WITH THE START of the new school year, classrooms all over the country have no doubt been declared nut-free zones. As the parent of a child in elementary school, I’m familiar with the warnings: “Please, no nuts due to allergies!” As the mother of a child with severe allergies, I’d like to suggest a different approach: Don’t restrict allergens at all.
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TINA DUPUY: N.Y. bucks trend of identity politics
IN THE 2013 New York City Democratic mayoral race, the primary didn’t only look like New York, it looked a lot like America: There was an openly gay woman, an Asian-American, an African-American, a Jewish man and a former activist with a mixed-race family (he’s a 6-foot-5 white guy). Was it parity with the population? No. But was it this much-coveted diversity of contestants? Yes.
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GEORGE SMITH: Climate change threatens fisheries, including Maine’s brook trout
WE’VE HEARD AND read a lot about the alarming increase in green crabs in coastal waters, and the devastating impact the crabs have had on mussels and clams. Lobsters may be next.
Posted inOpinion
DON ROBERTS: More Snowe is forecast for Maine
People who care about what is happening to our nation must read “Fighting for Common Ground” by former U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe. In this book, Snowe states the case for how we can fix the stalemate in Congress and bring civility back to the American political scene. Old memories came floating back as I read […]
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DAN DEMERITT: Syria warranted decisive action, not congressional deliberation
SEN. ARTHUR VANDENBERG of Michigan, speaking at the dawn of the Cold War, is credited with the phrase, “politics ends at the water’s edge,” a now widely held point of view that suggests the United States should speak to the rest of the world through a unified and authoritative voice.
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MAINE COMPASS: Proposed changes to hospital rules a threat to Maine’s rural health care
CHANGES PROPOSED IN the Critical Access Hospital program threaten the participation by many of New England’s rural hospitals, including Redington-Fairview General Hospital in Skowhegan.
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COMMENTARY: Life in the Hamptons is good again as 1 percent makes up lost ground
THE MOST DISAPPOINTING fact about how little things have changed on Wall Street five years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. is not that the Dodd-Frank Act is ineffective. Or that no substantive regulations are in place that might prevent the recurrence of a crisis. Or that no Wall Street executive has been held even remotely accountable for failing to manage his firm effectively. Or even that the Federal Reserve’s easing policies have mostly propped up Wall Street banks at the expense of American savers.
Posted inOpinion
GEORGE SMITH: Moving to the Maine Stream
THE NATIVE CONSERVATIVE is no more. In 1991, I gave Doug Rooks, then the newspaper’s editorial page editor, a bunch of suggested names for my column when it started running weekly.
Posted inOpinion
COMMENTARY: 10 changes since 9/11
THE UNITED STATES and the world have changed significantly in the dozen years since terrorists hijacked jetliners and launched the biggest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. Here are 10 of those changes.
Posted inOpinion
FROM THE STATE HOUSE: New cellphone protection law makes Maine a national leader
I am now the proud owner of an iPhone. What an amazing invention! Making phone calls is only the beginning. I can figure out exactly where I am on the face of the earth, identify the best Chinese restaurant in Ames, Iowa, and plot a turn-by-turn course to drive there, all the while pinpointing exactly where I am along the way.