On July 4 I raised a glass of Tokay in honor of Calvin Coolidge. Although President Coolidge appears to have obeyed the Volstead Act during Prohibition, it is said that he enjoyed a glass of this Hungarian desert wine when it was legal. Like Ronald Reagan I revere Coolidge. He believed that running up the […]

At least 11 people including three minors, have been killed and 34 others were wounded by gun violence in Chicago last weekend. It’s not clear how many shooters, and how many dead or wounded were black. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that none of the shooters were policemen. I remarked a few columns back […]

To the Editor: Western Maine Play Museum, like all area businesses and non-profits, has been struggling to move forward during the Covid crisis. Our executive director and her team have been doing extensive brainstorming to keep the museum active, while waiting for return to normal operations. We want to say a big THANK YOU to […]

To the Editor In light of recent events surrounding race and the law enforcement community I felt it appropriate to tell a personal story as peaceful protests accompanied by organized and violent riots have erupted in the streets across the United States. When I was 16 years old I was stopped by an officer on […]

To the Editor: In the midst of a defining moment in American history with the worst health risk in a century and the worst economy in 80 years, Americans are struggling to come together. Yet, while in the recent past the quiet knee of Colin Kaepernick on the field was met with criticism, shocking video […]

No, and let’s ignore all that pious blather about dialogues and discussions as well, if not more so. Most of these innocent sounding calls for “conversations” about race are hypocritical traps designed to serve one of two purposes: either to signal the virtue and purity of the persons issuing the invitation or to draw simple […]

To the Editor: The Maine criminal justice community, which includes the Maine Chiefs of Police Association, the Maine Sheriffs Association, the Maine Prosecutors Association, and the Maine Department of Public Safety, stand united with Maine people in mourning the senseless and unjust death of George Floyd. Together, we condemn the actions of those law enforcement […]

It is customary to preface all comments on America’s current protest epidemic to recognize that George Floyd died in helpless fear, desperate to breathe. Consider this done. Now let’s move on. I propose to examine some elements in the current national uproar that deserve more attention. First, and always, there’s that old question often heard […]

I give away no secrets when mentioning that the Democratic Party is heavily dependent on the Afro-American vote. This is simple arithmetic. If the Democrats’ usual 90% share of this vote fell to 60% and the turn-out slacks off they have no hope of getting a lock on national power. All political scientists and strategists […]

Given the long and repetitive history of pestilence, plague, and epidemics there’s no good reason to be surprised by our current pandemic. Since no early warning system exists and none is foreseeable, the pandemic now afflicting the human race was logically predicable. The time, characteristics, and intensity of our present affliction could not be predicted. […]