Archive for ‘Opinion’

  • Uppermost House: Scoot over, sister

    By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist Making sense of life is sometimes a matter of keeping an eye on perspective. The full moon looming up over the trees beyond our meadow looks huge, but if I stretch my arm out and close one eye I can easily cover its bright orange orb with my thumb. […]

  • Small World: Human disaster in the Middle East

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist If you believe, as I do, that the primary object of diplomacy ought to be to save lives, then you, too, condemn American policy in Iraq and Syria. Not only have we inflicted grievous harm on those countries — when we were neither attacked nor threatened — we have prepared […]

  • Darkside of the sun: About those e-mails

    By Mike Corrigan BN Columnist All you have to do is drop the name of the World’s Most Respected News Organization and doors open. Yes, then they slam shut again, and wild laughter echoes from inside the room. But doors do open. When I asked the Department of Justice to see Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server, […]

  • Small World: O, can you see an enemy?

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist The question for this Thursday’s debate is what is the quality most essential for a serious, successful government, popular at home and feared, loved or respected abroad? Many Europeans will immediately chant, “An inspiring national anthem!” No American who has had to sit through four verses before a ball game […]

  • Small World: An unhappy bit of history

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist “If you can’t annoy somebody, there is little point in writing,” ― Kingsley Amis, “Lucky Jim.” A BNews critic wrote recently, “Henry was the Iranian Desk Officer for the State Department when we failed to support the Shah in 1978, 1979. Had we, many lives, dollars, etc. would have been […]

  • Small World: A modest proposal

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist Republican presidential candidates by the score (it seems) are calling for something to be done about the 11 (plus or minus) million illegal aliens who reside among us. The loudest voices demand that illegals be returned to their homes of origin and made to stand in visa lines like everyone […]

  • Uppermost House: Sucking up the ladybugs

    By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist I could never be single. My wife Karen and I do lots of stuff together. Have for over three decades. We don’t live extravagantly. Can’t afford it. Wouldn’t do it anyway. And so our days are simple and straightforward, ordinary; some might even think them lackluster and pedestrian. We […]

  • 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 […]