This past week one of our readers contacted me and suggested that I was wrong when I stated in last week’s column that our form of government is a democratic republic, but rather a republic. I formally studied political philosophy in college and have been interested in it ever since. So I was happy to do some further research, to remind myself of some of what I have forgotten and try to address the reader’s objection. 

After a few hours of research I was forced to conclude, much to my chagrin, that I cannot do justice to this issue simply in a column. Perhaps I could do a reasonable job if I took up the space in my column each week with it for a year or so, and I would love to do that, but then many of you would quickly fall asleep because you are not quite as wonky about this stuff as I am, although I know a few of you are. I would recommend that anyone who truly is interested in learning about and discussing political philosophy does not study it online, where I found loads of nonsensical untruths that are filled with misinformation and end up misleading people. 

I had to work this past Saturday, but on Sunday I was determined to spend some quality time with my daughter once I finished up some paperwork I needed to do. My wife Elaine was definitely up for getting out of the house. 

It’s not that it was a beautiful day. It was cloudy. But it wasn’t particularly cold either. My 9-year-old daughter Olivia said, “I want to just have a lazy day and stay in my pajamas.” Her mother said, “That’s not an option.” When Mama speaks in a certain tone, you know you might as well just go along. 

So we got ourselves ready and went out right after noon. We went to Pemaquid Point, even though we had been there many times before. Elaine couldn’t walk on the rocks because she had injured her knee and was likely to need surgery. She walked around up top for a while and then hung out in the car. I went climbing around on the rocks with Olivia. I convinced her to explore another area and that worked out great. There was steep slope of boulders, sand and crushed shells, and water was running down it from various directions from the melting snow. My little engineer starting building dams, rerouting water flows and then rerouted the ones she had rerouted. 

It is Sunday morning, and for the last week, my wife and 9-year old daughter Olivia have been out of state visiting relatives. Olivia has been off from school. She made me promise to take good care of her kitties Patches and Jessie. I have done as I promised, and for the last two hours, have been scratching Patches’ head as I sit here in my recliner in our family room with a fire going in the wood stove. 

For most of that time, I have been feeling guilty about just sitting here when there is so much to do, so many domestic duties and writing I needed to do for the paper. There was an awful lot going on for us in this issue, and a very important story came up that no one had the time to work on, so I took it on. Central Maine Healthcare in Lewiston, which has been managing Parkview Hospital in Brunswick for the past few years, and last summer applied to the state to take ownership of it, suspended its application to do so. This is an ongoing and critically important story for both Parkview and Midcoast Hospitals, both in Brunswick, as well as for the southern midcoast community as a whole. It could potentially cost citizens in the area hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 10 years, and reduce the quality of healthcare for the area if it doesn’t go well. Chris Chase, our staff reporter here at the Coastal Journal, wrote a two-part story regarding this issue last fall. If you’re interested in finding out more about it, you can read them on our website at www.coastlajournal.com. Type Central Maine Health Care in the search function. My article regarding the new development is on the front page of this issue.