When I interact with young people (Bowdoin students, grandchildren, etc.), I often encourage them to take risks. “What’s the worst that can happen?” I’ll ask blithely, even as I recall the fears I had as a young person when confronted with any challenge outside my comfort zone: speaking in public or singing a solo or […]

Christmas card trends are telling — they speak to the mood of the country — and this year’s trend offers some positive news. According to the Washington Post, hand-written “snail-mailed” Christmas cards are all the rage, particularly among millennials who all of the sudden are spending more on Christmas cards than baby boomers. We baby […]

Brunswick removed the bad guys on the football team so they should let the good guys play football next fall. They can’t ruin the athletic lives of vulnerable teenage boys who have made it this far in their football advancement. It’s not their fault and players shouldn’t have to pay for it by missing perhaps […]

By now, the storyline, and the statistics, are almost mind-numbingly familiar. In rural counties of Maine, as in those of neighboring states, COVID rates have gone off the charts amid the worst wave of the pandemic. Hospitals are overwhelmed, health networks are overstretched and the National Guard has been called out. Yet we haven’t focused […]

So it looks like Roe v. Wade is perched at the precipice. Gee, I wonder how that happened. Let me count the ways. Conservative Republicans started prioritizing a high court takeover, with the explicit aim of ending legal abortion, more than 40 years ago. In 1980, Ronald Reagan’s GOP introduced new language in its party […]