Israelis want to give peace a chance but need assurances the violence will really end. JERUSALEM – When I want to get a handle on how Israelis are thinking, I head for the Mahane Yehuda market in downtown Jerusalem.The open-air stalls, which are packed just before the start of the Sabbath, are manned mostly by […]

AUSTIN, Texas – My, my, my, the great Iraqi Gold Rush is on, and who should be there at the front of the line, right along with Halliburton and Bechtel, but our old friends at WorldCom, perpetrator of the largest accounting fraud in American history.WorldCom, shortly to become MCI, has been given a contract worth […]

WASHINGTON – Here’s how Maine’s members of Congress were recorded on major roll call votes in the week ending June 20. HOUSE Estate tax repeal Voting 264 for and 163 against, the House on June 18 passed a bill (HR 8) to permanently repeal the federal estate tax in 2011. The levy is set to […]

In an appendix to his latest book on English usage, Bill Bryson lists 45 reference works for writers. He could have listed a hundred more, and still not exhausted the field. If professional writers err – and we err all the time – it is not for lack of authoritative guidance.Bryson’s most recent contribution to […]

An innovative approach to the current medical malpractice crisis is sorely needed. CHICAGO – Ah, the agonies and the ecstasies of New Hampshire’s presidential campaign trail.Earlier this month, Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt was asked what he would do about the “chicken” problem, if he were lucky enough to replace George W. Bush in the […]

AUSTIN – Remember the guy in “The Graduate” who tells Dustin Hoffman, with heavy emphasis, “Plastics”? This column is sort of in the same vein. Psst, kids, there’s money in wind. If I were a fresh graduate looking for something useful and profitable to do with my life, I’d sure take a close look at […]

HACKENSACK, N.J. – Maybe you nudged a checker to a more favorable square when your opponent wasn’t looking. Perhaps you claimed your 5-year-old daughter was 4 to get the under-5 discount.You wouldn’t be caught dead reading “Beowulf,” so maybe you copied the homework from an obliging friend. Or perhaps your resume says you graduated magna […]

Most legislators are good-natured about answering questions from reporters. They want people they represent to know where they stand on issues and why.On June 6, the big story was a Health Care Reform Committee preliminary vote on the Dirigo Health plan.On that Friday, several Republicans – who are in the minority – objected to Democrat […]

The first thing I remember about him was his height. At 6′ 4″ he owned the tallest legs to perambulate the halls of the State House that session in 1967 when I first met him, though as a youthful teenager I had to look up to nearly every member of the Legislature at the time […]

Was the recent Dick Locher political cartoon in the Chicago Tribune anti-Semitic? Lots of people think so. George Bush is down on one knee spreading dollar bills to entice Ariel Sharon onto a bridge leading to peace. A big- nosed Sharon, with a Star of David on his suit, peers down at the money and […]