WASHINGTON — How do you distinguish a foreign policy “idealist” from a “realist,” an optimist from a pessimist? Ask one question: Do you believe in the arrow of history? Or to put it another way, do you think history is cyclical or directional? Are we condemned to do the same damn thing over and over, […]
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Find different way to choose nominee
The frustration of many voters over the way presidential candidates are selected has come to a head with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the presumptive nominees of their respective parties. If this is the best we can do, maybe we should consider a better way. As of May 3, according to fairvote.org, while some states […]
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People love watching nature on nest cams — until it gets grisly
Debate, anger focuses on whether or not to intervenewhen something goes wrong The osprey cam at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute is trained on a nest near the Massachusetts seaside, and the pair that call it home are now waiting for three eggs to hatch. But for the first spring in a decade, the camera is […]
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Let Maine’s north woods join this country’s crown jewels
You shouldn’t look a “gift horse in the mouth,” but a lot of Mainers are doing just that when it comes to businesswoman Roxanne Quimby’s offer to donate 87,500 acres and $20 million to establish a national monument east of Baxter State Park in northern Maine. (Unlike national parks, which must be authorized by Congress, […]
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Trump ideology imported from Europe
WASHINGTON — Here’s the irony of Donald Trump’s “America First,” immigrant-bashing, free-trade-averse, make-us-great-again nationalism: It is a European import. The American right has typically been anti-government, reverent of the Constitution, suspicious of political strongmen and resolute in insisting that “American exceptionalism” makes us different from other nations. But Trumpism is not an American original. Almost […]
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Airport security the victim of budget hatchet
I was about to share my own sob story, when I read that hundreds of passengers missed their flights at Chicago O’Hare International Airport because of hourslong security lines. Many had to sleep on cots overnight, awaiting a morning escape. American Airlines says that in March, about 6,800 travelers missed its flights at the busiest […]
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U.S., Vietnam share strategic interests
The Obama Administration’s decision to permit sales of U.S. weaponry to Vietnam is another step toward publicly acknowledging that a trans-Pacific coalition is forming to oppose China’s imperial expansion in southeast Asia and east Asia. The Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea and the U.S. are key members of this coalition, which began emerging more than […]
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Bathroom bigotry, then and now
She was Japanese, a temp sent over by some naive agency to fill a spot in the files department. Back then, before computers, an enormous room was devoted to files. This was at an insurance company where I worked. It was located in the Empire State Building, ninth floor. The company had only a corner […]
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Trump reveals his choices for Supreme Court
In releasing his list of potential Supreme Court nominees, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has begun to solidify his support among conservatives as perhaps no other announcement could do. The record of any of the 11 judges currently serving on federal or state benches may calm the fears of those who are not […]
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The most dangerous place in the world
I hesitate to bring up facts. If recent years have proven nothing else, they’ve proven that we have fully embarked upon a post-factual era wherein the idea that a thing can be knowable to an objective certainty — and that this should matter — has been diminished to the point of near irrelevancy. Donald Trump […]