The New Hampshire Gazette, Volume 256, No. 21, July 13, 2012

Vol. CCLVI, No. 21 July 13, 2012

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The Fortnightly Rant

Fast and Furious — and Fabricated Late last month, for first time in history, Congress cited a sitting Cabinet officer for both civil and criminal contempt.

Attorney General Eric Holder incurred the wrath of Congress by refusing to turn over documents relating to the the so-called “Fast and Furious” case. Technically, the citations may be historic, but practically speaking they were meaningless.

All the civil citation does is clear the way for Congress to file a lawsuit someday which may possibly result, years hence, in an obscure judge perhaps deciding that Holder was wrong and should have coughed up the documents.

Equally feckless, the criminal citation refers the squabble to Ronald Machen, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and asks him — an Obama appointee — to think about maybe filing some charges against Holder — who is his boss.

Congress knows that these votes are legally toothless. But “Fast and Furious” isn’t about the law. It’s about politics.

Important If True On February 23, 2011, Sharyl Atkisson reported on the CBS Evening News that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms [ATF] was intentionally allowing straw purchasers associated with Mexican drug cartels to take thousands of assault rifles and other weapons across the border. Two of those guns, she said, had been found near the body of murdered U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Nine days later CBS aired an emotionally-charged interview with ATF agent John Dodson, a participant in “Operation Fast and Furious,” who corroborated Atkisson’s original story.

Counter-Intuitive The story quickly triggered

some counter-intuitive behavior on the Right. Republicans heroically overcame their chronic skepticism towards the biased liberal news media and swallowed CBS’s story whole. And their friends in the National Rifle Association [NRA] flip-flopped.

Instead of hating the ATF’s jackbooted thugs for confiscating people’s guns, they despised them for not doing so.

In no time flat, “Fast and Furious” became the new Watergate.

Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the rest of the Right Wing chorus began screaming bloody murder.

Some Champion The groundwork for the contempt vote was done by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa [R-CA]. And Issa is the perfect man for the job — from a Republican point of view, anyway.

He could hardly wait to investigate the Obama Administration.

After the 2010 election, already anticipating his appointment as Committee Chairman, Issa told Politico that he intended to make Obama’s the most investigated administration ever. “I want seven hearings a week, times 40 weeks,” he said.

He wasted no time arriving at a conclusion. Before the election Issa said, on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, that President Obama was “one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times.”

Issa should know corruption.

A New Yorker profile suggests he’s got a certain familiarity with it. Written by Ryan Lizza and published January 24, 2011, the article tells of how Issa acquired a car alarm company in 1982 by foreclosing on a business loan.

He later opened a box on his desk, revealing a gun inside, and

told an employee he was fired.

Later that year a fire destroyed the company’s building — shortly after he quadrupled his fire insurance coverage and, according to his former business partner, removed the company’s computer, financial records, and all other vital documents.

The insurance company concluded it was arson, but the state fire marshal did not make a determination. No one was ever charged.

Issa was in the Army in 1971 when a fellow soldier’s car disappeared. It reappeared the day after its owner threatened to kill Issa.

A year later he was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.

In 1979 Issa was indicted for grand theft in an apparent insurance scam involving an allegedly stolen car. That case was dropped after Issa repurchased the car. In 1981 he left the scene of an accident but avoided charges by making an undisclosed payment to the injured driver of the other vehicle.

Likely Stories Lizza dutifully notes that Issa was able to provide exculpatory but unverifiable explanations for each of these dubious incidents. If the tables were turned and Holder offered Issa excuses of a similar quality for the “Fast and Furious” fiasco, they would not have won him any mercy.

A Hopeless Situation An article published last month in Fortune magazine — hardly a vehicle of leftist propaganda — finally makes “Fast and Furious” somewhat comprehensible.

“T]he ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels,” read Fortune’s teaser. “How the world came to believe just the opposite is a tale of rivalry, murder, and political bloodlust.”

Writer Katherine Eban, who spent six months researching the piece, learned that ATF agents did try to arrest straw purchasers — but they were prevented from doing so by the U.S. Attorney.

They said such arrests could not be made under Arizona’s lax gun

laws — which Republicans and the NRA support and ferociously defend. The straw purchases were legal.

But, as Mark Twain used to say, a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on. And, as a Florida appeals court explicitly ruled in 2003, the First Amendment gives news organizations — CBS and Fox News alike — the right to lie if they want to.

Meet the New BoogeyMan If Joe Stalin ever wrote a show trial instruction manual, it would probably begin, “First, arrive at the verdict.”

Twelve years ago the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre accused President Clinton of “tolerat[ing] a certain amount of violence and killing to strengthen the case for gun control and to score points for his party.”

This April Issa addressed the NRA and echoed LaPierre’s conspiracy theory. “’Fast and Furious,’” he said, “can be seen as nothing else but” such an attack on the right to keep and bear arms.

fused to fight.

Gaffney was too busy getting a BS in Foreign Service at Georgetown and an MA in International Studies at Johns Hopkins.

In the eyes of the average grunt of that era, such credentials made a man an “educated fool.” Yet they worked for Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson [D-WA].

Jackson, often called “The Senator from Boeing” for his ability to win defense contracts for the company, hired Gaffney to work with Richard Perle, another belligerent Vietnam-era non-combatant, in his Senate office — birthplace of the “neo-conservative” movement.

After Ronald Reagan’s election, Perle and Gaffney, along with fellow neo-cons Paul Wolfowitz and

Douglas Feith, serially infested a number of high-level State and Defense Department offices.

Switching back to CSP’s official line, its website claims that “[i]n April 1987, Mr. Gaffney was nominated by President Reagan to become the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, the senior position in the Defense Department with responsibility for policies involving nuclear forces, arms control and U.S.-European defense relations. He acted in that capacity for seven months during which time, he was the Chairman of the prestigious High Level Group,

News Briefs

National Security Authority Briefs Portsmouth Republicans The Award-Winning Local Daily informed its readers on Wednesday that Frank Gaffney would be speaking to the local Rotary Club on Thursday and to the Seacoast Republican Women this morning in Rye. Here’s how their lede paragraph began: “The former assistant secretary of defense for International Security Policy under President Ronald Reagan ….”

That sounds pretty impressive.

The AWLD goes on to further identify Gaffney as “the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. [CSP].”

The paper describes CSP as a “non-partisan educational corporation … nationally and interna-

tionally recognized as a resource for timely, informed analyses of foreign and defense policy matters.”

So, it appears at first glance that a former high government official operating a worthy and authoritative institution focused on our national security has come to our humble town to share his wisdom generously with concerned local citizens.

Big-Time Propagandist Visits Paradoxically, this little story could also sound like a notorious Right Wing extremist had his D.C. propaganda shop crank out a boilerplate press release and ship it off to Rupert Murdoch’s local profit center, which then passed it on, after a superficial re-

write, to its long-suffering readers.

We can’t prove our little theory, though, because CSP does not waste precious electrons emailing such tripe to this newspaper.

