The “nation’s doctor” is on a campaign to combat what he calls an epidemic of loneliness and isolation taking its toll on roughly half the people in the United States. His call to action to “mend the social fabric of our nation” deserves broad support, from government, professionals and institutions — and from each of […]
Ben Bragdon
Staff Writer
Ben Bragdon is managing editor of the Sun Journal. Prior to that, he was deputy managing editor for news at the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel. Ben was previously editorial page editor for those newspapers and Central Maine Sunday for more than 10 years. Before that, he was managing editor for weekly newspapers at Current Publishing in Westbrook. He began his career as a reporter at the Piscataquis Observer in Dover-Foxcroft and editor at the Moosehead Messenger in Greenville. He has a bachelor’s degree in history from Boston University.
James Stavridis: US military’s recruiting woes are a national-security crisis
America’s armed services are failing to meet their recruiting goals, with the Army in particular suffering the worst shortfalls in five decades. There are many reasons behind this, but one is very surprising: veterans themselves. Recent reporting and anecdotal evidence indicate the likelihood that children of service members will sign up, or be urged to […]
Commentary: Ignoring the humanity of migrants won’t fix migration problems
For five days, “Breaking News” alerts hit my phone repeatedly with updates on the search for a missing submersible on its way to the Titanic. The search for the five-passenger vessel began only days after an overloaded migrant vessel capsized carrying some 750 desperate people bound for Greece. The migrants aboard came from Pakistan, Egypt, […]
Jay Ambrose: Being fair to each other helps us all
The Supreme Court just acted to get rid of decades-long practices at colleges and universities that have been an illegal, unconstitutional, unprincipled means of discriminating against qualified applicants wanting entry as students. Some instead granted admission in accordance with skin color, which happened in this case to be black, the exact opposite of white preferences […]
‘We hold these truths to be self-evident’
The Declaration of Independence was signed on July 2, 1776, and published on July 4 — 247 years ago today. In Congress, July 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected […]
Our View: State budget proposal would do a lot of good for Maine families
The full Legislature should support the bipartisan spending plan passed last week by the Appropriations Committee.
Ben Bragdon: Maine voters deserve more from Susan Collins than a defense of Donald Trump
Collins, a longtime member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, should recognize the severity of the former president’s actions.
Our View: Once again, gun rights win out over everything else
The Maine Senate missed an opportunity to make the state a little safer by implementing background checks on private firearm sales.
Commentary: 20 short observations from a high school teacher at year’s end
As school wraps for the summer, these notes provide a view into today’s classroom. 1. Students tell me they need their iPhones because their brains are wired differently than mine. One said, “Mr. Miller, we need the dopamine hit.” 2. By accident, an intruder alarm warning went off in one of our district schools, and […]
Tom Waddell: Maine should cut funding for private school altogether
A recent article in the Morning Sentinel reported, “A federal lawsuit is once again challenging Maine’s limits on sending public money to religious schools.” The discrimination argument the plaintiffs are using now is the opposite of their previous argument. One commentator on the above article summed up the plaintiff’s argument by writing: “Previous arguments claimed […]