Archive for ‘Opinion’

  • Small World: Look back in envy

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist Our continuous presidential campaign has one overriding value: It puts before the public the failings of our national enterprises. Of course, candidates don’t probe deeply — who knows what self-incrimination might be turned up? Nor do they want to strain the public’s capacity for studying evidence and coming to judgments […]

  • Guest Column: Wastewater Committee explains its position on Question 3

    “By changing the schedule by which use is assigned, and basing design flows on newer engineering guidelines, much capacity will be gained for the existing system, opening up potential for new users and for expanded users, which will in turn lower the rate per gallon for everyone.” — Bridgton Wastewater Committee   Bridgton’s Municipal Wastewater […]

  • Small World: Learning and relearning the lessons of war

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist I hope many of you watched the PBS program on the last days and evacuation of Americans from South Vietnam in 1975. It was a story of scant planning, panic and, on the part of the ambassador, Graham Martin, refusal to accept the reality of defeat. Almost until the last […]

  • Small World: Where hope becomes desperation

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist Katmandu, Baltimore, the Mediterranean Sea, Yemen, Syria — it has been a grim week of news from around the globe. If we looked a bit further back for the same kind of dark headlines, we could add the migration of Latinos toward our southwest states and violent demonstrations against police […]

  • Darkside of the Sun: Spoiled rotten

    By Mike Corrigan BN Columnist One of the truest things that can be said about Americans is that we’re spoiled rotten. This was brought home again last week when a computer glitch shut down Starbucks for a few hours. Oh, the wailing, the gnashing of teeth! One woman complained, “I’ve got a crying baby in […]

  • Small World: Taking your moral pulse

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist Here’s a moral conundrum for those of you who have done the crossword puzzle and are looking for a challenge. April 24 marked the centennial of the massacre of perhaps 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey, who were killed by government order in their villages or driven into the desert where […]

  • Uppermost House: Serendipity in the barn

    By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist “Hey dad, can you come out to the barn and help me with something?” Coming from a normal person, this sort of innocuous request would barely raise your level of consciousness, being on par with such trifling matters such as being asked to loosen the lid off a jar […]

  • Darkside of the Sun: The horror, the horror

    By Mike Corrigan BN Columnist Kids today, you’re so lucky, you could have been born decades earlier and grown up with 70s “music.” I was thinking of doing a Worst 10 Songs of All Time story and realized if I held the list to the decade of the 70s that would create a list of […]

  • Back in the Day: Bridgton’s Town Hall is 135 years old

    Bridgton’s Town Hall Is 135 Years Old Thursday June 12, 1986 Bridgton News By Tom Johnson Should days of yore e’er be forgot, And scenes of olden time? —From the dedication song of the Town Hall. 1852 On a blustery cold day in January of 1852, Bridgton residents gathered at the just completed Town Hall […]

  • Uppermost House: We have a situation

    By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist The first clue was the pile of broken glass — it was on the wrong side of the storm door. “How did you break the window out of the door,” I asked my teenage son. “I was shooting at a crow and I missed,” he said, casually. And so […]