Here’s a bio of Gaffney from a perspective he does not control: he was born in Washington, D.C. on April 5, 1953, so he turned 18 in April of 1971 — old enough to enlist in the U.S. military in its hour of alleged need.

On the National Mall in Gaffney’s home town stand three ten-foot tall, black granite panels — parts of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. They bear the names of some 2,100 men, killed in Vietnam between April, 1971 and the end of hostilities, in a war that Gaffney “supported” but re-

News Briefs to page two

Page 2 - The New Hampshire Gazette - Friday, July 13, 2012

News Briefs from page one NATO’s senior politico-military committee.”

Says Who? The Pentagon seems to remember things somewhat differently.

Policy.Defense.gov, an official Defense Department website, lists Richard L. Armitage as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from June 9, 1983 through June 5, 1989, and makes no mention of Gaffney.

Comparing Gaffney and Armitage is fairly entertaining. While Gaffney is a full-bore chickenhawk, Armitage graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1967, served a tour on a destroyer off the coast of Vietnam, then three tours as an advisor with the South Vietnamese Navy. At war’s end he was instrumental in helping thousands of Vietnamese escape to the Philippines.

Armitage has also been quoted numerous times by respected journalists calling Gaffney “a pissant.”

Gaffney and Armitage were not always at loggerheads, though.

Both signed the Program on a New American Century’s infamous 1998 letter to President

Clinton advocating the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Slip Sliding Away So how do we reconcile Gaffney’s claim and the Pentagon’s official record? Add in a little dementia and politics, and stir.

Reagan nominated Gaffney during a period when many — including his own son Ron — felt he was already slipping into the netherworld of Alzheimer’s. Presumably the Pentagon doesn’t list Gaffney as having held the position he claims because the Senate declined to confirm his appointment.

One Pepperoni and One War After Gaffney was bounced from the Pentagon, his neo-con friends helped set up CSP. Richard Perle defined its mission: “What we need is the Domino’s Pizza of the policy business. If you don’t get your policy analysis in 30 minutes, you get your money back.”

Right Wing warmongers have been keeping CSP solvent ever since. Lately its primary product line has been virulent anti-Muslim propaganda.

Between 2001 and 2009, it raked in $20 million in contributions from the usual list of defense industries and Right Wing pluto-

Portsmouth’s Welcome Home Parade for Iraq War Veterans passes through Market Square on Sunday, July 8th. We have a brief video clip of the event online at nhgazette.com/?p=5411. Also, see related item at right.

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crats — all tax-deductible. So, if you hear Gaffney speak, enjoy the presentation. You paid for it.

Iraq War Veterans Parade In some situations, being vastly outnumbered is a little unsettling.

Presumably that wasn’t the case on Sunday, July 8th for the dozen or so Iraq War veterans who marched at the head of a very substantial Welcome Home parade. The crowd was certainly big, friendly, and enthusiastic; the weather was perfect; and the organizers seemed to have the event well in hand.

The whole gamut of opinion on the war, and war in general, was clearly represented. Traditional veterans organizations were in attendance as well as a large contingent from Veterans for Peace and Seacoast Peace Response. The war may have been divisive, but as the organizers had intended, the parade was inclusive.

One organizer, Josh Denton, an Army veteran of the Iraq War, told Portsmouth-NH.Patch.com that when the Afghanistan War ends in 2014, “We will meet again, march again and greet them with the same fanfare we had here today.”

The Five-Sided Follies Bear with us, dear Reader — we have just one more item related to recent military misadventures.

The small town of Natick, MA is home to an obscure but generally useful outfit called the Army’s Soldier System Center. It would be a great subject for a Hollywood movie about brainy-but-weird scientists and powerful-butstupid generals. Founded in the early 1950s the Natick Lab, as it’s commonly called, has done things like invent Gore-Tex fabric and engineer the food-like products that fed the Mercury and Gemini astronauts.

Last month an online news source called The Daily reported that the Natick Lab is now working on a brand new camouflage uniform pattern for the Army.

But wait, you might say — didn’t the Pentagon just spend $5 billion to develop and issue a brand new camouflage uniform pattern for the Army in 2004?

Well, yes, it did. But, apparently “the Army designed a universal uniform that universally failed in every environment,” according to a soldier who was quoted anonymous by The Daily because he didn’t want his career to end abruptly.

Natick was halfway into its testing program when an Army brigadier general cut it short. He told the Lab to copy a Marinedeveloped pixilated pattern because he didn’t want to “allow the Marine Corps to look more cool than the Army.”

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Friday, July 13, 2012 - The New Hampshire Gazette - Page 3

Roberts Pulls a Fast One The Supreme Court issued its decision on the Affordable Care Act [ACA] just as our previous issue was going to press. That forced us to make a rather difficult decision: we could do something hasty, superficial, and possibly erroneous; or, we could take our sweet time, do something possibly erroneous but in a leisurely fashion, and let everyone else beat us to the punch by a fortnight. We’re not taking it personally, though.

Of course Fox News and CNN, being slaves to the 24-hour news cycle, had it worse that we did.

And they did worse, too. Immediately after the Court’s decision was released, both networks announced that the act had been overturned. There’s a technical term for that type of reporting: wrong.

Republicans were nearly as shocked and disconcerted as the news directors at Fox and CNN. Chief Justice John Roberts had done unto George W. Bush as David Souter had done unto the elder Bush — having accepted the honor of a seat on the Court, he stabbed his patron in the back by ruling as his conscience and

the Constitution dictated.

Some Republicans have suggested that Roberts’s epilepsy drugs may be affecting his judgment. If that really troubles them, should he not step down and allow President Obama to replace him?

Meanwhile, only the usual internet cranks seemed to be disturbed by Justice Clarence Thomas’s failure to recuse himself, despite his wife’s having collected about $1.5 million from organizations opposed to the ACA. Another disturbing thing about the Court’s ACA decision: fifteen percent of Americans think Fox was right the first time and the Court struck down the law, and another 30 percent don’t know how it ruled.

The GOP’s Top Whoremonger?

In 2010, Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele took some heat after a staffer named Erik Brown blew through $40,000 on private jets, limos, hotel bills, and — here’s the kicker — $2,000 on a fundraiser held at a Hollywood strip club featuring simulated lesbian sex acts.

It was titillating news, but not all that shocking. Angelina Spen-

As always, the City’s display of Fourth of July fireworks went off flawlessly.

Our Newsreel Team converted 112 still photos of the show — in full color, of course — into a video which can be seen online at nhgazette.com/?p=5402.

It lasts nineteen seconds, four seconds longer than San Diego’s unfortunate all-at-once fireworks mishap.

© 2012 by Dan Woodman

cer, the Executive Director of the Association of [Stripper] Club Executives, was hardly breaking news when she recently told NPR, “Hands down, the Republicans have always been our best customers.”

Now, though, it all seems kinda quaint. Sheldon G. Adelson, the Dorchester-born multi-billionaire and ex-cabbie who kept serial adulterer Newt Gingrich’s campaign on life support for months after voters wisely turned up their noses at it, has now been accused of personally controlling the prostitution that goes on at his gambling dens in the infamous former Portugese colony of Macau, off the coast of China.

