Author Archives: Brent

THE ELECTION PROCESS: TRIAL BY ORDEAL

It’s been said before and I’m going to say it again: the presidential election process is a ridiculous, wasteful, abusive–and even repulsive—ordeal for candidates and citizens alike. Probably the most visible part of the pageantry of our democracy, it’s a prolonged, dehumanizing, often humiliating assault on the dignity of those we’d like to be able […]

October 3, 2016 – 2:18 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged | Comments (0)

ME AND MY FRIEND VS. MY FRIEND AND I

For the Annals of Inter-generational Communication, the following report. Twice in the last week younger people of my acquaintance made a remarkable grammatical self-correction mid- sentence. Emily and Amanda, both around 30, in separate conversations with people of their parents’ generation, began to start a sentence with “me and my friend, (my sister, whatever)…” and […]

September 27, 2016 – 1:16 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Nuclear power: what a mess.

What a mess. Nuclear power was once touted as miracle of the future which would provide virtually free electricity. A nuclear power plant’s smokestack-less, clean profile was the very image of the sexy future. The world rushed to embrace it. 60 years later, sadder-but-wiser, we know that nuclear power has inherent flaws as a technology. […]

September 22, 2016 – 12:30 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

HILLARY AND THE GENDER ISSUE

Respondents to a recent poll are divided on whether Hillary Clinton’s being of the female persuasion will help or hurt her chances. I think that it ought, in any case, to help her. Yes, I know there’s the idea out there that we shouldn’t vote for a woman candidate just because of gender, any more […]

September 3, 2016 – 2:36 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , | Comments (0)

THINKING ABOUT NATURAL VS. HUMAN ISSUES

Life on Cape Cod is seasoned with all the news stories involving what can be characterized—perhaps misleadingly–as conflicts between natural and human interests. You could devote a whole section of the newspaper to them, along with sports, business, and food. On the one hand it’s pretty cool that great white sharks are taking an interest […]

August 29, 2016 – 1:23 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

IMAGINING A WORLD HEALING SUMMIT

After Nice, it’s not just assault weapons we ought to ban, but trucks. It’s tempting to declare it official: the world’s going to hell in a handbasket. I doubt that would hold up statistically—see Pinker’s “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.” But it sure seems like it. Seems like every morning […]

August 12, 2016 – 7:04 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged | Comments (0)

The appeal of the sheepdog option.

I find myself (as Commander-in-Chief of this space every two weeks) trying to come up with something useful to say about the gun issue. Ever since reading the statistics showing that countries with low per capita gun ownership have much lower rates of homicides by guns, my take on guns, like that of most people […]

August 4, 2016 – 9:07 am | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

MISS LITELLA AND THE INFAMOUS CARTOON

The recent uproar over the Dave Granlund cartoon and the paper’s decision to run it reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live skit featuring Miss Emily Litella (played by Gilda Radner) as a commentator on TV news. She rants on: “What is all this fuss I hear about the Supreme Court decision on a […]

July 24, 2016 – 12:25 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Our essential regional terminology–is it shifting?

Last year I saw a map showing the “Lower Cape” stopping with Eastham, the “Outer Cape” as a separate region consisting of Wellfleet, Truro, and P’town. In a recent issue of “Cape Life” magazine, a list of restaurants makes the same distinction. Hey, wait a minute, I thought, that’s gotta be wrong. Lower and Outer […]

July 18, 2016 – 12:04 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged | Comments (0)

THE HITLER ANALOGY

As Trump has risen to power (insofar as media attention is power) over recent months, one hears a lot the Hitler analogy. The comparison is made seriously and fearfully in these very pages in letters to editors and op-ed columns: Trump is a dangerous demagogue, playing to racism and other fears of disaffected white workers, […]

June 29, 2016 – 12:52 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , | Comments (0)