Volume 265 | No. 7

Dear Editor: I’ve just read Holderness resident Ty Gagne’s new book, The Last Traverse: Tragedy and Resilience in the Winter Whites. I bought additional copies for Christmas gifts, going to both Gibson’s in Concord and Innisfree Bookstore in Meredith. Other New Hampshire bookstores should carry it. Ty’s career is in risk management. His new book is about a hike gone tragically wrong on Mt. Lafayette. An earlier book, Where You’ll Find Me: Risk, Decisions, and the Last Climb of Kate Matrosova, emphasizes risk awareness. Both tell riveting stories of real people, and what can go wrong when terrible weather conditions change everything during winter hikes. …

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“The Declaration of Independence announces the sublime truth, that all power comes from the people. This was a denial, and the first denial of a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man to govern others. It was the first grand assertion of the dignity of the human race. It declared the governed to be the source of power, and in fact denied the authority of any and all gods. Through the ages of slavery—through the weary centuries of the lash and chain, God was the acknowledged ruler of the world. To enthrone man, was to dethrone God.” – Robert …

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by Andrew Moss As with many issues raised by this pandemic, the problem of hazard pay is fraught with deep, multiple inequities. Like the compensation that traditionally remunerated particularly dangerous work in such fields as military service, mining, or construction, hazard pay was introduced early in the pandemic to recognize the risks and dangers that frontline essential workers face every day. This past spring, large retail chains like Walmart, Kroger, and Amazon introduced hazard pay under a variety of names (“Hero Pay,” “Appreciation Pay”), paying single bonuses or supplementing workers’ hourly wages by up to $2 per hour. Then, over the summer, they quietly ended …

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Dear Editor, “Everything was done in strict compliance with applicable law, under the advice of counsel and tax experts,” said Alan Garten, the Trump Organization’s general counsel, as quoted in the New York Times (“Manhattan D.A. Intensifies Investigation of Trump,” December 11, 2020). That mantra is used to defend a man whose taxes and financial dealings are under investigation for fraud. That is the mantra for a self-proclaimed billionaire who is reported to have paid only $750 in taxes in some years, and nothing at all in other years. Although he may have stepped over the line of legal activity, clearly, it indicates a genius …

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To the Editor, If President-elect Joe Biden is serious about addressing climate change, he should support federal funding for cultured-meat research. For those who don’t know, cultured meat is grown from cells, without slaughtering our fellow creatures. It will dramatically reduce the environmental damage caused by animal agriculture. Cultured meat requires a fraction of the land, freshwater, and greenhouse-gas emissions that slaughtered flesh does. As Henning Steinfeld of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization said, “Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation.” The truth is animal agriculture is a …

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