Censorship at Bangor Daily News. To a good end? Or to end good?

When considering the comments to some of  BDN's recent prison reform articles, and an editorial, one must first screen out the whackjobs who usually dominate that august publication's online comments section. Thus filtered  there are learning moments that are otherwise near concealed amid the chaff and catcalls of BDN's "usual suspect" commenters.   In this case, filtering out  the noise revealed interesting comments from from guards and other informed persons within Maine Corrections culture. They embody criticisms prison reformers are liable to run up against when the solitary confinement bill comes up before the Maine legislature. One of the articles "Activist Probles Inmates Death" had its lengthy comments abruptly deleted & replaced with "Comments are disabled on this item."  Why?

SELECTED  COMMENTERS ON  BDN PRISON STORIES 
11/8/09  TWO INMATES ESCAPE PRISON SATURDAY NIGHT.
11/10/09  PRISON GUARD FIRED AFTER INMATE DEATH.
11/20/09 LITERACY KEY TO LIFE AFTER PRISON
11/20/09 EDITORIAL  SOLITARY PITFALLS
12/4/09 ACTIVIST PROBES INMATE DEATH
12/5/09  STATE MAY FACE $1M LAWSUIT

TWO INMATES ESCAPE PRISON SATURDAY NIGHT.

On 11/8/09 at 11:16 AM, JillT1981 wrote:        
Apparently Fogg already has an escape charge from Windham.......

On 11/8/09 at 1:28 PM, ThsWrldThseDayS wrote:        
from my understanding fogg has already excaped from here once. where they excaped from there is very minimum security due to the fact that the only way inmates go down there is if there senctence has less then 2 years left && they can prove to the guards they are able to go there && have more freedom then at the prison 10 feet down the road. Fogg was put back down there 2 days ago. its  ridiculous. Many inmates that go to the farm are set up w/ jobs && are able to leave during the day and work. I beleive that both these two will be caught very shortly and will have another 5-10yrs added to there sentence


On 11/8/09 at 5:09 PM, nutman007 wrote:        
Anyone know these two? The article says they are not dangerous? Mr Fogg boiled baby oil in his prison issued microwave and threw it in the face of another inmate. Thats just the begining. His acts and crimes have been violent, just like his prison time. Violent escapee is what the article should read.


On 11/9/09 at 3:10 AM, freetospeak wrote:        
someone wrote a comment stating, where were the guards. I think it ought to be known that since the prison system went to 12 hr shifts that there are a lot of days and nights that the prison is really short staffed. On the night of the escapes, the prison was short staffed. So, thanks to state budget, the public is also being put at risk of escapes.


On 11/9/09 at 9:05 AM, LoisGM wrote:        
Did you say "prison issued microwave"? We pay for them to have their own microwave oven in their cell? .

On 11/9/09 at 10:49 AM, Michigal wrote:        
LoisGM No they do NOT have prison issued microwaves in their cells. There is one in the dayroom of each pod, where they can heat up what they buy (with their own money) from the machines (at a  VERY high price).

And these guys were at the Farm. It's supposed to be for those who have earned trust. Unfortunately too many fail and are sent back to the prison. Sometimes for minor stuff (like smoking cigarettes), and sometimes for major stuff (selling drugs, escape). I don't think it was a failure of the Corrections Officers on duty, but more a failure of the decision makers who sent them there, esp. considering Fogg had a previous escape (if what is said above is true).

I am honestly surprised these two yahoos haven't been caught yet. Surely someone identifying himself as "White Trash" shouldn't be too hard to spot. Oh wait, didn't someone say that's most of the  state? Must have been one of those people from away that live in the McMansions by the sea. Because most of the people I know in this state are hard working decent people.

On 11/9/09 at 5:21 PM, Amanda1982 wrote:        
Its not even really a prison, its a farm that the inmates work on. They were right in saying its min. security, and its not the 1st inmate thats escaped from there. You give someone an inch and they take a  mile....

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PRISON GUARD FIRED AFTER INMATE DEATH.  11/10/09

On 11/10/09 at 4:29 AM, outdoorman wrote:        
It is a bad enough of a place to work. It's pretty bad when you are at risk of being punished or sued on the job site for not seeing something go down on your watch. You cannot even help someone out of a burning vehicle these days without the threat of being sued. I would say by this article that they have no idea what inmate(s) did this to this inmate in the wheel chair. More credit needs to be given to these men and women in uniform. They work a sh! t job and put their lives on the line every day. Nobody's perfect.


On 11/10/09 at 9:59 AM, freetospeak wrote:        
Sometimes pretty important details get left out of an article. Details such as the inmate who died had told the officers he was ok and didn't need medical attention after the attack. But, I guess the commissioner just wants a "fall guy" as he does every time something drastic happens at the prison. I guess things such as the pods being designed to be run by two officers but instead is run by one officer on 64 inmates really doesn't matter either. Let's not look at the important issues at hand. Let's just look for a "fall guy" to make the family of the victim feel better. It doesn' t really matter if you ruin the family of a corrections officer who is trying to do his job in the process. Maybe the people who look for the ":fall guy": or the people who have no idea what goes on inside the Maine State Prison should come in and run a pod sometime. Maybe then you will shut the hell up....I am not saying the incident of tis inmate dying isn't unfortunate, because it is. But, don't put the blame on a corrections officer until you look at all the details. Then if the CO is to blame, you can prosecute or whatever. But, don't until you know everything.....

On 11/10/09 at 10:14 AM, guerraelson wrote:        
I understand the feeling of the public in this article. I agree. However, the guards had a job to do. They were being paid to watch over this man regardless of what he was charged/convicted of. If they couldn't do that job without prejudice than maybe they should be looking for a different career. I know what I am talking about because I was a corrections officer for 20 years.

On 11/10/09 at 10:49 AM, RodMarks wrote:        
You couldn't pay me enough to be a prison guard. The crap they have to take from the inmates (sometimes literally) and then they can't even give them an attitude adjustment without being sued for violating someone's civil rights. Lots of details left out of this story like how the prison was set up, was it adequately staffed, was he offered segregation. Everyone will benefit from this except for the guards. The big guys have their scapegoats, the perv's family is going to get paid, the lawyer will get a big fat commission and just maybe the elimination of this perv will have prevented a few cases of future molestations. Justice would be if the lawsuit award went to the victim of the molestation rather than the perv's family.