The War on Voter Fraud Voting Mother Jones has checked the stats and found that UFOs are sighted 3,615 times more often than credible instances of in-person voter fraud.

Mississippi legislators didn’t let that stop them from passing a new voter ID law, though. The

Jackson Free Press reported July 5th that “[Mississippi v]oters without a photo ID are facing a circular problem: They need a certified birth certificate to get the voter ID, and they need a photo ID to get the birth certificate.”

Undeterred by the basic principles of the fusty old Constitution, Pennsylvania also passed a voter ID law recently.

Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele had repeatedly claimed that 99 percent of the state’s 8.2 million voters had nothing to worry about. They could use ID cards already in their posession, issued by the state’s Department of Transportation.

Oops. Now she says that the voting rights of 9.2 percent of the state’s voters are at risk this November.

Two Senate Democrats have introduced a bill that would outlaw election fraud, which it defines as telling lies about when and where an election is being held, &c., &c.

There those Democrats go

again. It’s shameful to see such blatant partisanship.

Bush League Library A faithful reader and former mailing crew volunteer suggested that we check out CharityNavigator.org’s entry for the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation, which supports the George Herbert [Hoover] Bush Library at Texas A&M in College Station, TX. We did, and found it illuminating. Out of a possible financial score of 70, the Foundation received a paltry 22.19 points.

Worse, CharityNavigator has a little list of “10 Highly Paid CEOs at Low-Rated Charities.” The Foundation comes in at No. 2 because Roman Popadiuk, CEO since 1999, was paid up to $289,308 a year while his organization spent less than 60 percent of its budget on programs and services.

Perhaps those numbers explain why Popadiuk was replaced on July 1st by one Frederick D. McClure.

Page 4 - The New Hampshire Gazette - Friday, July 13, 2012

Dire Warning To the Editor: Monday the Obama administration continued its war against the American people and the rule of law.

In a petulant response to the Supreme Court’s audacity for not declaring a key portion of the Arizona (SB 1070) Immigration Law unconstitutional, the Obama administration ordered its immigration authorities not to accept inquiries about a person’s immigration status from Arizona unless the inquiry related to a felony.

In addition, attempting to intimidate Arizona law enforcement, the Obama administration set up a hotline for people to report alleged racial profiling by Arizona police asking about their immigration status.

[Writer uses 150 words to postulate four unlikely scenarios in which immigration authorities are forced

by Obama’s order to unwittingly allow murderers, terrorists, rapists, drunk drivers, and robbers to go free and victimize innocent Americans, go on welfare, and/or collect food stamps. — The Ed.] In his pursuit of Hispanic votes, President Obama doesn’t care about the will of the American people which opposes amnesty and the Dream act, and approves

of the Arizona immigration law.

[Writer provides a 92 word litany of things President Obama does not care about, namely; Congress’s rejection of amnesty and the Dream act, Federal immigration laws, unemployed Americans, the cost of benefits going to illegal aliens, and American citizens in general. — The Ed.] President Obama’s war on American citizens trades the suffering, money, and blood of American citizens for his votes.

Don Ewing Meredith, NH Don: Man, that Obama must be one evil dude.

The Editor § What Will You Do? To the Editor: I am compelled to share Vermont Senator Bernie Sander’s warning to us all: “If we do not organize and build a strong grass-roots movement, this country will become an oligarchic form of society in which a handful of billionaires will control the economic and political life of our country.

“Today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income since the 1920s. Today, the wealthiest 400 individuals own more wealth than the bottom half of America — 150 million people. Unbelievable as it may seem, the six heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune, the Walton family, own more wealth than the bottom 30 percent.

“Today, the top one percent own 40 percent of all wealth, while the bottom 60 percent owns less than two percent. Incredibly, the bottom 40 percent of all Americans own just 3/10 of one percent of the wealth of the

country. According to a new study from the Federal Reserve, median net worth for middle class families dropped by nearly 40 percent from 2007-2010.

“The distribution of income is even worse. If you can believe it, the last study on this subject showed that in 2010, 93 percent of all new income created in the previous year went to the top one percent, while the bottom 99 percent of people had the privilege of enjoying the remaining seven percent.

“That is what is going on in our country economically. The very rich are getting much richer while the middle class disappears and poverty increases.”

What are you going to do about it ?

Herb Moyer Exeter, NH Herb: To answer your question, we’ll continue to publish this paper, which is happy to carry this call to action from our favorite Senator.

The Editor § Wrong Side, Frank To the Editor: Once again, Congressman Frank Guinta has proven to be on the wrong side of history.

I was stunned by his 2011 vote to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and by his subsequent public statements.

Does he truly object to guaranteed access without regard to pre-existing conditions, to the superior model of community rating, and to eliminating coverage caps? Would he — and his Tea Party friends — really prefer that we have to pay more for essential benefits that are provided with all health care plans? Does he really

Mash Notes, Hate Mail,

side with Big Pharma over reasonably priced generic drugs? The simple answers are yes, yes, yes, he does.

Thankfully, cooler heads on the Supreme Court prevailed. As a small business owner, I applaud their June 28 ruling in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. Upholding the individual mandate ensures fairness in our health care system, and closes the hole wherein small business owners are forced to subsidize those who can pay for their health care coverage but fail to do so, thereby shifting those costs to small business.

No matter what Frank Guinta says or how he votes, we all deserve access to our healthcare system, the best in the world. Small business owners know there is no free lunch, and we look for fairness in our dealings. Congressman Guinta, you sealed a deal with your out-of-state corporate donors, and turned your back on your Granite State constituents.

Well done, Supreme Court. Poorly done, Congressman Guinta.

Roger Dunn Stratham, NH § Middle Class Wins To the Editor: Thursday’s Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) was a huge win for the hard-working American middle class. This means that ACA is affirmed as the law of the land and will continue to provide benefits to people who already have health insurance. Insurance companies have too long come between patients and doctors by

setting annual and lifetime limits on what they would pay for covered benefits.

Currently, under the law, lifetime limits are prohibited in any health plan or insurance policy issued or renewed after September 23, 2010. Also, the law restricts the current amounts of annual limits, and by 2014 phases them out entirely on most covered benefits.

Most of us know personally people who have had serious or chronic illnesses that have required long hospital stays and/ or expensive treatments to save their lives. While running out of insurance benefits in the middle of a major illness may not be a problem for the wealthy few, it can be devastating for the rest of us. With full implementation in 2014, patients and families will no longer be faced with a tragic choice: lose everything and go bankrupt or just give up and die.

Conservatives who suggest that people take personal responsibility by planning ahead or turning to their relatives or the church when illness strikes, are seriously out of touch with reality. It is hard to save money or make brilliant investments, when the weekly pay check barely stretches to cover the heating bill. And it takes a whole lot of bake sales to pay for major surgery!

