Archive for ‘Opinion’

  • Snowbound

    Snow began falling during the night, and by the time I woke up this morning everything in the backyard had changed. The little rock that juts up in the middle of the blackberry patch was missing, as was the top edge of the old well cover, and a couple of big boulders that probably were […]

  • Everybody needs a fishbowl

    Five weeks from last Tuesday, I had a midlife crisis because of a chair. A slob by avocation (if not vocation), I’d finally become fed up with myself and decided to weed-whack my office, heave out anything that was actively rotting, and get some better stuff. I needed a new computer monitor, a drafting table, […]

  • A miniature world: my terrarium

    By Alice Darlington A year ago, I received a terrarium for Christmas. It was meant to replace the plants I kept in the sunny windows of my kitchen — plants I no longer had because I didn’t want to risk moisture on our new birch floor. I loved the idea and started to think about […]

  • Dinner

    Snow is falling outside our window at the moment, a gray-white veil that softens silhouettes of trees and gives the backyard a dreamlike feel. Sitting here in this big comfy chair, lulled by the falling snow, it feels very odd to think that only a few days ago we were in Florida visiting family. One […]

  • The well that cannot go dry

    In the summer of 1997, we lived in the Front Range of the Rockies, a place of high altitude and high sun and red dust and blistering heat and cactus and the occasional rattlesnake. At the end of each burning day, I would shuffle down our sidewalk through the swelter, aiming for our front door […]

  • Fixing Maine’s Sex Offender Registry

    By State Senator Bill Diamond The sex offender registry is a useful tool for making people aware of the offenders that live in their community. It is a seriously flawed tool, however, and this year I have introduced legislation to correct the most serious of those flaws. The bill, entitled “An Act To Amend the […]

  • Rapid World Population Growth

    “There are more than twice as many people on the planet today as there were in 1960. …The overwhelmingly young populations of developing countries will produce almost all the future population increase. Even with falling birthrates, the world’s population is still growing by about 80 million people a year. The less developed world will account […]

  • Helping Homeless Vets

    By State Senator Bill Diamond Homelessness is a major problem for veterans throughout this country, and Maine is no exception. Exact figures are hard to come by, but there are estimated to be between 300 and 500 homeless veterans at any one time in Maine, and over the course of a year up to a […]

  • Stop, Look, Listen

    Which season is best for seeing birds? Some folks might think summer is best, because loons serenade us, and hummingbirds hover around our sugar water feeders. Some might prefer spring, when colorful migrants such as warblers, scarlet tanagers, and Baltimore orioles show off from conspicuous perches, filling the air with song. Autumn may not be […]

  • Holding on to what we know

    Sometimes you just know. All This Is We humans think we’re rational and pragmatic; steady, reasoned thinkers building our lives on the bedrock of logic and truth. The world is concrete, knowable; we can write its substance down in books, post its realities on the Web, give ourselves medals for adding to the collective inventory […]