Wednesday • September 8 • 2010
Vol.II • No.XXXVI
Manchester, N.H.
The School Sucks Project outreach spreads all the way across New Hampshire to the Seacoast where the public library was successfully targeted with bookmarks promoting the School Sucks Project and Freedomain Radio. The Seacoast Online’s Dave Choate reports:
PORTSMOUTH — Thousands of bookmarks promoting two organizations’ points of view recently created a headache for public libraries on the Seacoast.
The two groups placing the bookmarks in Portsmouth, Dover and at the University of New Hampshire are the School Sucks Project and Freedomain Radio. The School Sucks Project Web site calls for an end of public, government-funded education in the United States, charging that it is ineffective and values obedience over creativity. Freedomain Radio bills itself as a philosophical radio show.
It’s not a new phenomenon at libraries, but Portsmouth Public Library Director Mary Ann List said several in the area were hit recently with a scourge of bookmarks promoting an unspecified political cause between the pages of books. The messages tend to be politically or religiously focused, she said, and libraries typically strive to remain disassociated with that type of propaganda.
The latest dispersal was the largest Cathleen Beaudoin said she has ever seen. The Dover Public Library director said, while she’s found pamphlets and the like within small groups of books in the past, as well as such oddities as a $100 bill, an endorsed paycheck and a strip of bacon, nothing could match the number of stuffed books that cropped up in May.
“Never have we been inundated with the kind of deluge of bookmarks that were surreptitiously placed in our books,” she said. “We collected over 5,000 bookmarks.”
Beaudoin said the bookmarks were found when a shelf of books spilled onto the floor and splayed open to reveal blue bookmarks within. Curious staffers began looking in neighboring shelves and found many more, she said.
Beaudoin said the issue is not what was written on the bookmarks, and she added that, had the groups approached the library to put up a poster or pamphlets promoting meetings and the like, the library likely would have granted approval. The manner in which it was done, and the possibility that the philosophies espoused would be linked to the library itself, is what forced the removal of the thousands in Portsmouth, Beaudoin and List said.
“It’s not that we object to the content of the bookmark. Everybody has a right to believe in whatever they want to believe in,” Beaudoin said. “We do have a specific policy that prohibits this.”
“They tend to be advocating a cause when this happens,” List said. “If we’re not spreading that message on purpose, we don’t want to be spreading it at all.”
The Herald was unable to speak with a representative for the School Sucks Project by Thursday afternoon. This is not the group’s only presence in the state, however, as the Keene Sentinel recently reported that protesters in Keene have stood outside the middle school there holding signs that read “School Sucks Project” in recent weeks.
List acknowledged it is time-intensive to remove the pamphlets or bookmarks placed in books. Beaudoin said it took her staff and volunteers from the community about 30 hours in total. In her years as a staff member of libraries, List said she has never caught someone in the act of placing something in a book.
“Normally, it’s done in a clandestine way,” she said.
List said many libraries rely on each other to spread word when such incidents occur, and added she finds it interesting that groups choose make use of the library to get their message out.
We recently hosted a guest blog by local talk radio personality Mark Edge who announced he’d challenged a parking ticket and after scheduling a trial and then rescheduling it, the charge was “nol prossed” (that’s legalese for dropped) by the city’s persecutor.
That made me curious. I had actually gone to trial in April over the parking ticket that was left on my car back in November. At the end of the hearing, the robed man, Howard B. Lane, said he’d take the matter under advisement. I hadn’t heard anything from Keene District Court on this matter since the trial. I thought perhaps this was due to me changing my address and having a notice fall through the cracks. So to satisfy my curiosity, I dropped in on the court this afternoon, a full two months past the date of trial. The helpful young lady behind the counter retrieved the case file for me. I discovered that I had been found Not Guilty on the same date of the trial! (Here’s the proof, though I never pleaded not guilty as Lane indicates on the complaint.) There was no record of any notice being sent to me about the decision. Apparently the court has no obligation to provide notice when the finding is in the favor of the defendant.
