On July 8, the Portland Press Herald ran a story about a tragic 4th of July weekend motorcycle accident. A group of six motorcycle riders swerved to avoid a turning car, which they came upon suddenly after rounding a curve. Forty-three-year old Rochelle Plummer was thrown from her bike and killed. She was not wearing a helmet. Nor were four of the other five riders.

As a doctor, you might expect that I would have something to say about the lack of helmet wearing.

I do: it is stupid. People who ride motorcycles should wear helmets. I've seen too many people with head injuries not to believe this is important.

That being said, it legal in this state to ride without a helmet. Which is also stupid. But whether or not helmet wearing should be a law, right now it simply isn't. So people can chose to wear helmets or not. And many in Rochelle's group worked in public safety. They knew the risks.

So I was dismayed to read in the Press Herald sidebar:

INVOLVED IN ACCIDENT

ROCHELLE PLUMMER, 43, of Gray. Died in crash. No helmet.

Is it not enough that she died? Do we have to publicly pour salt in her family's wound?

It seemed a classic case of blaming the victim. Yet, when newspapers run stories about people who died for other reasons, they do not always feel the need to try and assign blame. Maybe we should. How about:

JOE SMITH, 56, of East Gish. Died of heart attack. Ate fatty foods. Never exercised.

Or perhaps we should start doing this for victims of crimes:

MELANIE PARKER, 23, of Way Up Yonder. Raped. Wore revealing clothing.

These could be taken to ridiculous extremes.

Obviously, there is a place for trying to understand why people die, or have their lives seriously impacted in some way. When we do this, we can potentially prevent harm from coming to others in the future. So the Press Herald is not remiss in commenting on a lack of helmet wearing. Perhaps their attention to the problem will someday lead to a change in Maine laws.

In the meantime, I wish they had not listed "No helmet" in their sidebar. We should let her family mourn her death without feeling the weight of public judgment.

She died doing something perfectly legal.

As I paddled my kayak on Damariscotta Lake with my wife and two sons, I heard a noise like a low flying plane approaching from afar. I told my boys to paddle to the side and in a few seconds a Bass Boat with humongous outboard roared past just touching the tops of the waves. If this had been a jet ski flying past then the cries for a ban would have been heard all the way to Augusta.

I believe in responsible controls on boats and boating. I also believe in making a public resource available for the public to use and enjoy. I have followed the quest by Mark Haskell to overturn the discriminatory ban on jet skis on Maine lakes and support his efforts.

I have sailed for over 40 years on fresh and salt water. I have paddled and rowed extensively along the Maine coast and many Maine lakes and ponds. I also enjoy riding my jet ski. I and many others ride responsibly on modern jet skis that are both clean and quiet.

On July 4th on Lake St George in Liberty, Mark Haskell will be hosting the Ride With Pride to support your right to enjoy Maine's public waters. I hope that many of you will show up to support the rights of Maine boaters. If the shore land owners can ban jet skis then the next step is to simply ban whatever else they don't like.

Has anyone noticed how “gaming” has crept into the language and supplanted “gambling” as the word for throwing money down the rat hole? I hear it all the time now. I am glad that ignoring terrible odds and losing money now sounds more dignified. Countless thousands of people, once called “suckers”, are spared great embarrassment. No longer can they be accused of gambling away the egg money. Now they game it away.

Whom should we thank for the great leap forward? Why, none other than the Gaming Industry itself. This fig leaf first appeared as it thrust its tentacles into new territory and new pockets.

I shouldn’t be so critical. The gambling industry itself stood in need of greater dignity. It’s embarrassing to take a person’s money, give him absolutely nothing in return and drop tiny crumbs of cash to lure him on. So, you see, if the racketeer and the racketee both seek solace in euphemism, then everybody wins.