A piece in today's Bangor Daily News by Aislinn Sarnacki about my dad:

( Read on, Macduff. )

In my last post, I began to discuss Michael Shaara’s aesthetic choices for constructing The Killer Angels as he did, and how he adopted a Lost Cause-interpretation of Robert E. Lee as a central choice for his novel ( Read more... )

Two slightly different takes on my stop Tuesday at Martin Van Buren National Historic Site-coincidentally the 150th anniversary of Van Buren's death:

At Scholars & Rogues:I’ve been passing by the highway exit for the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site, outside Albany, NY, for the better part of four decades, shuffling back and forth between ( Read more... )

With a couple hundred people at the crest of the mountain, it's hard to appreciate the tranquility Cadillac can offer, especially with a warm sun overhead and a cool breeze lifting off the ocean. I like to drive to the top and find a spot where I can sit and be. The whole world feels spread out before me sometimes ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

sent today to my co-workers...For those of you who are in today, you may have noticed a white confetti cake in the coffee room. (I'm not sure who brought that in, but thanks!) If you look closely on the label, you'll see it's from LeBree's bakery in Old Town, Maine--the little mill town on the Penobscot River where I went to high school for two ( Read more... )

S&R is doing a post on pro-wrestling. A bunch of us are chipping in stories. Here's the segment I wrote for it: ( Read on, Macduff. )

I have a story coming up in Northern Woodlands magazine about the Maine Balsam Fir Company (a piece I originally did the interviews for back in October). It's finally slated for the summer issue. I sent the final edited version to Wendy Newmeyer, one of the owners, so she could see it before it hit print. Her response: ( Read on, Macduff )

I feel like I lived Steven Church's The Day After the Day After, even if I didn’t grow up in Kansas. Church manages to capture the nuclear angst that overshadowed my own Cold War-childhood. I was too old for “duck and cover,” but Regan had the arms race in full swing, so the threat of Armageddon loomed over all. “I was afraid of the future,” Church ( Read more... )

"...I have spoken on the floor of the Senate for years about the dysfunction and political polarization in the institution. Simply put, the Senate is not living up to what the Founding Fathers envisioned."

An Op-Ed by Sen. Olympia Snowe from today's The Washington Post