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HAND: Incumbents put on notice
There was clearly an anti-incumbent backlash in the Attleboro School Committee election this week, which leads to the question: How would city councilors have fared if they had more competition.

GUEST COLUMN: Despite loss, it was a pleasure
Nineteen months ago I decided to run for Ward 1 city council because I wanted to give the people of Ward 1 an accountable and accessible voice. I was pleased to be in a race that was energetic, engaging and issue-oriented.

GUEST COLUMN: Day at polls awe-inspiring
I would like to say "Thank You" for the honor of the trust Ward 1 has shown in me. I want to live up to that trust. There are so many wonderful people in our ward and this race has given me the opportunity to get to know them better. To those who supported me I cannot say "Thank You" enough. To those who didn't support me I would say that I would be happy to listen to your thoughts and concerns.

REILLY: TV was better when it was worse
According to figures compiled by the Neilsen Company, the people who keep track of America's television viewing habits, children watch a lot of TV.

HICKMAN: A men's book club? You bet
For centuries, men have sought fellowship in clubs where they could talk about books and discuss ideas. Lately, however, the Oprah Book Club phenomenon has cast a shadow over such gatherings, creating the perception that book clubs tend to be the ladies' domain.

GUEST COLUMN: Analyze this
Last week on Beacon Hill, the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies held hearings on gambling in Massachusetts. I wonder, has the Town of Plainville ever conducted an impartial cost benefit analysis to hosting a slot parlor, racino, or casino? I know the commonwealth has not. What are they waiting for?

GUEST COLUMN: Pot prohibition ripe for repeal
It's not just some naive twenty-somethings in favor of the decriminalization of marijuana, as a recent letter to the editor asserts; many states already have.

GOUVEIA: My life as a gadget lover
My name is Bill, and I'm an electronic gadget junkie.

GUEST COLUMN: Dumas does what ARA couldn't
Actions speak louder than words. It's a saying we often hear, to the point that we occasionally lose sight of its meaning. In the case of Mayor Kevin Dumas, his actions, taken while others have simply spoken their intent to act, show that he is, indeed, committed to improving Attleboro.

KESSLER: Confidence in government comes down with flu
One of the more telling sidelights to come out of the discussion about the flu and swine flu, and the delay of shots for the former, and the nearly total absence of vaccine for the latter, is how inept the federal government has shown itself to be when it came time to back up its warnings with action.

SHEA-TAYLOR: Show GIs overseas you care
The death last week of Marine Capt. Kyle Van De Giesen of North Attleboro in Afghanistan should serve as a prompt, if one is needed, to support our troops in whatever way possible, including gifts of holidays cards, packages and trees.

KIRBY: A new look for Page 1
If you look at this Tuesday's front page and think, "Something looks different," you'll be right.

GUEST ESSAY: Seize golden opportunity
The Town of Norfolk finds itself in a very unique situation. This past September the Norfolk school system was given the green light by the Massachusetts School Building Authority to go ahead with a project and scope development for a new elementary school building that would house students in grade 3 through 6. The real bonus comes with the agreement by MSBA to reimburse Norfolk 53.16 percent, or $17,277,050.

HAND: School races in spotlight
Attleboro Mayor Kevin Dumas is unopposed and there is little competition for city council, so the most interesting races in Tuesday's city election are for school committee.

D'ARCONTE: Fix health insurance? No-brainer
If I was an expert at anything, I wouldn't be in this business.

ZUCK: Do whatever it takes to keep me well
Now that we're well into the flu season, I'd like to give you some important health tips, address a few common misunderstandings about the flu, and ask you to keep far away from me this winter if you feel the least bit sick, ornery, or in need of a loan.

BRISTOL: Raise dropout age to 18?
The high school dropout rate in Massachusetts was 3.4 percent last year, the state announced recently. That's just about what it has been for the last 10 years and, I dare say, for years and years before that.

GOUVEIA: NAFD flap all about power
If you have tried to follow the fiasco involving the North Attleboro Fire Department and Board of Selectmen, you are probably a bit confused. Let's briefly summarize recent events:

The more things change, the more they stay the same
More than once, I distinctly remember my mother smiling, shaking her head and uttering a favorite old French saying, "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." Or for us English-speaking people, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." I find it is a truism, succinctly explaining many situations.

REILLY: Who needs Leatherface when you have drug ads and Dick Cheney?
After many requests from faithful readers in reference to my annual Halloween column, I've decided to go ahead and write one anyway.

GUEST COLUMN: What's on? Violence and sex
Children today spend four or more hours a day watching television; sleeping is the only thing they do more. To put it in perspective: your child wakes up, eats breakfast and heads off to school around eight. They come home around three and turn on the television, only to be watching through dinner until they start getting ready for bed.

