The Northcountry Chronicle

Calling Toody and Muldoon

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Thirty-odd years ago I got a phone call out of the blue from Mike Cavanaugh, a retired Philadelphia policeman. I didn’t know him, but he had a four-year contract to write a book about the Civil War battle of the “Crater,” and the contract was barely 90 days away from the deadline. He had done all the research, but had written only half a page, and wanted to know if I would be interested in co-authoring the book with him. At the time I was writing the biography of the Union general who lost that battle, so it seemed like an easy transition, and a …

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What’s the charitable thing to do about inequality?

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Our society has coined expressions like “philanthropist” to encourage and hail people’s charitable spirit. Look on the flip side of that shiny coin of generosity, however, and you’ll find that its base substance is societal selfishness. After all, the need for charity only exists because we’re tolerating intentional injustices and widespread inequality created by power elites. A society as supremely wealthy as ours ought not be relegating needy families and essential components of the common good to the whims of a few rich philanthropists. Yes, corporate and individual donations can help at the margins, but they don’t fix anything. Thus, food banks, health clinics, etc. …

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Revelations 2020

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Responses to the spread of the coronavirus vary considerably in different jurisdictions. In states of the U.S. that are dominated by massive cities, health constraints have tended to be severe, subjecting rural counties to the same crippling strictures as urban ghettoes. Relief from such broad-brush diktats often depends on discretionary enforcement by police, who can usually judge local needs better than governors. Here in New Hampshire, the outbreak has thus far struck a fairly light blow, perhaps because the Governor’s order fell a little more on the strict side than the situation originally seemed to warrant. He didn’t close the borders, but this time last …

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What’s the gimmick in Trump’s plan to “rescue” the public Postal Service?

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One thing we’ve learned for sure this year is that no national crisis is too awful to keep Trump & Company from exploiting it for their plutocratic political purposes. COVID-19 is a God-Awful crisis, but late one night deep inside the White House, a dim bulb flickered in our present president’s head: “Eureka,” Trump exclaimed, “here’s our chance to kill the U.S. Post Office!” Of all the things a president might focus on during a devastating pandemic, hijacking your and my public mail service, bankrupting it, and then privatizing its profitable functions has become a top priority for this brooding madman. Bizarrely, Trump has ranted …

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Kitchen Table University

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Somewhere in my house must still be the cartoon my mother clipped out of a popular magazine from about 1950 and tucked into my baby album. It depicts a man just coming home from work in the traditional grey business suit, wearing a fedora and carrying a briefcase. He stands in the open doorway of a kitchen that looks as though a tornado has just passed through. Cooking utensils clutter the counters and dishes fill the sink, while baby spoons and cups and rattles lie scattered about. In the middle of the room stands an empty highchair, the tray of which is smeared and dripping. …

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Don’t shut the post office, expand their services

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What’s the matter with the post office? The U.S. Postal Service, I mean—the corporate hierarchy that runs this enormously popular public institution. Yes, I know that U.S.P.S. has lost revenue it traditionally got from first-class mail delivery, but I also know that letter carriers and postal workers have offered many excellent ideas for expanding the services that U.S.P.S. can deliver, thus increasing both revenue and the importance of maintaining these community treasures. Yet, the Postal Board of Governors, which includes corporate interests that would profit by killing the public service, seems intent on—guess what?—killing it. The board’s only “idea” is to cut services and shut …

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