By Brian Langley It is not news that the pandemic has had a major impact on educational outcomes in Maine. One of the most significant effects is that many students have been forced to promote to the next grade without having fully mastered the material. Remote learning, hybrid schedules and, in some cases, less than …
By Todd R. Nelson What makes happy people? Having friends, social connections, interactions between people with commonality. As E.M. Forster wrote, “Only connect.” In a recent column on the subject, David Brooks put a finer point on the skills required. “A lot of the important skills are day-to-day communications skills: throwing the conversation back and …
Are Democrats across this country capable of uniting behind one or two controversial issues and going after the vast millions of Trump-loving Republicans who want nothing more than to impose their version of an autocratic government on the entire United States population? Based on ample evidence that’s been provided in the months since last year’s …
By Craig Stewart In a recent column, “The Maine lobster industry is overlooking weak sleeves” [April 22, 2022], a right whale activist alleged that lobstermen are intentionally ignoring a simple solution to make Maine’s lobster fishery safer for right whales. That is simply not true. Just as I wouldn’t go to a dentist for back …
Back in 2005, President Bush II signed the Renewable Fuels Standard law mandating that a percentage of all transportation fuels used in America contain specific renewable fuels — gasoline and diesel. This was before the development of fracking technology, which soon delivered the unforeseen success of American energy independence. Fracking allowed petroleum refiners and energy …
By Bill McWeeny Currently, Maine lobstermen are under pressure to install weak contrivances, better known as weak links, in their endlines by May 1. This measure is required by NOAA Fisheries to help reduce the risk of endangered North Atlantic right whales from being seriously injured or accidently killed during an entanglement. Maine lobstermen say …
By Roger Bowen However much we might prefer to have more moderates in Congress in this politically divided era, Maine’s senior senator, Susan Collins, does not serve well as a role model. Moderates do not vote against then-president Donald Trump to be impeached, and then, after apparently concluding that Trump had not learned his lesson …
By Kenneth R. Shea Rep. Nicole Grohoski makes some very valid points in her commentary in the March 10 edition of the American. We should be generating our power as close to where it is being consumed and with as little carbon dioxide release as possible. In 2019, we installed an array of fixed tilt …
By Roger Bowen Award-winning author Louis Menand wrote some time ago that “No professional, no doctor or lawyer or architect, wants to have the terms of his or her practice dictated by someone other than his or her peers, people who have the interests of the profession, rather than the interests of some group outside …
By John Bradford Mr. Hank Davis of Brooklin presented an interesting commentary in the March 17 EA titled “The U.S. never pursued diplomacy.” The essence of his thesis is that because the United States ignored Russia’s opposition to NATO expansion to Russia’s western borders following the collapse of the Soviet empire beginning in 1991, Putin …
On Jan. 20, 2021, a Democratic president took office and immediately bypassed Congress and initiated over six dozen executive orders to change life in America. Among these “highest priority” orders were initiatives to acquiesce to the environmental lobby and shutdown the Keystone XL pipeline, which would provide oil from Canada as part of the latest …
By Hank Davis By invading Ukraine, Putin has shown himself to be a war criminal of the first rank. His apparent threat to use nuclear weapons puts him among the worst in history. That said, the Biden administration has been criminally negligent in its refusal to discuss Russia’s concerns with NATO enlargement. Russia has long …
