When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough Now that it’s “safe” for NRA-allied politicians to come out of their thoughts-and-prayers hidey holes (Sack political cartoon, The Times Record, Oct. 10), I wonder if they’ll actually do anything this time about our country’s gun violence epidemic. Our gun homicide rate is 25 times higher than other developed […]

Change is something that can be hoped for or dreaded, denied or acknowledged, embraced or resisted. The dictionary defines it as “the act or instance of making or becoming different.” That difference might be viewed as good or bad, or simply an indifferent inconvenience one learns to accommodate. Whatever one’s take on it, change is […]

In 1792, the first recorded U.S. celebration of Columbus Day was held to mark the tricentennial of Christopher Columbus’ landing. In 1810, the German festival Oktoberfest was first held in Munich to celebrate the wedding of Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. In 1933, bank robber John Dillinger escaped from a jail […]

When it comes to Medicaid expansion, at one time, Maine was ahead of the curve. In 2002, long before the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was established, Maine elected to expand Medicaid availability to able-bodied, childless adults at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty line. The result was an incredibly costly program that cannibalized […]