On 11/10/09 at 1:23 PM, bidoux wrote:        
Why in heck should the state be obligated to pay for wrongful death?
... guerraelson how many guards were on the same section as u. If I understand right he was alone for the whole section.


On 11/10/09 at 3:18 PM, Amanda1982 wrote:        
Its very common for child molesters to experience this sort of thing while incarcerated. A lot of inmates do not tolerate this kind of behavior (crazy as it sounds, as some are murderers)...but, Ive witnessed many child molesters having to be put in protective custody due to the threat of being injured by others. I believe there is an eye for an eye, and in the end God has your death all planned. I guess if it was my kid who was molested at the hands of this animal, I would of been relieved of the news of his death. So that way he could never get out and do it to another innocent child again. Doesnt make it right, per say...but it is what it is. Yes these guards are suppose to protect all inmates no matter what their charges, and I can say 100% that the pressure you get from inmates to do this, and do that, to turn your back for a minute and pretend like u didnt see, is huge! Im so torn regarding this, because I know what the guards were thinking...justice. I just dont think they realized how far this was going....

On 11/10/09 at 5:01 PM, freetospeak wrote:        
In a couple comments here, I see people asking things such as "where were the guards or If the guards can't do their jobs then maybe they need to find other employment." What really got me is the latter comment came from a CO of more than 20 years. He must've been one of those CO's we call CCTW/CO. The kind that is all about caring for inmates. People need to really understand how things in the prison works. There is one officer for 64 inmates in a pod. If inmates are going to assault another inmate, they normally have other inmates distract the officer. It only takes seconds for inmates to accomplish their mission on assaulting someone. So, unless you know how inmates play in there, you need to keep your mouths shut about "where was the officers." I don't care if I piss someone off here or not by saying this. I have been there and done that job. The only ones I feel for here are is the guard who lost his job because he was doing his job trying to support his family or the sargeant  who lost his stripes. Maybe when the new warden comes she will be more supportive of staff than some people obviously are....


On 11/10/09 at 5:58 PM, sewerman wrote:        
Mr Magnusson saved his buddy Jeff Merrill who was the warden when this happend, Jeff now has a 6 figure or near 6 figure job 15miles from his home. Marty knows all about this because he was warden when Larry Richardson was killed there and he Marty got off scott free, now some poor guard trying to make a living is taking the fall NOT FAIR. These Good Old Boys take care of esch other while some poor sucker will probably loose everything. While budgets are being cut they make Jeff a chushy job that got created for him as Energy Auditor or some such tijtle. If some of you people worked the front lines you'ed know what I'm talking about

On 11/11/09 at 9:24 AM, freetospeak wrote:        
Just a quick note in ref to what sewerman said: What you said about the "good ole boys" taking care of each other, you hit the nail right on the head. Everything you said is so true. The system is so corrupt it is pathetic. Nobody can do anything within the system because, as you said, they take care of each other. The warden departed to his new job taking with him items belonging to the state from the wardens house which the state owns in Thomaston. Shouldn't this be a crime such as theft or destruction of state property? But, because he is "the MAN" he can get away with this. And, as far as this cushiony job Merrill has been given, doesn't the public have anything to say about this because this is a time of state budget crunch. Check out the camp Merrill has. Rumor has it that inmates from Charleston built that. Isn't that inappropriate use of inmates? I hope all these asses who think htey are untouchable get burned some day.

On 11/11/09 at 10:31 AM, msfreeh wrote:        
......The current Commissioner of Corrections Magnusson was the understudy for former Commissioner of Corrections
Don Allen of Cousins Island. Allen was indicted by the Maine Times newspaper in the mid 1970's for his involvement in
torturing children at the Maine Youth Center. Some of these former juveniles testified against Allen at his confirmation hearings in the 1980's.

If the Department of Corrections was a private corporation it would have been sued out of business a long time ago.
Until Maine voters and taxpayers start to see themselves as primary consumers of this system and take a leadership role
in shaping its organizational model these type of events will continue with some frequency.
Lets give our legislature a new mantra and call it RESTORATIVE JUSTICE. http://www.restorativejustice.org/


On 11/11/09 at 8:56 PM, cbpo2858 wrote:        
lets get a few things straight he was not a civilian he was a inmate. Second off he deserved what he got and yes i would of sat there and watched too or turned a blind eye. Boo Hoo he was vulnerable so was the little child he molested i have no sympathy for scum bags like this. No we would not let this happen to a civilian oh wait yes we would we are america a country where people are afraid to help beacuse they are afraid to get sued for everything they own. so another words yes i would let this happen to a inmate or prisoner but not a innocent civilian he was neither a innocent civilian or a civilian  at that.

On 11/12/09 at 11:15 AM, PaleShadows wrote:        
FreetoSpeak is correct. Inmates have nothing but time on their hands and these things are usually well calculated. They'll distract the guard and execute these types of plans in only a few short moments. I've seen it happen and I've also watched COs look the other way as the inmates torment the pedophiles day after day. Even in PC, the torment continues...remember the kitchen staff is made up of inmates too:)

Its difficult to feel sympathy for anyone who would use a helpless child for their own twisted sexual gratification, and many of the CO have children of their own.


On 11/12/09 at 4:51 PM, freetospeak wrote:        
The Warden lost his job because he wasn't doing his job. Now that makes more sence. What doesn';t make sense is that the governor gives him a cushiony job to "save face" so to speak. And this was done only because he is a friend of the governor and because he was the warden. So I guess it really does matter who you are. You can do your job and get fired and your name in the headlines and trampled on. Or, you can be someone who doesn't do their job and, because of who you are, you are saved the embarrassment. Thanks Mr. Governor. I guess this is what they mean by the state motto: MAINE: THE WAY LIFE SHOULD BE.


===============================================================================

LITERACY KEY TO LIFE AFTER PRISON

On 11/20/09 at 8:25 AM, JeffDubay wrote:    
People did not forget how to read before they went to prison, they lacked the talent before they left school.

