Archive for ‘Opinion’

  • Earth Notes: The Doomsday Clock

    By Peter Bollen What is the Doomsday Clock? According to official sources, the Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock face, representing a countdown to possible global catastrophe (e.g. nuclear war or climate change). It has been maintained since 1947 by the members of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, […]

  • Small World: Trying to understand Iranians

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist No one can say how quickly — or even if — U.S.-Iranian relations will develop. Everything will depend on the ease or difficulty with which the final details of a deal on Iran’s nuclear program are worked out. So far, we can be encouraged by the discipline apparently enforced on […]

  • Uppermost House: Zeal of the WikiGnome

    By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist Wikipedia is a strange organism. And the anthropomorphism is intentional. It’s like the earth’s own collaborative and constantly morphing brain. A brain of the people, by the people, and for the people. Literally unthinkable without the Internet, and utterly inevitable because of it. Sometimes awkward and irritating, occasionally unreliable […]

  • Earth Notes: On crows and computers

    By Alice Rose Driving home from work at dusk just past Deering Oaks on the approach to the law school, I’d watch the sky fill in with crows flying from all directions to the same destination, the trees along the edge of the school’s small parking lot. That was years ago now. It was a […]

  • Darkside of the Sun: When will Vronsky retire?

    By Mike Corrigan BN Columnist Victor “Vroom Vroom” Vronsky, star linebacker for the Green Bay Packers, took a cigarette from a small boy, lit it, and burned his autograph into the young child’s forehead. “Oh, thank you, V, thank you!” exclaimed the lad’s father. “Let’s see Bill Dewar’s kid top this!” And the man strode […]

  • Planning Front: Plenty happening as spring arrives

    By Anne Krieg, AICP Director of Planning, Economic & Community Development, Town of Bridgton Plenty is happening along with the March winds barreling down the streets of Bridgton! The Board of Selectmen is receiving applications for a newly created ad hoc committee called the Land Use & Zoning Committee. This committee will recommend land use/zoning […]

  • Uppermost House: What color is the dress?

    By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist You may be the only one left alive on Planet Earth who does not have an opinion about the colors of a certain dress that popped onto the Internet on February 26 (you probably even remember where you were when the lights dimmed). I just typed the WCITD buzz-phrase […]

  • Small World: Not exactly a Billet Doux

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist Forty-seven Republican senators, unhappy with the prospect that the Obama administration and its five international partners may sign an agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program to peaceful purposes, wrote a letter of warning addressed to “the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” The legislators declared, “any agreement without legislative approval […]

  • Uppermost House: Worry is wasted on the young

    By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist My granddaughter Sophie is 20 months old, which means she is in charge of the house. It’s that most dangerous time when she is dramatically mobile, but still quite uncommunicative. Simultaneously insatiably curious, yet uncooperative. She understands right and wrong, safe and dangerous, prudent and careless, in the same […]

  • Earth Notes: The sun shines equally on all — or does it?

    By Frank Daggett  Over 1,000 years ago, John Chrysostom wrote, “We do not need to buy air, water, fire, sunshine, and things of this kind. God has given enough of all these blessings for everyone to enjoy them freely. The sun shines equally on the rich and the poor, and they both breathe the same […]