Archive for ‘Opinion’

  • Earth Notes

    By Jen Deraspe Produce from our local grocery store chain travels on average 1,500 miles from the farm to our plates. There are several reasons this is a cause for concern. Generally speaking, the farther produce travels, the less nutritious (and tasty) it is by the time you eat it. In addition, most vegetables and […]

  • Earth Notes: Mouse poison kills more than mice

    By Lega Medcalf Walk into any grocery, hardware, or building supply store and you will come across a large display of rodenticides, a/k/a rodent-killing poisons. Walk around the exterior of many local businesses and even family neighborhoods and you are likely to see innocuous black boxes that contain poisonous bait. “Rodenticide” implies that only rodents […]

  • Uppermost House: I miss you already

    On a recent bitterly cold afternoon, I went out to help my daughter, Amanda, affix something special to the back window of her car. As we walked outside, I saw that she was carrying a mug full of hot liquid, but when I looked closely, I discerned that it wasn’t coffee or tea. This mystified […]

  • Earth Notes: Apathy, deniability and siloing

    By Price Hutchins I was at the dump recently and witnessed an altercation that might have risen to the level of road rage, and was at least a scary confrontation. Two adult men were accusing, yelling, swearing, and squaring off for a fist-fight. Things were getting out of hand quickly. The cause of the altercation […]

  • Small World: The worst deal ever

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist As I pick up my [figurative] pen this afternoon, the radio is reporting that President Trump wants to buy Greenland from the Kingdom of Denmark, of which it is a self-governing territory. None of the expert pundits knowledgeable about such executive branch matters seems prepared to analyze this move, so […]

  • Earth Notes: Coyotes — Nature’s tick control

    By Lega Medcalf Predators, such as coyotes, are part of a healthy ecosystem and are especially beneficial because they control the population of rodents and therefore the population of ticks. Data from long-term Lyme disease studies in both the United States and Europe shows that the risk of contracting Lyme disease is greater where there […]

  • Small World: Messing with elections — theirs and ours

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist One set of facts finds agreement among the opinions of most commentators on the Russian scheme to interfere in our 2016 elections. It seems pretty clear that Moscow really didn’t want to see their harsh critic Hillary Clinton take charge in Washington. They much preferred to deal with friendlier candidate […]

  • What does Universal Healthcare mean?

    By Stan Cohen Guest Column Most advocates of some kind of health care coverage reform support the following basic concepts: • Access to affordable health care is a basic need. Like police and fire services it should be available to all, not just the privileged. • Health care in America is too expensive today and […]

  • On My Corner

    By Bob Casimiro The deadline for a federal budget agreement is Friday, Feb. 15, 2019 and it looks like there might not be a deal forthcoming, so we are facing another government shutdown. Another “Perils of Pauline” moment for the country brought to you by those incompetents in Washington, D.C. A 2015 poll showed the […]

  • Earth Notes: Earth matters

    Earth Matters By Joyce White “The Earth is what we have in common.” — Wendell Berry We humans, with our big fore-brains, have been responsible for creating a stupendous variety of marvelous and useful material objects and systems. But we also appear to be the most stupid of all living beings in that we are […]