Category Archives: Columns

Killer app : getting Jane’s call [op-ed CCT 2 April 2013 ]

We recently cut loose from our land line. It’s a little scary for those of a certain age, casting off the bowline and trusting ourselves to the high seas of smart phones, texting, apps and all that good stuff. I love the term “killer app.” It implies that there have of course been other apps […]

April 3, 2013 – 11:55 am | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Killer app : getting Jane’s call [op-ed CCT 2 April 2013]

We recently cut loose from our land line. It’s a little scary for those of a certain age, casting off the bowline and trusting ourselves to the high seas of smart phones, texting, apps and all that good stuff. I love the term “killer app.” It implies that there have of course been other apps […]

April 3, 2013 – 11:37 am | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

The logic of super-taxing the super-rich [op-ed CCT 19 March 2013}

I have to admit that I’m puzzled by the amount of sympathy for the very wealthy. Not everybody is prepared to feel their pain, as the re-election of Obama, with his interest in raising taxes modestly on the 1% ,would suggest. But what about the Republicans and their constituents who seem so reluctant to exact […]

April 2, 2013 – 11:36 am | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Tasers and the conscience of a community [op-ed, CCT,19 February 2013]

Wellfleet, the Taser issue, take two. In 2007 Wellfleet’s police chief, since retired, proposed to the board of selectmen the adoption of Tasers. He explained how this in theory nonlethal weapon was a win/win, reducing harm to both police and possible perps. Although the chief says that in his opinion he would have been within […]

February 20, 2013 – 2:36 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Giving up the gun [op-ed CCT 5 Februar 2013]

We need to deepen our thinking about guns. About our relationship to guns. In this agonizing renewal of the ancient controversy over gun control we are, as with abortion, polarized into two rigid camps, both to some extent in denial of nuances of actual experience, actual feeling. We all learn from early schooling that, as […]

February 7, 2013 – 12:25 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Dunkin’ Donuts vs. the town of Wellfleet [CCT op-ed 22 January 22]

The point of this column is that there is nothing new in it. I know that’s not a very promising lead sentence, but it’s true that the latest Dunkin’ Donuts pitch to Wellfleet’s Zoning Board of Appeals is pretty much a repeat of the one about a year ago. A few days before Christmas George […]

January 23, 2013 – 12:45 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (1)

Shaming the NRA [op-ed CCT 8 January 2013]

If in this moment of outrage over Newtown we are really serious about more stringent gun control there’s an o bvious way of making the task easier. We can give up our need to reinvent the wheel. We could model new gun legislation on other developed countries, all of them statistically much safer than ours. […]

January 9, 2013 – 2:45 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged | Comments (0)

Dog/human segregation the only realistic choice [op-ed CCT 26 December 2012]

What’s worth more, a dog or a child? “A child is not more important than a dog” a dog owner was recalled as having asserted in a newspaper story on the Brewster dog ban controversy. OK, I’m going to come right out and say it: a child is more important than a dog. Do we […]

December 27, 2012 – 2:20 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged | Comments (0)

The politics of Christmas [op-ed CCT 11 December 2012]

Christmas has the reputation of being apolitical, above the fray. Maybe a lot of us are seeing this season as a welcome relief from the intense election season just past, or the struggles in Washington. As if. Dickens’ beloved “A Christmas Carol” pretty well lays it out. Scrooge loses his m iserly ways and in […]

December 12, 2012 – 1:04 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Wellfleet non- resident taxpayers have their way [op-ed CCT 27November 2012]

Places change. And sometimes you may be able to catch a key moment in the process. In September a large contingent of Wellfleet’s non-resident taxpayers, people who live most of the year elsewhere, converged on a selectmen’s meeting to weigh in on a controversial issue. The issue was a proposal by two selectmen to give […]

November 28, 2012 – 9:49 am | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , | Comments (0)