Two quotes from the report on Gov. Janet Mills speaking to the Rotary Club in Waterville last week: “She’s in a tough position,” Mills said of (Susan) Collins. “I appreciate everything she is doing.” And: “I hear people all over the state saying the price of coffee is going up.” Is it bold statements like […]

Recently, I spiraled into a severe depression. I sought help at the PARC Unit, a psychiatric facility at Pen Bay Medical Center. Upon admission, I was placed in a windowless room with a bed and TV. A security guard sat outside the room. I felt like I was in jail. The unit offered little in […]

Many thanks to Edith Wacksman for her Sept. 11 letter, “I don’t feel myself to be ‘from away.” My family has been in Maine since the 1700s and when I first moved back to Maine in 1976, after college and my first job, I loudly bragged about my native status. However, I soon realized how […]

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, countless articles have been written about him. Most simply mention he was a conservative activist, as if he advocated for traditional conservative principles like small government or individual liberties.  What’s often left out are his actual words, perhaps because they aren’t suitable to print. About Black people he […]

Learning more about the idea of blue states uniting to support each other, if they were to financially secede from the federal government, has been fascinating.  A so-called “soft secession.” Canada annexing Maine for its 11th province was definitely an attractive idea, albeit remote, after the 2024 election. But I was recently reminded that blue states […]

The GOP has recognized that education poses a challenge to its agenda. In response, it has appointed figures like Linda McMahon, known for her background in the World Wrestling Federation, as secretary of education. Funding for public schools has been systematically reduced. At the same time, sympathetic courts have facilitated the redirection of public resources […]

I’m old enough to remember, during the Second World War in Brunswick, Maine (where I’ve lived all my life), everybody from the right and the left joined together as one fighting fascists and Nazis — not to mention the Japanese. I have had relatives who served with Joshua Chamberlain in the Civil War. They also […]