Perhaps the days have you talking to yourself, or, better yet, revisiting an old ability many of us developed in childhood — that of talking with imaginary friends, perhaps from other eras. Surely they can be helpful making sense of a time that seems beyond our experience. The other day, I did what I do […]

Questioning motives One of the photos on page A8 of June 8’s Times Record showed Steven Peaslee at the protest in Wiscasset armed with what appears to be an AR-15 type rifle. According to the caption, he brought the weapon “to ensure the monument would remain untouched if the protest  spiraled into vandalism.” I wonder […]

We don’t eat many of them, although they are delicious. Lobster and other fish love them and they are highly prized as baitfish. These are the many species of herring that live in Maine waters. Herring are a diverse group of fish that are all relatively small and silvery in color and travel together in […]

It is with macabre irony that while we remember the 76th anniversary of D-Day, the allied invasion of Europe during WWII, we are today deep in the midst of a three-front war. First, we are fighting a novel enemy in the virus that will continue to expand the pain that has killed more than 116,000 […]

The coronavirus pandemic has posed a serious threat to the U.S. long-term care industry. A third of all deaths have been nursing home residents or workers – in some states it’s more than half. Yet some long-term care facilities have managed to keep the virus at bay. For example, veterans’ homes in California have seen […]

Police were called about John Mahone, a black man, having an argument with his wife. A cop shot and killed him because he thought Mahone had a knife. Mahone had a can opener. An officer searching for illegal whiskey saw another black man, Harris Miller, run. When Miller didn’t halt, the cop shot and killed […]

Support the Poor People’s Campaign Amid all the divisive issues we face, do you think we need more of a moral center? Are you inspired by the work that Martin Luther King did to raise up basic civil rights, through inspiring speech and non-violent actions? If yes, I invite you to experience the Poor People’s […]

This is the time to seriously examine the costs – financial and otherwise – to Maine taxpayers for investing in School Resource Officers (SROs). In this time of deficits and massive unemployment, the financial costs must be considered. As well as the opportunity costs of what are we not funding while we fund SROs? We […]

Trump has degraded, weakend our country As an American, living here in Maine, I watch with a mixture of horror, sadness and hope (yes, hope) as I see what is happening all over our country. I have hope as I see people coming out into the streets, coming together to protest racial injustice, and call […]

The good news for America is that Donald Trump is crashing his presidency the same way he bankrupted casinos, with recent polls showing him significantly trailing Joe Biden. His own advisers reportedly say that his internal numbers are “brutal.” The bad news for America – potentially – is that Trump may have found a life […]