The New Hampshire Gazette, Volume 256, No. 26, September 21, 2012

Vol. CCLVI, No. 26 September 21, 2012

The New Hampshire Gazette

Live

Free! or Die

The Nation’s Oldest Newspaper™ • Editor: Steven Fowle • Founded 1756 by Daniel Fowle

First Class U.S. Postage Paid Portsmouth, N.H., Permit No. 75

PO Box 756, Portsmouth, NH 03802 • editors@nhgazette.com • www.nhgazette.com

Address Service Requested

The Fortnightly Rant

Rampagin' Romney

Mitt Romney always planned to base his Presidential campaign on his alleged financial acumen.

Now we can see why.

The Republican nominee got his “3 a.m. phone call” on the afternoon of September 11, 2012.

News reports from Egypt and Libya conveyed a confused and chaotic situation. Acting swiftly and decisively — but above all politically — just two hours after the first report of the death of an American at the consulate in Bengazi, Romney issued a statement condemning the President for something he did not do.

“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi,” it read.

“It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

Cue the Truthiness The “response” to which Romney referred was issued not by the White House in response to any attack but by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo — several hours before any attacks took place.

To the Romney campaign, though, petty details such as the actual sequence of events are just distractions from a larger “truth.”

What the U.S. Embassy in Cairo actually said — assuming that makes any difference anymore — was that “Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy.”

There is nothing earthshaking in that statement. It merely restates a component of U.S. foreign policy that has stood for centuries — though, in light of recent events, it may be time to

reconsider.

Thank God for Religion The instigator of this new jihad is a Coptic Christian named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. The Coptic Church apparently emerged as a distinct entity within Christianity in 451 AD at the Council of Chalcedon, due to its insistence that Christ is “of ” two natures, rather than “in” two natures, whatever that means. In addition to the practice of this branch of theology, Nakoula’s other interests include bank fraud, ratting out former partners in crime to the Feds, and the illicit manufacture of methamphetamine.

Nakoula is credited — if that’s the correct term — with producing a film called The Innocence of Muslims, which has sent the Middle East into convulsions. If anyone has watched the whole film he’s not talking, probably out of embarrassment. The 14-minute trailer, posted on YouTube in June, is painful enough. It has all the production values — and taste — of a notorious series of TV ads for a Lafayette Road furniture store featuring a bulky middleaged man bellowing inanely while wearing a red two-piece bikini, cowboy hat, and boots. The film’s director was Alan Roberts, whose previous credits include Young Lady Chatterly, Young Lady Chatterly II, and The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood. The acting talent includes gay porn actor Tim Dax and fetish model Amina Noir.

The video depicts Muhammad — whom the abstemious Muslims deem it blasphemous even to portray — as a moronic child molester with a drinking problem.

Helping Nakoula to promote this celluloid Molotov cocktail were two individuals named Terry Jones and Steve Klein.

Not, though, the Terry Jones who played Mr. Creosote in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life and who, in a crowded restaurant, ate mountains of food which he then projectile-vomited in the general direction of a bucket on the floor.

No, The Innocence of Muslims fails to meet that Mr. Jones’ standards of good taste.

This is the other Terry Jones: the one with the professional-wrestler style moustache born in the same town and year as Rush Limbaugh, the one who was made a pastor by the evangelical Maranatha Campus Ministries whose founder later dissolved it in shame, apologizing for its excessive authoritarianism, the one whose church in Germany kicked him out in 2008, the one who periodically calls attention to himself by threatening to burn a Koran. The Innocence of Muslims trailer had been festering quietly for months on the internet — until Pastor Jones helped make the Muslim world aware of it.

With Nakoula in hiding, Steve Klein has been acting as his unrepentant spokesperson. According to the AP, Klein is an insurance salesman and the founder of Courageous Christians United, “which conducts protests outside abortion clinics, Mormon temples and mosques.” Klein, who claims to have served as a Marine in Vietnam, has reportedly “helped train paramilitary militias at the church of Kaweah near Three Rivers, about an hour southeast of Fresno, to prepare for what they believe is a coming holy war with Muslim sleeper cells.”

History Regurgitates Itself Pam Martens, who writes at WallStreetOnParade.com, points out this very curious fact: for the second time in a row a virulently anti-Islam video has dramatically surfaced exactly seven weeks before a Presidential election. In the Fall of 2008, 100 newspapers inserted into their Sunday editions 28 million free DVDs of Obses-

sion: Radical Islam’s War Against the West. Martens followed the money, and a Libertarian nonprofit called Donors Capital Fund, which appears to have multiple lines of connection to — you guessed it — the Koch Brothers.

It’s Obama’s Fault “The attacks on our embassies & diplomats are a result of perceived American weakness,” tweeted one expert on security issues. “Mitt Romney is right to point that out.” In his tweet, Donald Rumsfeld neglected to mention the eight terrorist attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities during his tenure as Secretary of Defense, but he was running out of characters.

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

There is a solution to this seemingly intractable problem, and it’s so simple that we’re astonished no one has proposed it before: let all the offended parties agree to pin the blame on those godless atheists.

government has a responsibility to care for them … believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”

By his own logic, then, to win the general election Romney will need 96 percent of the votes of the remaining 53 percent of the electorate: a feat that will require every ounce of Paul Ryan’s magical mathematical expertise.

Romney bought his home in Belmont, MA with a loan from his father that, adjusted for inflation, would be equal to $100,000 today.

But he didn’t let that handicap stop him from boasting, “I have inherited nothing. Everything I earned I earned the old-fashioned way.”

He also dismissed the prospects for a two-state solution to the

problem of Israel and Palestine, suggesting that he would overturn a basic tenet of U.S. foreign policy, and accused Palestinians of having “no interest whatsoever in establishing peace.”

All in all, the release of the tape was a terrific boost to the campaign — of President Obama.

No Fribbles For You On the one hand, it’s not surprising that Romney would conduct his May performance at the Boca Raton mansion of Marc Leder, a co-CEO of Sun Capital. Both men are corporate raiders who have made similar-sized fortunes by using other people’s money to take over companies, privatize the profits, and socialize the costs.

Take Friendly’s, for example —

because Leder did. Sun Capital bought the iconic New England restaurant chain in 2007. Last year Friendly’s declared bankruptcy.

In October, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), an independent agency of the U.S. Government, accused Sun Capital of “fraudulently moving assets so that its affiliates could retain control of [Friendly’s] and avoid paying retirement benefits to nearly 6,000 workers and retirees,” according to the Boston Globe.

Having conveniently ditched its obligations to those freeloading pensioners, Friendly’s now hopes to become profitable again.

Making life profitable for moochers like Leder isn’t the only challenge PBGC faces. Freemarket ideology has also taken a

big whack out of its assets. PBGC derives its funding from premiums paid by sponsors of pensions, acquiring the assets of the pensions it assumes, through bankruptcies and investment income from its assets, which amount to about $80 billion. It used to be more.

According to a deadpan entry in Wikipedia, PBGC, in 2004, “chose to invest heavily in bonds,” but “[u]nder new leadership [Charles E.F. Millard, who had worked at the now-defunct Lehman Brothers] the agency in 2008 shifted a substantial portion of its assets into stocks. Because of the market decline, PBGC’s equity

News Briefs

Mr. Excitement

Who could ever have predicted that a strait-laced, middle-aged, suit-wearing Republican businessman could run such a thrilling election campaign?

No sooner had Mitt Romney finished throwing gasoline on the Middle East conflict, than a 49-minute videotape surfaced showing the candidate performing a hilarious impression of Thurston Howell III, the clueless millionaire from Gilligan’s Island.

The high — or low — point of the performance was when Romney accused 47 percent of the electorate of being with the President, “no matter what.” They will vote for President Obama, he said, because they “are dependent upon government … believe that they are victims … believe that

News Briefs to page two

Page 2 - The New Hampshire Gazette - Friday, September 21, 2012

News Briefs from page one investments lost 23 percent during the year ending September 30, 2008.”

Mitt the Swingin’ Mormon On the other hand, although they do share vulture-capital DNA, it’s hard to imagine Romney and Leder in the same room.

