Miss Nomer

The Mount Desert Islander exposed the seedy underbelly of beauty pageants with a revealing item in its paper this week.

Well, that might be an overstatement, but the newspaper published an article about the fact that "Miss Bar Harbor" Rani Williamson, who won the Miss Maine USA Pageant last weekend, isn't really from Bar Harbor at all (Williamson is on the right in the photo above).

After the BDN ran a story about the pageant (which focused mostly on pageant co-hosts Ashley Hebert and Ashley Underwood, two Maine natives who have starred on national reality television programs), word of the pageant winner apparently got around Bar Harbor. Many longtime local residents were confused, the Islander reported, because they had never heard of Williamson. Turns out, she is from Cumberland Center (near Portland) and graduated from Greely High School - not from MDI. She chose "Miss Bar Harbor" simply because it is her favorite place in Maine, a pageant official told the paper.

In his BDN-hosted blog, reporter Seth Koenig explains the contestant-naming process. Pageant contestants can choose any name they want, he said, provided it hasn't already been chosen by a competitor in the same pageant. It can be a place name or the name of a sponsor, such as "Body By John" or "Regency Spa."
That's why the pageant had a Miss Bar Harbor who really has no specific connection to Bar Harbor, other than having enjoyed her visits to the town. It may be misleading to many casual observers, but those familiar with the pageant likely knew her stage name did not necessarily reflect her hometown. It could be argued that, for anyone searching for absolutely honesty and raw unfiltered accurate representations of reality, beauty pageants are probably not the best place to go looking for it.

On the other hand, Williamson's choice of a stage name can be interpreted as a high-profile compliment to the town, which otherwise would not have had any connection to the contest. The fact that Williams won the pageant can only help publicize Bar Harbor, which seeks to lure millions of tourists every summer.
For those comfortable with the imprecise linkage between contestants and their stage names, not having Williamson keep her "Miss Bar Harbor" appellation while she competes in the Miss USA Pageant on NBC next June might be seen as a missed opportunity.

The Odd Death of Rev. Bob Carlson

This story is just stunning to me. Before I say anything else, I need to point out that I never met Rev. Bob Carlson and have no idea whether the allegations that are starting to leak out are true or just absolute falsehoods.

It's hard not to leap to comparisons to the Penn State scandal, despite the myriad reasons not to do so. Both men were well respected in their communities, but the similarities pretty much stop there. One is alive and has been criminally charged, the other is dead and has not been charged (and never will be). One is a national news story involving a football coach, and the other is a local tale about a local pastor that has barely made a flicker outside the state.

But for the Bangor area and much of Maine, this is huge. There was NO ONE in the region who was held in higher esteem than Rev. Bob Carlson. He was a man of the cloth, one known for his advocacy for mental health and other health care issues, and known for his support of local law enforcement and the criminal justice system. The testimonials that the political elite in the Bangor area and in Maine put out on Sunday, after news broke of his death, illustrate how he was held in such high regard.

The thought that he would even commit suicide has been so repellent to some people that, in comments on the BDN website, they have insisted that it was an accident - that he must have fallen over the side of the bridge and fallen to his death while trying to prevent someone else from ending their life. So to have it leak out that he was being investigated by police for allegations of child molestation just seems completely bizarre. In less than a week, he went from being publicly honored by the Boy Scouts to being a dead preacher accused of sexually abusing children. It boggles the mind.

Again, I have no clue whether the allegations against Rev. Carlson are true. I know many people have made up their minds about him, right or wrong, in support or in condemnation. I know this must be devastating to many, his family especially, and to others who held him in such high esteem. And I am sure many will continue to sing his praises, regardless of the reasons behind his sudden, unexpected and ignoble demise. How the people of Maine will ultimately reconcile the reputation Rev. Carlson had in life with the ugly rumors rippling to the surface in the wake of his death, or if they will, I have no idea.

What I do have is links. I'm posting those that I can find below in the hopes that they can shed some light on the life of Rev. Bob Carlson in ways that I otherwise cannot.

