2003
UPDATE
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The Great Stone Face of Franconia Notch fell sometime Friday night, and already some stuck-in-the-muds are saying that the loss should be accepted as an act-of-God fait accompli. Nonsense! The symbol of the State of New Hampshire can and must be restored to the side of Profile Mountain.
In California I am working on a Big Sur house that is designed to resemble a rock outcropping. It will blend in with the nearby outcroppings and thus be "invisible" to the tourists who drive past on Highway One. In shape, texture, and color it will match what Mother Nature has already placed in the area.
The technique used to create this effect is called ferroconcrete. It uses a steel reinforcing bar frame and wire mesh to create the desires shapes, then the metal is covered with colored concrete. Ferroconcrete is widely used in construction, and is sometimes used in boat building (yes, there are concrete boats) and sculpture.
However, ferroconcrete, as commonly used, has a lifetime of merely a century or two. For a project such as the restoration of The Old Man of the Mountain more resilient materials must be used. The frame and mesh will have to be stainless steel, or perhaps titanium, and a compatible concrete will have to be found Additionally, construction framing methods used by the aircraft industry may have to be employed. Nevertheless, it is possible to create a "hollow body" sculpture which will be indistinguishable from the original rock ledge. Here's a sample:
Of course, there will be many technical hurdles to be overcome in the restoration of The Old Man of the Mountain, not the least of which will be the stabilizing of the remaining rock ledges, but these are not unsurmountable. I have been working with ferroconcrete for years and know that this kind of restoration can be done. Ignore the nay sayers. Let's do it!
John Galuszka
Editor,
newsNH.com
Editor's note: When future historians ask Where were the good Americans? it appears that they will have a short list, but on that list will be Robert Byrd of West Virginia. The America of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin is being replaced by Bush-league Fascism, where might makes right and the world is ruled by whomever has the sharpest sword. Very few are willing to stand up for the traditional American values represented by the Spirit of 1776, by the Statue of Liberty, by the generosity of the Marshall Plan, but Byrd is one of them. He, more than anyone else in government today, is a true American.
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Senate Remarks by Robert C. Byrd
March 19, 2003 "The Arrogance of Power" I believe in this beautiful country. I have studied its roots and gloried in the wisdom of its magnificent Constitution. I have marveled at the wisdom of its founders and framers. Generation after generation of Americans has understood the lofty ideals that underlie our great Republic. I have been inspired by the story of their sacrifice and their strength. But, today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned. Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination. Instead of isolating Saddam Hussein, we seem to have isolated ourselves. We proclaim a new doctrine of preemption which is understood by few and feared by many. We say that the United States has the right to turn its firepower on any corner of the globe which might be suspect in the war on terrorism. We assert that right without the sanction of any international body. As a result, the world has become a much more dangerous place. We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance. We treat UN Security Council members like ingrates who offend our princely dignity by lifting their heads from the carpet. Valuable alliances are split. After war has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America's image around the globe. The case this Administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence. We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason. This is a war of choice. There is no credible information to connect Saddam Hussein to 9/11. The twin towers fell because a world-wide terrorist group, Al Qaeda, with cells in over 60 nations, struck at our wealth and our influence by turning our own planes into missiles, one of which would likely have slammed into the dome of this beautiful Capitol except for the brave sacrifice of the passengers on board. The brutality seen on September 11th and in other terrorist attacks we have witnessed around the globe are the violent and desperate efforts by extremists to stop the daily encroachment of western values upon their cultures. That is what we fight. It is a force not confined to borders. It is a shadowy entity with many faces, many names, and many addresses. But, this Administration has directed all of the anger, fear, and grief which emerged from the ashes of the twin towers and the twisted metal of the Pentagon towards a tangible villain, one we can see and hate and attack. And villain he is. But, he is the wrong villain. And this is the wrong war. If we attack Saddam Hussein, we will probably drive him from power. But, the zeal of our friends to assist our global war on terrorism may have already taken flight. The general unease surrounding this war is not just due to "orange alert." There is a pervasive sense of rush and risk and too many questions unanswered. How long will we be in Iraq? What will be the cost? What is the ultimate mission? How great is the danger at home? A pall has fallen over the Senate Chamber. We avoid our solemn duty to debate the one topic on the minds of all Americans, even while scores of thousands of our sons and daughters faithfully do their duty in Iraq. What is happening to this country? When did we become a nation which ignores and berates our friends? When did we decide to risk undermining international order by adopting a radical and doctrinaire approach to using our awesome military might? How can we abandon diplomatic efforts when the turmoil in the world cries out for diplomacy? Why can this President not seem to see that America's true power lies not in its will to intimidate, but in its ability to inspire? War appears inevitable. But, I continue to hope that the cloud will lift. Perhaps Saddam will yet turn tail and run. Perhaps reason will somehow still prevail. I along with millions of Americans will pray for the safety of our troops, for the innocent civilians in Iraq, and for the security of our homeland. May God continue to bless the United States of America in the troubled days ahead, and may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us. |
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March 20, 2003 - newsNH.com Editorial
THE END OF REPUBLICANS In 1939 Hitler invaded Poland. This was the beginning of the end of the Nazi
Party. By 1945 the superpower German military-industrial complex lay completely
in ruins. Since then, no Nazi Party member or supporter has had any significant
political power in Germany. As a political movement, the Nazis were completely
wiped out.