Romney is a non-smoking, non-drinking, tobacco-eschewing Mormon moralist who is courting the votes of a party as professedly Puritanical as any in American history. So it’s damned odd that he would hold a $50,000-a-plate fundraiser at the home of a man who once threw a party so debauched it would make former Tyco tycoon Dennis Koslowski blush.

The New York Post reported that last year, “[a]t the Bridgehampton [NY] home that Leder rented for a whopping $500,000 a month, guests cavorted nude in a pool and performed sex acts, while scantily clad Russian women danced on platforms.”

It has become commonplace for the Republicans’ legion of self-appointed hall monitors to express their outrage whenever Democrats fail to denounce one of their number who has failed

to behave angelically. But so far we’ve heard nothing from Reverend Pat Robertson or Reverend Mike Huckabee about their standard bearer hanging out with Lascivious Leder.

Moocher Math A headline from the Washington Post sums up the merits of Mitt’s claim. Using data from The Tax Foundation, which calculated what percentage of each state’s residents file income taxes, the Post concluded that “Mitt Romney will probably get 95 electoral votes from ‘moocher’ states.

Obama will probably get 5.”

In another story, the Post reported that the Romney campaign had to borrow $20 million in August to keep the lights on and the wheels moving, and is $11 million in debt.

Furthermore, the IRS has reported that in 2009, almost four million individuals filed tax returns reporting income of $200,000 or more, but of that number 35,061 paid no U.S. income tax, and 19,551 of them paid no income tax anywhere on Earth.

The Hartford Building A little piece of the past reappeared on Congress Street one week ago today. Workmen renovating the building housing Bull Moose Music stripped away some

A worker for Pit Bull Painting in Strafford cleans the glass bricks of the old façade of the Hartford Building on Congress Street. The lovely stained glass panel with the building’s name, covered for years by signage, was recently rediscovered. See story, right.

427-2919

www.millworkcity.com

“We’re worth the trip.”

old signage and revealed a panel of old black and white stained glass with the words, “Hartford Building.”

The panel of glass has been put away temporarily for safekeeping, but when the renovations are done we’re told it will be returned to where it was originally installed about 87 years ago.

Pardon us for being excited about this, but for about forty years, the Hartford Building was home to this, The Nation’s Oldest Newspaper™.

Fernando Wood Hartford first arrived in Portsmouth some time before 1890 as a very young stringer for the Manchester Morning Union, a predecessor to the Union Leader. About 1891, beer baron and railroad tycoon Frank Jones probably put up the money for Hartford to acquire a local daily newspaper called The Penny Post, which Hartford renamed the Portsmouth Herald.

The major Portsmouth dailies at the time were the Journal and the Chronicle. The Gazette was being published weekly in tandem with the Chronicle, having been acquired by its owner thirty years earlier.

Frank Jones may have taken a liking to young Fernando, but

affection was not universal. The Chronicle declared in 1892 that Hartford had “a lump of diseased tissue which serves him as a brain.” In fairly short order, though, Hartford managed to acquire the Chronicle and the Gazette. He then set about eliminating his competition.

In 1903 Hartford bought and closed the city’s second-oldest paper, the weekly Portsmouth Journal, founded in 1793 as the Oracle of the Day. He folded the Chronicle in July, 1918, and later that year bought and closed the weekly States & Union. The Evening Times met the same fate in 1923.

At that time the Herald and Gazette shared offices on Pleasant Street, perhaps upstairs from the Piscataqua Savings Bank. And then, some time in 1925, they moved into the Hartford Building at 84 Congress.

Emblazoning your name on a building in foot-high letters might seem a bit outré, at least for those pre-Trump days, but consider: Hartford was not just the town’s sole source of news — he was also the Mayor. First elected in 1920, he served seven non-consecutive terms. Hartford died in 1938 and was succeeded as publisher

of the Herald and Gazette by his son Justin D. Hartford, who published them until his own death in 1963.

Steve McHenry, the architect for McNabb Properties, which owns the building, told us about the work underway. He said their assumption had been that whatever was behind the modern signage was damaged and of little value.

“When we did some further investigation, and went inside the ceiling of the record store, you could then see that what looked like painted tin or something else as a decorative element was actually glass, fluted glass, and ornamented glass block, and it was all in perfect condition. So, we went to the owner and said, instead of tearing this stuff up, let’s keep it.

He was eager enough to get up there and take a look himself, and realized what a good idea it was gonna be. So he’s working now to restore it, which doesn’t need any approvals. We’re on the docket for the Historic District Commission for next month to replace the aluminum storefront and later brick additions and keep the original brick piers and glass.”

The glasswork will be visible from the interior of the store as well as from the street.

Madore Electric

Golf Balls For Sale

Residential & Commercial Serving the Seacoast since 1980

U-Pic 436-9120 100 Peverly Hill Road

Licensed in Maine, Massachusetts, & New Hampshire

Sid Madore (603) 895-9286

The New Hampshire Gazette

is the most economical advertising medium on the Seacoast. This space is available for just sixteen dollars. To learn more, call (603) 433-9898, or e-mail editors@nhgazette.com.

Market Square Jewelers Your neighborhood jeweler since 1989

454 Central Avenue Dover (603) 740-9587

12 Market Square Portsmouth (603) 430-9587

22 Market Street Newburyport (978) 465-8313

Estate Jewelers • Buy, Sell, & Trade

Loose Gems • Antique Restoration • Repairs Gold • Silver • Costume • Bead Restringing

Great Jewelry Imported Soaps & Bath Comforts

65 Market Street Portsmouth, NH 03801 (603) 431-0694

Featuring Skagen Watches & Dr. Hauschka Skin Care

Reading the Tea Leaves On September 12th, the day after the primary election, the Award-Winning Local Daily’s Charles McMahon called upon UNH pollster Andy Smith to help decipher the results.

“Smith, director of the UNH Survey Center, said the numbers show Republicans may have more of their attention directed on politics than their Democratic counterparts,” McMahon wrote.

“I think what we’re seeing is that Republicans for the last several years have had more enthusiasm and excitement, or more anger than Democrats have had,” Smith told McMahon.

We looked at the results from the same election and came to a different conclusion. Rather than viewing the election through Smith’s perspective, we tried Secretary of State [For Life] Bill Gardner’s.

Many state Democrats believe Smith’s poll results skew in favor of Republicans. Gardner, although a Democrat, is no ideologue. He has been elected and re-elected eighteen times by the usually Republican House due to his competence and scrupulous non-partisanship.

Gardner predicted a total turnout of 168,000 voters. On Primary Day, 198,881 votes were cast.

So, the total voter turnout for the primary was 18.3 percent higher than predicted — evidence of enthusiasm, certainly.

Gardner had predicted that 102,000 Republicans and 66,000 Democrats would vote. In fact, 111,506 ballots were cast by Republicans and 87,375 ballots were cast by Democrats.

So while state Republicans exceeded official expectations by 9,506 ballots, or nine percent, Democrats exceeded expectations by 21,375 ballots, or 32 percent.

If that demonstrates a higher level of enthusiasm among Republicans than among Democrats, we don’t see how.

Turnout that exceeds low expectations should not be mistaken for full participation. Out of an estimated population of 1,318,194, the state had 767,383 registered voters last December. So only 58.2 percent of New Hampshire residents are registered to vote.

Of all registered voters, only 25.9 percent turned up for the Primary. Which means that just 15 percent of the population chose who would run for office.

Voter turnout during the September 11th primary election was 18.3 percent higher than predicted by Secretary of State (For Life) Bill Gardner. Even so, one Ward Two poll worker expressed disappointment with what he called a low turnout — and not without reason. See related story, right.

© 2012 by Dan Woodman

Friday, September 21, 2012 - The New Hampshire Gazette - Page 3

Fey Creatures We caught a glimpse of a headline in a recent Sunday edition of the Award-Winning Local Daily saying something about the town being suddenly full of “fey creatures.”

We, too, have noticed this phenomenon: lots of people simultaneously expressing their fantasy lives through elaborate costumes with slight variations but based upon a single unifying theme.

We didn’t see anything particularly newsworthy about it, though — this town’s always been full of bikers.

On the other hand, we did notice a sudden and unusual influx of little girls in fairy costumes.

