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Less Power to the People
Imagine attending a town or school deliberative session knowing that the citizens have no authority to increase, or decrease, any spending article, including the operating budgets; employees contracts; capital reserve funds; bonds; or non-profit requests. Even worse, the voting session would be p...0 Comments -
National Perspective: The Winter's Tale
DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa seems like scorched earth today, and not only because there has been an unusual drought of snow this winter. The caucuses are over; the candidates are gone. But a sense of anxiety, even embarrassment, lingers. Part of the extensive unease here comes fro... -
Howe Column: My Wars
When I was finishing prep school, I knew what would happen next, I’d be a soldier. That’s because the United States had invaded Korea, which was a small country in Asia that most Americans had never heard of and those who had heard of it probably couldn’t find it on a map. -
Pants Ablaze
After reading David Brochu’s recent “you kids get off my lawn” piece about Facebook in the Sun, I am only slightly chagrinned to admit that not only do I have a Facebook page; I also have a Twitter account. I tweet, but mostly I follow (or read) the tweets of others. Some of the... -
Hope, Change, Reality
What happens when the lead dog, the lead bull, or the lead stallion weakens? Fighting — until a new one emerges. That could happen quickly or it could take a while. If the United States is perceived by the rest of the world to be in decline, we can expect fighting to increase worldwide.... -
Investments for the rest of us: I don't like Facebook
I guess I am getting old, but I find very little to like about Facebook. I really just don't get it. Essentially, it’s a website created by an immature college student in a fit of infantile rage toward his now former girlfriend. He and his buddies expanded on the idea by posting the "faces"... -
Returning
In Bangor, Maine there is a group of people that greets each flight carrying deploying or returning U.S. troops. I first met a few of them in March 2010 when, as a new second lieutenant in the Marine Corps, I passed through on my way to Afghanistan. There was a greeting line of maybe a dozen or m... -
What in the … Dickens?
I finally concluded that I should read as many of his novels as I could, lest I miss some arcane allusion of historical significance. -
In the Cold
One recent night I woke up to the faint crackling that means my water pipe is freezing. The most reasonable response is, “Well, it’s only three months until April,” which is neither fatalism nor bravado, because I go way back with cold. The home of my youth in Massachusetts was ... -
National Perspective: Which Ike to Like?
In World War II, he tamed America's allies and conquered its adversaries. As a conservative college president, he defended liberal professors caught in a virulent red scare. As NATO commander, he projected strength without projecting force. In the White House, he presided over the sort of peace a...