What closes the case on whether someone actually is a scoundrel or not is when, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, they continue to deny any wrongdoing. No apologies, no clearing the air, no indication whatsoever that they accept responsibility and are repentant. Like with Richard Connor, the disgraced former CEO of Maine Today Media, the publisher of the Press Herald.
The paper recently reported in a front-page story that Connor took their company for over a half million dollars during the time that he was CEO, from June 2009 to October 2011. Along with other self-serving expenditures, they say he gave himself unauthorized raises and bonuses amounting to $287,224.78 — at the very time when "line workers," people who depend on a weekly paycheck, were voluntarily accepting pay cuts so that the company could avoid bankruptcy. They wanted to save their jobs, sure, but they also did it because they love the company. If you've ever worked at a newspaper you'll understand that. And the guy won't even give them the satisfaction of saying he made a mistake and he's sorry. He smugly comes across with one fumbling arrogant denial after another, even after the paper's insurance company has agreed to compensate the Press Herald under the "employee theft" clause of its insurance policy, thereby strongly suggesting that Connor is indeed guilty as charged.
That makes him a scoundrel, if all is true as presented. The story seems to be that he was hired to rescue the city's daily newspaper and he almost destroyed it, then slunk off with a smirk on his face. Kind of made my blood boil and got me thinking about other scoundrels in the history of the city.
There was, of course, Captain Henry Mowat, the British naval commander who ordered the burning of Falmouth, now Portland, on Oct. 18, 1775, for its resistance to British rule. He had his fleet of six warships bombard the city from nine o'clock in the morning until six o'clock at night, then had a landing party go ashore and set fire to any buildings still standing. Virtually every building in town was destroyed, and four hundred families were left homeless and with no provisions with winter coming on.
Now, one might say that Mowat was a military man acting under orders from his government, but, in fact, that was not quite the case. His orders from home clearly stated that he was not to commit such an act unless the town refused to engage in negotiations. When he issued his warning on the morning of the 18th, though, the townspeople sent a delegation to plead with him for mercy and discuss other means of settling the issue, but he gave no quarter.
Evidently his attitude stemed from an indignity he had suffered some months earlier when he was briefly imprisoned on shore after he came into port with his fleet to protect a Loyalist ship builder who was attempting to defy the town's boycott of trade with Great Britain. Seems as though Mowat had a personal account to settle.
Not only did the British government show its disapproval of his actions by stalling his career in the Royal Navy, but his foul deed was also recorded for all time in what might be considered the finest document ever written, The Declaration of Independence. In their listing of their grievances against King George, the founding fathers included: "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people."
Then there was Nathaniel Gordon, the lowlife slave trader from Portland who was convicted of slave trading in the year 1860, forty years after it became illegal. President Lincoln refused to commute Gorgon's sentence because his methods were especially cruel. He, accordingly, became the only American slave trader to be tried, convicted and executed for being engaged in the slave trade.
Certainly any list of scoundrels in the history of the city should include Mildred Gillars, better known as Axis Sally. During World War Two she was the European equivalent of Tokyo Rose, and, yes, she was from Portland. She is best remembered for her "Home Sweet Home Hour," where her running theme was the infidelity of American soldiers' wives and sweethearts at home. The background music was the long lonesome sound of train whistle as a troop train pulled out of Anytown, USA, filled with young men waving good-bye to women good ol' Mildred said were headed straight to other arms.
Oh, enough. I've put Mr. Connor in the company of a war criminal, a slave trader, and a traitor, all based on accounts provided by the people he allegedly wronged. I've never even met the man and I don't have any first-hand evidence, so who really knows. As time goes on maybe things will come out that will put a different "spin" on it than the Press Herald people did, as Mr. Connor's attorney has suggested might be the case.
What bothers me, though, is that nowhere in all of this has Mr. Connor acknowledged any degree of guilt. The attorney for the Press Herald has said that the company wants to "move on and put Rich Connor behind it" and I guess that's the decent way to go, but it sure would be good to at least hear some sort of admission from him that he made certain errors in judgment here and there, or something of that nature. I'm sure the people who took pay cuts to save the company would appreciate that.
How about it, Rich?

