Author Archives: Brent

Doing something about the weather

Even now that even the mountains of plowed-up snow have finally (I think), melted, pretty much all the conversation here on the Outer Cape consists of complaining about the miseries of this winter, the endless shovelling and hacking at ice, the days stuck in the house, the concussions from falls, the backs thrown out from […]

April 23, 2015 – 2:26 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Are solar panels ugly?

A recent letter to a local paper, evidently in response to the new Solarize Provincetown initiative, expressed the opinion that solar panels make houses ugly and that the town is unwise to make that sacrifice for energy efficiency. As a cautionary example he points to the cape-style house on Briar Lane in Wellfleet (across from […]

April 13, 2015 – 2:41 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Is a defanged NFL a contradiction?

I’ve been reading about the 24 year-old NFL player, veteran of just one season, deciding to get out while the getting’s good. It was a very good first year and the young man has what looks like a great career ahead of him. But he’s been paying attention to the concussion story that’s emerged in […]

April 2, 2015 – 11:43 am | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Was the Cuban revolution a failure?

The opening of the US toward Cuba seems a good moment to evaluate Castro’s 1959 revolution. The impression I get from the media and comments by even liberal friends is that it is widely considered a failure. Those of a liberal bent give Castro credit for getting rid of the dictator and the dominance of […]

March 22, 2015 – 2:07 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Native Americans and the meaning of “we”

This is something that never occurred to me before spending time in Mexico (where we go for a few weeks to reduce the length of winter). A very big difference between north and south of the border is in the content of “we.” Mexico is a much more racially homogenized society than ours. It’s one […]

March 7, 2015 – 6:35 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Impossible but true: a city without traffic lights

One of the most striking things about this small city of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, is that there are no traffic lights or stop signs in the whole city. How can that be? By what we know and how we live traffic-wise in el norte, such a thing is impossible. Traffic lights and signs […]

February 26, 2015 – 3:11 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Opiates, anti-depressants, soma

Everybody knows that opiates such as heroin are evil, life-ruining drugs, while anti-depressants such as Prozac are good drugs, gateway only to mental health and reasonable happiness for many millions. An article in the professional journal “Psychotherapy Networker” ( Mary Sykes Wylie, “Falling in Love Again,” July/aug 2014) provides an illuminating historical perspective, pointing out […]

February 18, 2015 – 4:28 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

The limits to “ protected speech”

In the wake of Charlie Hebdo we are hearing a lot about “protected speech,” the sort we congratulate ourselves on having in this and other “free, democratic” countries. (And deplore the lack of in, say, Castro’s Cuba.) The term is commonly held to apply to a wide variety of speech but to exclude the sort […]

February 9, 2015 – 11:21 am | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged | Comments (0)

JUNKING JUNK MAIL?

In a world with so many big and possibly insoluble problems (cancer, climate, income inequality, religion), this seems a little thing. But it has the advantage of seeming doable, and probably has a connection to the big things. I hereby nominate junk mail reform for my short list of no-brainer improvements in the quality of […]

February 2, 2015 – 2:25 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Hebdo:Free speech is not a damsel in distress

About the Charlie Hebdo massacre, what is to be said beyond the widespread righteous indignation over what seems to most in the West a shockingly—and tragically– out-of-proportion reaction to mere cartoons? One thing seems clear, Charlie Hebdo exposes the limits and naivete of the old saying: “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words […]

January 23, 2015 – 1:29 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , | Comments (0)