Cynthia Muse Rye, NH Cynthia: You’re exactly right. Conservatives have been allowed to spout their idiotic nostrums uncontested for far too long, and that is how we got to where we are today. As Thomas Paine once

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Friday, July 13, 2012 - The New Hampshire Gazette - Page 5

And Other Correspondence wrote, “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.”

The Editor § Good Thoughts: Bad Idea To the Editor: I hate military parades. No matter the reason, in the end they celebrate war, with the litttle children running behind the Pied Piper enthralled and enchanted by the martial music that brings then to the cemeteries of well-manicured and sanitized fields of crosses in military alignment, fields far removed from those on which the soldiers bled out, screaming for their mothers, or blinded, or separated from their limbs and genitals, while even the lucky ones are haunted like the pastor who, as a soldier, participated in torture and now writes how the prisoners torture him each night in his sleep, and often in his waking hours.

And with the volunteer military we have the other one percent doing the fighting — kids without hope from towns with a pawn shop, a burger place, a box store, strip joint, bars, and a car dealership — the only establishments alive in a dying and deteriorating town that once produced products for the entire world and offered a decent living.

Yes, it’s wonderful to be entertained by the shining brass and the martial music on a summer day, with fat bellied old men who delight in Memorial Day or July 4th television marathons glorifying slaughter. But the dead and deaf cannot hear the music, the blind cannot see the parade, and the haunted brains cannot find

comfort.

And no, they are not looking down from on high; they are just dead.

Let’s skip the parades that suck the youngsters into seeing war as glorious. Let’s skip the wars, if only for one month, and use the money to provide better medical treatment, to build shelters for the many homeles vets, and pay the mortages and the full cost of education for those who were sent in harm’s way by those who ran for the tall grass when their time to serve came.

FT Parade.

John Dente Wilmington, DE John: You eloquently express the argument against participating in any military parade. The July 8th parade contained a large contingent of VFP members. Their presence assured that the audience would see that support for war is far from universal.

The Editor § It’s Simple, Or So He Says To the Editor: Achieving meaningful change in Washington D.C. requires many more thinking citizens to vote in the primaries. In gerrymandered states like Texas (typical of the other states), the November general election results are largely determined by the results in the primaries months earlier. This is especially true of Congresspersons.

Usually only the reddest of Republicans and the bluest of Democrats vote in the primaries.

Independents rarely vote in them!

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The primary election season for the current election cycle is more than half over! The results so far: almost all (90-plus percent) of Congressional incumbents have won their primary elections and are almost certain to win re-election to congress in November!

If you really want change in Washington forget your party affiliation, if any. Everyone should vote in the primary of the incumbent’s party and vote for someone other than the incumbent. First defeat the incumbent (it’s harder to do than you think!); then come November vote for the best candidate available.

If you really want change in Washington vote in the primary like a determined independent who really wants change!

Glen Terrell Arlington, TX § Guinta’s Supporters Fooled To the Editor: One of Congressman Frank Guinta’s supporters got fooled by the Congressman’s expensive taxpayer-paid mailings and then accidentally spread the fake news, adding a Republican operative spin. This poor man wrote that the Congressman has been holding town halls. Really? Where?

He also says former Congresswoman Shea-Porter did not, and then contradicts himself by saying she held them in small venues and had people removed. He could have saved himself some embarrassment if he had first checked PolitiFact.com, where it says that is false. Ms. Shea-Porter did hold town halls. As a matter of fact,

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she held 13 in just one year, while actually going to D.C. to work.

Frank Guinta worked seven days in May and seven days in June, and that was more than he usually does. So he is being paid to relax at home.

As for having people removed, the poor man obviously didn’t realize that Mr. Guinta’s campaign people deceived him. Mr. Guinta knows darn well, since he was Mayor, that during the healthcare town hall in Manchester, law enforcement officers made all the decisions, not the Congresswoman or her staff.

He should tell Mr. Guinta’s crew that the next time they send him talking points that are false, he won’t be fooled again.

Annette Sell Nottingham, NH § Feeling Froggy?

To the Editor: [Writer uses 120 words to deploy the old “boiling frog” example, equating the frog’s gradual demise to that of several enumerated freedoms, to wit, the freedom to: possess firearms without restriction, bear complete responsibility for retirement, invest money without restriction, guzzle immense quantities of More Hate Mail, &c. to page six

Murph’s Fortnightly Quote “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed” — The Declaration of Independence

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Page 6 - The New Hampshire Gazette - Friday, July 13, 2012

Northcountry Chronicle

The Fading Dream

by William Marvel

L

ast month’s high school graduation fell on the 45th anniversary of my own emancipation from the old—and to many of us the real — Kennett High School. That day in 1967 dawned hot and humid, and in fear of a thunderstorm the administration condemned us to the sweltering gymnasium, where we sweat profusely beneath our gowns. So impatient was I to get back into the air outside that I can’t remember anything beyond filing into our seats on the stage. I presume that Bob Moulton, our principal, handed out the diplomas, but the videotape of that momentous achievement seems to have been erased. My next recollection materializes on the front lawn, where I was already planning my first legitimate adventure away from home.

I had already done a lot of independent traveling the previous summer, but mostly I had

forgotten to ask permission. At the end of a day of hitchhiking I might call from a pay phone to say that I was on Cape Cod, and everything was fine, and I would be home soon. Once a New York State trooper made that call for me, and apprised my parents that I would be well cared for at the Erie County Jail until they could find occasion to come out to Buffalo for me. How was I to know that vagrancy laws still existed in 1966, or that they might be used to snag a 16-year-old vagabond?

Now it was different. My postgraduation hegira could not be forbidden. Whatever the law might have decreed about the age of majority, leaving high school was popularly regarded then as the beginning of adulthood. When a kid graduated or quit, the father who dictated the discipline in most households usually felt that his authority (and responsibility) had come to an end. Project Graduation would have to await the paranoid parenting of a later

generation.

With a few extra clothes, a sleeping bag, and a hunting knife, I stuck my thumb out in front of the high school and headed for points south. This time I took enough money with me for a bus ticket home, in case some Southern deputy wanted to play the vagrancy card, but I never used it.

In those days truck drivers loaded and unloaded their trucks by hand, and they were always willing to pay a hitchhiker a few bucks to help, so I came home with more money than I took with me. Diners were everywhere, with hearty breakfasts under a dollar.

That first spartan jaunt was perhaps the sweetest I’ve ever taken. I slept soundly in passenger seats or in the woods that lined most highways. I prowled the battlefields of Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, and Petersburg, and traveled hundreds of miles over rural Southern roads, where the cultural landscape remained eerily similar to the descriptions

left by Civil War soldiers. Deep in Virginia one morning, I climbed into an old Buick behind two very black men in their late forties or fifties, dressed in their Sunday best, with porkpie hats. For half an hour we rocketed down Route 301 between encroaching pine forests into North Carolina, passing through little towns with names I remembered from Civil War campaign histories.

