We write in response to the October Times Record article about Freeport’s “Big Indian” (“With new owners, ‘Big Indian’ statue to remain in Freeport — for now,” Oct. 13). We hear John Bear Mitchell who says that the statue is “disrespectful” to the Maine tribes. We find the statue’s presence to be an outdated reflection […]

LGBTQ people in rural places and small towns are often ignored in the larger conversation surrounding queer life and culture. Even with these omissions, Pride celebrations in those locations are sweeping the nation, often encountering initial resistance. As a transgender person from Central Appalachia and a doctoral candidate who studies rural transgender media activism, I […]

Daylight saving time ends in the U.S. and Canada on Nov. 7, 2021, and most of us will be setting our clocks back an hour. There is a long-running debate about the benefit of the time change, given how it disrupts humans’ circadian rhythms, causing short-term stress and fatigue. Another risk accompanying the time change […]

It is well past the Ides of October and here in the northeast our annual descent steepens; many of us now rise in darkness and head home in twilight. Even as the trees pulse scarlet and yellow, even as the sky is often achingly blue, we feel an inward turn; we tend toward hunker. All […]

The Great Bridge Battle I have a recurring nightmare of driving over the Frank J. Wood Bridge from my house in Topsham to have dinner at a Brunswick restaurant and not being able to return home because my high-calorie entree has put me over the latest weight limit. I may be the sole resident of […]

Higher prices are a symptom of the pandemic.

In September 1960, I pledged the Zeta Psi fraternity at Bowdoin. (In those days, 95 % of the students joined a fraternity.) As one of 27 Zeta Psi pledges, I had to go through “orientation” or, if you prefer, hazing. Most of it was harmless stuff like having to wear a sign with my name […]

  The Food Pantry program at Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program has had 7,700 visits in the first nine months of 2021. A number this large is hard to wrap your head around. As an agency we are used to dealing in thousands: Thousands of meals served, dollars raised, or pounds rescued. But we know […]

Democrats can certainly try to convince themselves that the Virginia gubernatorial defeat is no big deal. All kinds of rationales are available. For instance, the incumbent president’s party has lost 11 of the last 12 gubernatorial races. Virginia, when choosing its chief executive, tends to vote against Washington’s “in” party. And Terry McAuliffe, the losing […]