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Also a place where conversation happens – from Letters to the Editor and Op/Eds to The Soapbox, you’re welcome to tell us how you really feel.
President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Budget” spells disaster for the working middle class and the poor. The people that most desperately need support in food (SNAP), affordable housing, reasonably priced healthcare, and more.
The NH Senate will soon vote on SB 13, denying legal immigrants with pending asylum cases the right to apply for or to renew a NH driver license until they have received permanent residency or green card. This is a terrible bill. Let me tell you why.
The State Council on the Arts has been reduced by the Senate Finance Committee to a single dollar. One dollar. Lawmakers have asked the Council to become a volunteer operation and rely entirely on private donations—despite knowing this move could lead to the loss of all support staff and federal matching grants. This isn’t just a budget adjustment. It’s a slow erasure.
I woke up on Sunday morning and noticed a tick on the one anatomical place no male wants to find a tick.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives advanced a plan to slash $700+ billion from Medicaid over the next decade—marking the largest proposed cuts in the program’s history. These cuts are designed to fund massive tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy. For New Hampshire, the consequences would be devastating.
The public session had a diverse array of approx. 20 speakers, from age 7 (with her father) to 65 (at least), who spoke in favor of the Pine Street paving with the addition of a bike lane.
I should now probably mention—seeing this is essential to your understanding of the rest of the story that I’m about to unfold—that the basement is the one place in the world that has been designated as my own space. I write in the basement, and I watch sports on the flatscreen in the basement. All of my books are in bookcases in the basement, and all of my sports paraphernalia, movie posters and the motley art that hangs in my basement.
Trump would give refugee status to White South Africans. Whites comprise 7% of South Africa’s population; nevertheless, they control 80% of the wealth. Don’t grant refugee status to people living well. They don’t need it.
If you’ve ever biked or driven through neighborhoods near Brown Avenue, you’ve likely passed South Jr. Deb baseball and softball fields, Highland-Goffe’s Falls Elementary School, and homes filled with families. This is a vibrant, close-knit part of our city. But just down the road, the City of Manchester is burning sewage sludge – releasing harmful “forever chemicals” into our air and the Merrimack River.
So much this week! Traffic Slowdowns, Bus Buddies, a Week Without Driving, Tour de New Hampshire, Bike to Work Day, plus Upcoming Group Rides.
I have been increasingly seeing instances where a person has either physically or sexually abused, trafficked, or in another way exploited a child by using the internet to lure or groom them, and this has been most prevalent on Social Media platforms.
Each May, Mental Health Awareness Month serves as a powerful reminder: mental health is just as vital as physical health. Despite this truth, the health care system has too often treated mental health as secondary—less urgent, less visible, and less supported.
In lockstep—or maybe the better term is “goose step”—with President Donald Trump’s disdain for anything intellectual, New Hampshire House Republicans recently voted to pass a proposal, introduced by Rep. Joseph Sweeney (R-Salem), to eliminate the Division of the Arts.
Some of Manchester’s aldermen, including Ward 6 Alderwoman Crissy Kantor, who is now running for mayor, may be outsourcing their jobs to Rich Girard, an unelected political operative with a track record of advocating for policies that harm Manchester’s core institutions. They’re either too lazy, too incompetent, or too indifferent to do the work themselves. This is a blatant failure of leadership and a slap in the face to every voter who expects elected officials to earn their keep.
I’ve heard elected officials in Manchester responding to criticisms about their mishandlings of the homelessness crisis by saying “homelessness is a complicated problem”. For those of us who face the horrific consequences of these mishandlings out on the streets it certainly can be complicated. However the solution is quite simple.
Outrage has been sparked in Manchester by a classroom activity conducted in concert with a lesson on the Holocaust. The activity, “The Wheel of Power and Privilege,” is meant to be a self-reflection on your own inherent power and privilege. People have suggested it’s wrong for students to feel “uncomfortable” in their classroom while discussing these things that are largely outside of their own control (race, religion, ability, etc.).
There is such a man, and he goes by the name of Herman McDerman. But I must also mention to you that Herman McDerman is not a man, rather an eraser and a character that I created when I was in the fifth grade.
I graduated from Memorial High in 1965. Many of my classmates, facing the draft anyway, enrolled in the Armed Forces. Most of us had never heard of Vietnam, but that December, just when many of my classmates reported to bootcamp, President Johnson committed 195,000 soldiers to Vietnam. In 1969, the year I graduated from college, around 543,400 American men and women were serving there. By April 30, 1975, 2,709,918 Americans had served in uniform there; 58,148 died in the conflict. Another 100,000 were completely or badly disabled.
The White House wants to eliminate federal support for public media. Congress will vote soon on a proposal to slash millions from NHPR and NHPBS’ budgets. About six percent of NHPR’s annual budget and 18 percent of NHPBS’ is at risk. This funding sustains our statewide emergency alert system, local watchdog reporting, and shows like Morning Edition, PBS News Hour, Granite State Challenge, and Civics 101.
Almost nightly now, for months, I’ve been vicariously living through the characters in the show, arguably one of the most successful sitcoms of all-time. There is something about “Cheers,” more than three decades after the series concluded in 1992, that still speaks to our collective understanding of comradity, conviviality and community.