Before you go calling this a win, remember that every time the bureaucrats involve themselves in your life, you will lose at the very least your time. That said, it’s great to have an explicit “Not Guilty” in a parking ticket case here in Keene! It should help encourage others to similarly refuse to pay and instead take the tickets that are littered on their cars to court. Load up the system with parking ticket trials until they stop enforcing that ordinance!
Confused, angry letters-to-the-editor continue to be published in the Keene Sentinel, followed by the requisite vitriolic posts in each letters’ comments section. I’m posting links and the text below. If you feel inspired, please write your own letters-to-the-editor here.
“Protestors Don’t Belong Near School”
As I was out for my daily exercise recently, I passed the Keene Middle School just as the buses were lining up and the children were beginning to exit the school after a day of learning.
This day, however, was the first time I have been disturbed by an event such as an afternoon school exodus.
What was unsettling was that the children were exiting to a small group of protesters touting signs that say “school sucks” and blasting libertarian rhetoric through their bullhorns. I also noticed that the school administrators seemed to be just as disturbed by the scene as I was, but were not responding in the best interests of their students’ safety.
Then I realized that the administrators were caught in a Catch-22: If they chose to ignore the protesters, then they would return the next day to protest the middle school. If they were to call the police, then the protesters would win, because they would get it all on tape and then edit it to fit their message.
All this sideshow drama would ultimately shift the focus from the original issue, which was that a small group of protesters were interfering with the daily operations of the school.
The protesters’ right to free speech should not supersede the rights of children to navigate Washington Street free from ideological harassment.
In future, I would urge our administrators to ask these people to leave, and if they choose not to, then have them removed. Every day there are school buses, car and foot traffic and a few hundred students all leaving simultaneously, which on the best of days is a highly choreographed procedure with little room for error.
For administrators there are numerous things that could go wrong, and worse case it could mean injury or possibly the life of a student. These protesters can go 500 feet over to the Main circle and yell from there. They should not be allowed to continue to harass minors as they exit from school.
PATRICK McKENNEY
Washington Street
Keene
What has become of the Central Square common?
Pot smoking allowed at 4:20 each day?
Teens hanging all over the newly painted gazebo with no regard for the efforts of the Eagle Scout who just painted it?
Barbecue grills?
Baring of breasts?
Placing pot seeds in and amongst the plantings on the common to grow pot, simply for shock value?
I, for one, am a proponent of freedom of speech, but what message is being sent to everyone by the events of late?
Residents and out-of-town visitors feel intimidated to walk onto the common and enjoy its serene atmosphere and beauty when large crowds gather.
It is time for the town fathers to amend the by-laws, give our local law enforcement more power to stop this behavior.
If residents want to smoke pot, so be it, but someplace else; if they feel the need to grill, why not try their backyard or one of our beautiful parks or picnic areas designated for this?
And, if they feel the need to bare breasts, do it in their own yard, not for the rest of us to see.
We need to curtail this behavior once and for all, before it is totally out of control.
GARY LEBLANC
20 Gates Road
Marlborough
This past week various news events once again made it abundantly clear that our foreign policy is an abject failure. Unfortunately, in spite of this the administration is determined to stay on this destructive course, despite any past promises to change it. For Afghanistan especially, if ever there was an opportunity to admit shortcomings and change strategies along with leaders, this past week was it.
There really is nothing for us to win in Afghanistan. Our mission has morphed from apprehending those who attacked us, to apprehending those who threaten or dislike us for invading their country, to remaking an entire political system and even a culture. I remain highly skeptical that, as foreign occupiers, we can ever impose western-style democracy on another country. Our troops have debilitating restrictions on defending themselves against enemies, which are so often indistinguishable from civilians. They also face dire setbacks in winning hearts and minds when innocents are mistakenly harmed, which happens all the time. We can never make friends this way; the tactic never works.
This is an expensive, bloody, endless exercise in futility. Not everyone is willing to admit this just yet. But every second they spend in denial has real costs in lives and livelihoods.