Every region had its own flavor, with peculiar accents, architecture, and customs. A day’s drive brought any traveler into a new world. Fifty miles south of Washington, ranch and splitlevel houses were still rarities. In southern Virginia and the Carolinas, antebellum houses still stood before distant rows of surviving slave cabins. The farther south I went, the higher the ceilings and windows in old houses rose, in lieu of air-conditioning. The only franchise business I can remember was the chain of Stuckeys restaurants that dotted the road to

Florida, and they became a joke.

Since then, the homogenization of American culture has stripped most localities of their unique identity. Every town of any size has the same convenience stores, maximum-security schools, and retail strip. Communities distinguish themselves now by the big-box retailers they have, or want. Driven by unimaginative economics and social competition, residential sprawl covers every landscape with amorphous uniformity, all the while straining for variety and splendor. Housing developments in Jackson, New Hampshire, are indistinguishable from those in Montague, New Jersey, or Lookout Mountain, Tennessee.

The memories of my graduation journey have faded over the decades, but I expected that would happen. What I did not anticipate was that the endlessly diverse cantons of my homeland would all disappear within my lifetime.

MoreMash Notes, Hate Mail, And Other Correspondence, from Page Five carbonated sugar-water, not have access to federally-regulated health care. — The Ed.] The Declaration of Independence states that we have the right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. How liberated do you feel?

Happy Independence Day Mr. & Mrs. Frog.

Irving B. Welchons III Charlotte, NC § Don’t Talk To the Editor: CNN reported on June 22nd that “Hani Nour el-Din visited Washington this week as part of a delegation of Egyptian mem-

bers of parliament. But, el-Din is a member of the group Gamaa Islamiya … which the State Department has designated a terrorist organization. Under American law, a member of any group on the list would expect to be denied a visa.”

Hold on. Let’s look at that last sentence again. It appears someone in our State Department illegally issued a visa to a member of a known terrorist group. Worse yet, according to CNN, el-Din had a meeting with White House Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough. CNN says, “according to Tarek Al Zumor, a party spokesman and founding

The New Hampshire Gazette

member of Gamaa Islamiya, elDin pressed American officials for a transfer into Egyptian custody of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman (aka “The Blind Sheikh”).

MSNBC New York reported: “Rahman is serving a life sentence for his role in a plot to blow up the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels, the United Nations and other targets in the 1990’s. He has also been linked to the first World Trade Center bombing that killed six and injured more than a thousand.”

Why is an Obama administration official meeting with a known member of an Islamist terrorist group seeking the release

of a convicted terrorist jailed in our country? Why isn’t anyone calling for an investigation into this outrage and breech of our national security?.

John Meinhold Portsmouth, NH John: Why did we allow Khrushchev or Castro into the country?

The Editor § Ray Mabus and Whales To the Editor: I just sent a postcard to U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus at 1200 Navy Pentagon, Washington, D.C., 20350-1200. On it I questioned an imminent Navy

program involving the use of high frequency underwater sound for testing in Hawaii, the California and Atlantic Coasts, and the Gulf of Mexico. According to Navy estimates it will deafen more than 15,900 whales and dolphins and kill 1,800 more over the next five years. Whales and dolphins depend on sound to navigate and live.

Ironically, at our recent and very wonderful family reunion, I brought to light the 1980’s cooperative board game my daughters loved, “Save the Whales,” for the grandchildren to learn. So I wrote to Sec. Mabus asking if at their house they play his own devised

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Friday, July 13, 2012 - The New Hampshire Gazette - Page 7

Propagandizing School Kids For Corporate Profit

by Jim Hightower re you a parent who’s worried about the plethora of highly-questionable bio-engineered organisms that agribusiness profiteers have quietly been slipping into everything from snack foods to school lunches? Well, perhaps your own children can put your mind at ease, for they might have science teachers who assign a book called Look Closer

at Biotechnology to the kiddos in their classes. It’s filled with colorful images, friendly cartoon faces, puzzles, and more!

The very first page makes clear that the scientific wonder of genetically-engineered foods pose no worries at all. “Hi kids,” it begins. “This is an activity book for young people like you about a really neat topic.” Why is it so neat?

Because, say the authors, “As you work through the puzzles in this

book, you will learn more about biotechnology and all the wonderful ways it can help people live better lives in a healthier world.

Have fun!”

Fun? With genetically engineered food? Who’s behind this book of fairy tales? The Council for Biotechnology Information.

And exactly what and who is CBI? It’s a PR and political front for the biotech industry, financed by such multibillion-dollar giants

as Monsanto, Bayer, DuPont, and Dow. It’s also now funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into the industry’s deceitful political campaign to kill a California “Right To Know” ballot initiative that finally would require food giants to label all products containing genetically-engineered organisms.

What are we to do about corporate powers that’re so avaricious and arrogant that they’re

willing to tamper with our food supply, our kids’ minds, and our basic consumer rights? Defeat them, that’s what. Here are three good sources for information and action: JustLabelIt.org, NonGMOShoppingGuide.com, and OrganicConsumers.org. § Copyright 2012 by Jim Hightower & Associates. Contact Laura Ehrlich (laura@jimhightower.com) for more information.

board game, “Maim, Deafen, Kill the Whales.” Forgive my suspicious nature, but when I looked for info on Sec. Mabus, I thought he was going to be one of these “make-nice” Republican appointees of which Pres. Obama seems fond. But he’s a Democrat. It shows that being pro- or anti-environment crosses party lines. On either side are both mentalities.

I suggest that people send their own postcards to Sec. Mabus, asking him to kill the whales or save the whales. Add your “why.”

Get your kids and grandkids to participate. Happy summer to all.

Lynn Rudmin Chong Sanbornton, NH § Israeli Propaganda To the Editor: As I read Mike Kulla’s (6/29) letter of purile hasbara (Israeli propaganda), I wondered if Mike was whining because he knows that slowly the American public seems to be growing weary of poor, pitiful, Israel. After decades of Zionist lies completely dominating our pathetic media (with few exceptions, you know who you are), there are efforts to boycott/divest Israel products. America needs to get off its knees and tell Israel to go pound sand. AIPAC owns our Congress.

A few short years after WW II Zionistas launched a war of ter-

rorism and drove over 700,000 people from their homes while murdering many others, including the British in the King David Hotel. Israel was founded by terrorists for terrorism that is on going today. The Irgun, the Stern gang, and the Haganah were the main three terror groups. Many Israel leaders like Menachim Begin and Yitzhak Shamir were members.

The Haganah terror gang evolved into the IDF evil doers. The IDF is a disgrace to humanity.

In 2004, Ronnie Kasrils, a Jewish minister in the South African government traveled to the occupied territories and observed, “This is much worse than apartheid. Israeli measures of brutality make apartheid look like a picnic.

We never had jets attacking our townships. We never had tanks destroying houses. We had armored vehicles and police using small arms to shoot people but not on this scale.”

In 1967 Israel launched a war of agression in which they attacked the U.S.S. Liberty, killing 34 sailors and wounding 171 others. They shot the life boats. The conspiracy was to sink the Liberty and blame it on Egypt. Sound familiar? Connect the dots of 9/11 and you will end up in Tel Aviv.

