As the new year begins, the Saco Meals Program would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the local business sponsors, along with the many individuals, who were so generous in 2013 with monetary donations and gifts of time to help our program succeed. Without their assistance, Saco Meals would not have […]

In his speech last Friday, President Barack Obama addressed the privacy concerns that have been spurring debate for months across the nation, finally offering some proposals to reassure the American people that our National Security Agency is not overstepping its bounds. His remarks acknowledged the difficulty of balancing national security with civil liberties, and while […]

I am responding to the recent editorial “Welfare for all asylum-seekers is unsustainable,” a piece that asserts that Maine cannot afford to support asylum-seekers while they await refugee status. It is the position of the Maine Council of Churches that to change a DHHS rule to take general assistance from these vulnerable brothers and sisters […]

One need just look to the medians along Route 111 to know York County has people who are homeless and in need of shelter. While the shelters and food assistance programs are doing their best to meet the need, the organizations need funds and support to continue their missions. Those who are homeless or know […]

For years, Republicans have marveled at President Obama’s success in blaming former President George W. Bush for the nation’s problems, particularly its economic problems. Now, as Obama begins his sixth year in office, that success may finally be coming to an end. Of course Obama inherited an economic mess. He deserved time to fix it. […]

Half a century ago, President Lyndon Johnson declared a War on Poverty. That war would soon make a real difference. In the decade following its 1964 launch, our official poverty rate dropped from 19 to 11.2 percent. But that progress stalled in the 1970s, and a profound economic insecurity now afflicts the vast majority of […]

Huge numbers of students must take high-stakes standardized tests that may shape the rest of their lives. These tests, however, take no account of the differences among the individual students. For particular examples, the tests don’t recognize the students’ home lives, or the visual or hearing problems that have impeded their learning. Those students often […]

A friend with whom I carpool recently told me I never finish my thoughts. She says it’s sometimes frustrating conversing with me. I was offended. It’s like she thinks having more than one thought at a time is a bad thing. The term “multi-tasking” was probably coined by some Ph.D. who put decades into researching […]

We’re about to hit that odd time of year on the American sporting calendar, that time when football is winding down its six months of all-encompassing dominance, but baseball has yet to begin its interminably long waking-up period. There is college basketball, although, since the regular season doesn’t entirely matter considering how many teams make […]