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By MICKEY RATHBUN

A recent headline in the New York Times caught my eye: “Mars Needs Insects.” As the article explained, if we are to create a human-friendly habitat on Mars, we will need to grow food there.Unlike the nutrient-laden soil that covers the earth, the...

By BILL SCHER

I never thought much about Calvin Coolidge until 2005, when I moved to downtown Northampton, mere blocks from his presidential museum. But after visiting the museum, I suddenly had more questions.For example, Coolidge is known as the quintessential...

By MARIEL E. ADDIS

Imagine for a moment, getting a new name, a new gender, a “new” body, and a closet full of new and different clothes. Now, imagine experiencing life with both a heightened level of both emotions and physical sensations. While it seems like something...

By JONATHAN A. WRIGHT

When I was 11 years old, I traveled to the Middle East with my family, and one day we took a car from Beirut, then a French-flavored multi-ethnic city, to see the massive Roman temple ruins at Baalbek, evidence of one of many colonial occupations....

By AL NORMAN

The new speaker of the U.S. House, Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, found something to say in his first speech that upset millions of Americans concerned about the future of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — the so-called budget “entitlements.”...

By BISHOP WILLIAM D. BYRNE and MEMBERS of CATHOLICS FOR INCLUSION

In 2021, Pope Francis instituted a call to every Catholic congregation, and beyond, to take part in a worldwide synod, an invitation to even non-Catholics who wished to participate, to listen to people and ask how the Holy Spirit was moving them, and...

By J.M. SORRELL

Now is the time to offer support and love for Jewish community members, colleagues, friends, neighbors and family members. It is time to stand firmly against all forms and sources of antisemitism without a “but” attached to it. Antisemitic acts have...

By DICK EVANS

Today, Dec. 5, 2023, is the 90th anniversary of a remarkable — and rarely remarked upon — episode in American history, having enormous consequences in law, in commerce, in families and in culture. More remarkable was its path, perhaps the best-kept...

By JOANNA BUONICONTI

As everyone knows the Christmas season can be perpetually chaotic and stressful. Between shopping, get-togethers with family and friends, cooking, baking and putting up decorations, it’s a holiday that brings out the perfectionists in all of us....

By JOHN BERKOWITZ

Despite the awful carnage of the war between Israel and the Palestinians, and its risk of becoming an even more lethal regional conflagration, I’m deeply concerned that if the war between Ukraine and Russia isn’t brought soon to a negotiated end, it...

By GENE STAMELL

My teaching career has spanned well over four decades. I recall staining and ruining many perfectly good shirts and sweaters while hand-cranking copies of math papers on ditto machines. Yes, back then, teaching sometimes resulted in strong biceps and...

By BILL NEWMAN

In November, the United States Supreme Court adopted a Code of Conduct. It’s a list of suggested, not required, ethical dos and don’ts for the Justices.The justices issued this document because they want the klieg lights that the news media has been...

By TERRENCE MCCARTHY

I just bought Tracy Kidder’s new book “Rough Sleepers.” The title refers to people.who are experiencing homelessness in the state’s capital city, Boston. Kidder’s focus is on Boston physician Jim O’Connell’s mission to help that city’s legions of...

By LARRY HOTT

It was February 2001. I was at my desk in our film studio reviewing every grant proposal I had written for our film “Imagining Robert: My Brother, Madness and Survival,” which was based on the book by Jay Neugenboren.I met Jay four years earlier while...

By JONATHAN KAHANE

My 78th Thanksgiving has come and gone — the quintessential American family holiday when kin gather together to tell the same old stories and laugh at the same old jokes over and over again. (Did I tell you the one about the time in 1955 when I went...

By CHRIS MATERA

Can we try to be honest with ourselves? Most scientists say we currently live in the middle of growing climate and biodiversity calamities.Massachusetts has an excellent opportunity to help mitigate these existential threats by ending the senseless...

By MUSBAH SHAHEEN

‘I feel scared being a Jew,” said my friend as we debriefed the war in the Middle East. As a Muslim who was raised in Syria and was fed from a very young age political anti-Israeli and antisemitic propaganda, I often refrained from commenting on the...

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” — Ralph Waldo EmersonThe person I’m writing about, who is very close to me, has read this and given permission to publish it.I’ll call him...

By BARRY ROTH

Editor’s note: The following was submitted to the U.S. State Department by Rep. Jim McGovern at the author’s request, on Dec. 21, 2014. Nothing came of it. At the time of this writing December 21, 2014 (the winter solstice) things appear very dark and...

By JOSEPH SILVERMAN

A recent article reported on a climate science expert who resigned from the Hadley Climate Change Committee after she responded to challenges from committee members with an emotional outburst that included profanity [“Climate panel member quits,”...