editorials and opinion

CENTER SANDWICH, N.H. - The second-biggest sugar maple in our south pasture is dying. Thick stubs of broken branches poke the sky. Along the stonewall, another tree, one I've tagged as Tree 801, has had large pink patches of fungus growing on its trunk. Bark is falling off.

A new federal regulation intended to limit how long passengers can be kept aboard a delayed airliner is already having an unintended consequence even though it doesn't take effect until April 29.

California Democratic legislative leaders, acknowledging the dysfunction of state government, say they want to place reforms before voters this year.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said the "system of finance is broken" as he and Assembly Speaker John A. Perez unveiled their package Thursday, a mixture of constitutional amendments and internal legislative reforms.

The success of the Academy Award-winning 'The Hurt Locker,' a gripping drama about bomb disposal in Iraq, doubtless will spawn a spate of Hollywood war films. You can bet on some of them being fairly obvious rip-offs.

When Barack Obama was sworn in as president, he chose the bible that Abraham Lincoln used on which to take the oath of office.

Another of President Barack Obama's initiatives may be in trouble. Legislators from states with a heavy NASA presence are beginning to push back against his plan to kill a Bush-era lunar-landing program.

Let's face it. Our country is in a slump. And it's up to us to do something about it.

In the past I've blamed Congress, the president, greed on Wall Street, wimpy regulators, nasty terrorists and climate change.

But a country's soul comes from its people. And, people, we're tired. Bone weary and frustrated, we need to get our mojo back.

In accord with the mnemonic "Spring Forward, Fall Back," this Sunday we set our clocks forward one hour. We lose an hour of sleep, but it is the law -- the Energy Policy Act of 2005, to be precise.

The effects of the recession haven't been altogether malign. The government says U.S. highway deaths last year were the lowest in more than half a century.

Hand it to the states. All but two of them saw that their K-12 math and English standards could maybe do with some possible upgrading, and so they got together and worked out some improvements they could either adopt or not.