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Saturday, September 11, 2010 — We’re not much on the ritual issuance of boilerplate reaffirmations of official doctrine, but we are irresistably drawn towards the skirling of the pipes. So this seems as good a day as any, and a better day than most, to publish this bit of video. On Friday, August 27th we were finishing up the delivery of our Volume 254, No. 24 when we happened upon the Maine Public Safety Pipe & Drum Corps offering up a very well-received rendition of “The Rakes of Mallow” in front of the Rí Rá Irish Pub in Market Square. Based in Portland and made …

Read moreAh, the Pipes …

Friday, July 16, 2010 — Today’s Gazette — the physical, newsprint-based lifeform, not this silicon-dependent appendage — includes a note directing people here for news about the Memorial and Sarah Mildred Long bridges, explaining that the topic has become so volatile we can’t do it justice in print. For example, the Maine – New Hampshire Connections Study, on whose recommendations the fates of the bridges rest, had scheduled a Stakeholders Meeting for today. Then at the last minute the Study’s staff decided to skip the meeting and hold a conference call instead. We could hardly wash our hands of the issue — few things could …

Read moreNew on This Site: Bridge News

Monday, June 28, 2010 — Thanks to our favorite webcam, over at PortsmouthNH.com, we got a glimpse of this ship coming in at about 2:45 p.m. We’ve got a deadline looming and the weather looks a little dicey, so we may not post again before the next paper goes out.

Friday, June 25, 2010 — On June 25th in 1218, the notoriously cruel Crusader Simon “The Buzzard” de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester, died at Toulouse when his head was crushed by a stone catapulted in his general direction by women and girls of the town. While the Seige of Toulouse cost “The Buzzard,” his life, it also gave birth to an expression still popular today, as, for instance, on bloodthirsty, pro-military T-shirts: “Kill them all, let God sort them out.”

Monday, May 31, 2010 — We came across this Memorial Day story while listening to Talk of the Nation on New Hampshire Public Radio. NPR is, of course, the radio network of choice for commies and peace creeps, while WMUR is the local radio and TV station of choice for patriotic citizens. Inexplicably, however, WMUR’s headline managed to completely mistate the purpose of Memorial Day, while today’s Talk of the Nation was exemplary.

Friday, May 28, 2010 — Nice to see Joe Costello getting to ask the alarming if obvious question, “Are We Going to Way of the Roman Republic?” in a space as prestigious as the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute‘s NewDeal2.0. By the time this get to that stage, of course the answer is obvious. Our own response to Costello’s question is equally obvious, it seems to us, but no one else seems to be saying it: Is it any wonder that our tripartite government fails us when the fourth estate is entirely captured by corporate interests? Without new forms of media loyal to the citizenry …

Read moreWhither the Republic?