When you’re married to a person like Tina, you get to engage with a lot of strangers. She’s the type, you see, who will walk right up and talk to anyone, especially if that anyone has a baby or a young child with them and most especially when we’re on vacation on Anna Maria Island […]

Big news! The U.S. Senate voted unanimously to make Daylight Savings Time permanent. It’s amazing when 100 senators can agree on something as important as that. Not exactly. It turns out that the “unanimous” vote was slipped by the Senate by just two senators. One was presiding and the other proposed the decision. The senator […]

When the temperatures plummeted this past January, The Gathering Place was supporting several individuals and families who were either living outside or in their cars. As we’re lifting COVID restrictions, we’re seeing very tangibly the difficulties in more people needing services, mental health challenges, and overall health challenges. Temperatures dipping into single digits can mean […]

For the past few years much of my travel has been confined to the rectangles of Zoom. Like many in this COVID-inflected time, I’ve actually spent more time with distant family members, as we’ve all sought to keep close remotely. But Zoom-time doesn’t measure up to room-time; we are always, in our frames, exhibits to […]

The hubbub over President Biden’s suddenly famous nine words, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” may quickly recede – or it may become a turning point in the battle against Vladimir Putin’s naked aggression in Ukraine, and thus in world history. The “global uproar” it caused was already being charted within hours. […]

It has been dubbed by many as “the slap heard ‘round the world.“ By now, pretty much anyone with a beating pulse is aware of the fracas that occurred during the Academy Awards on Sunday night, where Will Smith assaulted Chris Rock and yelled at the comedian to “keep my wife’s name out of your […]

The Oscar slap that overshadowed the Academy Awards ceremony was sparked by a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s lack of hair – with husband Will Smith objecting violently to comedian Chris Rock mocking the actress’s shaved head. Away from the recriminations over what could be perceived as a mean-spirited jibe and a disproportionate response, many […]

As we head into April and street sweepers clean up the sandy edges of streets newly exposed from underneath winter’s ice, there is a lot more than sand that’s left behind. Plastic bags, pet waste, snack wrappers and aluminum cans emerge from the melting snow in a less pretty way than “surprise candles” where gems […]

Ask any parent of young kids about the challenges they face, and the issue of child care will almost always come up immediately. Families across Maine are struggling to find open slots at child care facilities in their area — whether that’s daycare for little ones or after-school care for kids who are a little […]

Virginia Thomas, wife of U. S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, is free to hold whatever opinions, thoughts, judgments or impressions of politics and public policy she desires. And, like any other American, she may express them without fear of censorship no matter how zany or repellent others may find them. Her views are […]