Mash Notes, Hate Mail & Other Correspondence

Once again, winter months are contributing to the exponential spread of Covid infections, summoning an official health alert. Despite Covid’s threats, vaccine and mask requirements via the executive branch are as likely in New Hampshire as snow at Mar-a-Lago. However, Republican leadership has acknowledged the risks to health by conducting business in spacious venues, the house meeting in Manchester, the senate in Concord. Despite improved accommodations, too many legislators refuse to wear masks, adding to the substantial risks imposed upon in-person public participants in governance, 2022. Business to be considered this session runs the gamut: New Hampshire seceding from the “United” States of America; targeting …

Read moreOpen Letter to Republican Leadership:

To the Editor: The New Hampshire House Fish and Game and Marine Resources committee is getting mass emails with misinformation from the opposition to the N.H. snowshoe hare protection legislation, HB 1308. These hundreds of emails don’t give the N.H. town of residence, leading to the belief that the emails are from out-of-staters. Supporters of the bill are concerned that the reasons for supporting this legislation are lost in the hundreds of emails from non-residents. HB 1308 is a conservation bill. It keeps snowshoe hares in the wild. Beagle clubs trap and relocate them for dog training. The clubs use the hares in field trials …

Read moreSave the Snowshoe Hares, Part I

by W.D. Ehrhart So here we are at the outset of another new year. A Happy New Year? Well, as Shakespeare’s Lady Anne replies to Richard III in Act I, Scene 2, when he asks if he can live in hope, “All men I hope live so.” Of course, she’s talking to one of the Bard’s most villainous characters. And though he eventually gets his in the end, we folks (men and women both) these days can—well—only hope that our future works out so nicely. I can’t help finding myself wondering how much longer our American version of democracy is likely to last. Will it …

Read moreThis is Democracy?

To the Editor: Sit in on any high school debate class and you’ll quickly learn that using personal attack to undermine your opponent’s argument is catamount to admitting defeat. It’s considered the strategy of last resort and will cost you points every time. Thank goodness such academic nonsense doesn’t apply to the adult world of political discourse. If it did, those of us who favor democracy over autocracy might never learn that our belief makes us godless blood-sucking baby molesters who hate America! Absent a coherent party platform, the Republican vision for America’s future has two basic elements. First, they promise to reinstate a dangerously …

Read moreThe GOP Plan for America

To the Editors: What was the big kerfuffle over the “Christmas Tree” fire in front of the Fox building in New York all about? You would think, listening to Fox “News” personnel, that it was an apocalypse—a 36-hour, uninterrupted breaking-news event. But it was just a short, relatively small, confined blaze, set by a deranged arsonist, who perhaps had a dislike for a fake, wannabe-tree, erected instead of a real tree. After all, what burned was just a wire frame that had some greens and ornaments attached to it—not a real tree at all. If it had been a real tree, it would have been …

Read moreThe War On Fox’s Fake Christmas Tree

To the Editor: Given his troublesome vote, Senator Joe Manchin must want a Build Back Cheaper Bill. But that attitude fails because big problems demand big solutions. When our Revolutionary ancestors faced the world’s fiercest nation, they shouted, “Give me liberty or give me death,” not “Give me liberty unless it’s too pricy.” We would have failed to defeat the Nazi threat if we tried to fight on the cheap. War is costly but our ancestors faced a stark choice: pay now, or pay more later. They paid because they faced clear and present dangers. The price of victory is high, but the price of …

Read moreWe Need the Build Back Better Bill