Sometimes serendipity reigns. I had learned about the Brunswick High School Winter Choral Concert on the morning of the performance, thanks to a post by a Facebook friend. “This might be a good way to get into the Christmas spirit,” I said to Tina. We arrived 45 minutes early to get good seats (my typical […]

Electric power game rigged against customers

One Christmas Day in the 1980s, Desmond Tutu led a packed church service in Soweto, the Black Johannesburg township and fulcrum of protest against white racist rule in South Africa. An American family — mine — found standing room at the back. We were among the few white people in the congregation and, as we […]

The outdoor temperature is 25 degrees and it is snowing steadily, adding a fresh coat of white on top of the inches of snow that have already accumulated on the ground in the last week. I am tucked inside my home, cozy with the thermostat cranked up to a balmy 72 degrees, and sipping a […]

As friends know, I have gone out of the political prediction business, for now. The times through which we’re passing are too volatile, too uncertain, too bewildering for anyone to make out the electorate’s next move. Which only means that current forecasts of the outcome next November, repeated ad nauseum, are based on nothing more […]

A recent Reddit thread discusses the lack of heroes in modern society, but the truth is we have plenty of heroes. It’s true that in the Internet era, historic figures we once considered heroic are being reevaluated as their past misdeeds and personal peccadilloes are revealed. Celebrities we once admired suffer a fall from grace […]

During my time in the Legislature, one of the constants has been the agreement that we need to take care of Maine kids. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, every lawmaker in Augusta agrees that our children deserve to feel safe, have enough to eat, and have access to quality education. During […]