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1 week ago | 
thebollard.com | Al Diamon |Elizabeth Peavey |Samuel James |Leo Hylton
From Holistic Hatred to Spiritual Healing“Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor.” (Galatians 6:6, New International Version)Punishment doesn’t stop violence, it creates violence. It creates hatred. When I was handed a de facto life sentence of 50 years at age 19, it filled me with hatred. I hated myself for being capable of such extreme violence. I hated my brother-turned-codefendant for helping get me into this mess.
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1 week ago | 
thebollard.com | Al Diamon |Elizabeth Peavey |Leo Hylton |Samuel James
Fight songsIf everything seems overwhelming right now and the idea of fighting back feels impossible, please take this little note from history:When George Washington was first elected in 1789, the nation’s capital was Philadelphia. At that time, Pennsylvania had a law that freed enslaved people if they lived in the state for at least six months. Despite what you may have heard, Ol’ Georgie was a classic aristocrat.
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1 week ago | 
thebollard.com | Al Diamon |Samuel James |Leo Hylton |Elizabeth Peavey
Work in ProgressI lost someone dear to me at the end of last year. He was the lifelong partner of one of my closest friends. Each time I arrived at their home, he had one of two greetings for me: “Where ya been?” or “You again?” Much the same could be said of my recent return to print journalism after an eight-year hiatus. Where I’ve been is, well, complicated, so let’s save that for another time. But the You again? That was the question I wrestled with before deciding to come back.
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1 week ago | 
thebollard.com | Elizabeth Peavey |Samuel James |Leo Hylton |Al Diamon
The bliss of equalityThe problem with biological boys playing high school sports is even worse than Laurel Libby or Donald Trump imagined. Libby, a Republican state representative from Auburn, was censured by the Maine House of Representatives this past session for posting a photo online of a transgendered girl who had the audacity to win a high school athletic competition, thereby denying some less talented (but cis-gendered) girl a trophy.
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1 month ago | 
thebollard.com | Al Diamon |Samuel James |Elizabeth Peavey
This Flight TonightThe wing of the plane dips out of the murk and the ground sparkles with the lights of Scarborough or South Portland or Westbrook. It’s been raining in Portland all afternoon, and now, at 10:30 at night, the sky is ink. I’m not sure exactly which direction we’re heading, or which way is home. It’s been a harrowing trip.
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1 month ago | 
thebollard.com | Al Diamon |Elizabeth Peavey |Samuel James
Our immigration policy is always white supremacyOn Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, resulting in the removal and imprisonment of Japanese people— immigrants and U.S.-born — from areas “lying to the west of [the] Cascade and Sierra Nevada Mountains in Washington, Oregon and California”. FDR issued the order, which invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, at the recommendation of Lt. General John L. DeWitt, who oversaw the purge and incarceration.
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1 month ago | 
thebollard.com | Al Diamon |Samuel James |Elizabeth Peavey |Phoebe Kolbert
The Coming FirestormOn the bus to Philadelphia at dusk, I am listening to Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky,” thinking, as I always do when listening to that song, about how a man who grew up Orthodox Jewish might have come to write such a banger Christian anthem.
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1 month ago | 
thebollard.com | Samuel James |Elizabeth Peavey |Al Diamon
A (w)Rench in the worksThe last thing U.S. Sen. Susan Collins wants to face in the 2026 Republican primary is a certified Trumpsicle. Such a race would agitate the scuzzy underground of anti-Collins sociopaths with their predictable troglodytic gripes (She’s female! She voted to convict Trump! But mostly, she’s female!) that inhabit the GOP catacombs, avoiding daylight, trans people and vaccines.
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2 months ago | 
thebollard.com | Al Diamon |Samuel James |Jessie Banhazl |Sara Hogan
Border CrossingI’m standing on the side of the road, talking with my neighbor Chester (not his real name) about the porcupine that had been in that very spot for several days but is now gone. “Smelled it before you saw it,” he says. A period of silence follows. I’ve learned not to rush these conversations. They’re fragile things, and one wrong word or move can shatter them. We both gaze at the greasy smudge where the critter met its fate.
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2 months ago | 
thebollard.com | Al Diamon |Elizabeth Peavey |Julia Maslen |Samuel James
Lyin’ Joe and Ruinous Susan Like a lot of people, I knew this country was cooked during the Biden/Trump debate last June. Biden’s sad babbling wasn’t what convinced me, though. It was just one small moment, lost in the overwhelming disaster of the night. Both sides had agreed to debate without fact-checkers and Trump was on a tear, looking silly as hell. The Internet was exploding with frustrated Dems wondering why Biden’s team had agreed to something that would so clearly benefit Trump.