(Cliff Gallant of Portland is a regular columnist for The Portland Daily Sun. Email him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .)

The call came from my roommate, bad news in the middle of a Monday afternoon. "Dude, we can't go home. Portland SWAT team has the house surrounded, you can't even get down the street."
Nothing like a slow news day, I have to tell you. Just arriving at the paper in the middle of the afternoon, the editor passed me going the other way in the hallway, headed off with the camera at a good clip. Figuring there was something going on, I didn't bother to tarry and inquire at the elevator.
A few minutes later, when that fateful call came in, it was time to hotfoot it down the street to see what the deal was. From a news perspective, a writer really isn't supposed to cover stuff they have a possible conflict of interest with.
I dashed off the quick social media update, knowing the followers would chime in. Most of the responses were along the "what did you do NOW?" category. Chuck Igo nailed it with the double-word score triple somersault and stuck the landing. "Used to be someone would mark-up your copy with a red pencil. wow."
9.9 From the Russian judge.
From a Gonzo writer's perspective, that is the only sort of story that really matters.
So here I was, on the crowd side of the yellow tape. Gathering information, sharing it with colleagues from the news and TV stations. (By the way, a gentle reminder to someone who shall remain nameless. "OFF RECORD" means exactly that.)
There was the info from a usually reliable source, that not only did the alleged suspect have a gun, but that he had explosives. I tried to put the rumor to rest, as these days it's a short list of people who are that smart AND that dumb.
Paraphrasing a bit here, I wanted a story ... and for my sins, they gave me one.
An interesting side note from this side of the yellow caution tape. Watching a scene like this from the sidelines is sort of like watching a slow motion car wreck, or smoke coming from your house. You want to get in there and DO SOMETHING, every bit of bone and sinew in your body stretched to the snapping point.
Back behind the yellow tape, fat-boy.
Comings and goings, brief press updates from the chief from time to time. Even though all the scuttlebutt on the street was pretty much useless, there were some moments of clarity. "John," the guy from across the street who worked with Kyle Upton in the past, getting him on the cell phone. That same guy passing the info on to the Portland PD that Kyle wanted to give himself up, gently, and being told to hang up the phone NOW. Then, a few minutes later, his phone was taken from him.
Then, the SWAT team rolled even closer to the house. Not exactly the way of sending a message of willingness for a peaceful ending to a barricade/standoff situation.
Somehow, at some point we have to work on that whole "surrender peacefully" concept. If someone is willing to come out peacefully and handcuff themselves, they probably should be swiftly forced to the ground with a knee on the neck while experiencing a TSA style groping. Walk them up the street and toss them in the wagon. If that could be seen happening without the extra damage after the play, more folks might give up peacefully.
To their credit, the PPD treated me and the roommate fairly, holding us back a bit after the street was opened so they could clear the house. It took awhile, but it's interesting to note that the only weapon found was a BB gun.
To be fair, I probably should have remembered to hand the officer that searched my place a can of cat food to toss in my room like a grenade, as that seems to be the only safe method for approaching a freaked out 19-year-old black cat in a dark room. Quite frankly, I'm shocked and happy that he got away with his skin ... as that cat had taken on German shepherds and veterinarians alike with the same attitude.
There was even some post-incident conversation. The cop that was asked to wait at the scene after the others left was expecting "the chief" to come, but it turned out being the chief of Portland's Fire Department. An aluminum door-opening wedge was borrowed for the party, and someone had to get it back to its rightful place. He got stuck with the extra task, along with the weapons search.
There was late night conversation that "creating a standoff" was a matter of paying a fine in this state, that in other states it's a fairly serious criminal charge. Quoting Maine Revised Statutes, Title 25, "Creating a police standoff is a civil violation. The court may order a person who creates a police standoff to make restitution to each agency that responded to the standoff. Restitution must equal the direct costs incurred in responding to the standoff or $500, whichever is greater"
Might want to get on that and beef it up a bit, Maine legislators.
I suppose that after he left, sneaking up on the WGME news team parked outside the house for the live shot on the 11 news while dressed in a gorilla suit was the appropriate end to a long day.
Well, maybe NOT appropriate. Sometimes "you just GOTTA."

