Archive for ‘Opinion’

  • 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 […]

  • Small World: Slouching toward Fryeburg

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist Two questions weigh upon me as clouds lower upon the Lake Region. They leapt to mind as the chassis of my small car bounced from pothole to rut to crevice on a trip to Fryeburg and back to Bridgton. The surface of that pavement is much like that of the […]

  • Uppermost House: Shout out to a small town

    By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist I love small towns. Specifically the small collection of rural towns that have surrounded and comforted me and my family for the last 34 years. “But they’re so insular,” say the naysayers from away. “Everybody knows everybody else’s business.” As if constantly locking and unlocking doors and not knowing […]

  • Small World: Legal non-citizens or fellow humans?

      By Henry Precht BN Columnist Governor LePage has recently informed Maine cities that they would no longer be reimbursed by the state for General Assistance (GA) payments made to “legal noncitizens.” If you are one of those unfortunate targets of the governor’s penny-pinching exercise, I wish you would call me to explain your place […]