The Gundalow and Great Bay On October 4th, the Gundalow Company’s 1.5 hour Sunset Lecture Cruise will feature speaker Steve Miller of the Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve.

The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department manages the

To: Dock owner, New Castle.

From: Krupke, Flag Police.

Subject: High tide, schmigh tide — Busted!

Great Bay Reserve, which was designated in 1989. The Reserve is also supported by the Great Bay Stewards, a non-profit friends group.

With the current hullabaloo about up-engineering sewage treatment plants around the Piscataqua region, the talk should be a great opportunity to learn more about what’s at stake. Tickets are

$36 for adults and $12 for youth (5-12). Arrival time at the Prescott Park dock is 4:30 p.m. For more information see gundalow.org or call 433-9505.

Día de los Muertos On Friday, October 5th, as part of the monthly Art Round Town, the McLaughlin-Hills Gallery will begin a celebration of Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, an All Souls Day relative of our North American Halloween.

Observed in Mexico on November 1st and 2nd, the day is much more of a celebration than a somber memorial, when the souls of the dead are welcomed back by friends and family.

Visitors are invited to add offerings, a marigold and photos to an altar in the main gallery. Mole, a traditional Mexican dish served on this holiday, will also be served during the opening from 5 to 8 p.m.

The Gallery is located at 110 State Street, Portsmouth. Call (603) 319-8306 for information.

Page 4 - The New Hampshire Gazette - Friday, September 21, 2012

The Goebbelesque Gazette To the Editor: My wife and I are living in New Hampshire for a few months and, in getting to know the area, encountered your “newspaper.” It is in reaction to your September 7th edition that I am writing to you today.

I was genuinely struck by the content and tone of your “newspaper.” As something of a history buff, I found myself uncomfortable with both the content and tone of the articles, cartoons and Letters to the Editor published in that edition. It seemed oddly familiar. There was an historical link, but in that instant, I simply couldn’t put my finger on it.

After a few moments of reflection, it came to me. Your “newspaper” was effectively duplicating the Nazi-era propaganda dedicated to demonizing, ridiculing and dismissing the European Jews.

Only in your case, your disdain, distortions and hate were directed at Mitt Romney and all things Republican.

As a political independent who contributed to the Obama campaign in 2008, I wanted to take a moment to write and offer my honest reaction to your “newspaper.” A few moments of honest self-reflection just might be worth considering! Because from where I sit, The New Hampshire Gazette represents everything that is wrong and broken in the American Political System.[®™] William H. Glover Gonic, NH

William: Thank you for “writing.” We don’t get nearly enough hate mail around here. Sometimes we worry that we’re losing our edge. Slogging through Mein Kampf for the umpteenth time to top off our bile reservoir can be sooo tedious … </snark>.

We fear, though, that your analogy has three weak spots.

A robust — and often disrespectful — debate is entirely within the American tradition. Read Jeffrey Pasley’s Tyranny of Printers about the way newspapers went after Jefferson and Adams. It’ll curl your hair.

Also, in Nazi Germany a tyrannical majority oppressed a powerless minority on the basis of irrational prejudice, while in Republicandominated America — don’t argue, now, William, the GOP owns the House and has the allegedly Democratic Senate hamstrung with the filibuster, and then there’s the damned Court — a tyrannical minority oppresses a powerless majority on the basis of irrational greed.

Lastly, there’s the question of Godwin’s Law, which, though technically enforceable only on the internet, we believe applies here. It refers to the inevitability of online discussions descending to the point where one party accuses the other of Nazi-like behavior. You, sir, have set some kind of record. “Congratulations.”

The Editor § Romney’s Vietnam Stance To the Editor: [Mr. Brobowsky writes in response to an article published in the New York Times, September 11th, headlined, “Dissecting Romney’s Vietnam Stance at Stanford,” which quotes Mitt Romney saying, “I longed in many respects to actually be in Vietnam and representing our country there.” — The Ed.] As a Purple Heart Marine veteran who volunteered for service (reckless/stupid), volunteered for Vietnam (double reckless/stupid) and then volunteered for an extended tour once in Vietnam

Is the free press dead?

Not yet!

Help keep it alive —

Subscribe!

See the handy Subscription Form on page five, opposite.

And, please, consider the Supporting Subscription option.

(very-nearly fatally reckless/stupid), I’m truly beyond perplexed, shocked and awed by how many of that war’s supporters and seemingly perpetual drum-beaters (see Romney, Bush II, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, et al.) just couldn’t find either ways or means to actually get into a uniform, or break out of the binding-shackles of hideaways like that era’s Texas National Guard. All this, while hundreds of thousands of working-class cannon fodder, without assorted “Pappy’s” and Old-Boy connections, had no alternatives to military draft/servitude but jail or exile.

Given the context of that simple truth, the least that Mitt Romney and his ilk owe to people who actually went or were herded into service is the decency to keep their mouths shut about how hard they tried to serve — or else, send their own pampered offspring into harm’s way in quicksands like Afghanistan, or maybe even Iran. Otherwise, we’ll all have to hear from yet another generation of political blowhards — about their regrets at having found no way to put their own skins into the deadly games that they have others play for them.

Igor Bobrowsky Cedar Grove, NJ PS: As for Mitt’s father’s change of heart and mind about Vietnam, and his regret at having allowed himself to be “brainwashed” about the war — as my wife wrote to me about it in Vietnam at the time, “it couldn’t have required that much water.” Like father like son.

IB § Oh, That Again …

To the Editor: Michael Kulla’s letter deploring the unjustified journalistic assaults on Israel elicited your tart response: “The core issue … is how Israel treats Palestinians.”

You’re not even close!

Ignoring for the moment all the misrepresentations of the press

Exercise Study

Female volunteers aged 18-30 and 65-80 years old are needed for a study on muscle strength.

Participants will receive assessments of strength and body composition and information on exercise training.

Please contact Summer Cook, Ph.D. (603) 862-0895 or email summer.cook@unh.edu

Mash Notes, Hate Mail,

whose predictable biases result in vast public deception regarding the Middle East (press credentials are revoked and reporters’ lives threatened if they report accurately from Arab lands), the core issue is really that various Middle East nations and non-governmental organizations have been encouraged to continue their unremitting efforts to kill Jewish Palestinians as they have done enthusiastically since the late 1800’s in response to the incitement and leadership of Islamic clerics. Unquestionably sincere, compassionate Westerners misunderstand the issues just as they have been brainwashed to.

They therefore fail to discern that it is violent Muslim aggressions which are the true core issue.

Tearing another layer off the onion, undergirding that root cause is Islamic dominance theology, from which flow the murderous practices deriving from various violent schools of Islam.

Of course there are many nonviolent Islamic adherents. Public advocates of such pacific messages get murdered, as were the first two Arab leaders who were merely rumored to be considering peace with Israel. This social Darwinism has resulted in an evolution toward more violent Islamic societies throughout the region, and a silencing of those Muslims desiring peace. Besides attacking Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, atheists, etc., there are ongoing internecine battles between Shi’a, Sunni, and various other sects, factions, schismatic allegiances, and non-profit organizations. The publicly declared goal of this violence is to bring peace throughout the world by subordinating everyone to Shari’a Law and thus hastening the arrival of the 12th Caliphate. Sounds a lot like 11th Century Christianity, does it not?

Two aggressor countries have

The New Hampshire Gazette

is the most economical advertising medium on the Seacoast. This space is available for just sixteen dollars. To learn more, call (603) 433-9898, or e-mail editors@nhgazette.com.

Even your dreams tell you it’s working.

Laminine

Available at The Rising Tide Kittery, Maine ~ (207) 439-8898

Portsmouth Health Food 151 Congress Street (603) 436-1722

Organic Salad Bar ~ Delicious Soups ~ Juice Bar Freshly-Made Sandwiches ~ Organic Free Trade Coffee Vitamins ~ Supplements ~ Grains & Nuts Mon. - Fri., 9 am-7 pm; Sat. 9 am-6:30 pm; Sun., 10 am-6 pm

made peace, however cold, with Israel. In those two cases, the treaties greatly reduced external violence and returned territory, eliminating occupation. To other aggressor populations overrun in Israel’s defensive battles yet refusing peace, there is ongoing occupation, with all the attendant indignities. Not like Syria — if you’d view this situation honestly — but certainly not like Portsmouth either. There is still a real and bloody war going on. Israel is obligated under International Law to maintain order within the occupied, hostile territories until such time as peace is agreed upon. Israel is likewise obliged by International Law and common sense to ensure the safety of her own population. That Palestinian Jewish population has been devastated by the physical and psychological damage flowing from continuing aggressions waged against them for more than twice the time the nation of Israel has existed.

