Joe Biden’s departure as president will be every bit as mysterious as his ascension. In March 2020, Biden was running fourth or fifth among Democrats. Then, as the pandemic was sweeping the world, he won in South Carolina and soared into a lead he never relinquished, beating the incumbent soundly, who nevertheless refused to go […]

July is often the peak season for vegetables in Maine. We have a relatively short growing season, so the long, hot days — along with the warm summer rains — provide an abundance of produce for stalls at farmers markets and shelves at grocery stores. For years, I have tended a small vegetable patch at […]

This summer, I have been able to work with the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program through the McKeen Center for the Common Good as a Maine Community Bowdoin Fellow. This fellowship includes fully immersing myself five days a week as a member of MCHPP’s team. Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program’s main commitment is to reinstate […]

My roommate and I are at war. She just doesn’t know it yet. There’s a speed-bump-sized lump of dust beneath our rug. If you spilled coffee on our tablecloth, it’d get cleaner. The dishes she left in the sink are supporting their own ecosystems. It’s a wonder I haven’t called in the National Guard. But […]

This summer, my wife and I took a vacation with our three semi-grown daughters to one of the most expensive places in America. No, we didn’t visit our local insurance office. We toured several beautiful and fascinating cities in New England. Our first stop was Newburyport, Massachusetts. We hadn’t planned to visit this charming coastal […]

In 1902, Puck magazine noted that “Things move along so rapidly nowadays that people saying: ‘It can’t be done,’ are always being interrupted by somebody doing it.” This has certainly been my experience working in the practical sustainability field for the past 30 years. Last week, a business partner and I visited the Clay Brook […]

When it comes to politics and policy, some of the national news stories we are reading and watching lately can leave us feeling discouraged or overwhelmed. That happens regardless of which way we lean, and today it’s doubly true in the wake of the horrific assassination attempt on the former president. I’ve been following our […]

Conventional wisdom is dead. No pundit’s opinion on the election could foresee the assassination attempt on Donald Trump or the debate debacle of Joe Biden. Both events changed everything, especially for the Democrats. Even before these developments, Biden struggled to stay even with Trump in the polls. This is not a good position for an […]

William Butler Yeats, the greatest English-speaking poet of the 20th century, foretold our own political crisis in “The Second Coming,” his penetrating depiction of Ireland a century ago: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.” The “best” now are the Democratic Party elite, who even before the June […]