Now, Bush has invaded Iraq. This is the beginning of the end of the Republican
Party.
Once the party of Lincoln, the Republican Party has been taken over by an
extremist right-wing element. They don't have brown shirts or do the goose step,
nevertheless, Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, and Rumsfeld are as Fascist as Hitler,
Goering, Goebbels, and Himmler.
Under the Bush leadership, America has had a wholesale abandonment of
the bill of rights and the protections of the constitution, secret trials, indefinite
detentions of citizens deprived of access to lawyers, intimidation and/or jailing
of Muslums and people who look "Middle Eastern," a concentration camp in Cuba, the use of torture by military
and police forces, and now an attack in violation of international laws. Bush is acting just like Hitler.
Through misplaced patriotism, the German people aquessed to the atrocities of the
Nazi Party. Where were the good Germans? it was asked.
The ultimate consequence of
the invasion of Poland and the failure of the German people to oppose Hitler and
his henchmen was the complete destruction of Germany.
Will Americans sheepishly allow Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, and Rumsfeld to commit atrocities, or
will Americans rise up and rid the world of these evil men? If Americans do not do
so, then the world--as was the case in the 1940's--will join together to defeat the
new Republican Fascists, and in the process America, like Germany, will be
destroyed. In either case, the unprovoked invasion of Iraq signals the beginning of
the end of the Republican Party. Republicans have become the Nazis of the 21st century.
Like the Nazis, they must be forever be banished from political power. We should
not make it necessary for the world to do this. A newsNH.com editorial
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A dynamic newsNH.com editorial catroon
The editorial cartoon has been around for more than a century and has
been enhanced by excellent practitioners like Thomas Nast, Herblock, and
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The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times -- are still basically running
the same 19th century format.
We believe that a newspaper, even an Internet-based one, should be primarily a
text-based document, but this doesn't mean that we have to be static or
stodgy. We are introducing "dynamic editorial cartoons," and we invite
our competitors to immitate us. If you do so, keep in mind that many readers
have slow dial-up connctions. Remember, no one will look at your work if it takes
a half an hour to download. Use tricks like image splicing, file compression, and reduced colors
to keep file sizes low.
We electronic publishers should take advantage of the power of the Internet to
give our readers the best material we can produce.
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Yes, Virginia, during the Iran - Iraq war the United States helped Iraq. Exactly how much
we did so is still secret. The information is locked in the classified document,
National Security Decision Directive 114; 11/26/1983. And yes, Rumsfeld was in Baghdag
on 12/20/1983.
A newsNH.com editorial
January 21, 2003
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A newsNH.com editorial
Beware the "Ramparts gambit."
The Ramparts Division of the Los Angeles police department made its arrest records look good by routinely planting evidence on detained citizens, most of whom were poor, uneducated, and non-white. A large number of these victims simply pleaded guilty because they figured that no court would take the word of, say, a black kid over that of an officer of the law. We may soon be seeing the Ramparts gambit played out on an international stage.
