This is a column about saving whiteness. It’s precipitated by an incident several days ago at a bookstore in Washington. Seems that author Jonathan M. Metzl was giving a presentation when a group of white nationalists barged in. They formed a phalanx between him and the audience, and one of them harangued the crowd with […]

WASHINGTON — If Shakespeare had titled Attorney General William Barr’s appearance on Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he would have called it “Much Ado About Nothing.” Democrats seized on the supposed “bombshell” that special counsel Robert Mueller wrote a letter to Barr expressing dissatisfaction with the attorney general’s four-page memo to Congress from March […]

NEW YORK — Understanding Donald Trump’s foreign policy is a challenge, since the president has written and spoken little on the subject for most of his life. So how to make sense of his worldview? Is there a Trump Doctrine? Michael Anton, a former Trump national security official, believes there is, and he explains it […]

One of the primary demands of people of faith is that we acknowledge that every life as sacred and therefore love one another in word and deed. For decades we have been told that, strange as it seems, the best way to love one another when it comes to drug use is through preventative and […]

Jayce Holt, who was a lovely, kind and friendly little boy, died Wednesday in Rumford. The circumstances of his death are truly tragic, as are the circumstances of every fatality on our roads. Our reporting staff, myself included, have covered too many of these casualties over the years in our news reporting role. In many […]

In the decade prior to World War II, the organization that claimed the international mantle of virtue, The League of Nations, was plainly aware of, yet studiously ignored, the facts of Germany’s re-armament in violation of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles (ending World War I). Winston Churchill warned in the 1930s of what […]

WASHINGTON — There are times when it seems we’re worrying about things that aren’t worth worrying about. A good example these days is inflation. Amazingly, the complaint is that it’s not rising fast enough. In March, the consumer price index, or CPI, had increased 1.9% over the past year. The gain of another inflation indicator, […]

As climate technology advances, the incredible is becoming creditable. Someday, a guy sitting in a bunker may be able to alter the planet’s temperature by fiddling with a cosmic thermostat. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. There are basically two approaches to climate engineering. One is to capture greenhouse gas emissions and bury them. The […]

Like being stuck on the turnpike on a summer afternoon, there are moments when one realizes that a change in the route is the wiser choice. We know where we want to go but to “get there from here” may require new thinking and a more comprehensive approach. As a University of Southern Maine (USM) […]