Every time I rip open a lovingly wrapped gift (and plenty of us will be doing a lot of that soon), one thing pops into my mind: trash. The wrapping paper, trash. The package hidden underneath it, trash. And the gift itself, in most cases, future trash, given enough time. Too harsh? Then ask yourself: […]
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 inOp-Eds, Opinion
Tom Waddell: Maine should end its funding of private schools altogether
The state doesn’t have to send public money to schools operated by Christian nationalists.
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Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: Listen up. The closing of the teenage mind is almost complete
My revelation came in the spring, after a typical day in 11th-grade AP English. The topic was gender and how the experiences of the authors we were studying related to our world today. Unfortunately, I didn’t hear anything I hadn’t heard many times before. Class discussions tend to go like that. We’ve been inculcated with […]
Posted inEditorials, Opinion
View from Away: Democrats, make a border deal to save Ukraine
In exchange for approving a supplemental national-security bill providing aid to Israel and Ukraine, Republican lawmakers are insisting on a far-reaching crackdown on the flow of migrants at the US’s southern border. Many Democrats continue to resist the GOP’s demands. They should reconsider. The Republicans’ plan is not unreasonable. They want to increase detentions of […]
Posted inEditorials, Opinion
Our View: Remarkable population growth, remarkable opportunity for Maine
Big-picture changes in American life are playing into Maine’s strengths.
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: Supreme Court should make it clear Trump is not above the law
Should former president Donald Trump be immune from federal criminal prosecution for his conduct in the run-up to Jan. 6? He’s argued both that his position as president should make him immune from prosecution and that because the Senate did not convict him after he was impeached, criminal charges would amount to a kind of […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: New dietary guidelines for Americans? Nobody cares
News that the U.S. government’s next set of dietary guidelines for 2025-30 may include warnings against ultra-processed foods should be greeted with ultra-cautious optimism. The committee that revises the guidelines every five years, appointed by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services, has too many members with conflicts of interest, […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: What’s it like to be an average American?
One of the best ways to get a picture of a nation is through its numbers and, perhaps more importantly, its averages. But Americans like to believe that their nation is exceptional. And in some ways, it is. Yet what transpires on an “average day” for the “average person” tells a story that each of […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: Only a seismic shift can reverse the rise in suicides among older adults
America is getting older. That was the snapshot given earlier this year by the U.S. Census Bureau. Our median age is about 40 and rising. In a third of the states, it’s already higher. Remember that, while also considering this: America’s suicide rate in 2022 was the highest seen since 1941 — the tail end […]
Posted inEditorials, Opinion
View from Away: University presidents proved spectacularly inept on Capitol Hill. Resignations should follow
On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York posed the same question to the presidents of Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania, proxies all for America’s liberal intellectual elite. The repeated question for Claudine Gay of Harvard, Liz Magill of Penn and Sally Kornbluth of MIT from the […]