Along with many citizens, I am deeply worried, to put it mildly, about the direction of our country under the Trump presidency. I recommend reading the book “How Democracies Die,” by Levitsky and Ziblatt. The book outlines several countries, over various times in history, where a democracy changed into a dictatorship. The premise of the […]

“I received assurances.” That is what Sen. Susan Collins said she received from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. regarding development of vaccines. That is what she said Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh gave her, regarding not overturning Roe v. Wade. Is the senator naive or does she think we don’t remember? In the first place, we […]

On Sunday afternoon, Feb. 2, I attended the Portland Symphony Orchestra Discovery Concert, “Beethoven Lives Upstairs.” This production has always been a fan favorite of my family, and I had been wanting to attend one the PSO’s kids concerts in the Discovery Concert series for quite some time. Everything about the concert was terrific. It […]

The Bowdoin Students for Justice in Palestine began the new semester with a new protest on campus: a pro-Palestinian “encampment.” Fifty students slept in tents to protest the college’s investments in companies that support Israel. With the temperatures hovering around 10 degrees, these rebellious neophytes earned my respect. But, isn’t that what separates Mainers from […]

In the 1980s, I worked in Anchorage, Alaska, as an ICU nurse at the Alaska Native Medical Center (part of the Indian Health Service) and was so impressed to find there was an office of the Centers For Disease Control on our campus. We were part of an elite group of folks bringing state-of-the-art medical […]

There are so many balls in the air that everyone can find one to focus on. But how can we get the whole picture? It isn’t Gaza. It isn’t Greenland. It isn’t the Panama Canal. It is our freedom, our right to vote, our right to free speech — our democracy. The plan is truly […]

There’s always been a question about Sen. Susan Collins’ “brave, conscience votes.” Were they orchestrated by her to make a statement but have no practical effect? Was the strategy that they would be comfortably in the majority or in the minority in a way they would never be the deciding vote? Collins’ vote on Tulsi […]

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, picture this: A small group of some of the richest white men in the world is quite literally grabbing the food right out of the mouths of some of the poorest and most unfortunate women and children around our globe. Many of the latter may […]