(Bob Higgins is a regular contributor to The Portland Daily Sun.)

It will be hard to control expectations now that we've seen how quickly a united and turbo-charged Congress can accomplish its tasks.
The world changed last week as federal lawmakers needed fewer than 24 hours to pass a major law letting the FAA use construction funds for operations, ending nationwide flight delays. The measure bolted through the Senate so quickly the last paragraph was hand written.
The FAA, of course, had been cutting hours of air traffic controllers under the new budget rules, and could not just shift money around without congressional action.
So just like that, in effect. the friendly skies were free from those pesky "sequester" rules.
Despite the administration's view that exceptions to those broad cuts would undermine efforts for a "bigger fix," which is the reason to have the sequester in the first place, compromise was reached.
Maine's Senator Susan Collins, who is the ranking member of the chamber's appropriations transportation subcommittee, emerged as a leader, noting way back on April 25 that a particular FAA program had sufficient funds to support the transfer.
"This is a common-sense solution," said Collins, who was a co- sponsor of the measure. "It doesn't involve additional money. It is a one-time shift of unused moneys. It does not make a permanent change in the Airport Improvement Program."
It turns out that particular construction-focused program is funded by taxes and fees on airline tickets and aviation fuel, and was exempt from those evil sequestration cuts.
Even more common sense: The $253 million needed to fix the flights is only 7.5 percent of the $3.35 billion allotted by the program for projects this year.
See how much sense people make when the issue is important, like getting the heck out of Washington?
Any opposition simply got out of the way. It turns out that a few days of flight delays reminded Congress that those "fly-over" states are also fly-into states, and with their own vacation week looming they got busy.
Yet, sadly, some among us already see only the dark cloud around our silver lining.
These critics linger on the fact that the so-called sequester budget continues to create chaos, impacting a range of issues like Headstart funding, cancer treatments, food programs and even our military. Why, they ask, is aviation the only issue vital enough to get such swift attention?
Could it be because Congress folk wanted the fix before they got delayed getting out of Washington? Could it be because, unlike so many of the other laws, this one actually mattered in the lives of the lawmakers?
The point was made by one of the CBS morning show anchors, who noted that Congress can act "only when it affects THEIR travel time." We should note she did not pose it as a question.
Here's the point: Who cares?
If this is the game, and those are the rules, then we'd better play. So what matters is that now we tie every single national issue to congressional flight delays.
That's right.
We need to pass one more quick law: "The Flight-Delay Congressional Incentive Act of 2013."
The law would assign certain delays to key issues depending on importance, which would be set by citizens ranking the challenges online.
Immigration reform? That is vital to something like 12 million people, and by extension nearly all of us. Yet it lingers year after year. Under FDCIA, each month of inaction would result in five minutes of flight delay for any aircraft carrying a member of congress.
I can hear the captain now: "Yes, everybody, this is the flight deck and we'll be pushing back from the gate 30 minutes late for no good reason except there's a member of congress is on board and, you know, those guys still have not passed immigration reform!"
Other issues might have less time, like two minutes for every month Congress doesn't address military budgets with the zeal they apparently reserve for flight delays. It's going to add up fairly quickly.
Who knew fixing Congress could be so simple?
It turns out we live in a world where major compromise and common-ground laws can be passed in days instead of years, and who among us ever expected that?

