Yesterday was the inauguration ceremony at the state house and a number of other scheduled festive events to ring in the new administrations. After doing some promotional chalkings around the perimeter of the building, I headed inside and met with other independent media personalities visiting town from Keene. When we discovered a line outside of the governor’s office, we were struck with the urge to file in.
A staffer noticed our rolling videocameras and informed us that the line was for a photograph with governor Maggie Hassan, but that she would not have time to dedicate to a videotaped interview. Darryl, Kate, and James decided to find other items to film, while I perused the posters featuring the event’s corporate sponsors, which included everything from New Hampshire businesses to pharmaceutical multinationals.
It was a very rushed encounter, as most happenings with lines tend to be. I quickly asked after handing off my rolling camera and being flashed by still cameras, “Will you be doing anything to decrease New Hampshire’s dependence on the United States federal government?”
“Uh, well, I think that’s something we’ll all talk about, thanks.”
I picked up a cheesecake item and walked to the house chamber to listen to a colorful choir. Outside of the office, the line to see the new state president grew. In the lobby, chocolate bears were being distributed. It was a statist synthesis of Christmas and Easter, and there was free stuff to go around.
On Saturday December 8, 2012 the Keene Police held an Emergency Vehicle Open House, where they showed off various vehicles from the Police Department as well as the Fire Department and Department of Public Works. Below are two of the many videos from the event.
We’re glad to have had the opportunity to entertain the Monitor editorial board with last week’s launch of the Foundation for New Hampshire Independence (“The circus is leaving town, and yet . . .,” editorial, Nov. 14). Mohandas Gandhi, a successful secessionist in his own right, is widely thought to have summed up his strategy for independence by saying, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” We’re grateful to the board for helping us skip right to the second step.
What’s not so funny, though, is the way that New Hampshire citizens suffer every day at the hands of a federal government that has long since ceased to resemble anything our founders could have envisioned when the independent republic of New Hampshire agreed to join the United States. (more…)
Local independence movements continue to be popular in various media. NHPR has today published a seven minute segment that focuses mostly on the Foundation for New Hampshire Independence. Also published on the same day as last week’s Free Concord article on the subject was a story on the Concord-NH Patch, Secession Movement Comes to NH. FreeWilliamsburg.com published on November 16 an interview with a resident of the Brooklyn neighborhood who started a petition on WhiteHouse.gov to grant secession to East Williamsburg to ‘create a new, hipper neighborhood’.
A mural welcoming Barack Obama to Burma (Myanmar) is vandalized in Yangon
If 22 national petitions filed on Whitehouse.gov, and an article today in the Concord Monitor are any indicator, discussion of the concept of secession is spreading rapidly through the minds of many in the United States. The Examiner reports that as of Monday, 22 states have a number of people circulating petitions for recognition of potential independence on the White House’s official petitioning website. While these numbers are currently in the hundreds and low thousands, the recognition of the legitimacy of the concept seems to be reaching a high water mark, and could continue swelling.
Ben Leubsdorf has penned two article’s in today’s Monitor about individuals making major movement with their feet, both into and out of New Hampshire. He reports on the expatriation of Frank Szabo, the controversial candidate for sheriff of Hillsborough County. Szabo announced early in his candidacy for the republican nomination that he had interest in protecting the sovereignty of New Hampshire from unconstitutional federal law enforcement actions. His campaign crashed and burned when he advocated enforcing non-existent laws against abortion seekers and providers. He announced Sunday on his facebook page that he had recently relocated to South America, where he plans to enjoy the remainder of his days. Currently in Chile, he states that he hopes to see extended family and friends in the future, though that may require that they voyage to visit him. He also announced in his facebook post that the IRS has seized $36,000 from him. (more…)
It was a very rushed encounter, as most happenings with lines tend to be. I quickly asked after handing off my rolling camera and being flashed by still cameras, “Will you be doing anything to decrease New Hampshire’s dependence on the United States federal government?”