On 11/20/09 at 11:02 AM, Michigal wrote:
It's not about literacy, it's about the unwillingness to hire someone who has been in prison. That and that alone is the big reason for recidivism. If you can't find legitimate work, you turn back to a life of crime. And with the economy and lack of jobs, it's even worse. People without felony convictions can't find a job. So imagine how much harder it is for someone coming out of prison. There are no support services available. And that's something that's desperately needed. Lincoln County at one time had a job fair for those leaving the county jail, perhaps something like that could be arranged for the prisons.

===============================================================================

EDITORIAL   11/20/09
SOLITARY PITFALLS

On 11/19/09 at 8:48 PM, SantiniSpagoandSpike wrote:        
So, what do you do, Mr. Masters Degree in Correctional Administration. hold two Doctorate LLD's in International Law, and this does not make me knowing everything there is to know about the profession. It seems on the surface to me, you are saying there are levels of society, which mandate law enforcement and penalties under the current system of "due process", but when in prison, you are stating there can be no "due Process levels of punishment within that community...if a prisoner is a bad boy or bad girl and does not follow the prescribed rules of the prison systems in the US?

Stupid...

So what; if putting a prisoner in solitary, and he doth protest too much about it, you are simply offering that crim just as much rights under the judiciary system as a person who has led a life of substantial law-abidance! Now, there are "rights" in prisons? Already, sir, the US prisons for the most part, are semi-luxury communities as it is. Plus, everything is free and you can form your own gangs, or belong to them, have yard fighting, (recreation time), stabbings (fun and games, plus serious inmate discipline), and family visits (bring in your local streetwalkers), and have all the telephone time you need (to run your outside drug operations while you are on 'vacation').

People like your ilk, Mr. Schatz, make me ill with your proposals, and goodies aimed at prison reform. These prisoners gave no rights to others for the crimes they committed against people, and why should these prisoners deserve more rights now to wage civil rights and incarceration rights over the public's head and also the federal US Governments Constitutionality?

On 11/20/09 at 5:14 PM, SantiniSpagoandSpike wrote:        
Yes, EG, I did come off a little harsh, and I do sometimes. It is just that I deal directly with prison systems in many other countries due to incarceration of US citizens who have broken the law in those countries at some level or the other, and from what I'm observing, the US treats their prisoners namby-pamby in comparison to other countries. I don't blame the system in and as such; I blame people like the ACLU-type Schatz implies; even with his Masters in :Correctional Administration". Nice work if you can get it. I do not believe in the chain-gang psychology, but I do believe the non-union prisoner-civil worker aspect ought to deserve some chance of recognition; and thanks for mentioning that.

My reference is what is happening in and to prisons in todays society in that particular community. Our taxpayer money is going to waste in a lot of respects here, but reformation of the criminal minds should be incorporated into the overall planning and effect by the US prison system nationwide.

The real point ought to be not what to do with the prisoners once they are in prison, as much as how to keep people out of prison in the first instance. This is a completely another topic and problematic situation in itself. The part-problem lies not in law enforcement, but in some law-enforcement policies and procedures, and the judicial system. We could discuss this one for hours on end...

===============================================================================

ACTIVIST PROBES INMATE DEATH  12/04/09
By Abigail Curtis
ALL COMMENTS DELETED BY BDN

===============================================================================
    
12/5/09  STATE MAY FACE 1M WRONGFUL DEATH LAWSUIT

On 12/5/09 at 5:36 AM, Robpott wrote:        
Though the death of a child molester is tragic, the fact remains he died. Two Guards took the fall for it even though policy was followed but the people at the top collecting retirement and regular wages needed scapgoats to protect their way of life, and open themselves up for a lawsuit by admitting guilt even when it is unfounded. (an old story of unsteady leadership). I'm sure when the child molester passed away, his wife heard a cash register door close to end an embarrassing life with a guy who just got caught once. As for Gardner, the man is a snail who could'nt get a job flipping burgers at McDonalds.

On 12/5/09 at 7:05 AM, JWBooth wrote:        
Prison contraband smuggling is very profitable.
Dead men tell no tales.

On 12/5/09 at 8:57 AM, knowitall wrote:        
The biggest reason prisoner Weinstein was beatin to death was he liked to brag about what he had done. If all child molesters knew this is what was in store for them when they go to prison I think it would reduce this crime. Prisoner Weinstein's wife had almost 2 yrs. left to divorce him, she was in no hurry because she knew somehting would happen to him in prison.All she wants is a little money to make her feel better about the way her pedophile husbad was.


On 12/5/09 at 9:28 AM, fredrogers wrote:        
"...In June of this year, the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability (OPEGA) released a scathing report, concluding that “Despite several Department efforts focused on cultural change since 2005, the following elements are still likely present to some degree within the culture at Maine State Prison.” These elements included :

• Intimidation of, and retaliation against, individuals attempting to raise concerns – or behaviors that staff perceive as intimidation or retaliation.
• Behaviors that staff or prisoners experience or perceive as harassment and discrimination of various forms.
• A distrust and/or lack of respect for management as a whole, or of certain individuals within the chain of command, that appears to be fed, at least in part, by staff perceptions that a strong “good old boy” network exists.

• Reluctance or actual failure to report situations that are personally concerning to staff, appear unethical, or that otherwise expose the State to unnecessary risks and liabilities. OPEGA also observed potential weaknesses in both formal and informal reporting avenues that may affect staff’s willingness to use them, or that may interfere with those concerns getting proper attention and action at the appropriate supervisory level.

In August, Warden Merrill was summarily removed from his post and reassigned to the energy conservation project, at a 42% pay cut. During the search, Commissioner Magnusson served as Warden..... "

Can the BDN EVER, EVERY do a thorough job of reporintg?


On 12/5/09 at 9:35 AM, dlquinn wrote:        
It's nice to hear everyone's opinion on the Weinstein and Valdez stories but no one knows the whole story..stop placing blame on the medical staff...and the suspicious death of Valdez..where did that Come from?The medical staff at the MSP is one of the best considering the antiquated equipment and chronic understaffing.There are a lot of inaccuracies in the news stories, someone should really do better research or find more reliable informants.


===============================================================================

New Warden for ME State Prison - how's the media coverage?