Many of us can agree on one thing, however. Our military spending in general has grown way out of control. This is largely because fiscal accountability in military budgeting is seen, by many, as weak on defense. This is absolutely wrong and a dangerous way to think. It is certainly possible for the military to waste money, or to spend money counterproductively, and indeed it has. But out of political correctness, the military has been getting blank checks from the administrations and Congress for far too long.
It is important to defend our soil, but let us defend our own soil instead of defending Europe’s soil. Our willingness to defend Europe enables their lavish social spending at our expense, while they criticize our model of capitalism. It is time they allocated the money for their own defense. The same goes for Korea, Japan and other countries like Egypt and Israel.
It is also important that while our troops are in combat, our soldiers have what they need to do the best they can, even if we disagree with why they are there. It is an embarrassment that some soldiers and families have had to buy body armor at their own expense when billions are awarded to politically well-connected defense contractors for weapon systems that don’t work, are over-budget, past deadline. This is the kind of waste that needs to end. I firmly believe that there is enough waste in the military budget that we can both save money overall and at the same time be safer.
Of course, the obvious way to save money and be safer is to stop meddling in the affairs of foreign countries and just bring our troops home. This will happen eventually if our empire, like every other fallen empire, insists on spending itself into collapse. If we want to avoid this, we must look into ways to bring our costs under control. Military budgets must be on the chopping block along with everything else.
[Photo by Joe Shlabotnik; CC BY 2.0]
A loyal Free Keene subscriber sent me this article about a New Hampshire grandmother who died as a result of National Grid electric disconnecting her power for an unpaid bill. I agree the article is something worthy of discussion/dissection by those of us who philosophize about the ideas of a society without a coercive violent monopoly.
“53-year-old New Hampshire grandmother Kay Phaneuf died this weekend after National Grid cut her power over an unpaid bill. Phaneuf suffered from a heart condition that required her to sleep in an oxygen tent and use a plug-in oxygen machine.”
I personally do not think the power company did anything wrong. I also personally think that this death was tragically needless and could have easily been avoided had Mrs. Phaneuf communicated her medical situation and/or asked for help.
Your thoughts?
The American dream is over. The final blow has been struck. Our country is falling apart as we bail out banksters and spend billions on illegal, immoral wars. We owe trillions in national debt. We are so mired in debts that politicians have buried us in, we may never see the sky again. We have been raped and pillaged for the last 100 years and most of you have turned a blind eye. Where are the billions of dollars “lost” by the Pentagon? Where are the billions of dollars “lost” in Iraq?
The June/July issue of the New Hampshire Free Press is now online.
http://www.newhampshirefreepress.com/PDFs/nhfp0610.pdf
In this issue:
War to Peace, Anger to Laughter, Hatred to Apathy
Who Killed Phoebe Prince?
Reader Letters
Comics
Authoritarianism is Bad for your Health
Jason Osborne's Tea Party Speech
Free Keene Press
Think for Yourself
Regulating Cavemen
Recovery of Stolen Roads
Manchester News
Free Town Grafton News
By Kat Kanning
Mike Barskey and his work crew relaxed over a small cooking fire one day. They'd planned on making some hotdogs for their lunch. The fire pit was about 3 x 5 ft, 2 feet deep, rock lined, with 4 people attending the fire. The location of the fire pit had been approved by the fire chief himself, the year before. Barskey and his whole crew did not consider the fire a danger to neighbors. If fact, they considered it none of anybody's business but their own.
Defiance, OH
I'd like to talk to you today about government. Government is force. Government is coercion. Government is institutionalized violence. It is the apparatus by which the counterproductive and the unproductive engage in predation upon the productive. Whereas in the marketplace individuals create value and wealth for themselves by voluntarily trading goods and services with one another, the state pits groups of individuals against one another in a costly game of tug-o-war for theft and control: black against white, male against female, old against young, native against immigrants, religion against religion, the established against the unestablished.
