Category Archives: Columns

[ op-ed ] You can’t legislate a meaningful life

Drugs and alcohol are always in the news. These “substances,” as we call them, holding them at arm’s length, that we use and/or abuse — are ongoingly a troubling part of life. It’s hard to imagine a time when that won’t be true. Right now a big story locally is the Truro police chief’s OUI […]

November 4, 2011 – 12:41 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

[ op-ed ] Do the rich deserve their wealth?

I must say the Occupy Wall Street movement does the heart good. Something about pent up righteous anger, which can seem to occupy no space at all and is hence all too easily ignored, finding outward expression in the classic fashion of taking to the streets. Does the head good, too, to see this physical […]

October 22, 2011 – 4:46 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

[op-ed] End of an era at WHAT?

What’s going on at WHAT ( Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater )? Perhaps the biggest news of this little town in recent months is the resignation in August of Jeff Zinn as artistic director (read head honcho) of Wellfleet’s celebrated beyond -local, local theater . This is more than a simple changing of the guard. At […]

October 7, 2011 – 7:19 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged | Comments (0)

[op-ed] 9/11: the view from a safe distance

Once again on this 10th anniversary of 9/11 to be subjected to the TV footage of that day. Those planes flying with such sickening purpose into those buildings. That interval, now rich with irony. Then all that immense architecture tumbling irresistibly down. Over and over. What is it about that footage? Yes, the sudden thought […]

October 7, 2011 – 7:14 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Comments (0)

[ op-ed ] The Column After The Storm

Irene was never the east coast Katrina the media tried their best to hype her into. She wasn’t even a hurricane when she made landfall in New York City. But she had impressive reach. The wind was blowing almost as hard here, 200 miles to the east, as it was there. She was not Katrina, […]

October 7, 2011 – 6:47 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged | Comments (0)

[op-ed ] What’s missing is clarity, not civility

“The problem is with a Congress which can’t compromise for the good of the country.” I heard somebody say this in an NPR interview the other day in the aftermath of the budget crisis in Washington. The next day at a gathering a friend announced with a twinkle that he was thinking of starting a […]

August 24, 2011 – 2:40 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

[ op-ed ] Police and community need to share the responsibility

Over the years I have written a number of times about troubling police behavior even here on the more rural end of the Cape. The controversial roughing up of 4th of July celebrants, the proposed use of tasers, DNA swabbing of the inner cheeks of whole male population of one town, the use of surveillance […]

August 4, 2011 – 7:45 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

We are all Charlie Sheen’s brother

A WORD OF CAUTION. I am well aware that the job of an op- ed columnist is to be a moral leader and provide solutions to problems plaguing society. And I take that responsibility very seriously. But reader, I have to warn you that you might want to skip this one. I’m afraid it contains […]

August 2, 2011 – 9:33 am | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Comments (0)

[op-ed] Re-inventing green

Green, green, green. It’s all you hear these days. Green is the color of the bandwagon bound for the future and we’re all climbing aboard. I read a news story the other day about the latest thing in green houses, the “passive house.” Turns out there’s a really exciting, cutting- edge movement to make houses […]

June 29, 2011 – 9:21 am | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

[op-ed] Resolving our Afghanistan contradiction

The Academy Award- nominated documentary “Restrepo” is on the frontline of our thinking about Afghanistan. There will be a showing of it on June 20 at 7:30 at WHAT theater as part of Wellfleet Library’s “One Book, One Community” series. I spent some time looking up reviews online and was surprised to discover that there […]

June 16, 2011 – 10:18 am | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)