What will it take to make Maine’s future prosperous? It will require indigenous development of 21st-century technologies that add value to the state’s unique natural resources, especially its expansive forests and long coastline. A glimpse of that future can be seen at the Technology Research Center in Old Town, opened in 2012. A public-private partnership […]

REARVIEW MIRROR By Elliot Epstein President Obama’s difficulty in explaining to the American people the need to expand the Afghan War stems from the fact that the war is not about Afghanistan at all. For nearly two centuries, wars in Afghanistan have been a function of geopolitics — great powers pursuing a strategy of keeping […]

Sales are down and the future bleak, but owners still say you can pry their Hummers from their cold, dead hands. They rumble in on treads called Super Swampers, wearing their hearts on their license plates. “PLAYDRTY,” one behemoth declares. “HUM THIS,” dares another.The digital board fronting the Shell station at Exit 100 winks back: […]

RIVERSIDE TOWNSHIP, N.J. – The main road into Riverside Township hugs the wide Rancocas Creek as it makes its final meander toward the Delaware River.Past the cemetery, near where the two rivers meet, tight rows of century-old houses built for generations of millworkers give way to a one-stoplight downtown.Schoolkids sip cups of Boost!, a syrupy […]

Harley guys who rev their engines loud enough to injure bystanders … yep, they’re jerks. Recently, when I was having a hamburger at an outdoor restaurant, two guys started up their Harley-Davidson motorcycles, parked maybe 25 feet from me. Naturally, being Harley guys, these were rebels – lone wolves, guys who do it Their Way, […]

Guess what: Americans are too fat. This fact was discovered recently by a panel of concerned experts and reported extensively in the news media, as though it were a shocking revelation.The truth, of course, is that we Americans already know we have a weight problem. We notice it every time we get out of the […]