By Sean Murphy
There was a time in my life, not that long ago, that I thought the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were just. There was a time I got angry at the government for its impositions on people. There was a time that I hated the politicians for not following their oaths. There was a time I thought that the only way to remove the horrible corruption of government was violent revolution, and I waited for the first shot. I’ve come to realize that the wars, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, and quite likely every war the US has engaged in since 1776 has been unjust, aggressive, and wrong. I no longer get angry at the government, I laugh at it. I can no more hate politicians for lying than I can hate a snake for biting, it is their nature. I’ve learned the hard lesson that violence against the government won’t get rid of the violence that IS government.
We are fast becoming a nation of two classes of people again. This time, it will not be white and black, but rich and poor. In both cases, the government was and is behind each separation.
The U.S. Government has a history of putting itself first while it bullies and lies to the rest. That history has been developed over time. Our forefathers created a nation that was by the people and for the people. Since then, greed turned it all around.
The people are as much to blame for this as the government. Too many watched and did nothing. Life was too good, we thought. The truth is that life was controlled. Now we are owned. That is what happens when you let the government take and take. You simply get taken.
Today we vote out of fear because of it all. At the same time, the government gets richer while you lose and lose. Where is your pension?
Those who run our lives must be laughing out loud. Slavery is back. What a shame.
George Vreeland Hill
By Dave Albin
I am fortunate enough to live on a property with enough trees and garden areas, put in by previous owners, that I accumulate a pile of yard waste in my backyard. About once a year, I have to figure out what to do with it. Where I live, you can burn yard waste, and so, once a year, I do. I don't really have any good way to haul it anywhere, and I put in plants or flowers that can tolerate ashy soil after the burn is complete. In a way, I tap into my inner caveman, using a technology that has been around for a long time — the wonderful technology of fire making.
Of course, in some places, any burning is banned. In others, it is permitted, but discouraged, with a lot of vague regulations so that you can be stopped at any time. Where I live, it is clearly indicated that
By Kevin Carson
Jun 17, 2010
It’s a bit late for a column better suited to Memorial Day, but sometimes these things come to me on their own schedule.
I’ve never seen Arlington National Cemetery in person. But even seen on television, its scale is beyond comprehension. And the world is full of such places, in many countries, overflowing with war dead in their hundreds of thousands and millions. Hundreds of thousands and millions of men who left the farm, their jobs, their families, to die — because they believed those who said it was for “their nation’s interest.”
We libertarians sometimes take a philosophical approach and argue from general principles, like self-ownership and nonaggression. We own ourselves, but we don’t own others. We have rights whose exercise and defense we can delegate to others, but we can’t delegate a right — a right to control others — that we don’t ourselves possess.
Society as we know it is crumbling to the ground with the examples of lawlessness I observed at PorcFest 2010. In total I saw/was made aware of examples that would accumulate at least up to 158 years in cages… were the maximum sentence be given for all the “crimes” I personally witnessed. Imagine all the “crimes” that were happening that I didn’t personally witnessed/was made aware of. The hubris of some people…
How I calculated 158 years:
- An unlicensed chiropractor (who serviced thirty people… see the comments) = Thirty years in a cage.
- An unlicensed performance of hairstyling = One year in a cage.
- An unlicensed massage therapist = One year in a cage.
- Five different unlicensed liquor sales = Thirty five years in a cage.
- An unlicensed tattoo artist (who serviced at least twenty people) = Twenty years in a cage.
- Two people exchanging money for a plant = Fourteen years in a cage.
- About twenty to thirty people selling various items = Twenty to thirty years in a cage.
- About twenty people playing cards for money = Twenty years in a cage.
- One convicted felon carrying a pocket knife = Seven years in a cage.
- At least ten people smoking Marijuana openly = Ten years in a cage.
Not a single person was harmed. No one was forced to do anything. Putting anyone of these peaceful people in a cage would be harming someone who has harmed no one else. That is what the state does.
I don’t support that, do you?
