Photo illustration by Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College

One of the tangible harms to come from the recent debt ceiling鈥揼overnment shutdown crisis was the continuation of a “cycle of distrust — not just in substance, but in procedure” between political bodies within the U.S. government, according to politics professor John Baughman.

With Democrats and Republicans using the alleged dangers of those crises to offset waning support, and with actual discussion of applicable law buried under circular and inflammatory rhetoric, many observers simply feel duped after that government fiasco.

Baughman spoke as part of an Oct. 23 faculty panel invited by 乐播传媒’ new Law and Politics Club to demystify the crisis. Two faculty from the economics department and two from politics drew some 50 earnest students to a basement room in Pettengill to learn about the myths and realities of the government gridlock.

Speaking frankly and with good-humored jadedness, politics professors Baughman and 脕slaug 脕sgeirsd贸ttir and economists George Perkins and Paul Shea spent more than an hour deconstructing the situation.

The exchanges between audience and professors were on point but casual. At one point, economics-minded students began asking specific policy questions, prompting another student to ask for a time out so the professors could explain what the government shutdown actually was — and prompting the panelists themselves to laugh at the academic inclination to jump into the esoteric without laying out a basic foundation.

Students wanted to know why the debt ceiling exists, considering that, as Perkins and Shea explained, there is no constitutional basis for it, and how the legislation that caused both the debt ceiling and shutdown crises could be so politicized.

Economist Shea focused on the “complete macroeconomic illiteracy” of an arbitrary debt ceiling. Perkins compared the national financial obligation to the debt of an American of median income level, revealing that the government actually has a lower income-to-debt ratio than the typical citizen.

The government should actually worry more, he said, about the deflation that results from a lack of incurring debt and investment in infrastructure.

脕sgeirsd贸ttir and Baughman discussed how each political persuasion took the financial crisis as a tool to garner more support for their side and rouse more rancor for the other, leading not only to a political “zero sum game” but also to day-to-day difficulties for Americans furloughed during the shutdown.

The event succeeded in part because of the faculty’s ease with translating policy and economic theories to colloquial, understandable terms. Each professor clearly believed in the inanity of the conversation about the crisis in the media and within the government. Their mockery of this political tempest surfaced in almost every answer they gave to students, who for the most part responded with humor of their own.

Shea, for example, explained that in essence, the government fabricated a crisis and then produced equally specious responses to that crisis that, in fact, resulted in tangible harm.

Clearly the new Law and Politics Club fulfills a real campus need. Co-founder and treasurer Emily Baumgarten ’16 was moved to start a club at 乐播传媒 to promote discussions of law and politics in an inquisitive setting that isn’t tied to furthering the campaign of any political candidate.

The October gridlock, all-consuming but confusing, seemed like the ideal opportunity “for non-political people and politics majors alike to come together and discuss current events,” said Baumgarten.

College students are rarely connected to day-to-day political realities, often only having time to get their news from Facebook updates and viral blog posts that are consumed in seconds without any time to critically weigh what is actually happening. The linking of the debt ceiling limit to the government shutdown, all the inflammatory rhetoric and all the false logic left many 乐播传媒 students angry but completely unclear about the realities of the situation.

In response, the Law and Politics Club created an environment of clarity, learning and decorum about issues often not treated with such grace.

After Whitten’s blog post recommended Slave to Sensation, there was a run on the romance novel at Maine libraries.

In its profile of Sarah Whitten ’94, recently named Librarian of the Year by the country’s romance writers, the Bangor Daily News explains the influence Whitten wields over Maine’s romance readers.

An active blogger for the Bangor Public Library blog 鈥� “for readers who love popular fiction, edgy and uncensored” 鈥� Whitten announced in February 2011 that Nalini Singh鈥檚 Slave to Sensation was the blog’s top vote-getter for book of the month.

Within 24 hours of her post, every copy in the state library system had been borrowed.

The organization Romance Writers of America recognized Whitten as Librarian of the Year for “making a significant online library presence supporting the romance genre.”

Whitten, a circulation assistant at Bangor Public Library who several years ago co-founded the library’s Not Your Ordinary Book Club, that her interest in romance novels was “kept that under wraps” at 乐播传媒, when the literary genre was anything but appreciated.

鈥淧eople would be surprised by how much romance novels have changed,鈥� Whitten says. 鈥淣o longer does a woe-is-me heroine need to be rescued by the hero. Heroines are much more independent, confident and strong.鈥�

In the wake of anti-American protests in the Middle East, Kari Jorgensen Diener ’99 and co-author Victoria Stanski tell Christian Science Monitor readers that these countries, especially Yemen, need foreign aid more than ever.

This family in Yemen’s Mawza District received vouchers to buy food as part of Mercy Corps’ emergency response to Yemen’s humanitarian crisis. Photograph by Cassandra Nelson / Mercy Corps.

In their Sept. 25 they write:

“Simply increasing short-term relief aid 鈥� although an important stopgap measure 鈥� is not a durable solution. What Yemen needs are simultaneous initiatives to build a more dynamic private sector, while supporting market development, job training, and youth employment programs to address systemic issues.

“In other parts of the world 鈥� notably the nearby Horn of Africa 鈥� the United States Agency for International Development is piloting a ‘resilience’ approach to aid. That multi-pronged approach addresses immediate needs while also focusing on the underlying factors that make a population vulnerable to recurring humanitarian crises.”

Diener, a magna cum laude graduate in political science who earned a master’s at Georgetown, is a senior policy adviser on the Middle East with She reports that her editor at The Christian Science Monitor was a fellow alumna: Cricket Alioto Fuller ’05.

