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Dear Carolyn: Father is elderly and in poor health. Has been verbally abusive to me my entire life as well as a control freak. After getting into yet another argument on the phone, were not speaking.

Im getting married and seriously not feeling him at my wedding since he will inevitably turn it into his day; he has a perverse need for attention that has disrupted many major milestones and events in my family, including my mothers funeral.

Carolyn Hax

Carolyn Hax started her advice column in 1997 as a weekly feature for The Washington Post, accompanied by the work of relationship cartoonist Nick Galifianakis. She is the author of Tell Me About It (Miramax, 2001), and the host a live online discussion on Fridays at noon.

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Am I being too rigid about this? Hes so negative about everything I do, I cant take it anymore especially on my wedding day. Dilemma

Then dont.

I wont give you any lines about your day or you deserve the wedding of your dreams or etc., because I just ate. Plus, a wedding-based sense of entitlement only distracts from what matters and opens you to regrets down the road.

What matters is what you need to satisfy this goal: Take care of yourself.

One of the most crucial roles a parent plays is of protector yet children of abusers need protection from parents. All these kids, to some degree, are forced to protect themselves.

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Carolyn Hax: Abusive dad at wedding; night-life temptation; charity e-mails

Down East safety issues

As the members of the bargaining yeam for the Maine State Nurses Association, or MSNA, we felt we had to address statements made by the CEO of Down East Community Hospital in local media outlets.

We believe the issue here is absolutely a public health issue. The community relies upon a well staffed hospital; if there is a staffing shortage on any given shift or in any department that becomes a safety problem. At the heart of this dispute are staffing issues.

Management is insisting on an 11 percent pay cut for the night shift to be taken immediately. We have been trying to explain to the hospital that these differentials have been established to fill a need and were actually introduced by the hospital several years ago in order to recruit and retain employees for these areas. Traditionally it has always been more difficult to recruit and retain nurses on the night shift.

We have been through a lot in the last few years as a hospital. This is no time to talk about taking things away from the very employees who have been loyal to this hospital. In addition to the undersigned, this letter is written by the MSNA bargaining team; Karma Alley, LPN; Shirley Brown, RN; Cheryl Christie, MLT; Liz Faraci, RN and Scott Huber, CRT.

Veronica Conley, RN

MSNA

The EPA recently passed new standards that will slash emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from the nations dirtiest power plants. This will clean up our air significantly.

In December 2011, President Obama signed into law the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, or MATS, which will slash toxic mercury air emissions by 90 percent. As the tailpipe state of the nation, this is great news for Maine. Nationwide, reports say this rule will save as many as 11,000 lives, prevent as many as 130,000 asthma attacks among children and prevent as many as 4,700 heart attacks each year, according to the EPA.

However, there is an attempt to undermine this lifesaving rule. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, is trying to use the obscure Congressional Review Act to kill the new mercury rule. If he succeeds in this cynical procedural ploy, hell not only kill EPA clean air standards, hell unwittingly be costing thousands of Americans their lives and health, particularly children who would otherwise live and suffer less by the new EPA rule. Doctors, nurses, scientists and public health professionals agree this is a standard to save lives and prevent illnesses.

Read more here:
Monday, March 5, 2012: Mercury emissions, same-sex marriage and birth control

The government may have opened a can of worms for itself with its review petition in the 2G case, arguing that the Supreme Court judgment cancelling 122 telecom licenses erred in holding that the policy [under which the licenses were issued] was contrary to the decision of the Council of Ministers on 31.10.2003, without pointing to what part of the said decision it was contrary to.

The 2003 Cabinet decision required the Department of Telecom and Ministry of Finance to discuss and agree on spectrum pricing.

Contrary to the review petition's claim, the Supreme Court judgment specifically discusses that decision, stating: The DoT did not get in touch with the Ministry of Finance to discuss and finalize the spectrum pricing formula.

But the deeper pitfall for the government is that any discussion on this front runs the risk of highlighting the contradictory positions Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Home Minister P Chidambaram - who was the Finance Minister at the time the 2G scam took place and the CBI have taken on the matter.

On November 11, 2010, in an affidavit relating to the CBI's supervision of the 2G scam investigation, the government, citing correspondence between the Finance and DoT secretaries of November 2007, claimed that both Ministries were in agreement.

Three months later, immediately after ex-Telecom Minister A. Raja's arrest, the Prime Minister, on February 16, 2011 at a TV Editors' conference, explained the circumstances in further detail.

This was also discussed with the FinMin because in terms of the Cabinet decision of 2003 the pricing and allocation of spectrum was to be settled between the Ministry of Finance and the Telecom Department, the Prime Minister said. Initially, of course, the Finance Ministry did ask for a high price of spectrum but after many discussions, the two Ministries agreed that as far as 2G is concerned, we have to live with the present system particularly with regard to the amount of spectrum that is billed and embedded into a licence agreement. So this is the background why I did not proceed further in this matter of pricing of spectrum, because if the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Telecom both agreed and they have the obligation of the Cabinet decision of 2003 to decide on the matter I did not feel I was in a position to insist that auctions must be insisted.