Neuropsychology best explains this predilection for hostility to Israel. People decide issues emotionally. They then pursue their emotional bias utilizing pseudorational processes to justify the prejudice they’ve already arrived at. When it comes to Israel, that is precisely what has happened throughout much of the liberal media. “Not often right but never in doubt” could be the liberal media motto and that of their misapprehending claque. Emotional preconception and confirmation bias can be mobilized with just a few pat phrases no matter how misleading the results of such processes.

When you want to blame the Jews, then that’s what you do.

Western societies have had two thousand years to perfect that tactic. If you really wanted to fix this problem, the first step would

Friday, September 21, 2012 - The New Hampshire Gazette - Page 5

And Other Correspondence instead be to accurately identify the fundamental origins of the problem, the real core issue. Liberal rags can’t seem to even come close to any kind of insight in that regard. Too bad, since almost everything else the liberals favor is directed toward an enlightened, compassionate, greatly improved world.

Richard B. Collier Portsmouth, NH § Are We Better Off? To the Editor: If I had only two choices, and I had to choose either Romney or Obama to be the next U.S. president, I would definitely choose Obama. That being said, I’m concerned about a comment made by Vice Presodent Biden while he was campaigning for Obama in Detroit on Labor Day. Apparently to quell public fears that we as a nation are not better off than we were four years ago, Biden yelled out triumphantly to the crowd his big, bold, and bad idea for a bumper sticker: “OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD AND GM IS ALIVE!” Personally, I wouldn’t stick it on my moped.

It seems to me rather low and uncivilized for a high-ranking politician to publicly gloat over the death of his enemy in order to troll for votes. If the majority of Americans still rally around such savage-mindedness, and if Biden’s comment wasn’t just a vain Veep ego trip, then we are definitely not better off than we were four years ago.

Don’t get me wrong: in no way, shape, or form do I condone terrorism. It’s just that I, and many other liberal Christians in America, believe we as a nation need to question the whole war after war paradigm and start to love, not kill, our enemies.

If you say I’m a nutcase then I

say you should question your own values, not my sanity. Are we truly safer as a nation by protecting our bodies and potentially losing our souls, or by protecting our souls and potentially losing our bodies?

And by the way, there are more than two viable candidates for U.S. president: you can write my name in, if you like. Or you can vote for more war after war, whether it’s led by a Democrat or a Republican Commander in Chief.

Alex J. Boros Rochester, NH Alex: Let’s say Romney takes New Hampshire by one vote, and the Electoral College by four votes: the Republicans retake the White House, and Supreme Court with it. Where’s your allegedly immortal soul then?

Tip: bring marshmallows.

The Editor § In Recovery?

To the Editor: I was very pleased to read in Paul Bonneville’s letter of September 5th in the Laconia Daily Sun that he is doing better now than four years ago, so few people are doing better. He talks about the stock market “recovery,” of course that only helps if you have money and managed to invest in the right stocks. Perhaps Bonneville is in the one percent?

President Obama’s war on the wealthy apparently is working as reports are that higher wage incomes are down 15-20 percent.

Frankly, I don’t see how that helps me, it certainly doesn’t make it easier for me to pay my bills. And, I haven’t figured out why I should be happy that any American is less well off.

The success of President Obama’s war on the wealthy has come at the cost of an eight percent loss in middle class incomes (from about $55,000 to about $51,000) and about 24 million

North River Woodworks Portsmouth, NH — (603) 431-4516

Local Craftsmanship Tom D’Evelyn

Help for Writers of All Ages (609) 828-5865 tomdevelyn@comcast.net tomdevelyn.info

Architecture Interior Design Construction Management Construction Monitoring Inspection Services (207) 370-5090 www.christopherbaudo.com

Eye of the Hawk Holistic Center

The New School of Thought for the Mind, Body, & Spirit

unemployed or underemployed workers including huge numbers of minority workers and recent college graduates. I wonder how many unemployed are millionaires or billionaires? The impact of President Obama’s policies hurt the middle class much more than cutting a millionaire’s income to $800,000 or a billionaire’s income to “only” $800 million.

Liberals and Progressives claim to be for the middle class and against the rich, but their policies always hurt the middle class much more than the rich. President Obama’s policies are very good at making the middle class poorer. You should vote to re-elect President Obama if you want the middle class to continue to lose jobs, income and net worth.

Don Ewing Meredith, NH Don: Your facts reek of radio.

The Editor § Romney Only Follows His Own Rules To the Editor: It is despicable that Candidate Romney issued a preemptive criticism of President Obama even as American Ambassador Chris Stevens was being killed in Libya. Not only was Romney misinformed and misguided, but he failed to adhere to a basic rule of American politics: politics stops at the water’s edge. When our country is attacked, we stand behind our President, no matter what political party he belongs to. Romney’s statements demonstrate how corruptly he values partisan politics over uniting around our country. He showed greed for power instead of patriotism. Romney seems to think that he is exempt from our common rules of decency.

Another common convention that Romney thinks he is exempt from is that of candidates releasing past income tax filings during Murph’s Fortnightly Quote “My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.”

- Adlai Stevenson II (1900-1965) Illinois Governer, U.N. Ambassador

Jack Fisher, Licensed Massage Therapist Effective massage therapy to relieve chronic headaches, neck and back pain, and tension.

Expert at releasing old injuries from accidents and sports.

Certified Myofascial Release Massage

p Serving New Hampshire’s Seacoast P

www.eyeofthehawk.org (603) 964-7874

Available by appointment for home visits or at my offices in Greenland or Barrington.

(603) 205-0309 or (508) 330-3112

their campaign. If you want to see a person’s character, look at his finances. You’ll see what values he really believes in. We voters have come to expect such transparency from our candidates; it gives us one opportunity to objectively see the real person behind the paid advertisements. Again, Candidate Romney fails.

Bruce Joffe Piedmont, CA § Sticking to Principles To the Editor: In your latest issue you replied to my letter saying I’ll gladly vote against Barack Obama by asking, “So you’ll vote for Romney?” The answer is no, but I will gladly vote for the Green Party nominee.

In 2008 its nominee was Ralph Nader, and my reasons for supporting him are obvious from the front page of campaign material sent me, which I still have. It listed 27 things he favored, 13 things he opposed. I agreed with him on all of them.

Though Nader is not the nominee this year, I’ve read that the Green Party will be on the ballot in many states. I plan to vote for its candidate, if necessary as a write-in. Forsaking Romney and Obama, it’ll be fun to vote for neither one.

Marjorie Gallace Camden, ME Marjorie: Maine is even less likely than New Hampshire to go for Romney, but a Republican win would be so catastrophic that we would ask the same question of you that we do of Mr. Boros, elsewhere in this section.

The Editor § Progress or Regress?

To the Editor: Carol Shea Porter served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007-2011 and then was defeated by Frank Guinta who arrived with the Tea Party. What has been happening since Carol

has been “out”?

Conservative Republicans like Congressman Guinta have refused to raise taxes on the wealthy, and have pushed replacing our guaranteed-benefit Medicare with vouchers (which would lead to over $6,000 per year of individual payments from seniors) and replacing Social Security with risky private “investments” on Wall St. Guinta and the Republicans favor subsidies for home schooling and private schools, not public schools, and also do subsidies for Big Oil but have voted to eliminate Meals on Wheels and cut Medicaid.

What has Carol been for? Carol supported investments in infrastructure such as bridges, roads, rails and power grids plus upgrading old schools. Carol was behind funding to replace the Memorial Bridge in Portsmouth! She has worked and voted to strengthen American small businesses and manufacturing.

