What do you have planned for World Migratory Bird Day? I’m sure you have it marked on your calendar as the day before Mother’s Day, right? In case it slipped your mind, this year, people in Canada and the United States celebrate our feathered friends on Saturday, May 11, and our mothers on Sunday, May […]

On Sunday afternoon, April 28, an overflow crowd gathered at First Parish Church in Brunswick to celebrate the life and legacy of Hilda Ives Wiley. Memories of that service will stay with me for as long as I live. But first, some context. I first met Hilda’s father, Bob (known as “Bobby”), way back in […]

Projection is a psychological phenomenon wherein an individual attributes their own thoughts, feelings, or actions onto another person or group. Projection is a defensive mechanism often seen in children, and sometimes persists into adulthood. I well remember accusing my sister of behavior for which I myself was clearly guilty. In the realm of politics, projection […]

My mother would have been considered eccentric had she been financially wealthy. She would do almost anything — and wear almost any silly costume — to bring joy into the lives of others, much to the embarrassment of her six children. But she is wealthy in the ways that really matter, and her greatest wealth […]

Way back when I was a boy, the U.S. Supreme Court was so revered as an institution that my fourth-grade teacher required us to learn the names of all nine members. We kids could never have imagined that there’d come a day when the highest bench in the land would be so widely reviled. And […]

What a good week it should have been for Republicans. Dozens of campuses from UCLA to Columbia University were being wracked by pro-Palestinian protestors who set up “Gaza Solidarity” encampments, spewed antisemitic hate speech, took over buildings and intimidated Jewish students. The protestors demanded their schools condemn Israel’s invasion of Gaza, come out in support […]

THE CONVERSATION — While campaigning in Iowa last September, former President Donald Trump made a promise to voters if he were elected again: “Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” he said. Trump, who made a similar pledge during his first presidential campaign, has recently repeated this promise at rallies […]

THE CONVERSATION — Protest movements can look very different depending on where you stand, both literally and figuratively. For protesters, demonstrations are usually the result of meticulous planning by advocacy groups and leaders aimed at getting a message out to a wider world or to specific institutional targets. To outside onlookers, however, protests can seem […]