If Hans Blix and his team of UN weapons inspectors don't soon find evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, then the CIA bush leaguers will just create it and smuggle it into Iraq. The war hawks have too much invested in troop deployments and weapons shipments to not have a war. They have spent billions on the campaign against Iraq. Are they going to say, "Oops, we made a mistake," and bring all the troops and guns home? Of course not. There will be a war, the pretext for which-like the evidence of the Ramparts Division cops (and like the "Gulf of Tonkin incident")-may be entirely manufactured in the United States.
This is why the International War Crimes Tribunal is so important. The world may be powerless to stop the Americans from starting a war, but once everyone realizes that an unprovoked attack was totally unjustified, then there will be a world-wide demand that the perpetrators of this crime against humanity face the bar of justice. There will need to be a Nuremberg-like trial, and in the dock will be Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Franks, Rice, Wolfowitz and the other American warmongers. Justice can demand no less.
2002
A newsNH.com editorial
The Rise of Fascism in America
Fascism does not spring forth fully grown; it creeps in slowly by quiet steps, almost unnoticed. On October 11th, the United States Congress, stampeded by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld propaganda campaign to demonize Iraq, voted to give the President the power to wage war at will. Silently, part of the system of checks and balances created by Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers was abandoned. This is only the latest in a series of actions designed to concentrate all power in the White House.
Earlier, in response to the attacks of September 11th and the anthrax scare, Congress passed the USA Patriot Act of 2001. That law canceled major portions of the Constitution of the United States. Under USA Patriot we now allow secret trials, indefinite detentions of citizens who are neither charged with a crime nor allowed access to a lawyer, denials of the right of habeas corpus, military tribunals empowered to use the death penalty, and a system of spying on the citizenry far in excess of anything that existed under J. Edgar Hoover, during the McCarthy era, or even with Richard Nixon and his "enemies list." Every phone call you make, every e-mail you send, and even every web site you visit may now be observed and recorded by the FBI. Under the guise of "enhancing national security" the rights of the citizenry are being systematically stripped away.
The courts are supposed to protect us from the excesses of the legislative and executive branches of government. However, with the minor exception of the judge who ruled that "Democracies die behind closed doors," the courts have abandoned their responsibilities. The police state practices of John Ashcroft have been allowed to proliferate unchecked. Those practices are similar to the ones used by the Gestapo in the early 1930's.
There is a cancer in the heart of America. A small group of right-wing extremists have perverted the normal procedures of government and hijacked the reins of power. Because the courts and Congress have abdicated their responsibilities, we now have, in effect, a one-branch government. That branch is George W. Bush. He is rapidly accumulating power and is becoming less and less the President and more and more the Fuhrer.
Fascism is not something that is unique to Germany. After all, it co-existed in Italy and Spain, and, in the broadest sense, was the philosophy of the Caesars of Rome and the Napoleons of France. At its root, Fascism is a combination of one-man rule, a sense of ultra-nationalism, and a ruthless willingness to kill. This is the philosophy of Saddam Hussein ... and of George W. Bush.
In a democracy, the will of the people is the ultimate governing force. However, the people are being manipulated by a sophisticated propaganda campaign. They are being told that there are dangers lurking on all sides, and the only way to be secure is to attack. That is what Hitler did in Poland. That is what Bush is doing in Iraq. Bush and his cronies-Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice, and Wolfowitz-are following Hitler's path. We already have a concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, but we are not yet stockpiling Zyklon B. There is still time to stop. However, with the courts and Congress AWOL and the people bamboozled, is there anyone who can prevent America from becoming the Nazis of the 21st Century?
Only Colin Powell has the public stature, experience, and gravity to stand up to Bush. Only a Powell resignation-in-protest has the power to cut through the fog of propaganda and shock the citizenry into reexamining Bush's actions. Powell has to choose: he can be loyal to his President, or he can be loyal to his country. For a man who has worn the military uniform for most of his life, this is a very hard choice, but choose he must. He can be a true patriot, or he can be a silent Fascist.
The German people chose silence, and they will forever be haunted by the question, "Where were the good Germans?" It is our turn. If we remain silent, the world will be asking, "Where were the good Americans?"
-- www.newsNH.com
Copyright 2002 by newsNH.com. This editorial may be copied, reproduced, e-mailed, reprinted and otherwise distributed as long as our copyright notice is included.