Fresh from the Thumb of Michigan comes warden Patricia Barnhart,  with twenty years of service behind her and a respectful record of corrections reform, particularly in the Michigan systems' treatment of incarcerated minors and mothers.

Today's news coverage of the announcement of her appointment to be first woman warden of Maine State Prison, in the   Bangor DailyNews , "Prison activists: Reform Needed" 

For a backstory, here are some interesting Michigan news bits on Barnhart:

Adolescent Women in Prison Respond better to Nurturing than Harsh Discipline
"Patricia Barnhart, warden at a Michigan prison and founder of trueprison.com, has spent the last ten years working with behavioral scientists at the University of Michigan to put together a program for rehabilitating young girls. After an estimated 12 million dollars in research and facility upgrades, she believes they have found a solution for dealing with troubled female offenders."

Teen lifers a burden for state's prisons  "Prison Warden Patricia Barnhart said some of those housed at her facility, who as teens were sentenced to life, could safely be released back into the community. "Absolutely," she said. "The question becomes: Are you scared of them, or are you mad at them? When we're locking up people because we're mad at them, we're compromising our resources."

-----------------------------------------------------------

Click here for a cases brought by inmates against Patricia Barnhart as Michigan Corrections official.
Access to PACER necessary . PACER =national federal court docket program

Sears Island coverage: a continuing mixed bag

The travails of Wasumkeag - what Sears Island was known as for several thousand years, until the Colonization - the trials of Wasumkeag continue. 

While there are backroom maneuverings and wheeler-dealerings aplenty, little of it attracts the jaundiced eyes of Maine journalists, (to the majority of whom  "investigative reporting" is a long lost might-have-been that was probably the initial motivator for many to choose the media career path, was bruited about in journalism school, but, in the new media world of short attn spans, has been dropped as not cost-effective by the business mavens struggle to keep the news fleets afloat.).

So one must  empathize with the reporters and producers strapped with tight deadlines and facing shrunken news holes nearly hidden amid the commercials and adverts. One must attract their eyes with shiny  flashy news baubles that glitter with enough truth to be worth following up on.  Must arrange facts with enough grace that they glide effortlessly into busy reporters' minds and out their keyboarding fingers.

Something I've always tried to do, and with some small successes. But their smallness can get frustrating

 Though they didn't attend,WCSH gave a heads-up: Public Hears Opposing Views on Sears Island Development

 Sears Island Takes Center Stage  Village Soup's article by Tanya Mitchell.  Here a good deal of backstory is added in, and a fair bit of coverage of the speakers, but the overriding issue detailed by supporters of a fully protected island- the threat to the greater bay's fisheries of such a port - received short shrift,   beyond noting that one panelist "bemoaned" the threat to the bay, though reporter Mitchell didn't see fit to describe just what in the bay was under threat.  "Bemoaned"?!  A word more useful in an editorial than in a news story, unless the reporter then proceeded to detail the bemoanables. Tch tch Tanya. An otherwise fine piece.



In Blogland, Penobscot Bay Blog offers complete audio recordings (mp3s) of the WERU-sponsored Sears Island Forum, conveniently broken into individual speakers

Portland Phoenix still the sole source provider of solid prison news in Maine..

Viva Lance Tapley! Exile must end as an American penal system

Click on headline for complete article in the Portland Phoenix. The photo on the website is five years old, Deane well before held in solitary in Maine state prison Warren. He now has neatly trimmed short hair and neartly trimmed beard.

Prison ‘troublemaker’ confronts racism, medical abuse

Exiled

By LANCE TAPLEY | September 9, 2009

Vacillating between grit and despair — between aggressive lawsuits and suicide attempts — Deane Brown, the prisoner who in 2005 blew the whistle on the torture of mentally ill inmates at the Maine State Prison’s solitary-confinement “Supermax” unit, is struggling against prison conditions in Maryland, where he was exiled by the Baldacci administration. (See “Baldacci’s ‘Political Prisoner,’” by Lance Tapley, November 21, 2006.)

In August, Brown was transferred from Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland to North Branch Correctional Institution, also in Cumberland, which houses many of Maryland’s most serious offenders. When sent to Maryland in 2006 he first had been put in the state’s Supermax, in Baltimore.

Brown was given no reason for the recent move, but his Maryland inmate-legal-aid lawyer, Joseph Tetrault, says prison authorities view him as a troublemaker. According to his Rockland friend Beth Berry, who has talked with him on the phone, in North Branch he has already been “jumped and assaulted by three men in the shower.”

An intelligent and tolerant man, well liked in Maine by both inmates and guards, Brown, 45, has resisted what he calls “rampant” racism in Maryland’s prisons and has refused to join gangs. At Western, he tried to take a law correspondence course paid for by a Maine supporter, but had to abandon it. In a letter to a school official, he explained: “I have tried to move out of a cell I share with a racist. He seems to think he can convince me to believe, as he does, that being white makes me more human than those who are not. We constantly argue and sometimes fight. I cannot study or even sleep regularly.”

He has also complained about the Maryland system’s treatment of his diabetes, at one point obtaining a court order requiring the prison to ensure he is given food soon after an insulin injection. He also received $2500 in damages because of the prison system’s neglect. But Brown reports the judge’s order has been ignored and he is still at risk of going into diabetic shock from low blood sugar if he isn’t given food in a timely manner. As he testified in one court proceeding:

“When I’m laying on the floor, sweating profusely, urinating all over myself, vomiting, the nurse finally comes in. . . . She’s screaming give him something to eat, now, and I’ve been screaming for three hours to get something to eat. That’s an imminent fear of death right there for me.”

He has at times refused to accept the insulin if he isn’t given food properly, but the judge also has ruled injections can be forced on him. Tetrault has appealed this ruling to a higher state court, with a December hearing expected.

Brown struggles with despair over both his personal condition and conditions he witnesses. “People get Maced and beaten regularly over here, for little or no reason,” he wrote in a letter to Tetrault, about the Western prison. By his own reports he has tried to kill himself twice.

“Maine threw him to the wolves,” Berry says.