• BDN: 800 attend Carlson funeral at Orrington church
• BDN: Carlson investigation to stay open 
• WABI-TV: Contents of one accusatory letter made public. 
• PPH Columnist Bill Nemitz on official reaction.
• BDN 11/16: Funeral arrangements scaled back in wake of spread of allegations.
• BDN 11/16 story: Former sheriff had concerns.
• BDN 11/15 story on anticipated demand for sexual assault counseling services.
• Sen. Susan Collins' statement on Rev. Carlson's death.
• Statement from Sen. Olympia Snowe and Gov. John McKernan.
• A BDN story about a woman who was counseled by Carlson after she nearly jumped from the same bridge.
• BDN story: No Foul Play in Carlson death (includes statement by U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree)
• Carlson's obituary.
• BDN story: Carlson memorial service to be held Friday.
• WCSH television website article about some allegations against Carlson.
• Carlson quoted in a October 2011 BDN story about a drug abuse forum.
• A January 2011 Carlson-written op/ed piece in the BDN on federal health care law.
• Another BDN op/ed, in which Carlson urges a 'yes' vote in a 2010 referendum.
• A 2010 BDN story about an AIDS network joining Carlson's organization.

One thing I can't link: the many obituaries on the BDN website that indicate which memorial services Rev. Carlson officiated.

Big Ships

After being spotted off midcoast Maine at the end of August, the largest single-masted sloop in the world was anchored off Bar Harbor last week. I first noticed it while driving into Bar Harbor through Hulls Cove and along the bluffs when I saw its 292-foot tall mast, nearly the height of a 30-story building, sticking up above the trees on the far side of Bar Island. Off all the big cruise ships I've seen in Bar Harbor over the years, I've never seen one looming up into the sky from behind Bar Island. And at 247 feet long, it is bigger than some of the smaller commercial cruise ships that visit Bar Harbor.

The ship Mirabella V, not surprisingly, has its own website. Among the "toys" listed on that site is a 29-foot Hinckley jetboat with a 400hp engine, which itself is considered a luxury yacht. Used Hinckley jetboats listed for sale online cost several hundred thousand dollars each, but my guess is that the owners of Mirabella V bought theirs new. Luciana and Joseph Vittorio, the latter of whom has been the CEO of both Hertz and Avis rental car companies, reportedly paid $50 million for the ship, which was built over seven years and completed in 2004.

To get a visual sense of its size, compare Mirabella with the more familiar Margaret Todd, a four-masted schooner that takes tourists on scenic rides around Frenchman Bay. The Margaret Todd is 151 feet long and its masts are much shorter. I took this photo (below) last week in quickly vanishing daylight from the top of Cadillac Mountain.

Mirabella is much smaller than the majority of commercial cruise ships that drop anchor off Bar Harbor every summer and fall (about half of the 115 cruise ship visits Bar Harbor is expected to get in 2011 are scheduled between now and the end of October, by the way). But most of the big cruise ships carry between several hundred and more than 3,000 passengers. Mirabella carries up to 25 - 12 passengers and 13 crew. It reportedly can be chartered for about $1 million per month. I wonder if the passengers on board last week came ashore and bought t-shirts and ice cream cones during their visit?

Another smaller but still impressive vessel called Hilarium was spotted Sunday, Sept. 11 in Northeast Harbor (photo below), but it appeared to motor in around 3:30 p.m. only to turn around near the end of the marina slips and then motor back out again. Poking around online, I could not find a conclusive indication of who its owner might be, though I did notice it is registered in Boca Grande, Fla., but one blog I came across suggested it might belong to "Stephen Forbes." If the bloggers mean Malcolm Stevenson "Steve" Forbes, that would be fitting. Forbes' father, the late Malcolm Forbes, was known to moor his 151-foot motor yacht Highlander in Northeast Harbor.

But other more credible postings suggest that the owner is Peter Nicholas, founder of Boston Scientific. According to Boston magazine and Forbes magazine (of which Steve Forbes in the editor-in-chief) he is worth between $2.3 and $2.8 billion. Why it did a u-turn in Northeast Harbor I don't know, but I suspect it will be in the Mount Desert Island area for a few days, if it hasn't been already.