UPDATE
For an e-mail/printer version of the above editorial, go to:
editorial12-11-02.txt
Hitler - Poland
Bush - Iraq
In the 1930's, Propaganda Minister Paul Goebbels convinced his
countrymen that ethnic Germans were being abused in
neighboring countries. This is one of the excuses that the Nazis
used to invade Poland. (In reality, Hitler and his cronies just
wanted more land for an expanded Germany.) The invasion of
Poland plunged first Europe, then the whole world into war,
resulting in millions of deaths.
History is now repeating itself. The Bush administration is
mounting a world-wide propaganda effort to demonize Iraq as an
excuse to invade that oil-rich country. Once again, the citizenry is
being told that it is in danger if an invasion is not immediately
undertaken.1 A unilateral attack on Iraq will destabilize the Mideast,
igniting a regional war which could easily turn global. Again,
millions of deaths could result, but this time the aggressors will be
the Americans.
Why are we letting Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, and Rumsfeld turn
America into a Fascist state? If you remain silent, future
historians will be asking:
1 Bush at Manchester, NH on October 5th said that Iraq could "strike at any time."
www.newsNH.com
You can't fight
TERRORISM
with
FASCISM.
Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, and their associates are taking America down the road traveled by Adolf Hitler in the 1930's. Already we have an indefinite detention for Muslims, a wholesale abandonment of centuries-old constitutional rights, and a concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay. Now Bush is proposing an American Geheime Staatspolizei in the form of a "Homeland Security Department." Is this the way to fight terrorism?
Terrorism does not arise in a vacuum. Ask yourself: why do they hate us? Unfortunately, America has a recent history of attacking the weak-Afghanistan, Panama, Haiti, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Grenada and others. These are not countries capable of mounting an effective counter-attack. No wonder millions of people resent us. It is a resentment made more bitter by disappointment ... disappointment with us. In school they were taught about the great Democracy of 1776, but in contemporary life they find that Uncle Sam is an international bully, and just as schoolyard bullying precipitated the Columbine massacre, military bullying participates terrorism.
We have come a long way from the America envisioned by Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin. We have abandoned the principles of freedom, equality, and honesty of the founding fathers and substituted hollow rhetoric and a policy of might-makes-right gunboat diplomacy.
If we want to stop terrorism, then we must return to the America of The Declaration of Independence, the America of George Washington's Farewell Address, the America of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and the America of Kennedy's Inaugural Address. If we don't act now to stop Bush's march into totalitarianism, then future historians will be asking:
Where were the good Americans?
Copyright 2002 www.newsNH.com
The above editorial may be freely reproduced provided that our copyright notice is included.
WARNING
By order of John Ashcroft, Attorney General ...
Every Internet site you visit, every chat room you enter, every newsgroup you read, every e-mail you send may be monitored and recorded by agents of the U.S. government. A court order requiring "probable cause" of criminal activity will no longer be required.
The Constitution of the United States has, in effect, been canceled, and the Republican-dominated courts will not protect you from the new American Gestapo. In the 1930's, the smart Jews got out of Germany; the not-so-smart Jews ended up in Auschwitz. Smart Muslims in the USA should start packing their suitcases.
Fascism, it's not just for Germans any more!
State of the news
Consider this ...
The only state-wide source of news in New Hampshire is a rabidly conservative relict of the Hearst yellow journalism days when newspapers were willing to start shooting wars just to boost circulation. As a result, outsiders often view New Hampshire citizens as sanctimoneously narrow-minded boobies who hold the most regressive of opinions. New Hampshire deserves better representation from the press.
Consider this ...
Merger mania has turned once-independent voices into homogenized parrots for media moguls like Rupert Murdock and Sumner Redstone or for corporate public relations departments. The Boston Globe is now owned by people in New York. The Los Angeles Times is owned by people in Chicago. The hometown, independent newspaper is becoming an endangered species. What will the effect of this consolidation be? Will MS/NBC criticize Bill Gates as a latter-day robber baron? Will Disney/ABC report on malfeasance by Mickey Mouse? Don't count on it! For example, recently CBS Radio reported that a San Francisco publisher offered to "horse-trade" favorable coverage for the mayor for support for a media deal. Horse-trade? Is CBS afraid of the word bribe? Or is CBS afraid of the Hearst Corporation. Or is it that they are all foxes in the chicken coop together? An independent news source should not be afraid to call a spade a spade and a bribe a bribe.
