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Editor’s Notebook: As within, so without
Technology is the mind made external. From sensors to computer memory to artificial intelligence, human beings have dedicated their very existence to shifting the inner world to the outer, with dreams of duplicating or even surpassing the organism itself. Look around you right now, and whatever you see should make it clear that the mind […]
Editor’s Notebook: Memories of the future
For months, I’ve been abnormally fixated on winter weather. How fixated? It is 88 degrees as I write, with only a few fragile clouds lolling in the blue, and I find myself thinking about tire treads and layers of merino wool. The thing is, unlike columnist Stephanie White Ferland, I actually enjoy summer and am […]
Editor’s Notebook: Fumbling toward enlightenment
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been reading a book by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj titled “I Am That.” In its essence, “I Am That” is a collection of talks that serve as short prompts for meditation, which makes it a bit of an odd choice for me because I don’t really meditate. I do […]
Editor’s Notebook: Stage directions
A former president – and current presidential candidate – visited New Hampshire this week. I found a livestream of his Tuesday afternoon speech so I could follow along, and even from that distance the whole thing was dizzying. First of all, it looked really hot in there. (The candidate himself put the temperature at about […]
Editor’s Notebook: Borderlands
Political boundaries – call them borders if you’d like – are as much mental constructs as they are lines on a map. There is nothing natural about the invisible border between, say, the United States and Canada. While there may be topographic elements that align with a political division – rivers or mountain ranges separating […]
Editor’s Notebook: The flow of a wild summer
New Hampshire summers are consistently inconsistent. Does anybody feel confident booking a vacation for next month, or next July, knowing that the entire week may be oppressively hot and dry or historically wet? Can you be sure that extreme weather and flooding won’t keep you from getting to or leaving your campground or rented lake […]
Editor’s Notebook: Airport security
“It’s half an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown / That’s the way that the world goes ’round.” – John Prine I was in Washington, D.C., last week to meet with other States Newsroom editors from around the country, as well as the national team and the staff of the D.C. bureau. […]
Editor’s Notebook: A wiser New Hampshire, one commentary at a time
If you’re the kind of person who pays attention to the news about the news, you may have read this week that Washington Post Publisher Fred Ryan is leaving the paper to lead the Center on Public Civility. The center is being launched by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, and in a letter […]
Editor’s Notebook: The stuff you stumble upon in the woods
“I don’t know if you have noticed the mountains this morning, the river and the changing shadows, the pine trees dark against the blue sky, and those extraordinary hills full of light and shade. On a morning like this, sitting in a tent to talk about serious things seems rather absurd, when everything about us […]
Editor’s Notebook: The second arrow
As the world gains distance from the most difficult moments of the pandemic, one video snippet keeps playing in my mind. The footage isn’t of eerily empty city streets, piled-up body bags, crates of “personal protective equipment,” or overflowing hospitals. On a loop, I see three women in a grocery store fighting over a package […]
Editor’s Notebook: A choice of fictions
One of the presidential candidates was on a stage just down the road in Manchester on Wednesday night. He was there for a televised “town hall” style meeting, although it didn’t look like any town hall I’ve ever visited nor did it sound like any town meeting I’ve attended. I doubt there were even fundraiser […]
Editor’s Notebook: The great bridge hullabaloo of ’23
The New Hampshire Department of Transportation has been mucking about under our bridge again. It’s one of 118 state bridges on the red list, and for a couple of years now folks in orange vests have been coming around periodically to “Hmmm” at the chipped concrete and rusted girders. They tie plastic ribbons around a […]