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Our June 5, 2009 Paper, Free and Fully Readable in Your Browser


June 19, 2009—
One thing we love about this new method of presenting the paper is that we can finally present Mike Dater’s cartoons in a way that does them some kind of justice.

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From “The Fortnightly Rant”

For the last eight years, Cheney ran the office Finley Peter Dunne once described as “not a crime exactly … but … kind of a disgrace … like writing anonymous letters,” in a way that made Tony Soprano’s operation look quaint. Now that we’ve been relieved of his governance, one might have hoped — or fervently wished, or feverishly prayed — that he would retreat to some obscure burrow in Wyoming, shut his droning pie-hole, and leave the world in peace. Instead, he continues to force toxic advice on his victims.


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Jack Kimball, the proprietor of Great Bay Facility Services, Inc. on the Route 1 Bypass and the organizer of Granite State Patriots (see GraniteStatePatriots.org) conducted a rally “designed to honor the ‘fallen heroes’ from all of the military branches, with political speeches also being part of the evening’s agenda,” according to an article by Geoff Cunningham Jr., in the May 21 issue of Foster’s Daily Democrat.
The city’s Memorial Day Parade, conducted by the Central Veterans Council, went off without a hitch earlier in the day, as did four or five other traditional remembrances. But Mr. Kimball and his associates, including Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta, who has announced his intention to run against Rep. Carol Shea-Porter for Congress next year, appeared to think that more was needed.


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by Erik Swanson
Like baseball? Like our troops? Like the flag? Well, you are going to love Nashua’s Can-Am league baseball affiliate: The American Defenders of New Hampshire.

Yes, that’s their actual name: The American Defenders of New Hampshire.

They wear desert camouflage uniforms. Their hats and jerseys read, “USA.” The “S” forms a yellow ribbon. Tickets cost $9.11 each. They even pause each game at 9:11 p.m. for a “moment of reflection.” I’m not even kidding.

Why? Why would anyone want to militarize minor league baseball? The American Defenders are the brainchild of Retired Navy Lt. Commander Terry Allvord. For the past several years, Allvord has been putting together barnstorming teams of military all-stars. As he puts it, “the goal is to promote awareness and support for our troops and assist military or civilian American Defenders after they have completed their service to return to college or pursue a professional career.”

That makes sense, even if it’s a bit jingoistic for my taste. The problem is that the military all-star concept doesn’t translate to a regular minor league baseball team. The American Defenders of New Hampshire baseball club is not made up of former American soldiers. While a couple of the guys on the team are call-ups from the military all-stars, the vast majority of the players have never worn a military uniform. A few of them aren’t even American!


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From “The Surplus Population”

by William Marvel

Notwithstanding the romance associated with the roving life, society has never trusted the unemployed wanderer. A home, a job, and the attendant responsibilities serve to control the individual — not to mention the individual passions. Merciless vagrancy laws followed the decline of feudal systems in Europe, and the most conspicuous American prohibitions against the jobless appeared with the abolition of slavery. Southern states with large populations of freed slaves imposed jail terms for those who could not show “a visible means of support” in the form of a labor contract. Jailed vagrants worked for nothing under county contract with local plantation owners, so those planters could easily pressure their laborers to accept wages well below the level of subsistence. That forced every family member to go into the fields, and it kept any rebellious freedmen in check.


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Rodman Philbrick reviews Up

Last year, Wall-E set the new standard for computer-generated animation, envisioning a future when the human race is no longer present on the barren wastelands of Earth. This year Up is about to float into the public consciousness as a message from your own very personal future — the one where you’re a lonely old man, raging against the world, lost in a thousand regrets for what might have been, ready for an exit that will lift you up and out of your misery.

If you don’t think that sounds like a premise for a children’s cartoon — no fairy princess, no cute mermaid — you’d be correct. Kids are gonna love Up, but that’s because they probably won’t twig to the fact that this is an adult film, written for adults by grownups who happen to have vivid memories of what it’s like to be nine years old, and to view life in those precious few years before ironic detachment sets in like adolescent acne, scarring the post-modern soul.


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From our Hate Mail, Mash Notes, & Other Correspondence Department

The Lie of a Democratic Congress

To the Editor:

This month local newspapers reported a man from South Thomaston had been arrested at a Senate hearing in Washington, for protesting against drug and insurance company lobbyists being invited to speak but not people who favor a single-payer health care system. While cheering him for daring to speak out and booing chairman Max Baucus for trying to muzzle debate, I was also reminded of a December 2007 hearing in the House of Representatives.

Its chairman Thomas Lantos had invited two touts for Israel to speak but refused people who had just been to Palestine and could tell what they had seen firsthand. The Lantos hearing was set up so David Wurmser could rant about making the world safe for Israel by attacking Iran, and Dennis Ross chant to absolve Israel in its grinding occupation of Palestine. Hearings that hear only one side prove it’s a lie that there’s a democratic Congress.

Marjorie Gallace
Camden, ME

Marjorie:

Until we somehow achieve effective campaign finance reform, and develop effective news media that aren’t afraid to confront these and other contradictions built into our system, we’re doomed to more of the same.

The Editor


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In Arrears No Longer

To the Editor:
For many years I have been a happy subscriber to your paper, your views and your policies. I have been a “supporting subscriber,” at least to the extent that I picked up my copies of The New Hampshire Gazette at The Dolphin Striker. You may rest assured that you’ve wasted no money on postage on my account.

There is of course the matter of the never-paid cost of a subscription. It is time to pay up. Check enclosed.

All the best to you and your fine paper.

Bob Nilson
Portsmouth, NH

Bob:

We can’t thank you enough. Our faithful Business (Such as it Is) Manager likes to remind us on occasion that our continued existence hangs in the balance. If a fraction of our unpaid Supporting Subscribers were to do as you just did, our future would be assured. (See page five for the form.)

The Editor


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From Admiral Fowle’s Piscataqua River Tidal Guide
2005—Veep Dick “Dick” Cheney tells Larry King the insurgency in Iraq is “in the last throes.”
1973—An American F-14 Tomcat shoots itself down with a Sparrow air-to-air missile.
1972—“Sinister forces” erase 18.5 min. of Oval Office tape.
1965—Navy Lts. Clinton B. Johnson and Charles Hartman, flying prop-driven Douglas A-1 Skyraiders, down a MiG 17 jet fighter over Vietnam.
1962—For the second time in about two weeks, a Thor rocket malfunctions and drops an A-bomb into the South Pacific.
1923—Pancho Villa dies, saying, “Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.”

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