Rest often feels like risk to me. Raised in the ’60s and ’70s with cries of “we can,” we powered into fights for rights and marches for progress for our collective hearts. “We can” and “we should” called us, with zealous urgency, to action. Our refrain was, “For humanity to grow more humane, we must […]
Forecaster Opinion
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
The Universal Notebook: America makes a correction
Cancel culture, aka call out culture, is the social media practice of boycotting people who do and say objectionable, usually racist, things. Currently, we are experiencing a paroxysm of cancel culture aimed at symbols and artifacts of the Confederacy and embodiments of racial stereotypes. Hurray for that! History is constantly being written and revised, but […]
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Posted inForecaster Opinion
Superintendent’s Notebook: SRO decision the result of lessons learned
I fully support the Portland Board of Public Education’s recent decision to discontinue police school resource officers in our schools. That’s a statement I would not have made as recently as last fall, when we first started discussing the SRO issue. What started as a recommendation for SROs to wear body cameras evolved into a […]
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
Here’s Something: Signs of the times, part II
“Sign, sign, everywhere a sign.” So goes the catchy lyrics from the equally catchy smash hit “Signs” by Five Man Electrical Band in the 1970s and covered by Tesla in the 1990s. Fast forward several decades and this phrase fittingly describes the scene along just about every roadway in Southern Maine. We’re in political season […]
Posted inForecaster Opinion
Letter: Unlike FDR, Trump has no leadership qualities
In the early summer of 1944, I was 7 years old and on one particular night we all went up to my grandfather’s apartment to listen to President Roosevelt’s fireside chat. Pop had a very large curved-top radio. Its tuning dial was illuminated by a dull yellowish light. Its sound would fill the entire room […]
Posted inForecaster Opinion
Here’s Something: BLM mural sends the wrong message
The Portland City Council should resist the proposal from a group of private citizens to paint a Black Lives Matter mural on the street in front of City Hall in Portland. The city of Portland, which is as peace-loving, live-and-let-live a place as any on Earth, doesn’t need the garish and obnoxious, blindingly bright yellow, […]
Posted inForecaster Opinion
Mainewhile: The positive side of the pandemic
A little while ago I needed a good kid’s book for a read aloud. In the interest of time, I simply went to the bookshelves in my home where I keep the books my kids have outgrown but are too well loved to pass on or let go. My hand fell immediately on a favorite, […]
Posted inForecaster Opinion
The Universal Notebook: What do Trump-Pence signs mean?
When you see a Trump-Pence sign, it’s usually not just a polite lawn sign stating support for the incumbent, but a big banner or in-your-face flag. I confess I do not understand how anyone, after almost four years of his constant lies, pettiness, divisiveness and incompetence, can still support this awful man. So when I […]
Posted inForecaster Opinion
Over Easy: Let’s play ball. Please.
Even the two world wars of the last century didn’t prevent Major League Baseball from playing their World Series championship, no matter what went on off the field. The 2020 baseball season will be comprised of 60 games and an extended playoff schedule and there’ll be so many asterisks in the record books they’ll have […]
Posted inForecaster Opinion
Letter: Reelect Carney to Maine Senate
Anne Carney is an effective legislator who gets things done. She learned in September, for example, about the fiscal and environmental costs to Maine communities from oil facilities closing. She wrote a bill and got it passed before the Legislature adjourned in March. Mainers are now protected by a law requiring oil terminal owners to […]