Dan Bilodeau (Auburn Water District board trustee, appointed through the mayor’s Appointment Committee) endorses Jason Levesque. In his letter published Aug. 10 he writes, “It is up to residents to vote for the transparent (italics mine) and progressive leadership we want.” Why would Auburn citizens vote for a mayor who enacted significant zoning changes largely […]
Alex Lear
Staff Writer
Alex Lear is a lifelong Mainer who has spent 25 years in journalism -- the first 20 as a reporter for newspapers in Damariscotta and Falmouth, then as Opinions section editor for the Sun Journal and now a digital producer with the Maine Trust for Local News. His long-running “Learics” column won first place in the Maine Press Association’s 2023 Better Newspaper Contest. He and his wife Lauren are kept young by their 9-year-old daughter Alaina. Send feedback and suggestions to Alex.
Cal Thomas: Back to what type of school?
As millions of children return to public school, it’s a good idea to again examine what they are being taught and what is being left out. It also offers an annual opportunity for parents to ask if their kids are being educated or indoctrinated.
Austin Bay: The Biden administration’s Afghanistan bug-out continues to have disastrous consequences
Americans aren’t dying from Afghan-exported terrorism — not yet.
Froma Harrop: What’s happening to people?
America is the land of plenty, but to many, it’s become a world of envy and anger. Nowadays, malcontents seem to feel more entitled to act out in anti-social ways.
Clarence Page: Will the upending of the ‘Blind Side’ story help chill Hollywood’s ‘white savior’ complex?
Of course, I’m not opposed to white actors or characters. I’d just like to see the sort of diversity that roughly reflects our cultural diversity and fully developed characters who reflect what we humans increasingly can see is real life — here and around the globe.
Clarence Page: Why #MontgomeryRiverfrontBrawl gained new meaning in Black conversations
The sight of Black people rushing to the defense of an endangered Black person and the police responding by properly subduing the suspects, especially in a city with all the historical baggage Montgomery carries with it from the civil rights era, you gain a new appreciation of how the system can work, when it’s supposed to. You can see it in the tweets.
Cal Brown: Bob Neal delivers the real deal with ‘The Countryman’
Saturday’s paper is, by far, my favorite. It’s not that I don’t like the other days, but I find Bob Neal’s column, “The Countryman,” very timely and educational, and I read every word of it. The subjects he finds to write about are newsworthy and thoughtfully presented in a form that is missing in far […]
Chris Beam: U.S. would still have intervened in Vietnam under JFK
Columnist Froma Harrop (“The Kennedy story was never that hot,” Aug. 11) rightly debunks the mythologizing of President John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy clam by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a contender for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. She cites examples where post-mortem hero worship by Kennedy flame-keepers has distorted the true record of JFK’s […]