On February 24, 2011, the Prime Minister broadly reiterated the same position in the Rajya Sabha:The government policy on pricing of spectrum was taken on basis of the Cabinet decision of 2003, which specifically left the issue to be determined by the MoF and the Ministry of Telecommunications. Elaborating on Mr. Chidambaram and Mr. Raja's role, he said: The two ministers had agreed because of legacy considerations and I accepted the recommendation.

Till March 2011, the government's position in the Supreme Court, to the media and in Parliament, was cohesive in its claim that consistent with the Cabinet decision of 2003, Mr. Chidambaram and Mr. Raja had agreed to keep the entry fee for pan-India 2G start up spectrum in 2008 at a 2001 price of Rs. 1,658 crore.

On 2 April, 2011, the CBI filed a charge sheet, accusing Mr. Raja of rejecting suggestions to revise the entry fee from several government sources, especially the Finance Ministry. In one stroke, the CBI overturned the position taken in the government's affidavit in the Supreme Court, the Finance Ministry OM, indeed by the Prime Minister, himself.

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News Analysis - 2G review petition pits PM's word against Chidambaram's

PORT ST. LUCIE The New York Mets host the Washington Nationals Monday night in their Grapefruit League opener, and fans will see the new upgrades to Digital Domain Park.

The main piece of the renovation is the bleachers in right field, where 502 box seats and 16,000 square feet of open deck have been added. Also, there is a new, enlarged video screen on the scoreboard, and a new addition now connects the right field seats and berm area to the rest of the stadium.

St. Lucie County commissioner Chris Dzadovsky said the upgrades were, in part, done at the request of the New York Mets and also to help the facility attract a second major league team for spring training.

"It's a great look," New York Mets spokesman Jay Horwitz said. "It's almost like a new ball park. We're really proud of what has happened over the last few months."

The $2.5 million construction project started in November and is being finished just in time for the Mets' run of home spring games.

"This was done to upgrade the facility," Mets director of Florida operations Paul Taglieri said. "We signed an extension (with the New York Mets) above our prior facility use agreement, which was going to expire in 2018. So this money that was bonded out by the county extended our agreement until 2023."

St. Lucie County commissioner Chris Dzadovsky said the county was able to restructure a bond at a lower interest rate, which will save the county "quite a lot of money" in the long run.

"We were able to do this without expanding the budget," Dzadovsky said. "We were able to put in 12 to 15,000 square feet of administrative space that could be used for another team. It also provides for a better fan experience.

"This makes it better for all of us."

The scoreboard in left field is the same size, but ads have been removed to make room for a state-of-the-art, high definition video board, which is four times larger than the previous one. Dzadovsky said the Mets requested the larger video board to better accommodate sponsorship and advertising.

The rest is here:
Digital Domain Park ready to show off its upgrades

I cannot help but have a soft spot in my heart for Portland, if only for the fact that on the week my wife and I visited, the Give A Shit Club was holding its "mostly monthly" forum. In it, participants were encouraged to do "a little bit of drinking and a whole lot of talking about local and national issues."

Of Portland's nature, it's all there in the club's title:

The wry but earnest call to activism; the fine line trod between seriousness and self-satire; the slacker dynamic fuelled by local microbreweries and artisanal distilleries. It's at once twee yet not, fun but adult. Of the three Cascadia sisters - the other siblings being us and Seattle - Portland is the most amiable and adventurous. She'd be the older sister willing to try anything, the first one in the water skinny-dipping.

Consider for example, our hotel: We stayed downtown at the Ace, a restored - but not overly restored - hotel originally built in 1912. There is nothing like it in Vancouver, which is a pity. There easily could be.

It's Flophouse Chic, with claw-foot tubs in the bathrooms, double-height ceilings, original tiled lobby (complete with coin-operated photo booth), and turn-of-the-century oak flooring in the hallways and rooms. The old is set off by the hipsterish new: large-screen TVs, high-end toiletries and bedding, sleek minimalist furnishings, original wall murals in each room (above our bed was an American eagle with the inscription Love Thy Neighbor), and - in a nod to the vibrant local music scene - turntables that came with an eclectic supply of LPs. (Ours ranged from the newest Fleet Foxes LP to The Best of Caruso.) Even the room's mini-bars spoke Portlandese: It came stocked with Glee gum, Boy-lan lemon seltzer and banana bread powerbars. Sometimes I suspect Portland is in on its own joke.

Why would a Vancouverite go to Portland?

It does serendipity so much better than us. Some of this is due to a more relaxed licensing environment - getting a liquor or business licence is vastly easier than in B.C. But more than that, Portland is a showcase of the American genius for experimentation. The city's unofficial motto, and favoured bumper sticker, is Keep Portland Weird. It's that self-satire again, but a call to arms, too.

Case in point:

While we were there, the big indie rock band The Shins, who call Portland home, gave a 1 p.m. children's concert at the Kennedy School. The show was part of the charming You Who! concert series, co-founded by Chris Funk of the Decemberists, Portland's other big indie band.

The shows are split up into a half-hour of variety entertainment - sin-galongs, cartoons, puppetry, "inter-active dance get-downs," to quote the program - followed by a half-hour rock show.

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Pete McMartin: Portland, Vancouver's bolder sister