Maine Workforce Investment Board, I knew little about the complexity of Maine’s workforce development system, and the strategic intersection it has to have with economic development, for Maine to have any kind of future in the 21st century.
When I began this job in August, 2006, my position had a loosely defined job description, with my primary focus being coordination with the business community. I was tasked to build a bridge from the public, to the private side. Partly, this involves the skills necessary for successful business development, as well as communicating the need for businesses to support training, as well as other initiatives designed to enhance our regional workforce in Central/Western Maine (a five county region, which includes Androscoggin, Kennebec, Oxford, Franklin, and Somerset).
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by admin on February 13, 2010
A consultant at one of our regional CareerCenters shared this great article with me, about unemployment, and whether taking a job, or continuing to sit idle is in your best interest, if unemployed.
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by admin on February 11, 2010
There are multiple benefits to revving up the physical side of things. How about alleviating stress that comes from work, relationships–life in general?
Take this morning. Up at 4:00 a.m. after a restless night of sleep brought on by job-related stress, I was out the door and at the gym by 5:00. Continue Reading
by admin on February 9, 2010
Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, appears on today’s Democracy Now! broadcast to discuss the link between healthcare and diet, the dangers of processed foods, the power of the meat industry lobby, the “nutritional-industrial complex,” the impact industrial agriculture has on global warming, and his sixty-four rules for eating.
“The markets are full of what I call edible food-like substances that you have to avoid,” says Michael Pollan. “So a lot of the rules are to help you, you know, navigate that now very treacherous landscape of the American supermarket.”
by admin on February 8, 2010
by admin on February 7, 2010
As my writing interests have grown and expanded, I’ve entertained finding a way to gather my posts, scattered across multiple sites; I have one blog for writing about culture and life in this place called America, another one capturing my thoughts on writing/publishing, and another related to the workforce work that I do. That’s all been fine and good, but I’ve finally made the decision to centralize my online writing, some of my former freelance material from the past, as well as connect readers to my books and publishing ventures with RiverVision Press.
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by admin on February 6, 2010
It’s beginnings
In the latter days of the 19th century, the development of patent medicines was a popular pursuit of fledgling inventors, backroom chemists, and other assorted types. Before the days of branding and Madison Avenue marketing, these various products often burst on the scene to much fanfare, then quickly faded from view, only to become future trivia questions and left solely to cult aficionados.
Located in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts, the city of Lowell in the 1880s was an industrial city, with huge textile facilities lining the Merrimack River. While textile production was the anchor industry of the area, numerous manufacturers of patent medicines and various elixirs also set up shop in the city.
On July16, 1885, Dr. Augustin Thompson filed trademark number 12,565 (subsequently registered on September 8, 1885) for a product he called Moxie Nerve Food.
Thompson’s trademark indicated that Moxie, “has not a drop of Medicine, Poison, Stimulant, or Alcohol in its composition.
by admin on January 25, 2010
There is a narcissistic plague making its way across our nation. The American spirit of the golden rule and concern for our neighbor has been replaced by a mentality driven by what’s in it for me.
One of the most evident places this new way of thinking shows its selfish face is in the anti-tax rhetoric and movements that disavow civic responsibility and a sense of community togetherness.
In my own state of Maine, a group called the Maine Tax Action Network has foisted a referendum on the voters that if enacted, could devastate our communities and municipalities and kill the civic connectedness that Mainers pride themselves on.
In thinking about the issue of taxes, I’ve tried to find a beachhead where the shifting of civic responsibility began. I contend that it is certainly rooted in the recent gains of conservative ideology, which sees the rights of the individual as more important than the well-being of the group.
Conservatives often ridicule those who believe in the “it takes a village
by admin on January 19, 2010
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