If you don’t like the way your political party leans, just wait a while. That paraphrase of the old saw about the weather in Maine (or just about anywhere that isn’t San Diego) exaggerates the situation, but look at how the two major political parties have switched places over the past few decades on the […]

We used to call them “animal crazies,” and we could count on them every year to try to take down the Maine Lobster Festival at Rockland. PETA hasn’t taken down the festival, so you can grab a lobster today at Rockland or any time and just about anywhere. PETA stands for “People for the Ethical […]

By the time I saw “The Front Page,” the show about hard-bitten police reporters in Chicago, the story may have been a bit of an anachronism. The play and movie painted a picture of reporters who came from the street and worked on the street. They weren’t cops or criminals, but they got their living […]

To alter a sentence by Abraham Lincoln, “You cannot please all the people all the time.” Still, maybe we oughta try. We often have but one opportunity to make a relationship, be it romance, friendship or business. It’s not, as Woody Allen said, that “80 percent of life is showing up.” Sometimes he says “success” […]

When the food bank in Anchorage received a trailer-load of pickles in 5-gallon pails, it was clear that things had gone sour. The food bank needed produce and dairy, not pickles galore. That started a round of talks among food-bank managers and suppliers, a round of talks that led to an unusual solution. The free […]

As the old joke has it, if Democrats were to organize a firing squad, they would first form a circle. With almost everything going their way for the mid-term election and with the possibility of making Donald Trump a one-term president in 2020, Democrats may be circling up again. Their ability to snatch defeat from […]

Franklin Roosevelt reportedly promised Americans “a chicken in every pot.” Nowadays it seems that educationists are promising students an “honors” mark in every report card. An article on Monday in the Sun Journal showed that kids graduating from high school in Maine are almost certain to graduate at some “honors” level. At Cape Elizabeth High, […]

There are two kinds of people, those who . . . You’ve heard those words a hundred times, spoken by someone who wants to distinguish between, say, Type A (driven) and Type B (laid back) people, or between those who, say, get up early and those who would pummel those who rise early. Around here, […]

Maine’s chief export, say wags and leaders alike, is Mainers. More than lobsters, more than blueberries, more than vacation snapshots. Maine ships people out by the thousands. Among those shipping out were my forebears, leaving North Norway and Guilford decades ago for brighter prospects in — you guessed it — Massachusetts. Only when my grandparents […]