New Hampshire

Silent (and not quite silent) film plans 2   Recently updated !

This entry was posted in Movies and tagged movies New Hampshire silent movies on by

The showing of the 1924 film America with my accompaniment went well. You can catch it on YouTube. To be exact, it’s the audio from the Plaistow Library together with video copied from the Internet Archive, the same video that was shown at the library.

My next planned show in Plaistow will be the traditional Halloween horror movie, this time the 1931 Frankenstein, with Colin Clive in the title role and Boris Karloff as the monster. Yes, I know, it’s not a silent movie. But it has little music, and some silent film accompanists have added badly-needed music to it. That’s what I’ll be doing. It’s LIVE!!

June 21 is not New Hampshire’s birthday

This entry was posted in History and tagged history Massachusetts New Hampshire on by

On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire ratified the United States Constitution. As the ninth state to ratify, it made the Constitution go into effect. This is an important anniversary. However, some idiots claim that makes it New Hampshire’s “birthday.” They seem to think that rather than the state of New Hampshire letting the Constitution take effect, the Constitution brought New Hampshire into existence.

That erases a huge amount of history. The first settlements were established along the coast and Great Bay starting in 1623. In 1635, King Charles I issued a grant of the “Province of New Hampshire.” For a while Massachusetts claimed what is now southeastern New Hampshire. Things went back and forth until William and Mary declared New Hampshire a royal colony in 1691. It was the first state to draw up its own constitution, six months before the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration lists it as one of the “free and independent states.” It was one of the parties to the Articles of Confederation.

You can choose New Hampshire’s “birthday” from several historical events. I like April 18, the date of the provincial grant. By any measure, New Hampshire existed long before the U. S. Constitution.

Note on the LPNH

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged liberty New Hampshire on by

Just a quick note to say that the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire is a misnamed organization that I definitely don’t support. I call myself a libertarian or classical liberal, I live in New Hampshire, and I used to be involved with the LPNH when it was a much better organization. It got taken over by some people who don’t comprehend or don’t care about libertarian principles.

It’s been in the news because the national LP has revoked the state party’s affiliation. Carla Gericke, one of the founders of the Free State Project, described the state organization’s actions as “self-destructive, counterproductive, and increasingly unhinged.”

Several years ago, I was involved with LPNH Seacoast, a regional affiliate of LPNH. It has good people, with an emphasis on supporting everyone’s rights. It slipped away, and I lost contact with the people involved.

It would be nice if someone would start a new organization in the state. There are a lot of good libertarians and classical liberals in the state who are now homeless. I lack the skills to make it happen. Someone must have them.

Unveiling the Ona Judge Mural

This entry was posted in News and tagged history liberty New Hampshire on by

On Saturday, May 23, I went to Portsmouth to see the unveiling of the mural of Ona Judge. The crowd was huge, spilling over onto Court Street so the police had to close the street for a block. I’d say a couple of hundred. Various speakers had their say. Some were politicians who showed up to look important, others were actually involved with the project, and one was the artist. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hear any of them very well from where I was.

The main point of this post is to let you see the pictures, so I’ll leave it at that.

Ona Judge mural with crowd around it

Ona Judge

This entry was posted in News and tagged history liberty music New Hampshire on by

On Saturday, May 23, at 2 PM, a mural of Ona Judge will be unveiled at 222 Court Street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I would have missed it except for someone passing on the news yesterday evening. It’s supposedly historically accurate, and it will be a good addition to Portsmouth’s many historical sights. I like to think of her as one of the first Free Staters.

In looking for information about her and the event, I learned that today, May 21, is Ona Judge Day in Philadelphia. So that’s two reasons for quickly throwing together a post this morning.

I should also mention my song about her, “Washington’s Slave”, which is on Bandcamp as part of my album, The Road to Freedom.