Recently, I woke up in the morning with reduced hearing in one ear. I am a retired ENT physician, and I immediately suspected the diagnosis: sudden idiopathic sensorineural hearing loss, a very common disease. If people live to 80 years of age, they have an almost 1% chance of suffering from it. But almost nobody […]
Alex Lear
A Maine native and Colby College graduate, Alex has been covering coastal communities since 2001. He lives in the Portland area with his wife Lauren, 4-year-old daughter Alaina, and 7-year-old bulldog Walter. He has released four CDs of original music and does occasional research work for Marvel Comics' collected editions.
Rev. Richard Killmer and Sue Inches: Pine Tree Amendment protects our environmental rights
If the Pine Tree Amendment passes, we’ll be sending a message to the world that a clean and healthy environment is our identity and our priority — for the long term. It would protect investments in business and real estate by ensuring that the environment will remain healthy and clean. It would protect the health of our children and grandchildren, and ensure that no Legislature, governor or law can take their fundamental environmental rights away.
Rich Lowry: Republican establishment still doesn’t get it on immigration
If there’s any lesson that everyone should have learned from Donald Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party, it’s that the party’s old consensus on immigration is no longer sustainable.
Jen Duffy: What the pandemic experience teaches us about child abuse
By relating the child abuse experience to our common experience of the pandemic, we may shed some light on what these children must endure. However, it is important to note that the intensity, severity and duration of these emotions and experiences are not equal.
Leonard Pitts Jr.: Not an open-and-shut case
There is a lesson here that police ignore at their own peril. For all the tools at law enforcement’s disposal — guns, Tasers, badges and batons — one of its most important and effective is simply credibility, worthiness of trust. Unfortunately, police have squandered that commodity.
Cal Thomas: The Chauvin verdict
The guilty verdict against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on all counts was correct, based on the evidence, but the theatrics leading up to that trial and after the jurors had made their decision was outrageous.
Tom Hart: Amendments must be preserved, followed
I cannot believe that some of the Democrats want to defund and get rid of the police — especially Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Maxine Waters, and Chris Cuomo. They are going to ruin this nice country. Too bad we don’t have a good president. He listens to them. He has no backbone. We need Trump back. Because […]
Carmen Comeau Cohen: Canal photos evoke childhood memories
The “Canal cleaning before construction” photo in the April 20 Sun Journal brought back fond childhood memories. Having lived in Pittsfield in the 1940s, and having occasional train rides (steam engine and Maine Yankee trains) to Lewiston to visit our grandparents (Joseph and Leopoldine Samson) — who lived with two of their daughters at 105 […]
Ronald Pineau: Too much speeding, tailgating on Interstate
I traveled from my home in Jay to Scarborough April 20, via Interstate 295. Upon entering I-95 in Augusta, I was immediately tailgated by several vehicles. I set my cruise control to the posted speed limit. I was immediately passed by every vehicle behind me. Upon entering I-295 I was met with the same experience. […]