Carol wants to be re-elected and continue her good works in the House. She was a prime mover in acquiring funds for the modernization of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. She is in favor of clean energy (such as thermal, solar, wind and tidal) and voted for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (HR354) which became law. She believes that it will be good that almost everyone will now have health insurance and that if some cannot More Hate Mail, &c. to page six

New Hampshire Gazette Subscriptions p 26 Fortnightly Issues, Now Mailed First Class P Mail this form with your check for $25 to: New Hampshire Gazette, PO Box 756, Portsmouth, NH 03802.

Please print clearly. Offer good in U.S. only.

Supporting Subscribers Only: Please Check Box at Right: (Supporting Subscribers pay the standard $25/yr, but make their money go twice as far for us by picking up their own papers at one of our many convenient locations.)

First Name:

Last Name:

Street Address:

Where Memorable Meals Come Naturally. no matter what day of the week.

Town, City, or Burg:

State:

Lafayette Plaza, Route 1, Portsmouth, 422-6758 • Mon - Sat 8am - 8pm, Sun 10am - 6pm

Zip Code:

Gift Of: (Where Applicable)

+ 4:

Supporting

Subscriber

Page 6 - The New Hampshire Gazette - Friday, September 21, 2012

Setting the Record Straight About Voting in New Hampshire

By John Greabe, Professor of Law, University of New Hampshire School of Law

R

ecently there has been a good deal of misleading commentary indicating that New Hampshire law has changed significantly with respect to a citizen’s right to vote. This commentary is understandable but highly confusing.

It is understandable because the New Hampshire legislature has indeed imposed requirements for elections held in 2013 and afterwards. But it misleads by suggesting that voters must present valid photo identification in the upcoming 2012 elections. Regardless of what you may have heard, you do not need a photo ID to vote this November.

Here are the basic facts about the new law. Every New Hampshire citizen 18 or older — including college students living here — has a constitutional right to vote in the Granite State. This right is unaffected by the new law.

Also, the new law has no effect on the right to register to vote on Election Day. In 2012, voters will be asked but not required to present valid photo identification in order to register or vote. Instead, voters still have three options to register and vote in the upcoming elections.

First, voters may present valid photo identification to register

and vote. Valid photo identification includes any state driver’s license regardless of the expiration date; a valid student identification card; a New Hampshire non-driver’s photo identification card; a U.S. armed services identification card; a U.S. passport regardless of expiration date; a valid government photo identification; or any other photo identification deemed acceptable by city or town officials. Also, city or town officials may verify a person’s identify even without photo identification.

Second, persons without valid photo identification may register and obtain a ballot by simply sign-

ing affidavits attesting to identity, age, citizenship, and domicile in New Hampshire. That’s it. Voters who use affidavits to register and to vote will receive a letter from the Secretary of State after the election requesting confirmation that they voted and explaining how to obtain a free voter photo identification. Those who do not respond to the letter within 90 days will receive a similar letter from the Attorney General. But there is no penalty for voters who do not respond to these letters.

Third, voters eligible to vote by absentee ballot may still obtain such a ballot from their city or

town clerk prior to Election Day. Absentee ballots must be returned to the clerk by 5 pm on November 6, 2012 in order to be counted.

Voting by absentee ballot does not require voter identification.

New Hampshire citizens should understand that the new voter identification law in no way affects their eligibility to vote.

Nor does it even require photo identification for the November 6, 2012 election. Americans have the responsibility and privilege of choosing our elected federal and state representatives. That tradition continues this November, so get out there and vote!

MoreMash Notes, Hate Mail, And Other Correspondence, from Page Five pay for it, the government will help them pay for it. She would like both parties to work together for the good of our country.

Sue Kaplan Exeter, NH § Dueling Extremists To the Editor: Now we have two extremist groups trying to shove their morals down our throats. There’s the extreme branch of Islam trying to do it by terrorism and the extreme wing of the Catholic church trying to use the Republican party to pervert the Justice system. May they both end up in confusion and dispair!

Joel S. Look Portsmouth, NH § Obama’s Goals = U.S. Success To the Editor: During President Obama’s speech at last week’s DNC in Charlotte, the choice that we have in this election became clearly focused upon a plan that will create jobs, expand opportunity and ensure an economy built to last. And

it will accomplish these goals by building from the middle out, and not the top down.

Goals that focus on: Creating one million new manufacturing jobs by the end of 2016 and doubling our exports by the end of 2014. By 2020, cutting oil imports in half and bringing 600,000 new jobs related to the natural gas industry. By 2022, reducing the growth of college tuition in half, recruiting 100,000 math and science teachers, and through the community college system, training two million workers for the many high tech jobs that need special skills and pay higher wages. Reducing the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade.

When looking at the years for which these goals are targeted, it is clear that this will not happen overnight. But like President Obama said, Our problems can be solved … the path may be harder, but it leads to a better place.”

At the very time that our nation needs to become more competitive in this global economy, Rom-

The New Hampshire Gazette

ney’s plan would slash investments in things like education, research and clean energy. These are the areas that we as a nation must develop as much as possible, not cut back. These are the areas that will bring more and betterpaying jobs, more exports, and as a very important offshoot, help the environment.

As a secondary school science teacher who retired in 2004, after 36 years in education, I know how difficult it was, and still is, to fill science teaching positions with qualified teachers. Science and mathematics is the key to unlocking the door of the future.

The Romney/Ryan plan would keep that door locked. Ask yourself if we as a nation can afford to cut back the very thing that has enabled miraculous medical and technical advances in the past fifty years?

Fire up the computer, the tablet, the smartphone and log on to the internet. Do the research on Obama’s vs. Romney’s plan.

Make an informed decision, and be glad you have the technology

and the skills to do so. And finally, ask yourself if our children and grandchildren will have the same opportunities and skills to use the technology of the future to compete in a global economy, to make a fair and sustainable wage, and to improve the environment? Then go to the polls on November 6th and vote.

John Lovering Dover, NH § GOP vs. Fact Checkers To the Editor: During the RNC convention, Governor Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan kept the fact-checkers working overtime. Included among their series of falsehoods is the accusation that the Obama administration is “gutting” welfare reform work requirements.

This lie earned Governor Romney a “Pants on Fire” at PoliFact.com and four Pinocchios, the worst ranking for lies, from the Washington Post.

The Obama administration is working with Republican and Democratic governors across the

country to increase welfare-towork numbers, not end work requirements. Over recent months, feedback from the governors indicated that welfare reform doesn’t do enough to help families find work in a meaningful way, and they requested the flexibility to better address their needs in order to succeed.

The 1996 welfare reform bill has long failed in its mission to meet the mandated requirements in assisting able-bodied recipients as they make their way back into the workforce. The law and its more restrictive update in 2005 reflect a declining percentage of families able to find and keep living wage jobs, while the number of families kicked off the rolls has increased.

The economic downturn in 2008 resulted in more families struggling to make ends meet; our country needs to address outdated welfare reform laws. President Obama and the governors have acted to improve the odds for those needy families to find work in positive, enduring ways.

Kicking the needy off the rolls is

Your mistake or their mistake …

JACKSON’S HARDWARE

The best defense is NO mistake!

The Nation’s Oldest Newspaper™

Subscriptions:

$25 per year for 26 issues See Page Five for Subscription Form Mailed First Class

Editor: Steven Fowle • Starving Artistes: Michael Dater & Dan Woodman • Business (Such as it Is) Manager: Rose Eppard Columnist: William Marvel • 100 Proof Department: Rose Eppard, Jane Porter, Marcia Jebb, and Joyce Fitzpatrick Freelance Instigator & Unindicted Co-conspirators: Win Rhoades and Jack Cleary • Distributor: New England Distribution Network • Downtown Distribution Volunteers: Adam Williams, Megan “Moonbeam” Stelzer, Murph, Jon Wyckoff, and Bob Halperin • Subscription Fulfillment: Sally Strazdins, Gail Drobnyk, Pat Day, Rose Eppard, Sharon Churchill, and Jan Marx • Postal Hauler: Sally Strazdins

rs

lH ou

/F al

er

m

PO Box 756, Portsmouth, NH 03802

www.nhgazette.com • editors@nhgazette.com (603) 433-9898

If you are facing the nightmare of criminal prosecution in New Hampshire or Massachusetts, then do not delay.

