Gov. Janet Mills is going to need Mainers’ help if she is to achieve her plan to make Maine carbon neutral by 2045. It’s time to think big because we have only nine years, maybe 12, to reverse the curse of global warming. It’s time to not only think drastically but act that way, too. […]
Forecaster Opinion
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
The Universal Notebook: Enjoying the collective unconscious
With any luck, this will be the last column based on my recent illness. As I look back over six months of hospitalization, operations and complications, what I find most interesting is the time I spent unconscious. The mind plays tricks on us. When Carolyn drove me to the hospital in Brunswick, I remember driving […]
advertisement
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
Life Unwound: Balancing grief and gratitude
People in my town leave the scenes of accidents. Neighbors in the nearest city fight over shelter sites. The opioid epidemic grows statewide. Mass shootings sweep the country. Climate despair goes global. Countries compete in the space race. When I expand outwardly from here to there, this to that, often I see only the mess […]
Posted inForecaster Opinion
Letter: Impeachment not about undoing results of election
While I disagree with most of John Balentine’s recent column, I am addressing his assertion that “the losing side should accept the results” with regard to the 2016 election. (“Remembering Pilgrim pride, part I,” Nov. 20). This false narrative, promoted by Republicans, claims that the impeachment of President Trump is about Congressional Democrats trying to […]
Posted inForecaster Opinion
Letter: Balentine wrong to equate socialism with dictators
John Balentine’s recent editorial opinion piece dishonestly equates the authoritarian dictatorship of Venezuela’s Maduro with the democratic socialism already practiced, promoted and cherished by Americans through Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, welfare, HUD programs, fuel subsidies, farm subsidies, public education grants, energy and utility subsidies, education and child care assistance, funding for public radio, television, […]
Posted inForecaster Opinion
Letter: Balentine ignores Republicans’ behavior
With reference to John Balentine’s column in the Nov. 22 Forecaster, his basic premise is quite correct that the citizenry should willingly consent to be governed to avoid “discordant calamity.” However, he seems ignorant of recent history and is now seeing it repeated. Almost immediately after Barack Obama was inaugurated, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell […]
Posted inForecaster Opinion
Mainewhile: Owning the myth of Thanksgiving
I grew up in rural Massachusetts. Really rural. This was the Massachusetts of calendar pages. Still close enough to Boston that trips to the city were not uncommon, the landscape of my every day was all rolling fields, brilliant maples, white spired churches and old stone walls. It was the sort of town where no […]
Posted inForecaster Opinion, The Forecaster
Letter: Balentine should come up with some valid facts
I am surprised, confused and indignant that the Forecaster continues to allow John Balentine to spout his conservative editorials. His latest diatribe against socialism (“Now more than ever, socialism’s evils need to be unveiled,” Nov. 13) is both simplistic and inaccurate in his examination of the nature of socialism. Balentine states that socialistic policies “choke […]
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
The Universal Notebook: Making nice with ICE
Last weekend I had dinner at an oyster bar in Burlington, Massachusetts. As we walked across the parking lot, we could see a crowd of people down the street. When we were seated, I asked our server what was going on. “Oh, it’s probably a protest,” she told me. “There’s an ICE office just down […]
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
Here’s Something: Remembering Pilgrim pride, part II
As we gather with family and friends this week giving thanks to God for the abundance we enjoy, Thanksgiving is also a chance to remember the foundations of American civilization. The Pilgrims, who have taken on mythic proportions almost four centuries after landing in Plymouth, came to the New World from England to find religious […]