Letter
Ben Bragdon
Staff Writer
Ben Bragdon is managing editor of the Sun Journal. Prior to that, he was deputy managing editor for news at the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel. Ben was previously editorial page editor for those newspapers and Central Maine Sunday for more than 10 years. Before that, he was managing editor for weekly newspapers at Current Publishing in Westbrook. He began his career as a reporter at the Piscataquis Observer in Dover-Foxcroft and editor at the Moosehead Messenger in Greenville. He has a bachelor’s degree in history from Boston University.
Posted inEditorials, Opinion
View from Away: The Supreme Court can and must protect gay and transgender workers
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled four years ago in favor of same-sex marriage, gay Americans in many parts of the country found that they could be married on Sunday only to be fired from their jobs on Monday because of their sexual orientation. This unjust situation endures today, but the court has an opportunity […]
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Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Gina Barreca: Trapped in the bathroom of double standards
There was some good news last week: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi formally announced that, having provided 110 million latrines in five years, India is now officially “open defecation-free.” There are worse ways to chronicle the history of the world than through plumbing. Archaeologists, paleopathologists and anthropologists have been writing about toilets with a sense […]
Posted inEditorials, Opinion
Our View: Firefighters’ greatest risk comes after the call is over
Departments, lawmakers should take steps to protect firefighters from cancers caused by exposure to toxic fumes.
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Maria Panaritis: Smartphones are grenades in our kids’ pockets — and we’re not doing enough about it
Fireworks exploded first thing on a recent morning — and it was amazing: Twitter was crackling with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg blasting Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren, and Warren doubled down on a pledge to break up the social media behemoth to protect us all from the monopolistic company’s darker side. The smackdown began with […]
Posted inEditorials, Opinion
View from Away: US betrays Kurds
President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northeastern Syria, opening the way for a possible incursion by Turkish forces, is everything his critics say it is: impulsive, unwise and a betrayal of the Syrian Kurds on whom the United States relied in the war against Islamic State. Characteristically, the president is now engaging […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Cass R. Sunstein: Trump’s defiance of the House inquiry is hard to defend
The White House’s fierce response to the impeachment inquiry by the House of Representatives, calling the enterprise “an unconstitutional effort” and a violation of “constitutionally mandated due process,” seems to make one commitment: noncooperation. The key sentence in the eight-page letter, signed by White House counsel Pat A. Cipollone, is this: “Given that your inquiry […]
Posted inEditorials, Opinion
View from Away: Internet’s future rests on California’s defense of net neutrality law
The future of the internet as we know it rests in California’s ability to defend what is widely regarded as the nation’s most robust net neutrality law. The stakes couldn’t be higher for consumers and small businesses seeking to preserve equal access to the internet: The outcome will determine whether users will have the ability […]
Posted inEditorials, Opinion
Our View: Lead poisoning requires a solution as big as the problem
Lead paint and pipes are poisoning children at an astounding rate, costly billions of dollars in spending on health care, crime and special education.
Posted inEditorials, Opinion
Our View: Child poverty needs more than a growing economy
One of the greatest periods of economic growth has not kept millions of American children from living lives on the brink.