Editorials - Piscataquis Observer

Editorials

Smoke on the water

I’m usually out of bed at 4:30 in the morning. Moving quietly downstairs into the kitchen, if I have coffee from the night before in my insulated stainless steel LL Bean mug, I take a sip. But if there’s no day-old dark coffee to sip, I brew a fresh mug.

Just say no to bonds

In June, Gov. Janet Mills proposed a package of bonds that amounted to a whopping $239 million in new debt for the state of Maine. On Monday, Mills called for a special session of the Legislature to vote on many of these bonds, highlighting the most popular and widely supported among them by emphasizing the transportation bonds.

There’s still time to pass ranked-choice voting for March primary

Gov. Janet Mills has called the Legislature back into special session next week to consider a smart investment package that includes money for transportation, to boost the economy, to clean up pollution and for the Land for Maine’s Future program.

Lessons from my absent parents

I was helping Dad get dressed for Mom’s funeral. Five days a week, as long as I remember, Dad wore a suit and tie to commute on the Long Island Railroad to-and-from his Manhattan office.

You need to care about what’s happening in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is the single most important arena in the struggle for human liberty on the planet today, and that struggle is in danger of being crushed under the boot of totalitarian oppression.

When it comes to gun safety, it’s time to call out the absurd

In my column last week, I wrote about 30 ideas that could help stem the rising tide of gun violence in the United States. The ideas ranged from background checks and waiting periods to a ban on military-style weapons such as the AR-15 and large capacity magazines.

What the principal used to tell the kids at Columbine

Thursday, August 8, 2019, an unidentified 20-year-old man wearing camo clothes, a bulletproof vest; carrying 100 bullets, a rifle, and a second gun, walked into a Missouri Walmart. He was spotted immediately by an off-duty firefighter with a concealed carry permit who held a gun on the 20-year-old until police arrested him. No shots were fired. No one was killed.

Stop giving in to the mob

Neil deGrasse Tyson is, to a certain generation of people in this country, something of a demigod. He is an astrophysicist, author, director of the Hayden Planetarium and one of the chief pop-science figures of our time.

30 gun safety ideas in 30 seconds

1) Strengthen background checks and close the loopholes that allows someone to buy a gun without one. 2) Ban high-capacity magazines that enhance the killing power of semi-automatic weapons. 3) Require gun owners to be licensed.

DNA and genealogy – Part 1

A few years ago I was interviewed by a newspaper on the future of genealogy and DNA. I went on record that DNA would change genealogy in the future, opening doors we could only imagine. When the piece ran I was chided by a fellow genealogist who insisted that DNA was a flash in the pan and what I said was ridiculous.

What if the handwriting on the wall is cursive?

Where did I learn how to write? I mean penmanship, the whole writing process; from learning to identify and pronounce the upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet, to learning how to form those letters with pencil on paper? How did I learn to write in cursive or script?

Thin Blue Line flag shouldn’t be controversial

Let's say you are in a meeting or class, and it is somebody's turn to speak. The person is long-winded and frequently wastes everyone's time with unproductive babbling.

When it comes to attacks on elections, we’re the ‘suckers’ being targeted

Democracy is under attack in the United States. A recent US Senate Intelligence Committee report found that it’s likely all 50 states were targeted by the Russian government in 2016 as part of that country’s efforts to influence our elections.

First visit to solitary confinement

My first time visiting a solitary confinement unit at Maine State Prison in Warren was like walking into a Federico Fellini movie. I did not visit alone.

Washington will never take debt seriously

Monday, to the apparent notice of no one, congressional leaders and the president came together and agreed to something: spending a lot more money, and putting it on the credit card. Again.

There’s a difference between heirlooms and junk

There are certain tasks most of us will face, assuming we have the good fortune to live long enough. One of those is cleaning out the house of our parents — perhaps the house where we grew up. My mother, Louise Farmer, died in October 2015, and I have put off dealing with her house for almost four years.

Increasing access to high-speed Internet in rural Maine

While the increase in broadband speeds has been dramatic and is encouraging, these numbers mask a disparity between urban and rural Americans. Nearly all Americans living in urban areas have access to the Internet at speeds that meet the Federal Communication Commission’s broadband threshold, while one in four rural Americans do not.

DNA, surnames trace history’s path

In my last column I dealt with family associations. There are other types of associations which can also prove of immense value including DNA studies. These go back in the mists of time. Usually it’s men who are invited to join because their Y-DNA markers show a relationship to other men.

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