Protect your rights and liberty by calling me today for a free consultation. Call Wiberg Law Office, 603-686-5454 or go to www.wibergcriminaldefense.com

m

Published Fortnightly on Alternate Fridays

100 YEARS STRONG

Su

Founder: Daniel Fowle (1715—1787)

56 Route One Bypass Kittery, Maine 207.439.1133

Thanks For a Great Thirty Years …

And The Good Times to Come!

South Street and Vine On the Waterfront, at 37 Bow St, in Downtown Portsmouth, NH (603) 431-5967 www.pocosbowstreetcantina.com

359 Marcy St • 430-2984 Summer/Fall Hours Sunday - Friday: 11 - 6 Saturday: 9 - 6

Wine for the table, not for the cellar.

Friday, September 21, 2012 - The New Hampshire Gazette - Page 7

Top-paid CEOs to taxpayers: "Thanks a million!"

by Jim Hightower ome statements by corporate chieftains tickle my funny bone — but more often they torture my cynical bone.

Take the hoary claim that today’s extravagant level of CEO pay is the natural product of the magical free market. To attract top executive talent, goes this line, it’s simply essential to lay out a feast of big bucks. Not mentioned

is another “magical force” bloating the big boss’ paycheck: you and me. Specifically, us taxpayers.

In a case of the rules being rigged by-and-for the elite, America’s tax laws conveniently provide that the more the chief is paid, the bigger the tax break the corporation gets.

So, naturally, they get a lot. In its annual report on executive excess, the watchdog Institute for Policy Studies recently documented 26

corporations that lavished an average of $20 million on each of their CEOs last year, including CBS, Citigroup, Discovery, Motorola Mobility, Oracle and Viacom. In every case, the compensation loophole and other special breaks meant that the corporation paid more to their top guy than they paid in federal income taxes.

In addition, thanks to the Bush tax giveaways to the uppermost upper-income takers, more than

half of last year’s 100 top-paid CEOs were able to dodge at least a million dollars each in personal income taxes they otherwise owed to support the public services that benefit them. The honcho of oil & gas fracker ConocoPhillips, for example, got nearly a $7 million tax subsidy from us on his 2011 pay of more than $145 million.

It’s bad enough that top bosses have grossly inflated their pay while relentlessly slashing the

wages of employees — but it’s grotesque that they’ve perverted our tax laws to underwrite their excess.

To see the IPS report and recommendations for reform, go to www.ips-dc.org. § Copyright 2012 by Jim Hightower & Associates. Contact Laura Ehrlich (laura@jimhightower.com) for more information. §

not what the reform was intended to do; neither is just handing over checks without work requirements as Mr. Romney has falsely asserted. The waiver will not eliminate work requirements; it will seek to effectively assist states in the best ways to help their needy families prepare for, find and keep jobs.

It’s ironic that Governor Romney once sought precisely this kind of federal assistance for the welfare reform work requirement back in 2005 when he joined 28 other governors requesting flexibility at the state level with “increased waiver authority.” True to form, today’s Candidate Romney doesn’t jibe with yesterday’s Governor Romney.

Kim Meuse Portsmouth, NH § Mitt’s Stunning Reversal To the Editor: Last week on Meet the Press, Mitt Romney performed an amazing stunt. After a year of voraciously attacking “Obamacare” in order to win the favor of conservative Republicans, last week he performed a dramatic reversal.

He came out in support of some aspects of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. I hope I am not the only one whose jaw dropped open.

Clearly, now that Mitt has secured the Republican nomina-

tion for President, he is strategically moving to the center. There is nothing subtle about it. Do keep in mind that this is the same Mitt who initiated a very similar healthcare plan in Massachusetts, touted the plan, and then proceeded to vehemently trash the plan as he campaigned across the country. Mitt now claims that, as President, his healthcare plan would include many aspects of President Obama’s plan. If voters had trouble before trying to figure out what Mitt stood for, this stunning reversal makes it even harder.

How are voters supposed to make an educated decision come November when Mitt swings back and forth with the wind?

Perhaps voters will notice that Mitt will say whatever it takes to get himself elected?

Beth Olshansky Durham, NH § Olympic Class Flip Flopper To the Editor: The job creation statistics for August were not good. Big surprise! President Obama’s Jobs Bill, which would create millions of jobs, is sitting in the Republicancontrolled Congress. But the Republicans want it both ways: they want to obstruct job creation, yet criticize the President at the same time for not creating jobs.

They can’t have it both ways.

Essentially, if the Republicans will not cooperate with the President to pass his jobs bill, the Republicans still own the sick economy that they created in 2008.

Ralph Zingaro Harrisville, NH § We Were Warned To the Editor: Thomas Jefferson warned that too much government regulation stifles growth. It has proven true.

In 1999 Congress deregulated financial institutions allowing them to merge, even though Rep. John Dingell (D-Michigan) warned that banks would become “too big to fail” and would need bailouts.

This also proved true. Government needs to have the greatest impact with the least amount of involvement, and that takes planning. We can all agree on this.

President Obama said we faced “a crisis unlike any we have seen in our lifetime.” This is true and means none of us have any experience. We only have history and sense to solve the problems. Consider it has taken over forty years to dig this hole we’re in. Did you really think anyone could turn that around and get us back in four? I feel the same pain and frustration, but let’s get real.

The economy behaves like a heavily loaded truck or ship. It

must slow down before making a controlled turn. The President warned this would take several years. We are not returning to the days of plentiful profits anytime soon. Except of course for the very few with special interests, accounts and tax rates.

Warren Isleib Nashua NH § Sinking Censorship To the Editor: Constitutionally guaranteed Freedom of Speech gives everyone in the U.S. the right to freely express her or his views without imposed censorship. In certain cases, however, unruly freedom may be highly questionable, going beyond morally acceptable limits.

For example, a bully taunting a vulnerable classmate or an insensitive adult making derogatory public statements about a child in her or his presence can cause psychological or emotional damage on a youngster’s natural growth development, positive esteem selfimage and well-being adjustment.

One must use a certain degree of discretion and ethical common sense judgment before directing any potentially harmful statement toward another human being. A golden rule of thumb should be asking yourself how you would feel if the inflammatory remark or demeaning act was made about

you.

What are the proper constraints for civil rights freedoms in a classless society? Should anyone be allowed freedom of expression to hurtfully insult, to knowingly speak untruths or to make unsupportable bogus claims regardless of the possible global ramifications? Does offensively depicting the Prophet Mohammed as an immoral sexual deviant to intentionally incite a backlash fomenting anti-American credibility and distrust serve any legitimate purpose other than making our already chaotic, dysfunctional world even less safe and more insecure? Liberty is costly; it never comes without a price. We must remember that freedom is inexorably related to responsibility, accountability and trust. Arrogantly assuming an attitude of “It’s my way or the highway” or “If you’re not with me, you’re my enemy” would create biased intolerance and undemocratic divisiveness, reminding us of the need for Aristotle’s term: “rational moderation.”

Charles Frederickson Bangkok, Thailand Charles: The key issue is prior restraint, and the terrible price we all would pay if the government had the power to prevent speech.

The Editor

This lovely little space could be yours for a mere eight bucks. To learn how, call (603) 433-9898, or e-mail editors@nhgazette.com.

Oils on Canvas and Board, Drawings, Prints and Watercolors Woodblocks and Asian Antiquities

S

Fine Art

dvlpost.net

WWW.ELSTRANDFINEARTS.COM

Fertile Ground

Passionate Plant Care for over 25 years Design • Garden Maintenance • Pruning Diane Perkins (603) 770-4946 dlpplants@comcast.net Member NHLA NHAA

163 Islington St ~ 436-7330

MAC Repairs • Support Wireless • Upgrades

51 Penhallow Street, Portsmouth, NH 603 436 6518 Check our website for today’s specials! www.ceresbakery.com

Data Recovery

Our 20th Year!!!

Seacoast Mac Shop (603) 433-1333

.com

Cool & Unusual Arrivals Daily Great new Heavy Rotation for Spring 100s of Scarves • Hats • Bags • Earrings Hemp & Bamboo Wear • Shades • Tapestries Alternative Clothing & Goods 33 Vaughan Mall l Portsmouth, NH 03801 l 603-431-2243

Open 7 days!

