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Editor’s Notebook: The structure of time
Over the past month or so, I’ve spent a big chunk of my leisure time watching documentaries about “free solo” rock climbing and YouTube videos about hiking. I am not, nor will I ever be, a free soloist, but I’m absolutely in awe of what they do. Every move they make is literally a matter […]
Editor’s Notebook: The way of the woods
I woke up early on Wednesday morning – and not in a carpe diem kind of way. Two hours before the alarm was set to go off, I started dreaming up things to worry about – work and the world, my family’s well-being and our future paths. I worried about worrying. By sunrise, before my […]
Editor’s Notebook: All eyes on the big balloons
Rain fell off and on Wednesday morning – fat, biting drops that seemed forged by July but tempered in mid-November. You could hear it land on sad patches of leftover January snow, gray and crusted. A low, silver sheet of sky blocked not only the warming sun but the probing eyes of spy balloons. Spy […]
Editor’s Notebook: A child of the first-in-the-nation primary
For those of us who have spent our lives in New Hampshire, running into famous politicians is old hat. One day in late 1987 or early ‘88, when I was a day student at Proctor Academy in Andover, a classmate came into the computer lab and said Paul Simon was walking around upstairs. I knew […]
Editor’s Notebook: Are things normal yet?
“When did the pandemic end, Grandpa?” I might get that question one day, and I’m not sure how I’ll answer it. Was it over when I and my loved ones became fully vaccinated? When I stopped losing sleep over toilet paper supply chains? When I went grocery shopping without a mask for the first time […]
Editor’s Notebook: Postcards and dispatches as the clock ticks
The Doomsday Clock is now set at 90 seconds until midnight, and I’m running out of room for the shoveled snow. Problems come in all sizes. According to the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the clock has never been so close to “global catastrophe.” Climate change, biological threats, and […]
Editor’s Notebook: If you’ve already bailed on that New Year’s resolution, this one’s for you
For a guy who doesn’t make New Year’s resolutions, I sure think about them a lot. Last year around this time I summoned the late Alan Watts to help explain why resolutions are doomed to fail, and then offered a counterpoint by way of an essay by Ann Patchett titled “My Year of No Shopping.” […]
Editor’s Notebook: The lottery of a lifetime
For a few minutes on Tuesday morning, I considered buying a lottery ticket for the $1.1 billion Mega Millions drawing. January can be a tough month mentally, and spending a couple bucks to add sprinkles of absurd hope to a cold winter day isn’t a bad deal. But then I remembered that the last time […]
The New Hampshire Bulletin’s 2022 year in review
2022 began with a lot of big questions – for the world, the nation, and New Hampshire. Would this be the year that COVID-19 loosened its grip on a weary public? Would the political anger and violence of Jan. 6, 2021 be replicated in the aftermath of the November 2022 midterm election? And, here in […]
Editor’s Notebook: Do the right thing
In the late 1990s, T.M. Scanlon – then the Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity at Harvard University – wrote a book that likely sold far more copies than were actually read. The title is among the most arresting I have ever seen: “What We Owe to Each Other.” Who wouldn’t […]
Editor’s Notebook: The times they are a-changin’ every few hours
When I woke up Monday morning, Nov. 14, Republicans held a 203-197 majority in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. By dusk, and after a handful of recounts, the Democrats had gained a seat to cut the margin to 202-198. Who knows what the score will be in an hour, or tomorrow, or next week […]
Editor’s Notebook: The day after
The morning of Nov. 9 felt like any other day. It was glorious. I’m not sure what I expected the day after Election Day to feel like, but on my way into the office there was joy in watching the mundane. The line of cars dropping off their treasures at my daughter’s high school. Workers […]