The drugs known as “bath salts” have received a lot of attention in Maine recently, mainly because their use has grown rapidly and can result in severe reactions such as paranoia, agitation, psychosis and violence.

Maine’s land trusts provide the ground troops for the state’s conservation movement. Many Mainers have toiled for decades — most as volunteers — to protect, conserve and maintain our very best places.

I’m disgusted and angry. I’m disgusted because the developer who bought the historic Kennebec Arsenal about five years ago has failed to keep his promises to the city and state to improve the property. Worse yet, he has allowed the arsenal to be looted and vandalized.

Since 1881, my family has owned and operated a white pine sawmill in Searsmont that employs 110 men and women.

Recent spikes in gasoline prices have led once again to calls for more aggressive off-shore oil drilling and consideration of other sources of petroleum, particularly Canadian tar sands, to meet the nation’s enormous appetite for fuel.

While European and Asian countries have become increasingly dependent on oil imported long distances from politically volatile regions of the world, the United States has its own supplier right next door in Canada.

Once upon a time, when the world was young, we used to inscribe our new school notebooks with our name, address, town and state.