Free Keene

Robin Hood and the Merry Men celebrate a successful first year! From Lauren C.’s post on the Free Keene Forum:

Hip Hip Hoorah to Robin Hood’s parking meter rescues!
Let it be known that in the course of one year the outlaw Robin Hood has deposited $54 in expired meters, denying approximately $1350 to the crown, and allowing about 270 people to relax and smile.
He also accepted $273 in donations, and spent $248 on expenses. That means $25 for the Merry Men!

Awesome job!

One of the Free Keene Forum’s youngest members, Bodhi Knight, has announced the creation of “Teens for Liberty”, a new Facebook group. Bodhi challenges all liberty-loving teens in NH to join the group at Teens.FreeKeene.com. You can also find the link at the top right column of this site. He hopes to get 50 members, so if you’re a teen, or would like to be involved, please join up. Here also is the forum thread about TFL.

Michael Hampton’s brilliant Porcupine 411 service has gotten a big story in today’s Concord Monitor! If you don’t subscribe to Porc 411 and you consider yourself a liberty activist, you’re missing out. Don’t forget that if you can’t subscribe to porc 411’s regular emails or podcast, you can also get the latest messages in text form via Twitter!

Here’s the story (which mentions Keene activism!) from the Concord Monitor’s Annmarie Timmins:

When Michael Segal decided to trade Florida for New Hampshire and its “pro-liberty” opportunities in August, he dialed 413-0411 with the news. As he approached Concord, Segal dialed again with his ETA. And when Segal got to Concord, it was as he expected.

“There were a dozen people waiting at my place,” Segal said. “I’d never met them before, and they were there to help me move in.”

That’s one way Free Staters and other liberty rights activists are using their instant messaging network, Porcupine 411. But the phone number is as frequently used to report allegations of police harassment, document arrests at marijuana protests and promote Saturday night karaoke in Keene. (Read on …)

Self-defense advocates take note:

What: Emergency Meeting Gun Ban

When: Friday, January 15, 2010 9:00 AM

Where:
NH State House
107 N Main St
Concord, NH 03301

The Joint Facilities Committee is having a meeting on Joint Facilities gun ban at 9:00 AM Friday in room 100 of the STATE HOUSE.

Only Reps and Senators can testify.

Even though the public cannot testify, a good showing of self-defense advocates and defenders of the Second Amendment would be welcome.”

FreeKeene.com welcomes Yadra H. Voat as our newest blogger. Read about our other bloggers here. Here’s his bio:

Yadra H. Voat – Yadra moved to Keene in March 2009, in-time for the New Hampshire Liberty Forum. He prefers to work as an “I hope I’m right” kind of voluntarist in the same way that Mark Edge is an “I hope I’m wrong” kind of minarchist. When inquired of regarding his unusual name, Yadra likes to ask people “how often is Mark Twain remembered as Samuel Clemens?” He has observed that all moral actions among beings of equal moral nature are voluntary but not all voluntary actions are moral. Most people and Yadra already agree on most subjects, they just don’t realize it yet.

Our blogger and NH native Josh “Vesuvius” Kern has been imprisoned in the Rockingham “house of corrections” for five days for a crime that has no victim. He had a license plate on a different car and refused to pay the state’s extraction, so they threw him in a cage. Here’s the Porc 411 with details, thanks to Brad Jardis.

Forum discussion of this is here.

You can write him, but better do it fast to get it there before the five days is out:
Josh Kern
99 North Rd
Brentwood, NH 03833

It was the end of December 2006 when Free Keene quietly launched. Today, we have over 23,000 visits per month, over 1,100 facebook fans, the busiest liberty activism forum in the state, and have helped little Keene truly become New Hampshire’s Liberty Activist Destination. New people every week are posting their intentions to move in our forum. When are you coming to Keene?

This was a record-setting year for the number of movers to Keene as well as the numbers of activists put in jail. The more the state gang lashes out against peaceful activists, the more people will come here to help us Free Keene! (So thank you, Ed Burke and Eli Rivera!) More people armed with video cameras and audio recorders are arriving every month and things are only going to get more difficult for the aggressors. Their days of coercive control are numbered, and the number will shrink when you arrive!

Thank you to our wonderful bloggers and thanks to all who read and participate on this site. Have a happy, safe and fun New Year’s Eve! See you in 2010!

Due to low usage, the Free Keene chat room has been replaced by the chat room for the Liberty Radio Network. You can still get in the chat by visiting Chat.FreeKeene.com, and we still have our weekly scheduled chat Saturday mornings from 11a-12p during WKBK’s Talkback. Hopefully using the LRN chat will increase participation in that particular event, as you can listen to Talkback streamed live on the Liberty Radio Network.

If you’ve been paying attention, you know that for weeks now there have been two Social Sundays gatherings. One was at 3pm a local sports bar and the other starts at 5pm at Abunara, Keene’s Middle Eastern Cultural Club featuring fine food, Turkish coffee, fresh juices and hookah pipes.

The market has spoken. The sports bar was devoid of activists today and Abunara was hopping! The earlier gathering will be dropped in favor of focusing on the 5pm event at Abunara. The owners there welcome liberty activists and have offered us special deals. The food is fantastic and the atmosphere is much brighter and far more comfortable than the bar. We’d love to have you come out and join us every Sunday at 5pm for socializing and now gaming! Many people are bringing their favorite board, party, and strategy games and staying and hanging out for hours. People do tend to arrive earlier than five, but considering 4:20 events will be returning in a few months, it makes the most sense to say it starts at five. Tonight it went well past 10pm with a Monopoly slugfest involving Free Keene bloggers Dale and Richard!

So come on out Sundays starting at 5pm at Abunara in the Center at Keene on the West end of Gilbo Ave., right next to Rick’s Ice Cream! Please be aware that Abunara is a private club. If you don’t know any Free Keeniacs who are members and are brand new (you can always get to know us by posting on the Forum!) you can either buy a year membership for $20 or you can walk in and ask a member get you in free as a guest. Just let it be known you’re there for Free Keene’s Social Sunday. See you there!

Oh, and visit this forum thread for the latest info on the event.

UPDATE- For those with smoke-related concerns, come on by and check this place out. They are VERY well ventilated. No tobacco is smoked in Abunara unless it is in a hookah, and it’s nothing like a cigarette or cigar smell. In fact, unless you are right next to it, it’s difficult to detect.

Michael has recently moved to Keene from Florida. He’s one of the founders of the Monadnock Families for Liberty. Here’s his interview with the Ridley Report.