I was sitting in medical waiting room recently and chanced to strike up a conversation with a 93-year-old Maine woman sitting nearby. She confided that she had buried her husband of 72 years just two weeks ago. Sitting with her, I heard of their 72 years together. They had eight children (plus room for an exchange […]

As a certified CPR instructor and registered cardiovascular invasive specialist here in Maine, I know how quickly a cardiac emergency can unfold. In those first moments, before help arrives, survival depends on the people nearby. That means anyone can make the difference. At Maine Medical Center, I have spent my career caring for patients with […]

I am tired of hearing the phrase “thank you for your service” spoken gratuitously. There are far too many veterans who, returning from service, struggle with homelessness, addiction and devils we cannot imagine.  These veterans need to be helped, understood and stood by. If they fall, they need to be helped up. If they face the struggles […]

I find it hard to swallow that our current president is the face of our country as we approach our 250th birthday as a nation. Isn’t his image plastered all over Washington, D.C., already, like Big Brother’s? (The idea of a new $250 bill with his mug on it? Gimme a break! What am I […]

Why is President Trump willing to pay almost $1 billion of our tax money to increase our utility bills? That is essentially what Trump did when he agreed to pay the French company TotalEnergies $928 million to cancel the leases it already had signed for wind farms in the waters off New York and North […]

Let’s step away from the stepped-up basis.

June 5, 2026, marked 45 years since the first case of HIV was reported. In the early 1980s, a diagnosis was confusing and frightening because the condition was not well understood. As a person who had gotten sick with pneumocystis pneumonia in early 1982, I was told to go home and get my affairs in order. I was given the diagnosis […]

Most Americans have never heard of Section 224 of the House version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. That should concern us. Buried within this massive defense bill is the U.S.-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative, a provision that critics say would move the U.S.-Israel relationship beyond military aid and toward deeper military-industrial integration through […]