New Hampshire

An abolitionism tour?   Recently updated !

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After my enjoyable tour of the libraries of Rockingham county, I started thinking about doing something similar to follow it. My first thought was sites relating to American independence; there are plenty of them in my area. Then an idea that’s more off the beaten track came to me: a tour of abolitionist sites. William Lloyd Garrison was born in Newburyport and conducted much of his activity in Boston. John Greenleaf Whittier was from Haverhill, just across the border from me. Frederick Douglass moved to New Bedford after escaping slavery, and today I’ve learned how much other anti-slavery activity was based in New Bedford. (Sign up with Captain Ahab, and you’ll be out of the slave-catchers’ reach!) Also today (that is, Sept. 11, when I’m writing this), I found out the MBTA has renamed a ferry after Frederick Douglass. It isn’t obvious how to tell where the boat will be at any time, but it’s at least worth knowing.
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My library tour

This entry was posted in Personal and tagged libraries New Hampshire on by

Somehow I thought I’d posted about this earlier, but I hadn’t on this blog. As a little summer project, I’m visiting every public library in Rockingham County, New Hampshire. Rockingham is in the southeastern part of the state and includes all of New Hampshire’s 18-mile seacoast. There are no big cities. Portsmouth, which I think is the only city in the county, has about 22,000 people. Three towns are bigger. The difference between a town and a city in this state is the form of government, not the population. Derry, the biggest town in the state at about 34,000, has two libraries, and the people at the smaller one in East Derry firmly say it’s not a branch library.
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A little ICE breaking

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There’s no safety from ICE anywhere in the US. La Carreta is a Mexican restaurant in Portsmouth, NH. On July 1, ICE abducted four of their employees on their way to work. This has increased fears not only for the people at the restaurant but for everyone in the city.

That’s not far from where I live, and the restaurant looked interesting and reasonably priced, so I decided to eat there on Sunday. They had outdoor seating and it was a very nice day, so I got a table outside.
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A library tour on the NH seacoast 1

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Thursday was a rainy day, chilly for late May, and I needed to do something to improve my mood, so I set out on an afternoon’s tour of libraries near the New Hampshire coastline. The towns in this region mostly have small land areas, and each other has its own library, so I could cover a lot without too much travel. The ones I put on my list were South Hampton, Seabrook, Hampton, Rye, and Stratham. On the way home I passed right by the East Kingston library, so I dropped in there, as well as the Plaistow library.
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The Democratic Party has abandoned America 1

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

I am furious at the Democrats. They are cowards who won’t stand up to a president grabbing as much power as he can. To a man who has literally portrayed himself as king and pope. To a man who says he doesn’t know if he needs to uphold the Constitution.

To be precise, I mean the office holders and leaders in the party. Voters have to choose a party if they want to vote in primaries, and they choose where they think they’ll have a positive effect. They don’t necessarily like what the leaders are doing. But I have utter contempt for nearly all the Democrats in Congress.

The Republicans in Congress are despicable, with rare exceptions like Rand Paul. They’re actively collaborating with Trump to enable abductions of people and maintain a fake “emergency” so he can impose ruinous taxes on us. But that’s not the topic here. The Democrats are supposed to fight this. They don’t feel like it.
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Bad news for free speech in Bow, NH

This entry was posted in Censorship Commentary News and tagged censorship law New Hampshire on by

This has been a bad year for freedom of expression in the United States. ICE thugs have hauled people away without charges for expressing views that the government doesn’t like. In New Hampshire, a federal judge has delivered an outrageous decision regarding a protest in Bow, New Hampshire.

The ruling by Judge Steven McAuliffe is full of absurdities and disregard for the First Amendment. The basic argument is that school athletic events are a limited public forum, and the schools retain some control over types of expression at them. This is true, but it doesn’t mean they can arbitrarily decide what people can say or can’t. The restrictions have to serve a legitimate purpose and be viewpoint-neutral, and they have to be enforced evenly.
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Bow, NH school officials attack freedom to protest

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On September 17, 2024, Kyle Fellers and Anthony Foote wore pink armbands with an “XX” on them to a game as a protest against the Bow, New Hampshire school district’s transgender policies. They did not interfere with the game, annoy the players, or do anything else. However, the school officials didn’t like the protest, so they called it “harassment” and issued an order banning the two from subsequent games. This was a classic violation of First Amendment rights, and the two took the town to court. United States District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe has overturned the ban, though for the present they may not wear the armbands at the games.
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