She is one of a small group of supporters who have tried to keep up his courage. Ron Huber, 53, host of a Rockland radio show to which Brown placed on-air telephone calls about inmate treatment when he was at the prison in Warren, has been demanding that Governor John Baldacci bring him back to Maine. Earlier this summer in Augusta Huber had a confrontation on the issue with an angry David Farmer, Baldacci’s chief press aide, who told him the governor backs up the Corrections department’s decisions.

Afterwards, a solitary Huber — he has a mild, bespectacled, professorial air — knelt in the State House’s Rotunda before a glass case containing the red, white, blue, and gold 1862 First Maine Heavy Artillery battle flag. He ceremonially pronounced aloud the names of the 20-plus Maine prisoners now in out-of-state prisons, thumping on a drum after each name.

Maine prison officials said they sent Brown to Maryland because he was a “threat to the facility,” though he has no history of violence. He is serving a 59-year sentence for a string of burglaries. Last year he lost a federal civil-rights lawsuit asking that he be returned to Maine.

Brown’s experience in Maryland, Huber says, shows “what a powerful tool it is to exile people. It’s a lot easier for people to break down when they’re far from their social matrix.”

Brown’s experience also shows “the frightening ability of prison officials to bury an inmate who has the courage to speak out against injustice,” says David Bidler of the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition. He suggested supporters write to Deane Brown at #339-621, North Branch Correctional Institution, 14100 McMullen Highway S.W., Cumberland, MD 21502.

Maine Media Watch's Worst Headline of the Month winners.

While there are failures of modern journalism everywhere, every month a few practitioners of the craft in Maine reach new lows in headline writing, reportage, editorializing, and other duties of the 4th Estate. Let's examine two of these anti-paragons, in hopes that a little sunshine will help clear the miasma from certain brains.....

Worst Headline of the Month: the headline writer at the Belfast Republican Journal.

"Sears Island one of seven choices for wildlife refuge" the headline on an article by Tanya Mitchell asserts.
Ah but it just ain't so. The National Wildlife Refuge manager in Maine is seeking new headquarters for the Maine Coastal Islands NWR. If Sears Island were selected, the Refuge would bulldoze, blast and pave part of the island for its office and parking lot. But it would not designate a single square inch as a protected refuge. The story's writer got it right, although she did commit the reporterial sin of announcing an important public meeting but then leaving out the location. ("in Searsport") Um..... where in Searsport? Sears Island meetings have been held in at least three different locations in that town.

Worst of the Month Runner up. Headline writer for the BDN

Michaud: No health care forum

Aug 19, 2009 09:48 pm | By Kevin Miller BDN Staff

What!? Representative Michaud is not going to hold a forum on the reorganizing of American healthcare? Of course he is. What the headline writer left out was that the representative declined to hold a "joint" health care forum that would have been co-led by an unannounced candidate for the opposing political party.

Well, duh...What authority does the bloke have for being entitled to co-chair? Maybe he should actually declare for the position and go through the official paperwork before tainting our noosphere with his ambitions

Free Maine reporters. Delegate flash stories to Licenced Practical bloggers. Use saved$ to finance IR

One gets a sense of haggardness amongst them. Of smart, well-enough educated journalists at work from Augusta to Bangor to Rockland, forced however by management to atomize their story writing and attention into more and more and brief stories. Flash journalism for flash minds.

With consequently dwindled or actually non-existent time allotted or budgeted for them by the station operators to spend the several weeks or more of time and effort chewing through the multiferous layers of investigation into any of the myriad thorns presently in the side of the Maine Body Politic. One brought to attention recently - inmate exile - would take weeks of reading through masses of documents hand written, typed, electronic, of conducting dozen or more of interviews calls meetings. But the results would be well worth it.


Solution: Let the media outlets farm out routine (yet vital by its very routineness) documentary coverage to Licensed Practical Bloggers or LPBs - Some percentage of the documentary coverage of the myriad of governmental and nongovernmental meetings, speeches carnivals festivals, coverage of automotive mayhem and other committee meeting coverage would be done by them.

LPB's "Licenced Practical Bloggers"? Some standard would be set and enforced by local news directors. As micro contributors, they're getting less per word; the saved money then applied toward enabling the investigative arts. Professional journalists would still keep their hands in as many of the documentary type events coverage as they pleased (so long as their investigative efforts don't suffer.)

But overall let the minutiae be covered by the micromedia, who are well positioned for it, and set our professional journalists loose on bringing to light the reasons behind the vital issues of the day, ever shifting as they are. That is a hit or miss business; all the more reason to allow greater chunks of the budget for Maine journalists to pursue their necessary arts of deliberative investigative journalism.

MPBN, Village Soup, other Maine media shrug and turn aside as Baldacci affirms his pro-torture position re Mainer inmates

It is a terrible dare, to stand up against the System when in Maine state prison. Unlike other states in New england and Elsewhere, Maine prison officials cling to an archaic labyrinthine hodgepodge of human rights-violating prison punishment practices and policies. Taking issue with inhumane conditions or treatment opens inmates to sure retribution, exacted in excruciating detail But for MPBN and other media. that's not a story

Already, with the hunger strike of a collective group of inmates being held in sensory deprivation cells of officially ended, Deputy Corrections Commissioner Denise Lord gloats that 'no changes will be made' in our state's sick policy of putting inmates into punishment cells for months of prolonged sensory deprivation. Inmates at Maine state prison carried out a similar hunger strike in 2006

So does Maine media look into why these eight Mainers dared to put their necks on the line?

Of course not! (with a few tiny exceptions). Take Herald Gazette/Village Soup reporter Shlomit Auciello. Please!
Primed to the gills with info about the raisons d'etre for the Maine state prison's present and past hunger strikes, about Maine's history of retribution against those inmates daring to lawfully rock the boat about the devastating effect that prolonged sensory deprivation has on the minds and hearts of those being held in such circumstances, primed with all this info what does Shlomit Auciello do?

Why, she builds her story around the exhalations of the Great Bloviator: Associate Corrections Commissioner for Public Relations Denise Lord. Right from the start:

"According to DOC Associate Commissioner Denise Lord...."

Lord is good at her job. Like one of Saddam's officials, or a guantanamo public affairs officer he can extoll the positive side of torture: it is "an incentive to inmates " Auciello dutifully reports this party line.

