I love turtles. I love the new turtle sculpture in the Portland Public Library. I have one concern: You aren’t allowed to touch it. It is beautiful, tactile and begs to be touched. When put in the middle of seating at ground level, it cries out “touch me.” I think you are creating a new […]

As Donald Trump taps more and more megawealthy business leaders for major U.S. leadership positions, there should be a general accounting of the equity holdings they divest. See, for the likes of Goldman Sachs bankers and Rex Tillerson, longtime CEO of ExxonMobil (being vetted as secretary of state), they are permitted to divest their personal […]

I’m appalled by Donald Trump’s cavalier approach to security briefings. These briefings are the most important weapon we have for understanding our friends and enemies. Unless he has a crystal ball or believes everything that chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, et al., provide him, I don’t see how his being smart can help him […]

I am writing in response to Charles McNutt’s Dec. 10 letter, “Anti-pipeline appeal poorly timed” (Page A6). What seems particularly achieving of “new levels of absurdity and bad judgment,” as Mr. McNutt writes, is his seemingly full-time negation of anything of true value in South Portland. In yet another rant against genuinely progressive efforts in […]

M.D. Harmon has made great display of his elastic patriotism in his Dec. 16 column. He’s entirely comfortable with the idea of a foreign despot influencing American elections to the advantage of his candidate, but would be fuming about treason if the shoe were on the other foot: Lenin’s “useful idiots” were evidently nondenominational. It’s […]