Mash Notes, Hate Mail & Other Correspondence

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.” – James D. Nicoll –=≈=– “The Natives of New England are accustomed to build them houses, much like the wild Irish, they gather Poles in the woodes and put the great end of them in the ground, placinge them in forme of a circle or circumference, and bendinge the topps of them in forme of an Arch, they bind …

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By Betty Tamposi and Dan Weeks In a democratic republic like the United States, voters are meant to choose their politicians, not the other way around. Like many of our fellow Granite Staters, we take this bedrock principle of free and fair elections personally. One of us served for years as a Republican leader in the N.H. House of Representatives and later as an Assistant Secretary of State under President George H.W. Bush. The other was a Democratic nominee for Executive Council (raised in a long line of Republican elected officials) and led the nonpartisan group Open Democracy. Although we do not agree on every …

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by Rivera Sun A continent-wide snow storm swept across the United States last month. From Seattle to Baton Rouge and from Dallas to Minneapolis, people grappled with road closures, shutdowns, power outages, and freezing temperatures. From sea to shining sea, ordinary people stepped up to take care of one another. My brother volunteered to snowblow the Seattle offices of an autism support center. A colleague in Portland, Oregon, posted warnings not to walk under the snapping, ice-laden branches of city trees. Friends in West Virginia popped back online to make sure everyone was fine after three days without Internet. When Texas megachurches refused to shelter …

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To the Editor: Though the final death toll of the Texas winter storm will take months to determine, at least 80 people have died so far. People are still dealing with water shortages, broken pipes and water damage to their homes as well as job and wage losses. Recovery costs are expected to exceed $50 billion, the most costly storm in Texas history. Much has been written about the lack of preparedness of the energy infrastructure for an extreme weather situation, but it pretty much boils down to Texas, rather than becoming part of a national well regulated grid, wanting to do it “their way,” …

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To the Editor: On February 14th there will be elections to the Catalan Parliament. [Note: We received this letter on February 11th, too late for inclusion in our paper of the 12th. – The Ed.] These are not normal elections in a regional parliament but are yet another chapter in the confrontation between the Catalan independence movement and the Spanish state. The European institutions are hoping that the Socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, will defuse the independence movement with some kind of negotiation. The problem is that Sánchez is very reluctant to negotiate, firstly, because his party is deeply Spanish nationalist and, secondly, because any …

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To the Editor: For the third time in a row, the Catalan pro-independence movement wins with an absolute majority in the Catalan elections. It has won resoundingly with 74 seats, more than the 68 that establishes the majority (in the previous elections it had won with 70). This time also with 51.22% of the votes, making it the majority among the voters. The elections were due next year, but they were brought forward because the Spanish courts overthrew Catalan President Joaquim Torra for having disobeyed an electoral board that ordered him to take down a banner criticising the imprisonment of Catalan politicians. The President refused, …

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