Page 8 - The New Hampshire Gazette - Friday, September 21, 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, September 23

Monday, September 24

Tuesday, September 25

Wednesday, September 26

Thursday, September 27

Friday, September 28

Saturday, September 29

1999—Instead of orbiting, the $328 million Mars Climate Orbiter burns up in the Martian atmosphere because Lockheed Martin used Imperial measure, not metric.

1952—Richard Nixon, desperately trying to convince Americans that he’s not a crook, makes his famous “Checkers” speech; many are fooled.

1945—French forces overthrow the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The U.S. acquiesces.

1938—A time capsule is buried at the New York World’s Fair to be opened in 6939.

1930—Birth of Ray Charles.

1912—Release of Mack Sennett’s first “Keystone Comedy.”

1848—John Curtis of Bangor, ME, begins producing “State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum,” the first commercial chewing gum.

1838—Birth of Victoria Chaflin Woodhull, a proponent of free love and the first female presidential candidate.

1806—Lewis, Clark, and almost all the rest of the gang make it back to St. Louis.

1800—Birth of Wm. H. McGuffey, author of McGuffey’s Reader.

1780—British Major John Andre is arrested for spying near Tarrytown, NY. 1779—John Paul Jones takes the British ship Serapis as the Bonhomme Richard sinks under him.

2007—A plane previously used for “rendition” flights carrying alleged terrorists to Guantanamo Bay crashes in the Yucatan carrying 3.3 tons of cocaine.

2006—The New York Times publishes a leaked intelligence document concluding that the Iraq War has increased the threat of radical Islamic terrorism.

2006—George W. Bush tells Wolf Blitzer, “When the final history is written on Iraq, it will look just like a comma.”

2005—Human Rights Watch reports that U.S. troops routinely beat and tortured detained Iraqis.

2001—Tony Blair publishes a dossier claiming erroneously that Iraq can launch WMDs in 45 minutes.

1981—CIA Director William Casey urges that intelligence agencies be exempted from the Freedom of Information Act. 1978—On his yacht in Chesapeake Bay, right-handed CIA spook John Paisley takes a shotgun blast behind his left ear. It’s ruled suicide.

1969—The Show Trial of the “Chicago 8” begins.

1968—Protestors destroy 10,000 draft files in Milwaukee, WI. 1957—The Dodgers play their last game at Ebbetts Field.

1911—Portsmouth native Ensign Charles Emerson Hovey, 26, is shot and killed by natives on the island of Basilan in the Phillipines.

2008—Somali pirates capture the MV Faina, a 500-foot freighter with a cargo of 33 Soviet tanks.

2007—Texas kills Michael Richard on schedule because Judge Sharon Keller refused to work overtime.

2003—An early draft of an interim report from weapons inspectors in Iraq says no WMD have been found.

2002—George W. Bush says “You can’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.”

1981—Sandra Day O’Connor becomes America’s first female Supreme Court Justice.

1966—The smallest crowd in the history of Yankee Stadium—413— watches the White Sox beat the Yankees 4-1.

1962—While listening to the first Liston/Patterson fight, Vivian Stanshall and Rodey Slater form the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.

1959—The U.S. Navy loses a nuclear depth charge, minus its fissile core, in Puget Sound.

1926—Henry Ford announces the 8 hour, 5 day work week.

1915—At Loos, France, British forces release 150 tons of chlorine gas towards German troops. Then the wind shifts.

1911—Ground is broken for Fenway Park.

1789—Congress passes the Bill of Rights.

2006—The Bush administration releases excerpts of a report saying the Iraq War has enraged Muslims and given radicals a dandy recruiting issue. Feel safer now?

2002—George W. Bush claims in a Rose Garden speech that “the Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons.”

1991—The House bank announces that after covering 8,331 rubber checks written by Congressmen over the past year, it will stop.

1983—Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov trusts his gut instead of the Red Army’s malfunctioning computers, which show five attacking American nuclear missiles. World War III is averted, and Col. Petrov is reprimanded.

1960—John Kennedy and Richard Nixon hold the first televised presidential debate.

1945—American OSS officer Lt. Col. A. Peter Dewey is killed in Saigon by Viet Minh guerrillas who have mistaken him for a French officer. Before his death, Dewey filed a report saying the U.S. “ought to clear out of Southeast Asia.”

1911—The Battle of the MeuseArgonne begins, the last great battle of the War to End All Wars.

1901—Abraham Lincoln’s body is viewed one last time before being covered with two tons of concrete.

Among the 23 present is Fleetwood Linley, 13, who lives until 1963.

2002—Donald Rumsfeld calls the alleged link between al Qaeda and Iraq “accurate and not debatable.”

1996—In Kabul, the Taliban — former seminarians — torture, castrate, and kill Mohammad Najibullah, President of Afghanistan.

1994—On the Capitol steps, 350 GOP candidates vow to take out a Contract with America. They must have meant “on.”

1991—For the first time in decades, the U.S. has no nucleararmed B-52’s on alert.

1989—To show kids there are more constructive things to do than take drugs, Jeffrey Petkovitch and Peter DeBernardi climb into a barrel and go over Niagara’s Horseshoe Falls.

1972—The first stretch of the Trans-Amazonian Highway opens; bye-bye rain forest, hello global warming.

1964—The Warren Commission reports that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, killed President John F. Kennedy.

1957—The United Kingdom tests a nuke on aboriginal lands in Maralinga, South Australia.

1944—A group of 35 U.S. B-24s, isolated over Germany by a navigational error, are jumped by 100 enemy fighters; four survive.

1944—The U.S. government begins large-scale production of plutonium on land taken from the Yakama Indian Nation.

2005—Tom DeLay (R-TX) becomes the first House Majority Leader indicted for violating campaign finance laws. Five days later he resigns.

2005—The Pentagon says it will investigage charges that soldiers posted photos of dead Iraqis online in exchange for free access to porn.

2002—George W. Bush claims Iraq has WMDs, al Qaeda terrorists, and a nuke coming soon.

2001—To avoid further scorn in these pages, Fleet Bank removes its 18-foot tall green, illuminated sign from the middle of Pleasant Street’s sidewalk.

1978—The papacy of John Paul I ends with his death under mysterious circumstances.

1964—UC Berkeley students protest free speech restrictions.

1960—Ted Williams takes the plate at Fenway for his last at bat and hits his 521st home run.

1938—At Munich, British and French diplomats give Hitler the Sudetenland and the GOP a future talking point.

1917—166 activists of the International Workers of the World are arrested for interfering with the war effort.

1904—In New York a woman is arrested for smoking a cigarette.

1891—In New York a 72 year-old writer named Herman Melville dies in obscurity.

2006—Anti-child porn crusader U.S. Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) resigns after his lurid e-mails to young male pages are revealed.

2003—The White House denies that Karl Rove had revealed the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

1988—The Veterans Peace Convoy to Nicaragua wins a lawsuit preventing the Executive branch from regulating or prohibiting foreign aid that is intended to relieve human suffering.

1980—The Washington Post publishes Janet Cook’s Pulitzer-winning story about a fictional 8 yearold junkie.

1972—On Vineyard Sound, a short, bearded man in sneakers fails in his spontaneous attempt to throw former Defense Secretary Robert Strange McNamara off the ferry M.V. Islander.

1969—The U.S. Army drops murder charges against Special Forces Col. Robert Rheault—the CIA won’t let its agents testify.

1957—A Soviet nuclear fuel plant at Kyshtym blows up, kills hundreds, and spews more radiation than anything until Chernobyl. The CIA suppresses the news to protect the U.S. nuclear industry.

1906—To “protect American interests,” U.S. troops go to Cuba.

1902—French writer Emile Zola dies in his sleep, possibly suffocated by a clogged chimney.

