Department of Environmental Peculation

Here is a list of Patricia Aho's clients in 2010 when she was a lobbyist before the Maine legislature (Press Herald story 9/10).

• auto companies
• American Chemistry Council
• American Petroleum Institute
• Casella Waste Systems
• Dead River Co.(heating oil)
• Poland Spring
• Verso Paper

Ms. Aho is Acting Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection.

I suggest that DEP changes its name at the end of September. That's when the Senate is expected to confirm Governor LePage's nomination of Ms. Aho to be Commissioner. That's when the probability increases greatly that those chosen to protect our resources become those empowered to steal them.

A tale of two women

The news this week that Roxane Quimby has secured another almost 1,000 acres near Greenville and Baxter State Park is almost insanely pleasing. It's hard to describe the feeling: I don't live particularly near the area, I've visited it only once, I don't work to save like I do land closer to the coast, yet I guess you only have to visit once to understand. It's elemental to the core. The forests of hardwood and softwood; the fast, clean, rejuvenating rivers; the meadows of berries and grass; the big lakes full of mystery, the small ponds full of calm; the wildlife, so much of which is endangered; the hills and mountains rising like temples of a different time - at least to me, this landscape makes us see our place in the world, or what our place could be, more than any in the world. I love the Maine coast, but it is alternately precious and overwhelming. The woods are inspiring. Probably this feeling has a lot to do with the seven summers I spent in the Michigan north woods during a lousy time of adolescence. Did you know that a trout stream can save a teenage soul?

What a wonderful contrast to the actions of another Maine woman in the news! See Colin Woodard's piece on the sleazy tactics of the American Legislative Exchange Council and its Maine representative Ann Robinson - shameless mix of lobbyist, lawyer, and LePage's pet.

 http://portland.thephoenix.com/news/126378-lepages-koch-brothers-connection-revealed/

Adventures in contentment

I'm re-reading E.B.White's essay collection One Man's Meat for the umpteenth time, mostly because there's always something new to think about. This time I see that he quotes a professor and critic named Morris Bishop, who apparently said, when he heard of EB's plan to move to Maine, "I trust that you will spare the reading public your little adventures in contentment."

Isn't this every writer's fear, to be hacked at the wrists for lowering oneself to a state of happiness? One should grieve for the world, engage in it, save it, not hie oneself to some far-off shore and write about chickens. White felt the criticism especially keenly, as the Great Depression was still killing people and events in central Europe were killing even more. But he had the satisfaction of having his book distributed to the troops, and of receiving praise therefrom, and understanding that his wonderful blend of nostalgia and savage truth meant more to them than any number of wool socks.

And today, when the Obama administration is building pipelines to encourage our addiction to oil, not to mention the ravishment of the Alberta tar sands, and is relaxing air quality standards, and is granting deep-water drilling licenses, let us re-read White's essay on Walden, specifically his address to Thoreau upon reaching the house site: "There were the remains of a fire in your ruins, but I doubt that it was yours; also two beer bottles trodden into the soil and become part of earth. A young oak had taken root in your house, and two or three ferns, unrolling like the ticklers at a banquet. The only other furnishings were a DuBarry pattern sheet, a page torn from a picture magazine, and some crusts in wax paper."

This is the kind of despairing exhilaration that great writing can produce. Adventures in contentment indeed.

Blackberries

Compared to the relative scarcity of the wild raspberry in these parts this summer, there's a profusion of blackberries. They grow here along the roads, on the sunny side, in somewhat isolated groups of two or three plants that are somewhat hard to see among all the tall weeds. (I've heard tell, from my adventurous daughter, that in some glades in the real woods, they take over in masses, but the pleasure of one's gorging is sometimes blunted by the presence of bear scat.) At this time of year each branch holds all three colors of ripening, white, red and black, but not all the black ones are ready to eat. You have to pick the fattest ones to get any taste of sweetness.

Unlike its three more famous cousins, the strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry, the blackberry is mostly neglected. Its seeds are quite fearsome for its size, sticking in your teeth with great tenacity (and serving well as spitting missiles once you pry them out). It's not terribly sweet, so it doesn't cater well to John Q. Public, which is to say that huge, overgrown, monstrous varieties are not common in supermarkets. Its taste is subtle, not blending well with milk and cream, or lard and flour. Therefore, one must love it in season and treat it kindly and purely. I eat a few on my late-morning walks, a slightly exotic amuse bouche before my slightly pedestrian lunch of sandwich and yogurt and fruit. It's a gentle taste, perfect for the end of summer.

So it was a good walk, with the blackberries, and three deer strolling across in Bay View Terrace in nicely spaced succession (I started to wonder how many deer would actually come out of that phone booth) before bounding into the woods, and two ospreys perched at the top of dead trees, screeching, and a number of bright monarch butterflies to say farewell to August.