"They have access to reading materials and magazines," Lord observed, leaving out the well known observation that anyone held in sensory deprivation units quickly becomes disoriented and unable to read as the days and weeks pass.

Most disgraceful perhaps. Auciello tries to sugarcoat the disgusting fact that at any given moment, the state of Maine continually puts men and women in and out of sensory deprivation tanks for widely varying lengths of time. Letting Lord get away with spinning it polyannaishly as "fewer than 2.5 percent of the prison's 2,200 inmates!" as though sensory deprivation was not a practice that can only be described as intentional infliction of torture, carried out in the name of the People of Maine.

But that wasnt the story Lord wanted, and Auciello like the rest of the callow media went right along with the associate commish.

So, policies that so conflict with international human rights treaties that global sanctions against te Baldacci Administration ought to be imposed? Not an issue.

Inmate-rights organizations are pumping up the volume, taking Baldacci to task
beyond the beachhead that the hunger strikers have established in their brief campaign. They are doubtless learning the punitive consequences of their courage, which we should not allow to have happened in vain.

Let's convince the Governor that Maine needs to join other New England states (and the rest of the civilized world) and remove the stain to our honor of our adhering to an archaic labyrinth of human rights-violating prison punishment practices and policies.

From sensory deprivation in long term punishment isolation cells, to forced exile to distant states, deputy commissioners and wardens pick and choose from a palette of cruelty to suit their moods.

Let's put an end to this

Downeast Mag - part 2 of Jeff Clark pimps for MDOT re Sears Island .

Last week's entry noted the bizarre juxtaposition of "veteran journalist" Jeff Clark, with an article about Sears Island bearing his byline that is so saccharine, so one-sided, so distant from the truth, so determinedly ignorant of the impacts such a port would have on Penobscot Bay's fishery and tourism industries, that one could only assume that when Jeff  found out he was getting the boot from Downeast Magazine, he decided that in harsh economic times the best employer would be Uncle Baldacci.

Hence the hymn-like quality of Clark's  paean to the Great Governor. For in centuries past, the Lords of Power would indeed occasionally reward such inspired syncophancy with a meaningless but well paying slot in the royal administration.  

Why not me? must have occured to the unemployed scribbler. Surely a veteran with chops like me can pen an ode to the governor that will lift me out of this squalid scramble for column inches that the new Downeast demands I enter into.

But to do that, the old Clark, the one who formerly  "...did the tough stories"  as one admirer said, who formerly "captured issues' complexities in a way that readers could understand, but without condescension..."  

had to vanish.

NeoJeff went casting about for something to pangyricize about. His eye must have fallen upon a Maine Coast Heritage Trust media release praising itself for snatching away 600 acres of Sears  Island from the public and condemning the rest, including the bay's more important groundfish nursery to degradation and outright destruction.

The rest is history - at least a flawed, cracked, mirror image of history, which conveniently leaves out every thing that would counter Downeast's Maine-as-funhouse carnival spin. Shall we count the ways?

* The headline: "How Sears Island was Saved".  Even Clark at his grovliest wouldn't have stooped THAT low, so we shall assume a copyeditor spat it out in a moment of cynicism that caught the publisher's eye. Saved indeed.

* "For decades the largest undeveloped island on the U.S. eastern seaboard has been a source of controversy."   Ah Jeff.... T'was not the island that was a source of controversy, it was the various industrial schemes that tried to squat upon her wild face.  Wassumkeag - pronounced like "blossom keg" - was not controversial to the people of Searsport and the surrounding region at all.  Why should it be? It was absentee-owned land that allowed for light recreation. People married there. Had their ashes strewn there. Fished, hunted and hiked there.

Occasionally Big Money showed up and tried to industrialize it, but conservationists always rallied round the people of Searsport and the island, and the threat was thrown back.  That was, until Angus King's doomed industrial sprawl attempt on the island's life left Wasumkeag sorely wounded and parts of the bay's ecosystem in disarray.   

* "As one of the last remaining sites suitable for a deepwater port in Maine, business and government officials have long seen it as the key component of an industrial revival in the Penobscot Bay region."

The Penobscot Bay region keeps wondering just why it is that the "revival" schemes these do-gooder wannabes in Augusta keep hatching have everything to do with enriching big absentee industries, and little or nothing to do with enriching the extant thriving decentralized industries that have driven Penobscot Bay's economies for centuries.

Have in fact, everything to do with destroying several of the keystones of those economies that Downeast usually fawns over: the commercial fishing industry - though this is something Jeff Clark has but dimly heard of, for the volumes writ about the irreplaceability of the habitats that must be dredged away for this "key" port,  is freely available - on the internet, at the agencies headquarters,  indeed from the archives of quisling Maine Sierra Club - the federal and state memos and reports, the EIS, the SEIS, the maps, all of it is available.

The shining sands of Sears Island's nomenclature are as much those rich sandy shoals off her western shore, gleaming with phot0plankton phosphorescent in the summer night.

But Clark feigns ignorance of such detail; the vision he would spread across Downeast's pages must (and does) sing the praises of Wise John, so loudly that he must be hoping that the proposed darkening of Wasumkeag's shining sands is  well nigh invisible under the radiance of Baldacci's gleaming visionary pate.

Time presses. We'll return to our discussion soon, but what Jeff Clark has done is  held up the two bloody halves of the baby that Governor John has split apart  and declared them to be tasteful and even, as in his article's coup de gras - one must make sure the nursery side of the island has ceased its annoying cries, - declared that what was best for big industry was best for Maine

To Be Continued

Former Downeast Mag writer pimps Baldacci/Damon port plan

Downeast Magazine recently laid off seven writers from its staff. The ghost of one of them, Jeff Clark, lingers on, and has exuded a strange poisonous final downeast article, "How Sears Island was Saved" appeared in the May 2009 issue.

A slapback against getting the Downeast boot, Clark's article (editorial? or...consider the publication: puff piece) is a lengthy paean to MDOT (and to Governor Baldacci and his understudy-who-would-be-governor Senator Dennis Damon,) as they gaily bent state law, mocked the Maine Constitution and trampled over hundreds of small businesses over the last three years in an effort to rush installation of a supersize container port onto 940 acre Sears Island - including dredging away the nursery shoals at the headwaters of Maine's most lobster-rich bay,) Clarks missive-by-any-name stands head and shoulders above the rest of the Sears Island fantasies spun by other dogs on other laps.