Consider this ...
It appears to me that the quality of newspapers has been going down. For example, twenty years ago The Lewiston Sun was an excellent small-city newspaper, featuring world, national, and local news. Now, its world coverage is dismal and its national reportage is anemic at best. Almost all newspapers have reduced hard news coverage in favor of "features" and infomercial types of stories. Alas, information myopia pervades the news business.
Consider this ...
Condensation and exclusion is not just confined to print publications. The National Association of Broadcasters and National Public Radio opposes the creation of low-power community-based FM radio stations. Two categories of radio stations were envisioned. Stations of 10 watts or less would reach an radius of a mile or two, while those with 100 watts or less would reach about a three and a half mile radius. Such stations would serve small areas and specialized groups such as inner-city minority communities. In the past, radio stations such as Free Radio Berkeley were run as "Pirate radio," and often espoused liberal points of view. The Federal Communications Commission has been very aggressive about shutting down "pirate" stations. The proposal to allow the "pirates" to become legitimate has brought fierce opposition from owners of both commercial and "public" radio stations. Do the airwaves belong to the people, or do they belong to whomever has a few million dollars to set up a high-powered radio?
Consider this ...
The cost of newsprint, presses, and all the accouterments associated with the traditional newspaper will continue to rise, making "on-paper" publications increasingly expensive to produce. Expensive editorial coverage will have to be further reduced in favor of revenue-producing advertisements. However, kids who used the Internet since kindergarten will, as adults, not read "adpapers." They'll get their news from on-line sources. If on-line news is merely a mirror of the reduced print/broadcast news (almost all present on-line newspapers are just abridged versions of their on-paper parents,) then our young readers might just say, "Why bother?"
As a result ...
Control of the news is falling into fewer and fewer hands, and those hands are presenting narrower and narrower points of view. Citizens of New Hampshire and of the country as a whole are becoming daily less well-informed as a result of all of this media consolidation. Do we want all our news to come from Time/Warner/AOL/Microsoft/Dow Jones/et al., Incorporated? Diversity of opinion is something that is required to keep democracy healthy, but how can this be accomplished in the face of merger mania?
Here at newsNH ...
We propose to build that diversity from the ground up. A. J. Liebling once said, "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." Okay, we're handing out printing presses. These are modern printing presses, the kind that put down type with the click of a mouse, not hot lead. We won't need to cut down forests for paper, or buy ink by the barrel. We won't need warehouses, or delivery trucks, or corner newsstands to make this Internet newspaper available, and you'll be able to get it anywhere on the planet. If you are in Los Angeles, or Paris, or Tokyo and you want to know what is happening in Pittsburg, or Hinsdale, or Rye, just click on newsNH to find out. Plus, NewsNH will have a great variety of opinions and news sources because it will be composed of numerous independendent weekly town newspapers, each serving its own community and serving the state as a whole.
How this works ...
On the left you will find a list of the New Hampshire towns with newsNH-associated Internet newspapers. Just click on the town you want to read about and the current issue of that newspaper will appear, either here in this frame, or in a separate window. Each newspaper has editorial independence from newsNH and is under the control of its own publisher/editor. We at newsNH do not influence the content of the town newspapers, but we do offer technical and formatting assistance to the editors so that we don't have a confusing jumble of different styles. Furthermore, we can't edit the contents because the data files are actually located on the editor's local Internet server, not on newsNH's computers. This preserves the independence of each town newspaper.
Privacy issues ...
Unlike most Internet sites, newsNH is not monitoring the reader's computer activity. We are not capturing the reader's browser history; we are not checking to identify the reader; we are not sending cookies to the reader's computer. The only marker we use is a counter which merely records the number of visits to this site. This is a bit disadvantageous to us. We can't tell our advertisers that Reader Joe Smith came to us from www.hotgirls.com after buying herbal remedy books at www.amazon.com. If a reader sends us e-mail, or fills in an on-line form, that information will only be used to answer the reader's question or process his or her request. This information will not be made available to others. True, this is not the way that Internet businesses are normally run, but we're trying to do something different here. We're bringing back intregrity.
Join newsNH ...
To start an Internet newspaper in your town, return to the top of this page and click on the "Editors wanted" box.
John Galuszka
Editor in chief
www.newsNH.com
1-15-04 last update