Again, America get off your knees and stop funding this state terrorism! Israel is the biggest

pain in the ass in the world today.

Peace be upon us, Gary Walker Campton, NH Gary: So far as we know your facts are accurate. Your interpretation is, shall we say, not exactly temperate, but who are we to talk. Your final assertion, though, that 9/11 emanated from Tel Aviv, strikes us as devoid of substance, higly inflammatory, and suggestive of excess credulity.

The Editor § Yet More Israel To the Editor: Since elections for all seats in the House of Representatives will take place this fall, now seems a good time to write about a bill the current crew passed [by a vote of ] 411-2 on May 9th. The two standouts, Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, voted against suspension of the rules, a procedure meant for non-controversial bills needing little debate.

The bill basically gives Israel a blank check for any sum of money it wants to maintain its “qualitative military edge” over all its neighbors combined. Whatever the amount, it’s paid in addition to an $8 million daily dole which in a unique arrangement gets paid in a lump sum at the beginning of each year.

The Representatives who vote

time after time to give Israel more money and more deadly weapons seem oblivious to its attacking all its neighbors, bombing civilians, and assassinating whoever it gets the urge to kill. Maybe in this year’s campaigns they can explain how they became bought hirelings of a brute state.

Marjorie Gallace Camden, ME § The Grateful Living To the Editor: My wife and I are 80 and 82 years old respectively. We have been ‘on’ Medicare since age 65 and are so grateful every day for this program.

A premium of around $1,000 per year is deducted from our monthy Social Security benefit checks. For this premium, Medicare pays approximately 80 percent of our medical bills.

We also have so-called Gap Insurance that pays the remaining 20 percent. The combination program we have pays virtually all of our non-drug medical bills, and we are just so grateful for this coverage. The downside of the gap coverage is the premium’s cost: almost $2,800 per year each.

As most know, gap insurance is provided by for-profit entities. If this is any indication of healthcare premiums under the new health care bill, it will be unaffordable

for most citizens.

If the federal government also provided gap insurance at the same rate they provide the 80 percent coverage, people could actually afford it in most cases.

We have several friends that are Canadian and they are well aware of the political battles that rage here, especially over health insurance. Canada has a program that insures everyone and it works well. Interestingly to me, all during this healthcare debate no one has seen fit to publish an explanation of the Canadian system. Perhaps if that was done, the public could see what an alternate program looks like. While we are at it, why not allow us to be aware of the systems that European counties have? It would be beneficial.

Re: Obamacare, I know little about it except that the health insurance industry has been handed 30 million customers that have no choice but to pay them a premium! What a bonanza for the industry. But what about the consumer?

Donald Bradley Rye, NH Donald: Isn’t it amazing what organized greed can accomplish over time — especially when it’s got a massive self-funding propaganda arm on its side?

The Editor

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Page 8 - The New Hampshire Gazette - Friday, July 13, 2012

Admiral Fowle’s Piscataqua River Tidal Guide (Not for Navigational Purposes) Portsmouth, arguably the first town in this country not founded by religious extremists, is bounded on the north and east by the Piscataqua River, the second, third, or fourth fastest-flowing navigable river in the country, depending on

who you choose to believe.

The Piscataqua’s ferocious current is caused by the tide, which, in turn, is caused by the moon. The other player is a vast sunken valley — Great Bay — about ten miles upriver. Twice a day, the moon

drags about seventeen billion gallons of seawater — enough to fill 2,125,000 tanker trucks — up the river and into Great Bay. This creates a roving hydraulic conflict, as incoming sea and the outgoing river collide. The skirmish line

moves from the mouth of the river, up past New Castle, around the bend by the old Naval Prison, under Memorial Bridge, past the tugboats, and on into Great Bay. This can best be seen when the tide is rising.

Twice a day, too, the moon lets all that water go. All the seawater that just fought its way upstream goes back home to the ocean. This is when the Piscataqua earns its title for xth fastest current. Look for the red buoy, at the upstream

end of Badger’s Island, bobbing around in the current. It weighs several tons, and it bobs and bounces in the current like a cork.

The river also has its placid moments, around high and low tides.

When the river rests, its tugboats

and bridges work their hardest.

Ships coming in laden with coal, oil, and salt do so at high tide, for more clearance under their keels.

They leave empty, riding high in the water, at low tide, to squeeze under Memorial Bridge.

Sunday, July 15

Monday, July 16

Tuesday, July 17

Wednesday, July 18

Thursday, July 19

Friday, July 20

Saturday, July 21

1995—A weather phenomenon called a derecho (a mesoscale convective complex) sends hurricane force winds through New York and New England, toppling thousands of trees and killing three people.

1979—Jimmy Carter delivers his “malaise” speech, in which the word “malaise” does not appear.

1974—In Florida, on live TV, newsreader Christine Chubbuck pulls a loaded pistol from a shopping bag and shoots herself dead.

1971—Nixon says he’ll go to China.

1964—The Republican Party saddles itself with Barry Goldwater as a presidential candidate.

1919—The then-honestly-named War Department calls 337,000 Americans draft dodgers.

1865—Beach-goers in Rye, NH observe an optical illusion making the Isles of Shoals appear to be only a mile or two offshore.

1779—Troops under General “Mad Anthony” Wayne take Stony Point—and 700 prisoners—with a bayonet charge.

1685—The executioner Jack Ketch, after eight blows of the ax, finally succeeds in beheading the Duke of Monmouth.

1381—Lollard preacher John Ball, for his part in inspiring the Peasants’ Revolt, is hanged, drawn, and quartered as Richard II looks on with approval.

2004—Martha Stewart gets five months in the can for lying about a shady deal to save $45,000.

1994—Fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crash into Saturn.

1980—In Detroit, Ronald Reagan is nominated for President by what was formerly the party of Lincoln.

1979—A badly-built earthen dam located on shaky ground collapses in Church Rock, NM, spilling 1,100 tons of radioactive mill waste, 93 million gallons of effluent, and as much radioactivity as Three Mile Island.

1973—Al Butterfield reveals he’s been bugging the Oval office at the behest of The Man himself.

1973—Senate begins investigating the Air Force’s 3,500 secret B-52 bombings of Cambodia.

1969—Apollo 11 blasts off, next stop: the Moon.

1945—The Atomic Age begins with a bang at Alamagordo, NM. 1942—French Police arrest 13,152 Parisian Jews, most of whom will die in Auschwitz.

1877—Martinsburg, WV militiamen won’t fire on striking railway workers, so Federal troops do.

1862—David Farragut becomes U.S.’s first Rear Admiral.

1858—To help himself resist prostitutes, Thomas P. “Boston” Corbett castrates himself with a pair of scissors. Seven years later he will kill John Wilkes Booth.

2010—Glenn Beck fan Byron Williams, on his way to start a revolution by attacking The Tides Foundation and the ACLU, shoots it out with California Highway Patrol instead. They win.

