An Unexpected Correspondent

To the Editor: Let’s face it: New Hampshire, which is a predominantly white state, is not an accurate reflection of America as a whole. Truth is, America is a racially diverse nation. I’m a white man who was born in New Hampshire. I have lived my entire life in New Hampshire. I went to public schools in New Hampshire, which were predominantly white, and I went to the University of New Hampshire, which was predominantly white. Despite my being college educated, it would nonetheless be easy for me to have an unconscious white bias. I want to be increasingly aware of that bias, as well …

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A Tale of Three Species

To the Editor: I knew I shouldn’t read it through, but it seemed a positive enough story, about a Hancock, Maine farmer and some friends, aided by police, shepherding back to their enclosure a couple of bulls that had strayed…until some dumbass bystander, repeatedly warned away, grabbed one of the bulls by the horns and was gored for his idiocy. Owing to some misguided legislation that protects idiots, both bulls, his companion as well as the poor beast defending itself, were put down. Naturally, the idiot survived, very likely to go on being an idiot. In another part of this great nation, the solons of …

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Smedley Darlington Butler: What a True American Hero Looks Like, Part Two

In our issue of July 17, 2020, W.D. Ehrhart wrote about the the extraordinary early career of Smedley D. Butler. by W.D. Ehrhart Butler was not without his warts and blemishes. He loved the adrenalin rush of combat, the sheer challenge and excitement of it. As a young lieutenant, he complained in letters to his congressman father that the policies he was enforcing in countries like Nicaragua, Honduras, and Haiti were corrupt and immoral, benefitting only the white wealthy ruling class in America, yet he continued his career in the Corps for nearly three more decades. He began to speak out only after he’d gotten …

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Playing Musical Electric Chairs

Generally speaking, NPR’s reporting tends towards restraint, so Thursday morning’s headline stood out: “3 Months Of Hell: U.S. Economy Drops 32.9% In Worst GDP Report Ever.” Yesterday’s Gross Domestic Product estimate from the Commerce Department was “Horrific,” Economist Nariman Behravesh told the network’s Scott Horsley. “We’ve never seen anything quite like it.” Even that shocking presentation, however, fails to convey the full magnitude of just how screwed we truly are. NPR’s report, and the GDP estimate on which it’s based, are both snapshots—still pictures of a changing scene. And, like all pictures, they leave out what’s beyond the frame. While the report does acknowledge the …

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Pick a Crisis, Any Crisis

Tuesday’s Herald carried a piece by Paul Briand—one of the Hedge-Fund-Owned Local Daily’s few writers still based in this area—headlined, “Purple Principle podcast seeks political middle ground in U.S.” A five-person team is exploring “whether political factions—with blue liberals on the left and red conservatives on the right—can somehow find some common ground in the purple middle.” In the marketplace of mainstream journalism, editors know readers are eager to start their day by snapping open a fresh paper and finding a story that gives them some slight thread of hope—a story that nurtures, however briefly or improbably, the comforting illusion that there may in fact …

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