A police officer blocks a man from carrying his wife into the emergency room because he ran red lights getting her to the hospital, the Downsizer Dispatch, undercover officer draws gun on a man for speeding ; the driver videotaped the interaction and now faces 16 years in prison for it, and Hampton NH talent show threatened by American Idol for using the word “Idol” in its name.
http://www.freemindstv.com
1. This is an example of a “child pornography” offense that actually has a victim. The Durham, NH man referenced in this article *produced* child pornography, which usually involves child sexual abuse. That is victimizing someone. That should be met with punishment. In my opinion, severe punishment.
Someone standing at the street corner with a USB flash drive in his pocket containing three hundred pictures of children being abused is not an act that is hurting someone. As reprehensible as I find someone who feels the need to collect/possess/view these images, it does not justify the initiation of state violence. Merely holding a collection of 1’s and 0’s that translates into a picture does not harm anyone else.
2. “A police officer was slightly injured this morning when he ran into a piece of old farm equipment while chasing some kids, according to authorities.”
According to this article, the kids were standing around and took off running when the police approached. There is no evidence that the kids were doing anything illegal… although it IS illegal to start running if you see the police appear. Did you know that? Running at the sight of someone who potentially will put you in a cage for holding a plant or liquid in your pocket is illegal in this state.
Can one really blame a group of kids from running when the police show up? Often the police do things to hurt people who are not doing anything wrong.
3. The Portsmouth, NH Police have been “cracking down” on drug dealers in town. Funny, it seems like they’ve been doing that for years now with absolutely no success in ridding their community of drug dealers. They never will. They’re completely wasting their time and the money of taxpayers. They’re also perpetuating the violent black market.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein
4. “The Hudson Police Department has a message for its liquor stores: Check for ID or face the consequences.“ I beat the drinking age like a dead horse on these news updates… but as a reminder, an eighteen year old can do the following:
- Buy a rifle.
- Buy a shotgun.
- Carry a handgun.
- Star in pornography.
- Be drafted and forced to fight and die for the United States government.
- Be conscripted and forced to serve the State of New Hampshire.
- Be elected to serve in various state government positions.
- Become a police officer with the authority to use violence to enforce “crimes” which have no victim.
- Use tobacco… the most dangerous drug in the United States (more deadly than all the various ways alcohol leads to death combined).
- Be punished as an adult for drinking/possessing liquor.
… but they cannot have a beer, legally. Good god, man.
5. More news of Nashua, NH Police arresting ten people on a massive “drug sweep” in their city. Refer to #3.
6. All felons in New Hampshire must now submit to mandatory DNA testing. You can become a felon for doing some of the most harmless things. These include:
- Selling a beer to someone.
- Driving your car down the street.
- Consensually selling a chemical substance to someone.
- Being caught for the second time carrying a firearm with an article of clothing covering it from view.
- Being caught for the second time carrying a firearm with a single round of ammunition in it while in a vehicle. (Because a piece of paper is all that it would take to stop someone who wants to do a drive-by shooting.)
I’ve seen numerous examples of people who would have to forcibly give the state their DNA at PorcFest under this new law. None of them harmed a hair on anyone’s head.
Greetings from PorcFest 2010.
I just wanted to share with you what I feel is an amazing and encouraging thing.
In a mere day at the Porcupine Freedom Festival I have met dozens of people from across the United States (and world) who have come to this gathering. What I find particularly encouraging is that so many people who are planning to move to New Hampshire have been paying very close attention to what has been happening here. They watch the Ridley Report. They read Free Keene. They listen to Free Talk Live. They participate in the various discussion forums …
… and they’re all coming.
To the people reading this who think that society will continue forever to use the violence of the status-quo to solve social problems: the days of this are numbered. There are far too many people who believe in peace, liberty, and handling the problems of the world without violence for the archaic practices of the now to continue.
If you were unable to make it to PorcFest, no worries. Your home, friends, and family anxiously await your arrival.
The state of our peaceful evolution is strong