Archive for ‘Opinion’

  • Small World: Politics from the pedestal

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist I was out for an evening stroll up by the Civil War monument not long ago when I heard a voice say, “Howdy.” An old man’s voice, cracking from disuse. I looked around. The streets were empty. Suppertime for most Bridgton people. “Up here,” the voice chuckled. Up there was […]

  • Uppermost House: The best hardest job

      By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist “Are you coming down with something?” the man asked his daughter as he walked by. She was home for a few days of rest with her family. A much-needed break from getting her second college degree. Enjoy mom’s cooking, dad’s laughter, a few nights back in her old […]

  • Small World: What ails conservatives?

      By Henry Precht BN Columnist When we visited New York a few weeks ago, we saw an exhibition of German paintings and drawings from the period between World Wars I and II. Depicted were fat, evil-looking plutocrats, floozy women and the pitiful poor begging. That was the time of the Weimar Republic, a flaccid […]

  • Small World: Too big to succeed

      By Henry Precht BN Columnist This title is the subject of our discussion for today. Normally, its opposite meaning (“too big to fail”) is applied to the giant banks of New York. It means that their failure would have such widespread consequences that if they collapsed the damage would be too great to tolerate. […]

  • Uppermost House: Of entropy and shrimp curry

      A bunch of centuries ago, guys like C. Columbus got the bright idea of finding The East by heading west from Spain. My wife and I used the same logic last weekend to install a new washing machine, although we traveled east. Our family is living proof of the second law of thermodynamics, entropy […]

  • Small World: Who is to blame?

      By Henry Precht BN Columnist As I write, people in Colorado Springs are probably still trying to understand the shootings that took place on the day after Thanksgiving. The press reports that a 57-year-old man used an AK-47 assault rifle to kill three people, including one police officer, and wounded nine others in an […]

  • Small World: Our second war on terrorism

      By Henry Precht BN Columnist Terrorism is the topic of the day. That is one proposition that all can agree on. Beyond that, the floor is held by politics, ideologies, ethnicities, religions and the cacophony of voices that fill our public arenas. The range of solutions proposed stretches wide: unrelenting military force on one […]

  • Uppermost House: Standard, anchor and light

      By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist Un can be an awful prefix. As in unrecognizable, unconscionable, unbalanced, unglued, unhinged. Hard to watch those things happen to a person. Harder when it’s someone you love. Hardest when it’s someone you love so much it’s almost unbelievable. Can’t believe that it could happen. Can’t believe that […]

  • It Dawned on Me: Nine lives and counting upward

      By Dawn De Busk BN Columnist Only its fur moved as the summer-time traffic passed by. The black cat lay on the pavement of Route 11, near the road that takes me home. Is that my cat, I said aloud. Wasn’t my cat alive and alert only 20 minutes ago? So, how could that […]

  • Small World: The larger threat of the Syrian conflict

      By Henry Precht BN Columnist I’ve visited Syria twice, the last time in 2000. Both times were two-week “study tours;” the first as a member, the second, ten years later, as a leader. Two strong impressions remain with me: First and most obvious, the country was a very tightly run police state. Hafez al […]