This is a tale of two dates: Nov. 5, 2024, and Jan. 20, 2029. Both matter a lot. The first is Election Day when voters will choose the next president. The second is the last day of the term the next president would serve. The big political story these days is about the inability of […]

As dismay among Democrats began to spread after Joe Biden’s lackluster debate performance, things fell into a familiar pattern. Despite manifest lawbreaking and felony convictions by an ex-president who continues to lie regularly about his loss to Biden in 2020, Republicans wrap themselves ever more tightly around Donald Trump. The peaceful transfer of power is […]

Could you imagine being independent of fossil fuel corporations and power companies, having the freedom to get all the energy you need from your own land? That’s the allure of off-grid solar living. From the humble owner of a camp in the woods with one panel and an old car battery to a millionaire in […]

When my older son David was about 4 years old, we’d take him to Bowdoin College hockey games at the old Dayton Arena. We would let him walk all the way around the packed arena by himself, because he was easy to spot in his bright orange outfit. Can you imagine parents today approving such […]

If you’re bored by the pablum that passes for conversation on sports broadcasts — if, like me, you’re long past fed up with all the cliches and predictable jock jocularity — I urge you to watch (if you haven’t already done so) Reggie Jackson’s soul-baring soliloquy. It was a breath of fresh air to hear […]

Thank God Willis Haviland Carrier invented air conditioning — for the most part. Before air conditioning, the heat drove us outside and brought us together. Friends sought the shade of trees or a refreshing dip in a lake or river. On the hottest nights, whole families brought their blankets and pillows to riverbanks, where it […]

They say when Albert Schweitzer was in Africa and ants would make a path toward a morsel of food he’d accidentally left on his table, he’d move the morsel to redirect, rather than kill the insects. All right Albert! My hero! I too believe in sparing all life — well, except those lives determined to […]

Even during our long-lit summer days, the sun of awareness comes up slowly … sometimes. This has been especially true of our — the public’s — general awareness of our effects on the streams and coastal waters that enrich and define our lands and lives. And yet we are thick on the ground, everywhere, and […]