On March 1 of this year, a new executive order declared English the official language of the United States. The order proclaimed that “it is in America’s best interest for the Federal Government to designate one — and only one — official language. Establishing English as the official language will not only streamline communication but […]

In the Midcoast, we are lucky to have Amtrak trains coming as far north as Brunswick. Unfortunately, almost half of North America’s population cannot take a train to get where they want to go. What can we do about that? We can support sustainable train infrastructure by taking electric trains whenever possible, studying the transit […]

It was political theatre of the surreal, the person who attempted to engineer the destruction of democracy shamelessly taunting the individual who is fighting to defend democracy. A battle royal emerged in the White House last week as two world leaders — President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — had an acerbic fracas […]

If you think that people are disagreeable these days about politics and culture, you can’t imagine how heated people got when I asked for suggestions on what to name my yellow Labrador puppy four years ago. Blame social media. My puppy’s breeders, Mike and Maryanne, named each pup based on its behavior. They called my […]

The idea that Donald Trump is going to shut the post office down is another one of those internet rumors generated by the ignorant to raise the hackles of the ill-informed. It does, however, point to an essential truth: the United States Postal Service is poorly managed, in a state of almost perpetually near-bankruptcy and […]

I didn’t come from a wealthy family but happened to live across the street — oops, road, we were never permitted to call it a “street” — from one very wealthy lady, a memorable woman who had the economic resources to build what she insisted was a white “Connecticut Farm House” breezily overlooking the fact […]