Holy smokes. Turn on the news right now and it’s enough to make you want to hide. Our nation is facing some pretty crazy circumstances, both those beyond our control, and those entirely of our own making. Some are a bit of both. Recently, we’ve seen yet more violence, a growing awareness of systemic oppression, […]
Forecaster opinion
Posted inForecaster Opinion
Over Easy: How to rebuild life as we knew it
An open letter to sons, daughters and grandchildren: Boy, did we screw up. We are leaving you with a mess, but even those words don’t seem adequate to express our own sense of helplessness. I’m talking about those of us who lived through what are generally labeled the ’60s, but the time period ran from […]
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Posted inForecaster Opinion
Here’s Something: Why do Portland’s homeless get special rights?
Remember the Occupy Wall Street and related protests that commandeered America’s city streets and parks about 10 years ago? Compared with many of those protests that turned violent, Occupy Portland, based in Lincoln Park across from City Hall, was relatively peaceful with protesters sleeping overnight in tents and hanging out in the daytime as they […]
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
The Universal Notebook: Preferred gender pronoun primer
Though I have written for publication since 1965, I had never run into the use of gender-neutral pronouns until a couple of weeks ago and then I blew it. To begin with, I was not told that the subject of my article used “they/them/theirs,” not “she/her/hers,” but when we did try to make the requested […]
Posted inForecaster Opinion
Life Unwound: We should know better
I remember my grandmother, Memere, and her small beach cottage. We, “the kids,” would jump out of our Mercury wagon and she’d offer us half chocolate/half vanilla ice cream cups. Lots of her grandchildren – my siblings and cousins – gathered there. Big families mattered. We spilled the melted treat all over ourselves. Memere would […]
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
Here’s Something: ‘Follow the science’ and reopen schools
A few weeks ago I saw with my own two eyes about 10 teenagers playing shirts-and-skins basketball on a Buxton playground court. That same day I also witnessed about 40 kids taking part in a town-sponsored summer recreation program inside a gymnasium. A few days after that, I saw dozens of children congregating on a […]
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
The Universal Notebook: The root of all evil
The senatorial race between incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic challenger Sara Gideon is already the most costly political race in Maine history. The 2018 2nd District congressional race in which Democrat Jared Golden unseated Republican Bruce Poliquin held the record briefly at a combined $31 million. Gideon v. Collins now stands at about […]
Posted inForecaster Opinion
Mainewhile: Dream the ‘impossible’ education dream
As the strangest summer I’ve ever seen trundles on, the question on everyone’s mind is: what will schools do in the fall? Truthfully, no one knows. We all want schools open and things “back to normal.” We all want our kids (not to mention our teachers and staff) to be safe. Right now, the science […]
Posted inForecaster Opinion
Over Easy: Break the ice, please
I spent six weeks one summer as a crew member on a Coast Guard ice breaker making the rounds of the Great Lake ports it helped keep ice-free in winter. What it meant was parties at the docks in Duluth, in Cleveland, in Detroit. I spent my summer between junior and senior college years fulfilling […]
Posted inForecaster Opinion
Life Unwound: When rest feels like risk
Rest often feels like risk to me. Raised in the ’60s and ’70s with cries of “we can,” we powered into fights for rights and marches for progress for our collective hearts. “We can” and “we should” called us, with zealous urgency, to action. Our refrain was, “For humanity to grow more humane, we must […]