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The persistent and pernicious gender pay gap
Call me biased, but my daughter is clever as can be. She’s devouring chapter books and spelling up a storm at the age of 6, long before I learned to read and write. If she gets tired of her brothers buzzing around her as noisy make-believe planes and trains, all she has to do is […]
How racism hurts us all, including racists
An accomplished chef settles in New Hampshire. He breathes new life into an old diner in a struggling downtown district. Mindful of his context, he maintains the same menus and decor. The chef is “Black” but the food and vibe he is serving are “white.” Things are going fine. Five months later, in April of […]
Electric rates are spiking. Do renewables help or hurt?
Late last month, the New Hampshire Department of Energy presented a long-awaited report on the costs and benefits of local renewable energy to ratepayers. It was the latest in a long line of studies by energy regulators and analysts in other states examining the value of solar net metering on the grid. The results were […]
Serena Williams: The power, and danger, of a single story
Earlier this month, we joined with millions of other sports fans in watching Serena Williams play the final match of her dazzling tennis career at the U.S. Open. We ooh’d and ahh’d as she served up 11 aces to her opponent’s three, adding to her record stockpile of 4,131 aces since 2008 alone. We cowered […]
COVID in Black and white: A Juneteenth reflection – commentary
“When white folks catch a cold, Black folks get pneumonia.” We’ve known this old adage for years but never before did it strike so close to home as it did last month when COVID finally caught up with our interracial family. First, a little background. Since the global pandemic began in March of 2020, my […]
Maple SOS: How to save our syrup – commentary
Since before my children can remember, our family has engaged in a certain springtime ritual as authentic as New Hampshire, and older still. Sometime after Valentine’s, as the days are getting longer and the temperatures start to rise, we gather up our dented metal pails and spiles from the garage, rinse them off, and ready […]
Commentary: Commissioner Edelblut, please don’t whitewash history at our children’s expense
This month, the New Hampshire Department of Education under Commissioner Frank Edelblut released four 3-minute videos which, it claimed, “provide a robust and complete story of American history and the Black American experience.” The taxpayer-funded videos were created in partnership with “1776 Unites,” a collection of essays in the conservative Washington Examiner whose stated goal […]
Commentary: Memo to state lawmakers: If Maine can do it, so can we
This year, our family decided to cross the Piscataqua River and spend the holiday in Maine – a first for me as a committed Granite Stater. Although I maintain that New Hampshire’s mountains, moose, and maple syrup are unrivaled anywhere, I have to admit that I was impressed by Maine’s recent record on environmental protection. […]
Commentary: Will we teach our children facts or fear?
On a recent afternoon drive through Jefferson, New Hampshire, with the majestic Presidential Range in view, my ever-inquisitive 5-year-old son wanted to know about our nation’s third president. I paused and recalled what I had learned about Thomas Jefferson as a boy some 30 years ago. I thought of the towering bronze statue of Jefferson, […]
Commentary: It’s never too late, or too soon, to do the right thing
“Never give in charity what is owed in justice.” – Pope John XXIII We Americans are a generous people. According to the National Philanthropic Trust, we gave over $300 billion to charity as individuals in 2020. That’s nearly 2 percent of our nation’s GDP. And we are not just generous with our treasure: nearly one in […]
Commentary: A corps to match a crisis
“Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.” These words by the late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm were never more apt than today. And the rent just went up. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), living on Planet Earth is a perilous privilege indeed. After eight years […]
Commentary: Does systemic racism exist in New Hampshire?
According to Republican leaders in Concord, systemic racism does not exist in New Hampshire and talk of it should be banned in our schools, state agencies, and private entities that contract with the state. Even Gov. Chris Sununu, who has pledged to veto the so-called “divisive concepts” language now in the state budget, recently denounced the term “systemic […]