Archive for ‘Opinion’

  • Uppermost House: The puck stops here

    By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist I’ve endured the humiliation long enough. I curl. There, I said it. Yes, curl, as in curling, that dramatic winter sport wherein men and women wearing silly pants and carrying brooms chase sliding rocks slowly down an ice rink. The sport they kept making fun of during last month’s […]

  • Small World: Ukraine and You

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist In a discussion a few weeks back I raised the question why we Americans didn’t flood out on the streets when we were unhappy with our government. I overlooked one, perhaps critical, factor: We are too smart to put our country at risk of collapse. These words are intended as […]

  • Dark side of the sun: A fate that never turns aside

    By Mike Corrigan BN Columnist Henry David Thoreau, who saw the need a century and a half ago for creating power from tides and wind and sun, wrote: “We have constructed a Fate that never turns aside.” Thoreau’s omnivorous Fate perfectly foreshadows the current crisis of worldwide species and habitat destruction, and the scientific certainty […]

  • Small World: In with the old

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist Last week, I had a full day of servings for the intellect:  a lunch-time lecture, in the afternoon reading history, an evening DVD followed by  (most of) a television documentary. Plenty of ideas to mull over and put forward as profound concepts (particularly as they were ones I have long […]

  • On the dark side of the sun: Luddite in training

    By Mike Corrigan News Columnist I have decided to change my religious orientation to somewhere just south-southwest of Orthodox Luddite. This path promises character-building hardships and also should ensure the universal scorn of my luxury-loving countrymen. As a card-carrying citizen of the Sixteenth Century, I won’t have to pretend at parties that I covet the […]

  • Planning Front: Odds and ends

    By Anne Krieg, AICP Director of Planning, Economic & Community Development I will follow everyone else’s thoughts to remark about all the snow we are having! I am not sick of it quite yet, as I grew up in Syracuse, N.Y., and we would get snow in May during college finals! Snow is just a […]

  • Small World: Raise or freeze the minimum wage?

    By Henry Precht BN Columnist Some time this year, there will be a congressional debate and vote on President Obama’s proposal to raise the national minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to  $10.10 by 2016. As you might expect, Democrats favor, Republicans oppose. Chances are that Republican control of the House of Representatives will decide […]

  • Uppermost house: Words that stop me short

    By S. Peter Lewis BN Columnist I read a lot. Words are my vocation, and (especially on blizzardy February evenings) they spill into my recreation, too. I love the sound of words when they’re good. The pace. The cadence. The sudden image. I agree with Annie Proulx, “I am influenced by words and the chewiness […]

  • Darkside of the Sun: Is it over yet?

      By Mike Corrigan BN Columnist I guess the Olympic Games are going on in Russia now, or they’ve just ended. I’m not keeping up, due to the Great Olympic Disappointment of 1940, when I was all ready to represent the United States in the Out of Control Combined Downhill (cross-country skiing over a frozen […]

  • Darkside of the Sun: Young geniuses, time to get to work

      By Mike Corrigan BN Columnist As you have always expected, my young friend, you’re a genius. Sure, the world is full of distractions, and boxes to file yourself away in. A house is a box. A car is a box on wheels. A job is a box. Frankly, it’s time for you to think […]