2001—The FBI announces that it can’t find 449 firearms and 184 laptop computers, including one holding classified data.

1996—Flight 800 spontaneously explodes off Long Island. Right.

1979—Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza flees Nicaragua to escape the Sandinistas.

1965—Art Sylvester, an American official in Saigon, tells Morley Safer “if you think any American official is going to tell you the truth, then you’re stupid.”

1962—Twenty-six minutes after a small atomic bomb is tested in Nevada, a company of men from the Fourth Infantry Division marches through the blast zone.

1955—Lightning ignites a huge mine placed near Ypres in 1916. A cow is killed.

1944—Two munitions ships explode at Port Chicago, CA, killing 322, mostly black bomb handlers.

1928—At a party for veterans of the Mexican Revolution, President Alvaro Obregon says to a strolling caricaturist, “Make sure you make me look good.” “I will,” says artist Leon Toral, pulling a gun and shooting him dead.

1985—Presumably still doped up after cancer surgery five days earlier, Ronald Reagan OKs a scheme to send arms to Iran.

1984—After telling his wife he’s “going to hunt humans,” James O. Huberty kills 21 and wounds another 19 in a 77 minute rampage at a San Diego McDonald’s before a SWAT team sniper ends it.

His widow later sues McDonalds, unsuccessfully, for unhinging his mind with MSG. 1981—Norman Mailer’s protege Jack Abbott, while on work release from a conviction for bank robbery, stabs a man to death in an East Village restaurant.

1969—Senator Ted Kennedy gives Mary Jo Kopechne a ride part of the way home from a party, takes a swim, then a nap.

1964—Riot begins in Harlem after police shoot an unarmed 15-yearold black male.

1944—Ordered by der Führer to kill a fly, aide Fritz Darges suggests since the pest is airborne a Luftwaffe adjutant ought to do the job. Hitler immediately banishes Darges to the Eastern Front.

1939—Hunter S. Thompson is born, Louisville, KY. 1936—The Spanish Civil War begins.

1925—H.L. Mencken is nearly run out of Dayton, TN on a rail by its pious Christian inhabitants.

2010—Terrified by a malignlyedited YouTube clip, Sec. of Ag. Tom Vilsack has USDA employee Shirley Sherrod pulled over by the side of the road and fired.

2001—Deputy Chairman of the British Conservative party Lord Jeffrey Archer is convicted of perjury and sentenced to 4 years.

1994—Dining with reporters in the Capitol, Sen. Howell Heflin (D-AL) pulls what he thinks is a hankie from his pocket, and wipes his nose with panties.

1991—The South African government admits that it paid Zulus to undermine the African National Congress.

1989—Engine failure on a DC-10 cuts its hydraulics. Most of the 296 people aboard survive its fiery crash in Sioux City.

1985—Concord teacher Christa McAuliffe is chosen to be first “Teacher in Space.”

1979—Sandinistas march triumphantly into Managua.

1969—John Fairfax completes the first solo cross-Atlantic row.

1942—German U-boats quit the U.S. Atlantic coast due to effective counter-measures.

1848—The first Women’s Rights convention is held at Seneca Falls, NY, where “Bloomers” are first introduced.

1814—Birth of Samuel Colt, inventor of the revolver.

2006—Rep. Robert Wexler (DFL) tells Stephen Colbert he enjoys cocaine and prostitutes are fun, but they’re more fun together.

2002—The FBI arrests three former NASA interns for stealing a 600 lb. safe holding moon rocks.

2002—A review finds that U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan have killed as many as 400 civilians.

2001—Lori Klausutis, 28, a Congressional aide, is found dead in the Fort Walton Beach office of Rep. Joe Scarborough (R-FL).

1989—Pres. George Herbert [Hoover] Walker Bush calls for a manned mission to Mars. His farcical notion is quickly laughed off.

1985—Mel Fisher begins hauling $400,000,000 worth of gold off the ocean floor near Key West, FL, where it had lain for 363 years.

1984—Famed runner and fitness guru Jim Fixx, age 52, dies of a heart attack while jogging.

1973—Martial artist and fitness fanatic Bruce Lee, age 32, dies in Hong Kong.

1969—Neil Armstrong takes a walk on the moon.

1956—A scheduled election intended to reunify Vietnam is blocked by the South. The Eisenhower administration concurs.

1948—Harry Truman kicks off the U.S.’s first peacetime draft.

1944—German generals try but fail to kill Hitler with a bomb.

2007—George W. Bush invokes the 25th Amendment, making Dick “Dick” Cheney President while Bush’s colon is inspected.

2000—Long-time Texas voter Dick “Dick” Cheney registers in Wyoming to evade election laws.

2000—A federal commission concludes that the FBI and ATF did nothing wrong in the 1993 Waco, TX siege which left 80 religious fanatics dead.

1997—In her 200th year, the U.S.S. Constitution sails for forty minutes off Boston.

1971—AT&T gives the GOP $400,000 for its 1972 convention — and dodges an anti-trust beef.

1954—Geneva Accords free Vietnam from French colonial rule; the U.S. steps in to preserve disorder.

1951—A Canadian Pacific DC-10 leaves Vancouver for Anchorage with 37 on board and disappears.

1950—Tuffi, a young elephant, becomes agitated while riding an elevated train, breaks through a window, and falls into a river in Germany. She survives.

1919—A burning dirigible crashes through the glass skylight of a Chicago bank killing 13.

1918—The German sub U-156 lands a few shells on the beach at Orleans, MA while shelling and sinking the tug Perth Amboy — the first time the U.S. mainland has been attacked since 1812.

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2003—In Mosul, Iraq, U.S. troops kill the Hussein brothers.

2001—“I know what I believe,” says George W. Bush. “I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe — I believe what I believe is right.”

1991—Milwaukee police arrest Jeffrey Dahmer, the cannibal.

1975—Owen J. Quinn parachutes from the top of the South Tower of New York’s World Trade Center.

1974—More than 600 young Moonies begin a three-day fast on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and pray for Richard Nixon.

1946—Irgun bombs the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91.

1934—In Chicago, FBI agents shoot John Dillinger in the back.

1916—A bomb kills 10 and wounds 40 during a Preparedness Day parade in San Francisco. Perjured testimony sends two innocent men to prison for twenty years.

1915—The excursion steamer Eastland nearly tips over at the dock in Chicago, but it’s hushed up to prevent loss of business.

1905—Henderson’s Point vanishes from the Piscataqua, thanks to 60,000 tons of dynamite.

1816—Percy Bysshe Shelley registers at a hotel at Mont Blanc, lists his destination as “L’Enfer.”

1620—A small band of religious fanatics leave Holland for the New World on the Mayflower.

2009—Alerted to the presence of an “eccentric-looking” man in the yard of a Long Branch, NJ home, police arrest Bob Dylan.

2002—Top intelligence officials in Britain warn Tony Blair that the U.S. is “fixing” intelligence to match policy to justify war against Iraq.

