NEW YORK — I think of myself first and foremost as an American. I’m proud of that identity because as an immigrant, it came to me through deep conviction and hard work, not the accident of birth. I also think of myself as a husband, father, guy from India, journalist and New Yorker. But in […]
Op-Eds
Posted inOp-Eds
Sharia courts treat women, men differently
LONDON — Set aside for a moment the violent incidents associated with people claiming to act under the authority of their Islamic faith and consider instead what passes for normalcy. Some in Britain would like to elevate to the level of wide-scale acceptance Sharia law, an Islamic legal system predicated on the religious tenets of […]
advertisement
Posted inOp-Eds
Mainers to feel costly impact of Question 1
Nancy Pelosi once famously said of the Affordable Care Act that the U.S. Congress had “to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it.” The same could be said by Southern Maine voters who last month voted to pass Question 1, which drastically increased the amount of state funding going into […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Ill-conceived voting petition aimed at Lewiston collegians
If I am ever tempted to claim that I am involved in the local community, I stop myself and remember others whose work puts me to shame. Consider Melody, from whom I recently heard. I know her personally, but I didn’t know just how much she was using her spare time to work in the […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Cyberterrorism a very real threat
WASHINGTON — When it comes to cyberwar and cyberterrorism, we need to think the unthinkable, says veteran TV journalist Ted Koppel. And for Koppel, the unthinkable is this: Someone hacks into the nation’s electric power grid and causes large parts of it to crash for a prolonged period. Anyone who has endured a blackout from […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Op-Eds
As goes Lewiston … so goes Lewiston
Here’s what happened in Lewiston this week: Voters went to the polls on Tuesday and returned an incumbent mayor to office. Despite an energetic and extremely well-funded campaign by the challenger, voters selected an older and controversial conservative curmudgeon over a young progressive. Here’s what didn’t happen: Voters did not come out to make a […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Stop tying terrorist attacks to unrelated issues
Traumatic national events often lead promoters of various causes to attempt a product tie-in. The terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, was no exception. The agendas may be worthy of support, but trying to Scotch-tape them onto only vaguely related circumstances comes off as phony. This is done across the political spectrum, but in the […]
Posted inOp-Eds
U.S. Muslims can help fight terrorism
The old proverb speaks to the difficulty of finding the rare and concealed amid the normal and visibly numerous: Within the haystack, the needle hides. The terrorist couple who murdered 14 people in San Bernardino, California, were radical religious murderers hiding among loyal, law-abiding Americans. Forget the needle. Tashfeen Malik and her husband, Syed Rizwan […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Save some rage for blacks killing blacks
So where was the march for Tyshawn Lee? Where were the demonstrators barring access to stores in Chicago’s premiere commercial district on the busiest shopping day of the year? Where was Rev. Jesse Jackson, joining his voice with a thousand other people demanding justice? Where were news media, beaming the images out to the world? […]
Posted inOp-Eds
U.S. must take action against terrorists
LONDON — Wisdom can often be found in unexpected places. During debate in the House of Commons on whether Britain should join the U.S. and Russia in bombing ISIS targets in Syria, Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary of the liberal Labour Party, delivered a speech that approached Winston Churchill in its vision: “And we […]