KESSLER: (Are you sitting down?) Kind words on Yanks
Before the Boston Red Sox World Series victories of 2004 and 2007, another trip to the World Series by the Bronx Bombers would have been cause for much consternation among Red Sox fans, but not this year. In 2009, you have to give the New York Yankees begrudging respect, even if they again, as a colleague pointed out last week, assembled the best team money could buy.

McAVOY: From conkers to trading cards and 'King' game
"Conkers" redux - more feedback continues to come in on horse chestnut memories.

GUEST COLUMN: Keep schools on course
I ask for your continued support as Ward 2 school committee representative. I have worked hard over the last two years and will continue to do so. My focus has been school safety and discipline. I have made contacts within the schools to keep abreast of safety and discipline issues and when informed of an incident I have addressed it immediately.

KIRBY : Numbers tell story
Sometimes, statistics tell a story. Today, a column of statistics:

HAND: Time for a reboot?
Attleboro Mayor Kevin Dumas might want to update his re-election Web site.

SHEA-TAYLOR: H1N1 shakes up greetings
Coaches Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels nixed a handshake for a simple post-game wave after the New England Patriots recently got whacked by the Denver Broncos.

Voices: Taking action to preserve Earth's beauty
Autumn is often a time of introspection, falling as it does between abundance and absence, between end of summer harvest and the fallow period of winter. As the trees shed their summer's growth and vegetation bends back toward the earth, we, too, may feel called to review what underlies our own life's choices and directions.

BRISTOL: How newspapers can capitalize on their value
When the New York Times Co. changed its mind recently about selling The Boston Globe, executives gave several reasons. One of them was particularly encouraging for the newspaper industry - what the Globe itself called "a successful gamble to raise subscription prices amid a recession."

ZUCK: Happy days here again (yeah, right)
Whew, I'm so glad that's over.

D'ARCONTE: Who's the smartest in the land?
They gave a Mensa test Saturday at the library in Attleboro. Mensa, you know, is the high IQ club, for the smartest 2 percent of humans.

GOUVEIA: No problem? Pols have solution
If politicians want to look effective (even if they aren't) there are ways to go about it. Among them is latching onto a hot-button social issue to solidify your electoral base, then attempting to solve problems that simply don't exist.

REILLY: Forecast calls for cliches
With the approach of winter, we are all going to be paying close attention to weather forecasts.

GUEST COLUMN: Obey long arm of the school bus
National School Bus Safety Week wraps up today. This year's theme is "Obey the Arm - Do No Harm."

GUEST COLUMN: 'Ask not what we can take...'
We in Attleboro's Ward 1 are lucky because we have a choice as to who will be our next city councilor. My opponent is a charming, highly motivated, enthusiastic 18-year-old who claims that he will be "fighting for Ward 1" to get our fair share of Chapter 90 funds and "constantly fighting" for Ward 1. He also claims that he will "fight" to restore the South Attleboro rescue station to full time status and is ready to "fight" for the issues that Ward 1 cares about. These are laudable aims indeed.

GUEST COLUMN: Sex ed barrier unwanted
Recently, several of our area's elected officials have been pushing a bill which would require students to opt-in to a sex education class with parental consent forms. Practically speaking, opt-in notices won't make it home, and busy working parents will miss them even if they do.

KESSLER: I cheer them... I cheer them not
The abrupt exit from the playoffs by the Red Sox has ended the Major League season locally, but with the American and National League championships being decided, here's a guide to follow those games, with reasons to root for and against each remaining team.

GUEST COLUMN: ARA member cites loss of trust
An open letter to Attleboro Mayor Kevin Dumas

GUEST COLUMN: Why we love mutts and hate Madoff
Bernie Madoff's vaunted investment strategy turned out to be a huge Ponzi scheme and Bernie "made off" with the money. How many times have you heard that one? It would have been funny if only someone felt like laughing. Investment experts were amazed he got away with it so long; but, the fact that he stayed "under the radar" is the key to understanding how it happened so easily and why it will continue to happen.

SHEA-TAYLOR: A shot of blue with all the pink
Marines are talking about it. Maybe other men will too. That's breast cancer, mistakenly considered by some people to be an illness confined to women. It's not.

KIRBY: The day we turned pink
You couldn't help but notice The Sun Chronicle two weeks ago today.