1982—While filming the movie Twilight Zone, Vic Morrow is decapitated by a helicopter blade.

1983—Air Canada Flight 143 runs out of gas halfway from Montreal to Edmonton. The “Gimli Glider” coasts more than 100 miles to a successful landing.

1969—James Brown walks out of LA Mayor Sam Yorty’s office when the mayor is late to present him with a proclamation.

1967—Cops raid a blind pig in Detroit, interrupting a welcome home party for two Vietnam veterans. A five day riot ensues, and 43 die.

1944—International Monetary Fund and World Bank are created in Bretton Woods, NH. The town’s first tax collector was Daniel Fowle.

1886—Bookie Steve Brodie stages a dubious dive off the Brooklyn Bridge and turns the resulting notoriety into a career of sorts.

1846—Henry David Thoreau is jailed for refusing to pay a $1 poll tax to support the Mexican War. 1827—The first public swimming pool in the U.S. opens, Boston.

2008—A tornado hits 9 towns along a 20-mile path in central NH, killing an Epsom woman.

2003—A congressional report says the FBI and the CIA disregarded warnings of a possible Al Qaeda attack on the U.S. 2003—In Iraq, the U.S. displays photos of the corpses of Uday and Qusay Hussein.

2002—The Pentagon begins its largest, costliest war game ever, “Millennium Challenge,” testing D. Rumsfeld’s “Transformation” theories. The “Red Force” quickly “sinks” sixteen ships.

2002—For accepting bribes and kickbacks, James Traficant (DOH) is booted from the U.S. House of Representatives.

1974—The Supreme Court votes 8-0 that Richard Nixon must turn over his Oval Office tapes.

1961—The first U.S. airliner is hijacked to Cuba.

1959—During the “Kitchen Debate” in Moscow, Nikita Khruschev mockingly asks Richard Nixon if Americans have machines to push food down their throats.

1951—Hanscomb AFB personnel report a UFO, “grayish with many black spots,” over Portsmouth, NH flying at 800 to 1,000 mph.

1816—In Alfred, ME, for reasons unknown, farmer Daniel Davis shoots Old Bet, an elephant being exhibited by Hackaliah Bailey.

2000—In a touching display of naiveté, George W. Bush announces that he has picked Dick “Dick” Cheney as running mate.

1990—U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie tells Saddam Hussein that the U.S. won’t take sides in an IraqKuwait border dispute.

1972—U.S. health officials admit blacks were used as guinea pigs in a 40 year syphilis experiment.

1969—Ted Kennedy gets two month suspended sentence for leaving the scene of an accident.

1965—Bob Dylan outrages purists at Newport Folk Festival by playing electric guitar.

1946—The first bikini is seen at a Paris fashion show. Same day: the first underwater A-Bomb is exploded, at Bikini Atoll.

1909—Louis Blériot becomes the first man to fly across the English Channel.

1898—The U.S. invades Puerto Rico.

1853—Legendary bandit Joaquin Murietta is killed in California.

His head is severed, put in a jar of brandy, and displayed until it is finally lost in the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.

1826—“Nothing succeeds with me,” says Decembrist reolutionary Mikhail Bestuzhev-Ryumin after the hangman’s first rope breaks.

“Even here I meet with disappointment.”

1979—Three and a half feet of rain fall on Alvin, TX. 1968—Nguyen Van Thieu, winner of 1967 Vietnamese presidential election, jails the runner-up. Same day: Mexican troops arrest thousands of students, shoot hundreds, kill dozens.

1967—In Detroit, police and National Guardsmen “investigating reports of a sniper” at the Algier Motel murder three black men and beat hell out of a bunch more.

1967—French Pres. deGaulle endorses sovereignty for Quebec.

1959—Engine failure forces U.S.M.C. Lt. Col William Rankin, then flying above a thunderstorm, to eject from his F-8 fighter jet.

Updrafts keep him aloft for 40 minutes amid lightning, hail, and sub-zero temperature. He survives.

1947—The National Security Act, correcting flaws in the Constitution, turns the War Department into the Defense Department, and creates the CIA and NSA. 1890—A tornado rips through Lawrence, MA, destroying 35 homes and killing eight people.

1877—In Chicago, at the Battle of the Viaduct, Federal troops kill 30 striking railroad workers.

1758—The French fortress of Louisburg, taken by New Englanders in 1744 and given back by Britain three years later, is re-taken by the British.

1976—Chester Plummer, a cabbie, climbs over the White House fence armed with a three foot pipe.

For refusing to back off, he is shot dead.

1974—The House Judiciary Committee votes to impeach Richard M. Nixon for hindering the investigation of the Watergate burglary.

1964—South Vietnam gets another 5,000 American “military advisors.” Total U.S. forces in Vietnam now number 21,000.

1963—Dick “Dick” Cheney is arrested for drunk driving.

1957—Alabama farmhand Jimmy Wilson is sentenced to death for stealing $1.95 from a white woman. Wilson is black.

1954—Duly-elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán is overthrown by mercenaries at the behest of the CIA. Forty years of genocide follow.

1953—Truce ends fighting in Korea; troops are still there.

1935—In his first performance, human cannonball W.C. Filler, 24, flies 150 feet from Ocean Park Pier in Santa Monica and fatally crashes full-length against a wave.

1893—William Taylor, reacting to a first jolt, breaks the straps of New York’s electric chair. A second jolt fails due to generator trouble.

Taylor is kept alive for an hour with morphine and chloroform, and killed on the third try.

2008—A tornado leaves a 40mile swath of destruction in New Hampshire and kills a woman in Deerfield.

2006—A wild storm topples the partially-renovated steeple of the North Church and its surrounding scaffolding onto Pleasant Street.

2003—Tom DeLay (R-TX), who once said Americans smoke Cuban cigars “at the cost of our national honor,” is photographed in Jerusalem lighting up a $25 Hoyo de Monterrey double corona.

2003—The country’s two largest banks are fined $300 million for helping Enron fleece investors.

1965—Lyndon Johnson doubles the draft quota.

1957—An Air Force C-24 hauling 3 nukes along the East coast dumps 2 in the ocean after losing power.

1945—A B-25 crashes into the Empire State Building. One engine goes right through the building, another severs elevator cables and sends a car plummeting to the basement. Six floors burn; flaming gas streams down the sides of the building. Toll: 13 dead, 26 injured.

1932—U.S. Army troops led by Dwight Eisenhower, aided by George S. Patton and commanded

by General Douglas MacArthur, drive the “Bonus Expeditionary Force”—20,000 hungry World War I veterans—out of Washington D.C., killing two in the process.

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The Zen of Salt

Therapeutic Massage, Aromatherapy & Bodywork 150 Congress Street Portsmouth, NH 603-766-FISH

Jill Vranicar• Kate Leigh

16 Market Square, Portsmouth, NH

(603) 436-6006

Next to City Hall in Downtown Dover, NH 3 Hale Street j (603) 742-1737

Since 2011

7 Commercial Alley ~ 766-1616 www.portsmouthsaltcellar.com