Volume 267 | No. 20

Mon, June 19

2006—Publisher and Bush appointee Phillip Merrill is discovered shot and weighted down in Chesapeake Bay where the CIA’s Bill Colby and John Paisley ended up; all suicides, though. 1969—Tobar, Nev.—named for a sign pointing to a saloon—is dealt a death blow by an exploding railroad car full of bombs en route to Vietnam. 1968—“The Green Berets” is released. The New Yorker calls it “unspeakable…stupid…rotten…false in every detail.” 1965—Thousands of funlovers at the Weirs throw rocks at cops and burn overturned cars. The N.H. National Guard peppers them with birdshot as Laconia’s Riot Squad arrests 150. 1954—Warned by Sen. Styles Bridges (R-N.H.) that his son’s homosexuality …

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Sun, June 18

2009—Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta steps over a man with a leg broken in a brawl to exit the Fish & Game Social Club before EMTs arrive. 1989—RIP I.F. Stone, legendary journalist who said, “Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.” 1984—Talk show host Alan Berg is machine-gunned to death in his Denver driveway by white supremacists. 1971—Assistant Attorney General William Rehnquist seeks an injunction to keep the Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers. 1965—Operation Arc Light begins: 27 B-52s fly from Guam to bomb the ’Nam. Two collide and crash due to navigational errors, a third goes down …

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Does Zoning Affect Racism and Poverty?

To the Editor: Here is yet another attempt to link something that has absolutely no cause/effect. Proponents of eradicating single family zoning are now claiming that your desire to live in a SF [single family] neighborhood is the reason for “segregation and exclusion” and “…associated with inadequate access to affordable housing and with the segregation of people by income, race and ethnicity…”. From an article on the website Governing.com, headlined, “Single-Family Zoning Linked With Income and Race Segregation”: “An analysis of zoning laws in Connecticut finds people in single-family areas are likelier to be white and have higher incomes than those in areas that allow …

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Happy Birthday, Henry the K

by W.D. Ehrhart Henry Kissinger, the former U.S. National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, recently celebrated his 100th birthday.  Marking the occasion, all sorts of public figures have been praising his long lifetime of accomplishments and contributions to our nation. CNN’s David Andelman noted enthusiastically that Kissinger is “still teaching us the value of ‘Weltanschaung.’” Roughly translated, it means “how the world works,” also known as “realpolitik,” or “if you’ve got the power to do what you like, screw morality or justice or right and wrong; just freakin’ do it” (my translation). International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach called Kissinger “a great statesman” and …

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The Golden Rule Sails Again – Visits Portsmouth Next Week

Albert Bigelow was commanding the destroyer escort U.S.S. Dale W. Peterson as it sailed into Pearl Harbor when he learned that Hiroshima had just been destroyed by an atomic bomb. He soon concluded that “morally, war is impossible,” and resigned from the Naval Reserve a month before becoming eligible for a pension. As time went on, Bigelow’s convictions only deepened. In 1955, he and his wife Sylvia, by now members of the Religious Society of Friends, hosted two “Hiroshima Maidens”—young Japanese women disfigured by atomic bombs who had come to the U.S. for plastic surgery. Using facts, logic, and argument, Bigelow and numerous colleagues tried …

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Moby Donald and the GOP

Well, here we are now. Sheesh. It’s like life is just a never-ending process of trying to get used to things you never imagined could ever happen. Eventually it will end, of course, but what the hell. We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it. In the meantime, stuff—if the reader will kindly pardon the euphemism—is in fact happening. So, let’s dig in. Who’s got the manure fork? * Former President, primary front-runner, presumptive Republican nominee, and Energizer Blowhard™ Donald J. Trump was charged with 37 felonies in Miami on Tuesday. Here’s how Fox News treated the event: In case that’s hard to read—and …

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