Archive for ‘Opinion’

  • Small World: Waging a real war on drugs

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist Fifty-seven deaths occurred in 2014 in Maine from heroin overdose, the Portland paper reports. The next day, the paper reports that the governor wants to call out the National Guard to deal with the emergency — in exactly what way is left blank. Meanwhile the legislature has added funds for […]

  • Almost home: Who wins and loses in our Mall America?

    By Michael T. Corrigan BN Columnist Tumbled into several long blocks beside the broad Connecticut River, Brattleboro, Vt. boasts an extraordinarily packed downtown, with several handsome stone public buildings interspersed along commercial streets of red brick. It is an attractive city, only slightly threadbare from long use, and further decorated with some larger old homes […]

  • Small World: A flag of heritage or oppression?

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist I might be coming a bit late to the loud debate over official display of the flag of the Confederacy, but I am moved to do so after reading Christopher Dickey’s Our Man in Charleston. Dickey describes the work of the British Consul in Charleston in the years before and […]

  • Uppermost House: I am standing, corrected…

    By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist Two weeks ago, I wrote a nostalgic little column for this newspaper using the scratches that my children put in our dining room table with eating utensils as a kind of lament over time long past. After I tapped in the final period, I pondered a title. Often the […]

  • Small World: Traffic jams, long lines, higher taxes — why?

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist Why is it that one of the most damaging, wrong-headed ideas afflicting the world is so little discussed and so weakly blocked? I refer to the efforts — in many places successful — to prevent birth controls from being exercised. As a consequence, the world’s population is zooming out of […]

  • Small World: Let us now praise famous men (and women)

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist It is the customary practice of newspaper columnists that they attack the reputations of individuals and groups; tear down, never build up; ignore virtues, chase after vices. Thus, there is an irresistible urge to go after Donald T—p. I resist even the mere mention of his name in order not […]

  • Uppermost House: A long for the fork

    By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist High from the north the new summer dawn slants in early, golden and burning above the distant ridge and slicing through a muggy haze over the meadow and blazing in through the window, streaking and glinting across the top of our dining room table. I bought the table 16 […]

  • Small World: U.S. and Iran reach agreement

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist Last week, I offered a column presenting a sharp analysis of the current Middle East by quoting the views of a broadly experienced and wise former ambassador. Today, for a discussion of the U.S.-Iran deal on the latter’s nuclear program, I aim even higher: To obtain an authoritative and detailed […]

  • Small World: Informed insight on the Middle East

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist A retired Foreign Service friend came to visit last week and I put the following questions to him. Edmund Hull speaks fluent Arabic and after working in several Near Eastern hot spots ended his career as Ambassador in Yemen which he later wrote about in High-Value Target: Countering Al Qaeda in […]

  • Darkside of the Sun: Maps & Me

    By Mike Corrigan BN Columnist We are hungry for stories, and I am hungry for elsewhere. When I was in fifth grade I copied out of Collier’s Encyclopedia maps of Tennessee (tilted), Maine (extruded), Texas (warped), Wisconsin (butchered), Florida (dangerously warped) and Arkansas (don’t even ask). Given my draftsmanship skills, or lack of same, I would […]