Well into his 90s, my dad would drive an hour-and-a-half from Wilmington, Delaware, to Atlantic City two or three times a week to play blackjack. He won money on most days because he was a highly skilled card counter. (He’d up his bet when the odds were in his favor and lower it — or […]

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” These are the classic words of Lord John Acton, a 19th Century British historian. We seem to have no shortage of eligible “great men” these days. Having gained a taste of presidential power, Donald Trump proclaims his interest in […]

The city of Toronto is in the news for outlawing sled and toboggan riding on 45 of its hillsides. According to the Toronto Star, the ban has sparked a robust debate about how far government should go to protect people from themselves while they’re having fun. To be sure, tragic accidents do happen when frolicking […]

When I first came to live in Northern New England some 50 years ago, one of the great attractions was winter. It was in my blood, and the snows of the 1960s had reached legendary proportions, drifting over roofs and sheds. People were still talking about it, but there was plenty of winter through the […]

THE CONVERSATION — From attacks by rebels in the Red Sea to raids in northern Israel and the Oct. 7, 2023, assault by Hamas, Western analysts have pointed a finger of blame toward Iran. Regardless of how involved Tehran is directly in the planning and carrying out of such incidents, the accusations get at a broader truth: In Middle […]

Donald Trump is on track to once again secure the Republican presidential nomination, as he did in 2016. No surprise here. Anxiety and weariness are ever-present in the run-up to the November 2024 election. There is intense speculation on how Trump and his cult-like band of sycophantic followers will respond, whether in the face of […]

THE CONVERSATION — In the wake of the in-flight blowout of the side of a Boeing 737 Max 9, federal regulators have grounded planes and are stepping up scrutiny of Boeing’s manufacturing process. The Jan. 5, 2024, explosive decompression after takeoff was related to a component called a “door plug” being ejected from the fuselage […]

On Jan. 6, 2024, three years to the day after the infamous insurrection at the Capitol, Jonathan Pollock, Olivia Pollock and Joseph Daniel Hutchinson III were captured in Florida and taken into custody, per a statement from the FBI. According to the FBI’s statement, the three were wanted for “assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers […]