The year 2017 was a positive year for the town. Town meeting we elected a new selectman. That I feel gave us three good common sense people. All three selectmen had no experience as selectmen but I feel they are doing a good job.

Even after five years as a senator, there are some things you just never get used to, and the State of the Union is right there at the top of that list. This yearly tradition isn’t about the president – it’s about the presidency.

We need to treat our elderly with respect and let them keep their dignity. And we must let them keep their homes.

The world of sports and the world of politics have many similarities. Winners and losers. Fierce competition. Obsessive, almost cult-like, devotion to individual people and teams. Cheering crowds.

The new superintendent of Long Creek Youth Development Center, the state’s prison for kids, seems like a great person.

Ten years ago, Dominique Moceanu, a 1996 Olympics gold medalist, accused her former coaches of emotional and physical abuse. Rather than taking her allegations seriously, however, USA Gymnastics was dismissive of the concerns Moceanu raised.

There’s a horrific type of child abuse happening right here in Maine, and we must stop it. It is graphic and disturbing. No child should ever be subjected to violence, especially when leaves them permanently disfigured and interferes with normal bodily functions.

Gov. Paul LePage cannot simply wave his arms and make laws -- or the truth -- disappear. Though he often attempts both.

It is a terrifying time to be a parent. Monday evening, I learned that a student in my oldest son's middle school had passed away. The next day, media reports stated that the Maine State Police were investigating her death as a possible suicide.

Sometimes, when a football team has a prolonged losing streak, it creates a cycle that’s hard to break. The good folks of New England haven’t recently experienced this challenge (as evidenced by yet another Super Bowl trip – go Pats!), but unfortunately, the U.S. Senate is currently dealing with exactly that problem.

Happy midwinter! No doubt about it, time is marching on for all of us. So it is time to bring everyone up to date on what will be happening in the upcoming year for people who want to stay active, connected, engaged and have fun in our region (and who doesn’t?).

Threatening to deport young adults brought here illegally by their parents years ago, the “Dreamers,” is the same as threatening young legal citizens with a prison sentence because it was discovered that their parents had placed them in the getaway car during their bank robbery years ago.

We are happy to see that Maine’s federal delegation unanimously supports bipartisan legislation to end an arbitrary cap on the annual amount Medicare will cover for those who need outpatient therapy services. These arbitrary spending limits are preventing older Mainers from receiving the rehabilitation care they need from their therapists.

I’d like to think I’d be different, though I hope I never find out.

Tom Kawczynski was fired as the town manager of Jackman this week after his radical, racist agenda was exposed. After news about Kawczynski surfaced last week, I spent some time on his New Albion website and in the underworld of Gab, an alt-right Twitter alternative, and on Kawczynski’s Facebook page. While the white separatist and racist beliefs he espoused are terrible, I was more amazed by the openness with which he talked about his views and his goals of creating a white ethno-state in northern Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.

Nearly 30 million Americans have diabetes, including more than 137,000 Mainers. Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure, blindness in adults, and amputations not related to injury, and it is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S., claiming some 70,000 lives each year.

Last July, I wrote a column that implored you to ignore fundraising reports and polls in the gubernatorial contest. Today is your first test to see whether you listened or not.

Some Republicans, it appears, suffer from situational hearing impairment. Present in a room, listening to an audio tape, reacting to a reporter’s questions, members of the Republican Party aren’t able to hear clearly -- at least if they’re to be believed.