(Curtis Robinson is the founding editor of The Portland Daily Sun.)

Fascination with the lives of our societal leaders began centuries ago, scratching a voyeuristic itch in the reading public. Knowing a good thing, publishing houses keep churning out fresh interpretations of these profiles. While such biographies remain popular today, the seeds of this frenzy were planted several millennia ago by Plutarch.
Already the premier essayist of his time, Plutarch (A.D. 46-120) was a philosopher, teacher, and one of the high priests of the Delphic Oracle. However, he left his mark on history with an account of 50 famous Greeks and Romans, "Parallel Lives." Breaking from the accepted biographical template of the classical period, Plutarch added three unique elements to his style which remain influential, as well as spur controversy.
First, instead of listing chronologies and events, Plutarch added the dimension of behavior and thought to his subjects. As far as scholars know, he was the first biographer to attempt this maneuver.
For example, getting inside Antony's head to evaluate his love for Cleopatra and the context in which it existed to satisfy her political ambitions is one thing. Telling us he ruled the eastern Roman provinces, and had a fling with the queen of Egypt is quite another. While such an interpretation is problematical to modern historians given the lack of Plutarch's primary sources, it remains visionary, and added much needed spice to an otherwise bland recipe.
Next, Plutarch used comparative analysis. At the conclusion of his 50 short biographies, he formed 18 pairs, one Greek and one Roman in each, chosen for similar time periods or official roles. He then scrutinized their similarities, differences, and related effects.
From there, he examined the psychology for why one subject chose a particular course, while the second subject chose another. This was another unheard of technique, which opened the gates to his final motive.
Plutarch always drew ethical conclusions from the behavior of famous leaders, which is consistent with his background as a priest and his other writings, such as the widely read "Moral Essays."
While this served his era well, it has run Plutarch into trouble today. In an increasingly relativistic world defined by ethical gray areas and the constant vacillation of religion's relevance, many postmodern scholars chided Plutarch's judgmental approach.
Nevertheless, the ancients were concerned with identifying right from wrong, even if they didn't always practice it. Unlike Thucydides, Plutarch didn't consider politics and warfare as bodies of work from which to provide future governing models. "Parallel Lives" focused on the struggle of living rather than the lives themselves. Plutarch cared more for why statesmen and soldiers do what they do, so that his readers could understand their rulers — a populist rationale.
And enduring. Embattled college classics departments survived the postmodern scourge and in the last decade have experienced a renaissance. The influence of "Parallel Lives" in the great works of literature and government is legion, and provides a solid foundation for human philosophy in both creative and pragmatic endeavors.
Ultimately, this is why Plutarch still matters today, and why biographies of civic leaders remain top bestsellers.
Shakespeare is one such example of Plutarch's nuanced influence. His dramatic works are rife with moralistic tales and psychological character profiles. The Bard's table of contents is peppered with names from the main index of "Parallel Lives." All faced ethical choices in real life: Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Coriolanus, to name a few. The plays reveal more names familiar to Plutarch, as well as dramatization of his exact behavioral evaluations.
The Founding Fathers also sought inspiration from "Parallel Lives." In "The Federalist," Hamilton, Madison and Jay invoke Plutarch's tone in arguing for ratification of our Constitution, however imperfect a document they knew it to be. They assessed the struggle to create a system of rule by recounting the travails of such past upstarts as the Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus, and the Athenian ruler Pericles.
The Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, a Shakespeare devotee, once noted: "Just as there is one geometry, there is one morality." In this same vein, there is a reason why we flock to biographies, especially those of politicians and generals.
"Parallel Lives," which has influenced all such accounts to this day, remains not only an opus about how leaders live, but about why. Were he alive now, and almost three centuries after first reading Plutarch, Voltaire would still approve.

(Telly Halkias is an award-winning freelance journalist from Portland's West End. You may contact him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or follow him on Twitter at @TellyHalkias.)