Archive for ‘Opinion’

  • Small World: The Supreme Court and the election returns

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist Yet another political conundrum! What a season for baffling decisions! First comes the shocking death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Then, almost immediately thereafter, comes the announcement from Republican Senate Majority Leader McConnell that the president should forbear to name a successor and leave that task to the new […]

  • Small World: An ode to age

      By Henry Precht BN Columnist Can anyone remember when the presidential campaign got under way? Or has it always been running? Eternally grabbing headlines? No answers? Another question: What have you learned from the trillions of words expended? Anything about the real future of our country? Anything real about the candidates? Is your thinking […]

  • Uppermost House: In search of spousal pith

      By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist I’ve been married just long enough to know that some decisions should be vetted. For instance, I would never buy a used bulldozer or a box of mallards without my wife’s knowledge and consent. (And yes, you can buy ducks online.) So it was with a sense of […]

  • Small World: Syria simplified

      By Henry Precht BN Columnist Big-time columnists often write by ticking off their points as if for an exam, e.g., “Three obstacles to…” or five myths about…” Let me try, presenting five causes behind the Syrian conflict. The first two are rarely-voiced environment linkages: • Before the present troubles began in 2011, Syria had […]

  • Small World: Dig out facts — don’t demonize

      By Henry Precht BN Columnist Diplomats are normally seen as mild, perhaps timid people associated with tea sipping and good manners. I suppose I could have (barely) passed for one when I was working on Iran in the State Department during the 1979-80 Iran hostage crisis. About midway in that seemingly endless contest of national […]

  • Uppermost House: And there they stood

    By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist The man yanked his car quickly to the curb in the passenger pickup zone at the airport, jumped out without closing his door fully, and hurried toward the baggage-claim door. “I’m sorry, sir,” the security guard barked, stepping into the man’s path and holding up two enormous gloved paws. […]

  • Small World: Home on the range — under Federal care

      By Henry Precht BN Columnist Every Saturday afternoon when I was growing up, our father would take us to the double feature at the movie theater. Inevitably, one of the two films would be a cowboy drama — the lone hero standing up against various bad guys, corrupt officials or a tribe of wild […]

  • Uppermost House: Yo gramps, hoedown 1.21.16

      By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist They’re working on the road I drive on each day, widening it and straightening out some of the kinks. Logging the edges well back and opening new vistas. When finished, I expect to be able to get to work about two minutes earlier, and I’m not sure how […]

  • Small World: Saudi Arabia and Iran — A primer

      By Henry Precht BN Columnist If the Middle East needed to add yet one more conflict, it was certainly not be the clash between Saudi Arabia and Iran. This rivalry, which is geo-political and economic in its ramification, is at heart sectarian: Sunni vs. Shia. It’s hardly a new development. So, let’s look at […]

  • LePage’s racist comment has branded Bridgton

      By Gail Geraghty BN Columnist It’s been a week full of cognitive dissonance, hasn’t it? And irony. On Tuesday Bridgton Selectmen talked about how to go about “branding” the town, but what they didn’t consider was the way we’ve already been branded as a town that tolerates and even celebrates full-blown racism. Nationally there’s […]