5:36

5:58

6:45

12:23

11:32

7:07

12:41

7:53

1:30

8:14

8:54

2:33

1:50

9:15

9:49

2:54

3:51

3:29

4:19

5:27

5:04

4:41

11:44

11:21

10:59

10:37

10:10

Sunday, September 30

Monday, October 1

Tuesday, October 2

Wednesday, October 3

Thursday, October 4

Friday, October 5

Saturday, October 6

2005—NY Times reporter Judith Miller tells a Grand Jury that Dick “Dick” Cheney leaked Valerie Plame’s name to her.

2003—George W. Bush vows to find out who leaked CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name.

1998—The GAO reports that Ken Starr had spent $40 million in a failed effort to nail Bill Clinton.

1985—House Speaker Newt Gingrich engineers a four-day federal government shutdown.

1960—“The Howdy Doody Show” airs for the last time.

1955—Rebel James Dean’s immortality is assured when his Porsche obeys the laws of physics.

1954—The first atomic-powered ship is launched, the U.S.S. Nautilus.

1949—The Berlin Airlift ends after 277,000 flights.

1938—Thanks to the Munich pact, peace is assured.

1929—German sportsman Fritz von Opel flies a glider powered by 16 solid propellant rockets, achieving a speed of 95 m.p.h.

1927—Babe Ruth gets his 60th home run of the season off Tom Zachary.

1924—Birth of Truman Capote.

1864—Black Union soldiers capture Confederate entrenchments at battle of New Market Heights.

1630—In Plymouth, the Pilgrims hang John Billington for murder.

2002—The U.S. Northern Command is established to “Defend America’s Homeland”—posse comitatus be damned.

2002—George W. Bush claims he hasn’t “made up his mind we’re going to war with Iraq.”

1975—Poet Louis Untermeyer says, “I’m writing my third autobiography—the other two were premature.”

1973—Despite multiple failures to meet minimum requirements, George W. Bush is discharged honorably from the Texas Air National Guard.

1952—The first issue of Mad Magazine is unleashed on an unsuspecting world.

1917—Arabs led by T.E. Lawrence capture Damascus.

1903—Fred Van Wormer’s autopsy is interrupted because he is still breathing. Taken back to Sing Sing’s electric chair, he is found to have died. He is electrocuted again, anyway.

1860—In San Francisco, Emperor Norton I issues a decree barring Congress from meeting in Washington, D.C. 1788—Former Edinburgh Town Councilor and burglar Deacon William Brodie brags to the crowd that the gallows on which he is about to be hanged—incorporating a new trapdoor of his own design— is the most efficient ever made.

2003—Survey chief David Kay reports that his three-month, $300 million search for Iraqi WMD has turned up squat.

2002—George W. Bush calls Iraq “a threat of unique urgency,” because of its WMD. 1991—The Philippine Senate, disregarding the devastating effect it will have on the Olongapo sex industry, votes to chuck the U.S. Navy out of Subic Bay. 1989—Televangelist Jim Bakker, on the witness stand in his own trial on 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy, blames Jerry Falwell for the financial collapse of his God-racket PTL Ministries.

1980—Congressman Michael Myers (D-PA) is expelled from the House for taking a bribe and engaging in a conspiracy, the first to be so ousted in 120 years. Why he was singled out, we can’t say.

1978—With the Yankees and Red Sox tied for the season, a playoff game is held; it’s decided by a three-run homer hit by New York’s Bucky F. Dent.

1967—Thurgood Marshall becomes the first black Justice on the Supreme Court.

1919—Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke; America gets its first woman president.

1918—Units of the U.S. 77th Division advance into the Argonne Forest to become the Lost Battalion.

2006—Congressional Republicans attempt to “roll over” $20 million set aside for a celebration of victory in Iraq.

2003—The National Enquirer reports that Rush Limbaugh is being investigated for illegally procuring prescription opioids.

1995—O.J. Simpson is acquitted of double homicide.

1991—House Speaker Tom Foley (D-WA) announces that House members have accumulated $300,000 in unpaid bills at the House restaurant.

1986—Northeast of Bermuda, a fire breaks out aboard the Soviet missile sub K-219. The Reds blame an alleged collision with the USS Augusta. The Pentagon blames sloppy Commy work habits.

1980—Moral Majority co-founder and U.S. Rep. Bob Bauman (RMD) is charged with making sexual solicitations to an underaged boy.

1973—Donald Segretti testifies before the Senate about dirty tricks he used to get Nixon re-elected.

1968—American Independent Party Vice Presidential Candidate and former Strategic Air Command chief Curtis LeMay advocates use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam.

1968—Jerry Rubin entertains the House Un-American Activities Committee.

2005—”I think it’s important to bring somebody from outside the … judicial system,” says George W. Bush, defending Harriet Miers as a Supreme Court nominee, “somebody that hasn’t been on the bench and, therefore, there’s not a lot of opinions for people to look at.”

2004—SpaceShipOne, Burt Rutan’s tourist rocket, makes its second trip above the atmosphere in five days, and wins the Ansari X Prize.

2002—Knight-Ridder reports that “The White House and the Pentagon … are pressuring intelligence analysts to highlight information that supports Bush’s Iraq policy.”

Only one paper prints the story.

1992—An El Al cargo plane carrying depleted uranium and precursors for sarin nerve gas crashes in Amsterdam, killing 47.

1986—CBS News anchor Dan Rather is attacked on the streets of New York by two men yelling, “What’s the frequency, Ken?” 1971—Declaring victory in a race in which he ran unopposed, South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu calls his margin “an achievement for democracy.”

1957—Two U.S. military facilities in Saigon are bombed; 13 are wounded—the first announced U.S. casualties in Vietnam.

1946—The U.S. Navy seizes American oil refineries to break a 20-state strike.

2003—Timothy Treadwell and girlfriend Amie Huguenard discover the hard way that the grizzly bears they’ve been associating with in Alaska are not vegetarians.

2002—George W. Bush tells New Hampshire National Guardsmen — falsely — that Saddam Hussein could inflict “massive and sudden horror” on the U.S. 2001—Robert Stevens, photo editor of the supermarket tabloid The Sun, dies of anthrax. The terrorist who infected him remains at large.

1995—Rush Limbaugh says, “if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they … ought to be sent up.” After his own arrest in 2003 his position becomes more nuanced.

1988—In a Vice-Presidential debate, Lloyd Bbentsen informs Dan Quayle he’s “no Jack Kennedy.”

1986—Nicaraguans shoot down a U.S. cargo plane illegally supplying Contra rebels with arms bought with the proceeds of illegal U.S. arms sales to Iran.

1969—Undetected by U.S. radar, a Cuban defector lands his MiG17 at Homestead AFB, where Air Force One is waiting to take Richard Nixon back to Washington.

1966—The Fermi nuclear power plant on the shore of Lake Erie almost melts down.

1960—Radar alerts NORAD of a massive Soviet ICBM launch heading for the U.S. It’s wrong.

2004—The top U.S. arms inspector in Iraq says there is no evidence Saddam Hussein had tried to manufacture any WMD’s after 1991.

1989—RIP Bette Davis. Years earlier, told she was rumored to have died, she said, “During a newspaper strike? I wouldn’t dream of it.”

1976—Seventy-three die when Cubana Flight 455 is bombed over Barbados. Luis Posada Carriles is wanted in Cuba and Venezuela for the bombing, but the U.S. won’t extradite him.

1973—Egypt and Syria attack Israel on Yom Kippur. This backfires.

1961—President Kennedy recommends that, in case of nuclear war, American families get ready to live for a while in holes in the ground.

1917—“In time of war,” says Sen. Robert LaFollette, “the citizen must be more alert to his right to control his government.”

1886—After spotting a 75-foot sea serpent near the mouth of the Piscataqua, its head four feet above the surface, two Kittery men “[ply] their oars lustily for the shore.”

1856—Portsmouth celebrates the centennial of the founding of The New Hampshire Gazette; the railroad lays on extra trains to accommodate the crush of visitors from around New England.

1536—William Tyndale goes to the stake for heresy—he printed Bibles people could read.

12:01

5:45

12:26

6:09

12:39

6:23

1:05

6:49

1:16

7:00

1:44

7:28

1:53

7:37

2:23

8:07

2:31

8:15

3:12

3:04

8:48

8:56

3:58

3:48

9:32

9:41

10:20

We now carry Mayan salt Come and get some …

While there is still time!

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