Opinion
My Turn: Blue eyes, brown eyes, and the lessons learned
By CHRISTINE HAGUE
Fifty years ago, I was a young teacher in the quiet farm town of Hatfield, Massachusetts. Across the Connecticut River, the towers of UMass stood tall against the horizon. On that campus, student activism generated protests for civil rights and...
Susannah Colt: If Lincoln had lived
By SUSANNAH COLT
Abraham Lincoln has been on the minds of many people lately in the midst of the racial justice movement that is catalyzing the nation. After all, he was the president that steered this country through the Civil War and freed 4 million slaves.Our...
Jonathan P. Baird: Remembering Thaddeus Stevens, an anti-racist American hero
By JONATHAN P. BAIRD
Among truly great Americans, I would bet Thaddeus Stevens might be the least well known. An extremely controversial figure in his lifetime, Stevens was a leading light of the abolitionist movement both before and immediately after the Civil...
My Turn: What do people mean when they say America is the greatest country?
By PAUL DeMINICO
The anger many Americans feel about the state of affairs in our country rivals that of the late 1960s. It is profoundly sad. I write this as an observer of American politics from abroad, as I am a retired New Hampshire educator living with my wife in...
Jonathan P. Baird: Sundown towns and the Great Retreat
By JONATHAN P. BAIRD
One positive byproduct of the Black Lives Matter movement is a new willingness to honestly explore our national history. This has been reflected in efforts like the New York Times 1619 Project. American history, as conventionally told, has big gaps....
3-Minute Civics: What is the Executive Council?
By TRACY HAHN-BURKETT
We all know that our state government has three branches. The legislative branch is composed of the Senate and House of Representatives. The executive branch rests with the governor. And the judicial branch is represented by our state court system....
My Turn: No more room for names on Vietnam Memorial? Add a new wall
By JOHN MEINHOLD
How would you feel if your son, brother, father or husband had been deployed to the Vietnam War and then tragically died, but his name is not honored on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (The Wall) in Washington, D.C.? The Pentagon says your loved one’s...
3-Minute Civics: Can my constitutional rights be limited?
By TRACY HAHN-BURKETT
Everyone knows they have constitutional rights. But what is sometimes less well understood is that these rights have limits.Wait, what?It’s true! Let’s start with defining what constitutional rights are and are not. Constitutional rights refer to your...
Ralph Jimenez: The sights and deafening sounds of Puerto Rico
By RALPH JIMENEZ
We are new to snow-birding. Truth be told, we’d always felt righteously superior to those who fled New Hampshire in winter. But then age and injury meant no more snowboarding and no snow meant no more cross-country skiing and snowshoeing, so why not?...
Jonathan P. Baird: Abortion is not like slavery or the Holocaust
By JONATHAN P. BAIRD
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos recently compared the abortion rights debate to the struggle to end slavery. Speaking at Colorado Christian University on Jan. 22, she said: “Lincoln contended with the pro-choice arguments of his day. They suggested...
Letter: Evolution is a theory
In a Jan. 29 letter there was a claim made that Darwin’s theory is fact. Not only is it a theory, it is a theory debunked by science. In the book Darwin’s Black Box, Dr. Michael Behe, professor of biochemistry at Leigh University, explains in the book...
My Turn: FDR, collusion and impeachment
By MICHAEL MOFFETT
In 1940 Franklin D. Roosevelt sought an unprecedented third term as president. But while his first two elections were landslides, the political landscape had changed. Americans were inherently troubled by the notion of an entitled presidency and a...
What do we mean when we declare that health care is a basic human right?
(Last week, we asked readers this question: “Do you believe health care should be considered a basic human right?” Here are the responses we received.) The Founders’ vision I believe health care should be considered a basic human right. It is in...
3-Minute Civics: A bill of rights for teenagers
By ROBERT L. FRIED
Whose rights are foremost in our Bill of Rights? Whose rights are largely ignored? Needless to say, teenagers – along with women, men who didn’t own property, Native Americans and enslaved African Americans – were left out of the framing of our...
My Turn: The warning dream of the turtle
By JEAN STIMMELL
I had a dream the other night I can’t shake: I am driving through a desolate land, over a maze of logging trails, trying to find the location of my new job, when suddenly a giant snapping turtle, almost as wide as my truck, steps into the path and...
Jonathan P. Baird: Early on, journalist Dorothy Thompson saw Hitler for what he was
By JONATHAN P. BAIRD
In studying the history of Italian and German fascism in the 1930s, it is fair to say that the world was not adequately warned about the danger. To a shocking extent, the American press of that era whitewashed and minimized the fascist threat. This...
My Turn: Alan Dershowitz and the age of consent
By ERIC MacLEISH
It has already been a challenging summer for Alan Dershowitz. Now a Fox News favorite, he has been disinvited to cocktail parties on the Vineyard. Then, he was accused by two women of having underage sex with them, all arranged by former client and...
My Turn: God and the American Constitution
By JIM BAER
A recent article in the news caught my attention because of the author’s alarming statement. The writer commented on how important it was that our Constitution includes the name of God in its text. It does not. Nowhere in our Constitution does the...
My Turn: The racist roots of the Second Amendment
By JONATHAN P. BAIRD
Mass shootings have become institutionalized as an almost normal part of American life, as have the responses to such shootings. After each massacre, victims, their families and gun-control advocates bemoan the latest atrocity and call for background...
Letter: The math behind road damage
I lease a plug-in electric car, so I was concerned about the proposal to tax me to offset my reduction in gas tax payments into the highway fund. I’ve been feeling smug about generating the electricity that powers my commute and only using gas when I...