The Peninsula Daily Times of Port Angeles, Wash., describes efforts by at a local food bank.

Sabina tells columnist Jennifer Jackson that the idea is to “provide some fresh produce and plant starts for food bank clientele and to empower people to grow their own food.”

Ellen Sabino ’09 and a friend run a local farm stand in 2010.

The project, writes Jackson, includes a hoop-house-style greenhouse for growing tomatoes and a seed germination box for salad greens. It’s located on the grounds of a former elementary school that now houses the Port Townsend Food Bank and other community programs.

Plans call for starting lettuce in mid-February, Sabina said, with continuous harvest through November once the garden gets going.

Besides tomatoes and fresh salad greens, 鈥淚 also plan to do flowers and herbs,鈥� Sabina said. 鈥淲e want to make it inviting.”

A 乐播传媒 history major and former AmeriCorps volunteer, Sabina grew on the Maine coast, working in the lobster industry during summers. At 乐播传媒, she wrote her thesis on the history of women in lobstering.

Sabina coordinates the Jefferson LandWorks Collaborative, a network of eight organizations that help farmers and landowners keep rural land economically viable.

Merisotis is president of the Lumina Foundation, which works to increase access to higher education. In October at 乐播传媒, he moderated the college’s Leadership Symposium on College Cost, Price and Financial Aid.

Jamie Merisotis '86, a 乐播传媒 trustee and a dedicated advocate for improved access to higher education, spoke at the 乐播传媒-hosted Leadership Symposium on College Cost, Price, and Financial Aid in October.

Merisotis tells Times reporter Tamar Lewin that there seemed to be some consensus at the White House meeting that the federal government should develop policies on financial aid, its biggest tool, to spur a higher graduation rates.

reports that the White House meeting “appears to mark a shift in policy for the administration, which will focus more on college affordability in the coming months.”

“The spectrum of animals that I talk about in a day is amazingly varied,” Fox tells reporters Jill Oestreicher Gross.聽 “This is my dream job. It’s wonderful.”

She and husband Jesse Fox ’03 live in Newbury, halfway between Boston, where she spends much of her time with lawmakers on Beacon Hill, and Newmarket, N.H., where Jesse creates custom bicycles at Independent Fabrications.

An environmental studies major, she has a law degree from Lewis and Clark Law School. As a 乐播传媒 student, Alexis was a member of People Eating Plants, a campus group dedicated to raising awareness of vegetarian/vegan issues. Her inspiration to focus on animal issues came later, while living in California, when she attended a meeting of the .

“I knew early on that’s where I was headed,” she says. “It’s been my passion to help animals.”

So is Millett, writes Cover, who quotes Maine political leaders from both sides of the aisle.

“Maine can only be better because of his involvement.”

A career educator and educational administrator, Millett has also long served in the Legislature as a Republican from Waterford. Now, he is “the public face of [Maine’s] $6.1 billion, two-year budget,” Cover writes, “a controversial proposal that has angered state workers and teachers because of proposed pension reforms…. Through it all, Millett has remained unflappable as he’s fielded questions from lawmakers or taken criticism from affected groups.”

During confirmation hearings, a representative of the Maine Association for Community Service Providers said that “Sawin is truly a treasure for the state, and we are delighted that he has this opportunity to continue to contribute. Maine can only be better because of his involvement.”

Millett credits his parents (both Howard’34 and Marguerite Millett ’36 were 乐播传媒 graduates) with instilling in him a sense of duty when it comes to public service. “I took a lot of my career-goal setting from my dad,” he said. “I wanted to get involved in town government. I wanted to get involved in administration.”

Only around 100 of the pupfish exist, dwelling in a geothermal pool within a limestone cavern in Death Valley. When last spring鈥檚 Baja California earthquake roiled the pupfish pool, a permanent monitoring station caught the 鈥� some of the action looks like a slowly exploding lava lamp.

Barrett told The New York Times that the splish-splashing may have been a 鈥済ood thing鈥� for the fish because it stirred up nutrients and removed silt from a ledge where fragile fish larvae spend their early days. In any event, he adds, the video is just 鈥減retty phenomenal鈥� to watch.

Barrett is the science adviser to the regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, based in Albuquerque, N.M. The pool鈥檚 monitoring station is maintained by the University of Arizona in conjunction with the Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and Nevada Department of Wildlife.

At the reception, Jenny Stasio ’07 will talk about her work with incarcerated women through her position with and its Incarcerated Women’s Program.

Recognizing the statistical connection between female incarceration and domestic abuse, the program offers support groups for women at the Cumberland County Jail (Portland) and the Maine Correctional Center (Windham),聽one of only a handful of such programs offered by U.S. domestic violence agencies.

In 2007, the program added creative writing activities to its educational groups. The women began each creative writing session by reading author Natalie Goldberg’s tips for writers in :

1. Keep your hand moving.
2. Don’t cross out.
3. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar.
4. Lose control.
5. Don’t think. Don’t get logical.
6. Go for the jugular.

The majority of the work in the exhibition was done within 15-minute free-writing sessions.

To create the photographic portraits for More Than a Rap Sheet, Family Crisis Services worked with the and Salt alum Christine Heinz, who photographed the women.

Donations of non-spiral-bound notebooks or composition books are greatly appreciated. They are always needed for the project’s ongoing work.

Raye has long been dedicated to Maine politics, , losing a run for Congress in 2002 and winning a state Senate seat in 2004. “I’ve always though public service was a very honorable thing, a good way to serve people and make a mark in life,” he says. “From the time I was a little kid I was drawn to it — I loved politics, elections and government from the time I was old enough to read.” .