A marvel of, no, what must be a purposely grotesque parody of Downeast's shameless chamber of commerce huggerism, Clark manages through dint of great labor to carefully get every fact wrong, and to reach precisely the wrong conclusion.

This may seem puzzling in the light of pronouncements by his admirers, such as a recent one calling him "a reporter with real news sense and serious writing chops" , Indeed Jeff was considered the Voice of Downeast Maine

Ah but that was the old Jeff Clark. The new Jeff Clark, cast adrift from his Downeast mooring, would much rather, it appears, find a public affairs slot in a Damon administration. Government public relations - the only media field that grows as the economy contracts.

A versatile scribbler, he would be as much at home flacking the Department of Corrections as he would the Governor's office. While DOC's Asst Commissioner for PR Denise Lord would not willingly give up her slot spinning happy faces onto reports of institutional mayhem at the state prison, it may be that Dan Cashman at the Governor's office has tired of spinning his Nibs' doings and little machinations.

There, Clark's obsequiousness to the aforementioned politicos trying to force a container port and railyard onto Sears Island would pay off. Notably the way this "reporter with real news sense and serious writing chops" tried to conceal the fact that it was Governor Baldacci himself who almost sneaked a Liquid Natural Gas port and plant onto Sears Island during his first term;
saddest and worst, that Jeff Clark couldn't trouble himself to contact or even once directly mention any of the opponents of the island splitting plan; and in a hundred other ways, played fast and loose with the facts in that inimitable hazy opium dream style that this suddenly former Downeast Magazine writer Jeff Clark perfected.

To be continued.

Soup spills into fish documentary

Ah, Souperwoman. How DO you do it? The videographer arrives from Frisco, the producer from Portsmouth, and the local guy connecting them with Knox County fishermen squires them to Lobsterman Art Johnson for a satisfying go-round in his backyeard amid his still-homeported trap gear. Then to the fish pier, where connector-man checks in with the Western Sea, Plan B, Double Eagle and other boats, all alive with spring-cleaning. He motions them on down to the end: Captain Fill of the ' Sea is willing to talk. They amble down, quick words along the way with the Live Lobster folk and the bait people.

We are all there at end of the fishpier, finally and the good Captain has allotted some time from his busy schedule, sitting relaxed on dock, while his crew works around him, grinning in anticipation of being video'd for national news distribution. The producer begins her low key language dance, working out the psycholinguistics for a good interview.

WHEN IN POPS A VILLAGE SOUP REPORTER

...stepping into the documentary space between the interviewer and her camera shooter, and Capt Fill. "Wait!" she announces, and the camera lowers, pulls back "Me first."

Danny Fill raises an eyebrow at the producer. She shrugs. The reporter demands the Captain's name, inquires as to his business (he tips his head toward the Western Sea, the steel herring seiner rising and falling in the Gulf of Maine swell behind him.) Meanwhile the interviewer, videographer trade glances with the local producer. He clears his throat. The Soupie stops (she is snapping photos of Capt Fill now) and then, recollecting that there ARE other people here, steps back, and Meg the producer restarts to her colloquoy with Danny Fill.
tend to modify the observed, a privilege that is reserved to the documentarians and their subject.

Or should be. Souperwoman stays inside the frame, for all the world as if this were a press conference.

Eventually the interview is over, and as the captain returns to working on his boat, we shift to a lobster smacker, back from transporting lobsters from island fishermen to the mainland. He is interested but declines, politely but firmly, to be interviewed. He does agree to talk off camera and Meg quizzes him about healthcare. The Village Soup reporter again inserts herself into the frame with her own questions and photography. The local producer moves up the pier, considering the next interviewees. They head to the North End Shipyard, where the wooden masts of half a dozen windjammers rake the sky.

Captain Brenda Thomas of the schooner Isaac Evans is nowhere to be found, but the Souper proves useful and finds him the boat's phone #. He calls and reaches her husband, who listens to the proposition of being interviewed. Shortly he walks up through the shipyard. An interview with he, (much Soup insertion, of course). Finally Captain Walker shows, agrees to be interviewed, too, and take camera crew aboard her schooner, clambering across another to reach the Isaac Evans. Only a bit of Soup this time, as the quarters aboard are rather tight for captain and documentary crew AND soup reporter.

Things come to an end. The footage is shot, the words are all in the can. A quick stop to get a release signature from Lobsterman Artie Johnson Local Producer, the the documentary crew a share a round at the Black Bull, and all go their seperate ways. Meg got what she came for. Consumers Union will have its health care story. Village Soup will have its story "the making of a documentary".

And when it duly is published, the local producer reads it and sighs. He's not in the "making of" story at all. A casual reader would think the Souper Reporter had done it all on her ownsome.
He jots her a quick email subject lined with a "Thanks for the coverage of the health care video crew" to fan her ego, but with this message in the body: "...And a hearty middle finger for leaving me entirely out of it."

Childish, but one must observe the proprieties.

Sears Island: Village Soup stirring the pot lately.

While the Press Herald continues to dither over reporting developments in the Sears Island epic. Shlomit Auciello of the Rockland Herald Gazette is digging deep into the Gordian Knots entangling the Sears Island port plan. Oho the Army Corps isn't happy with MDOT. The Maine Legislature isn't happy with Maine DOT, let alone the litigating citizens. Go, Shlomit, go! Her earlier piece laid out the litigation issues.

Where's the Press Herald? If you wanta port-hug ladies and gents, go right ahead and spin it that way. Don't just do a big brotherian blackout on the story, for gosh sakes. BDN is on the ball, and so is MPBN Even Maine Biz has done a creditable job informing about Sears Island.

Sears Island lawsuits - PPH holds out against coverage.

The Press Herald appears to be continuing the non coverage of the Sears Island lawsuits. Maybe if the editors at PPH hold their breaths and stamp their feet, the cases will just...go away.
But they are out there. Here's an update:

SEARS ISLAND UPDATE: 3/01/09

LAWSUITS FILED AGAINST MDOT SEARS ISLAND DIVISION PLAN

Third lawsuit joins two filed earlier against Sears Island Port/Conservation Easement plan

Three petitions for judicial review opposing the partition of the US east coast's biggest unprotected publicly owned island have been filed before three Maine Superior Courts.

