Shortly after Paul LePage was elected governor of Maine, I observed to a friend that the state’s newspapers were going to have to start saving column space every Monday for his spokesman to explain “what the Governor really meant.” A weekly space hasn’t been necessary; however, his two years in office readily yielded enough material for the following posts. They concentrate solely on stupid things he said, ignoring political posturing, and the merely mean or factually erroneous.
Chronology: The case of Walter Lett influenced Harper Lee in writing To Kill a Mockingbird. Here are the events of the case, and its connection to Harper Lee. The case began in November 1933. "On Thursday, November 9, 1933, the Monroeville Journal reported that Noami Lowery told authorities that Walter Lett had raped her the previous Thursday.” ( "Lee, Harper: 1926 - 2016"). Just as in To Kill a Mockingbird , the accusation alone was enough for most citizens to assume guilt. Writing for Time magazine, Daniel Levy asserts, “Such an accusation was a death sentence for an African American man. ‘Rape was the central drama of the white psyche,’ says Diane McWhorter, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution.” Lett was captured on Saturday and jailed in another town out of fear he’d be lynched. The legal system operated quickly. “On March 16, 1934, Lett was arraigned ...
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