GUEST COLUMN: Bipartisanship sits out city election
The Attleboro Republican City Committee has been asked why we "turned down" the opportunity to co-sponsor the political debate in Attleboro being sponsored by the Attleboro Democratic City Committee at the end of the month. For the record, the Attleboro Republican City Committee would like it noted that the Attleboro Democratic City Committee never asked our group to participate, assist or co-sponsor their "non-partisan" debate.

D'ARCONTE: There was a big Gap in my learning
They say you're sometimes blind to the neat things in your own backyard, that you have to go away first and come back again to see them with fresh eyes.

Voices: Crisis can be time to figure out what's important
This past year, if there is one thing that we have learned as individuals, as a community, as a nation, it is that our security - our financial security (if we ever had it); the security of our health and physical integrity (temporary as it may be); the security of knowing what our future is likely to look like - is, and always was an illusion.

GOUVEIA: Keep local schools safe ...and free
Two local news items this past week made me wonder just what kind of messages we are sending to our young people today.

REILLY: One more reason to love the RMV
Recently, in an attempt to save money and cut down on government waste, the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles...

GUEST COLUMN: Create hopeful future
The poet Adrienne Rich provides the words to Carolyn McDade's music: "My heart is moved by all I cannot saveso much has been destroyed." What moves your heart? The sight of a stranded polar bear adrift on a shrinking iceberg? A Bangladeshi child holding an empty water container? A parched field of stunted vegetable plants?

McAVOY: Synchonicity revisited
My column two weeks ago on synchronicity sparked some curiosity about the subject. A fair number of readers e-mailed me, or engaged me in conversation on the street. It seems their appetite was whetted about the subject, so today I thought you may enjoy hearing of these examples which came to my notice through books I have read down through the years (a blatant co-opting of Rusty D'Arconte's "If I Couldn't Read").

GUEST COLUMN: Put Ward 1 back on right track
I am running for Ward 1 city councilor. Nineteen months ago I announced my decision to run for a seat on the Attleboro City Council, and I did so because I want to give the people of Ward 1 a fully engaged advocate on the city council who will listen to them and every resident's concerns and act thoughtfully and decisively.

KESSLER: Community wins when we run together
The Rome Boulevard Road Race drew close to 500 participants for its Oct. 4 five-mile race and two-mile run/walk at Attleboro High School. Those numbers are pretty impressive for the organizers, who started the race just a few years ago with the intent of creating a fundraiser for the schools, but who have since expanded the event to make it a true community fundraiser.

HAND: Brown takes a back seat
Under normal circumstances, it would be good news for state Sen. Scott Brown that he does not appear to have much of a primary fight in the special election for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy's seat.

GUEST COLUMN: It's time for the US to end the war on drugs
Since 1909, governments throughout the world have been attempting to fight a war on drugs. In 1909 it was the war on opium; today the drug war is attempting to control cocaine, ecstasy, crack, heroin, marijuana and prescription drugs.

ZUCK: What happened in Vegas ...
I'm of the opinion that, if given the opportunity, everyone should visit Las Vegas at least once in their lifetimes. It's a place that is completely over-hyped, and yet it lives up to all expectations. It looks and sounds and feels almost exactly like it does on television and in the movies, but it also defies explanation. You have to see it and experience it in person to really understand what it's like.

BRISTOL: Do-or-die time on health care
Congress will soon begin floor debate on the various health care bills that have made their way through House and Senate committees. Get ready for more posturing than a Milan fashion show.

ZUCK: When you wish upon 'The Secret...'
I really need to stop surfing the Internet in the middle of the night.

SHEA-TAYLOR: An invasion of Letterman's privacy
In the uber-drama of a news producer's snarl in an alleged sex extortion plot and a talk show host's on-air mea culpa, one cardinal sin has gone un-noted.

BRISTOL: Congressman shouldn't be called for traveling
Michael Capuano, a leading Democratic candidate to succeed the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, has been in Congress about 10 years. Over the last five he has become a world traveler, visiting Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

D'ARCONTE: Poe letters from 1840s hit home
Say you're a young man in the mid-19th century, a teenager living in a rural area of New England, and you have a dream - to be a poet.

KIRBY: Still the faithful?
Thirty years ago this month, the biggest story sweeping New England wasn't the Red Sox (no playoffs that year), the Patriots (still six years from their first Super Bowl) or health care (the neverending story).

HAND: Leading the way on health
The U.S. Census Bureau has found that Massachusetts has the lowest rate of residents without health care in the country at 4.1 percent, while Texas has the highest at 24.1 percent.

Voices: 'Prodigal Son' offers us lessons
The story of the "Prodigal Son" is one of the most memorable that Jesus told (Luke 15:11-32). Though we usually think of it as a story about one reckless son, it is really a story about a father and his two sons.