The seek to invalidate the Maine Department of Transportation's recently approved "Joint Use Plan" that grants two thirds of the 950 acre island under a perpetual conservation easement to Maine Coast Heritage Trust, but two of them also want the Court to invalidate Public Law 277 as unconstitutionally giving decisionmaking power over Sears Island to a Legislative committee.

A Searsport man has filed a petition in Maine Superior Court in Belfast asking for MaineDOT's Sears Island Conservation Easement to be set aside. The move follows February 19th filing of a similar petition (pdf) by Rockland, Maine activist Ron Huber in Knox County Courthouse, and a February 20th filing (pdf) by Augusta resident Douglas Watts in Kennebec County Superior Court that also asks for the Sears Island Conservation Easement to be rescinded.

"The fact of three Sears Island cases already pending before courts in three different counties should be a warning to potential port investors: STAY AWAY, unless you have deep legal pockets."

All three Mainers have filed Petitions for Review of Final Agency Action. The petitions challenge the lack of environmental review that the state subjected the plan to, even though it was required to under the Maine Sensible Transportation Policy Act and the Maine Site Location of Development Act".

Two of the plaintiffs, Mr Huber and Mr. McLaughlin, also take issue with the constitutionality of Public Law Chapter 277 "An Act Regarding the Management and Use of Sears Island", which granted the Maine Legislature's Transportation Committee executive branch-type power to approve, disapprove or modify Maine DOT's Joint Use Plan partitioning Sears Island.

Huber and McLaughlin say PL 277 violates the Maine Constitution's distribution of powers section and asks that the Court declare the January vote by the Transportation Committee approving MDOT's division of Sears Island unconstitutional and thus invalid.

The plantiffs also vary in their "standing" assertions. Doug Watts describes himself in his petition as "an avid user of the Penobscot River and its tributaries near Sears Island since 1982." and wrote to the court that the conservation easement signed by MDOt and Maine Coast Heritage Trust "will irrevocably harm his ability to continue using and enjoying the Penobscot River and these tributaries as he has done since 1982."

Huber notes that he hikes the island "and snorkles the island's shallows in communion with the natural residents he was charged in 1992 by God Almighty with stewarding and restoring; in particular the brackish water nurseries and diadromous fish shelter habitats surrounding Sears Island in Searsport Harbor, Long Cove and Stockton Harbor. The final agency action he seeks to be reviewed will irrevocably harm his ability to enjoy, use, steward and restore this area."

McLaughlin explained to the court that he "has been an avid user and protector of the natural resources and wild residents of Sears Island and her surrounding estuarine water complex since 1947. Mr McLaughlin hiked the island and swam in the island's shallows with his grandparents and now enjoys those same activities with his own grandchildren. Mr McLaughlin feels a strong
responsibility to ensure our generation passes on the treasure that is Sears
Island as a gift to future generations. The final agency action he seeks to be
reviewed will irrevocably harm his ability to enjoy, use, steward and restore this area"

All three plaintiffs are asking the Court to "rescind" the Jan. 22, 2009 conservation easement until the MDOT has fully complied with the requirements of the Maine Sensible Transportation Policy Act

Watts played an important role in development and passage of the Maine Sensible Transportation Policy Act late 80s and early 90's.

Huber played a role in fending off Governor Angus King's woodchip port plan in 1996, and Governor Baldacci's LNG port plan in 2005.

There are as-yet-confirmed reports that a fourth Mainer will file a petition for review of Maine DOT's Sears Island plan later this week .

For more information:

Ron Huber 207-691-7485 e: coastwatch@gmail.com

Harlan McLaughlin 207-548-9962 pearlsb4swine@bluestreakme.com
Doug Watts 207-622-1003 e: info@dougwatts.com

###

Sears Island - Press Herald strains, but just doesn't get it out.

To shine a light, is to cast a shadow, it is said. Maybe it is a reluctance to illuminate those shadows that has kept the Portland Press Herald clinging so determinedly to its course of refusing to recognize public dissent to Governor Baldacci's Sears Island plan.

Even when it is playing out in the courts, the Maine Sunday Telegram is as silent as if it had lost its telegraphic code key that it taps out the news with. The Press Herald's voice is quite stopped up too, when it comes to news of those that would protect Wasumkeag , the beautiful wild island estuary complex.

Some of the editors and reporters there in the PPH/MST have grown old with their Sierran friends. Are Clubbers, themselves.

Questioning the partition of Sears Island? Why, that would be questioning the decision, of local Club leader Joan Saxe. One simply doesn't insult the honor, the decency and judgement of this Cape Elizabeth doyenne over the accusations of some wild riff raff from Rockland or worse.. Not in the pages of the Prtland Press Herald.

For it was Joan who sat through the many meetings of the Sears Island Joint Use Planning Committee as it wended its way through first its Joint use Plan, and then the line by line details of the perpetual conservation easement at meeting places in Searsport and occasionally in Augusta.

But it was a silent sitting, as Saxe peacefully dozed away the dreary hours of negotiations.

Meanwhile her henchperson Becky Bartovics -putatively representing the Penobscot Bay Alliance, but in actuality, given there IS no such Alliance, beyond a mailing list of donors and an executive director who occasionally pens the odd letter to an agency; in actuality, I say, Becky was effectively and hence inappropriately the voice of both her Alliance and the Sierra Club at the MDOT's Joint Use meetings. - while never consulting the thousands of members in the Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club -not once - during the years of negotiations with the MDOT's and industry's skilled negotiators.

Too much work. Too expensive, the Leadership intoned. Why harass Club members over a minor (MINOR?) thing like pi**ing on three decades of hard-fought Sierra Club precedents keeping the wild island whole and safe.

Like freely surrendering to the industrial hordes hundreds of acres of forest, meadow, cliffs, streams, beach, cobble & eelgrass.? Whatsa big deal?

Listen: do you hear that tiny hiss at the edge of hearing? It's the sounds of the late great John Muir, spinning, spinning, spinning in his grave.