Category: Featured Content

News & Notes 21/06/03

Covid-19 updateAs of May 24As of May 30
Total cases statewide98,34998,726
Total current infections statewide411476
Total deaths statewide1,3441,353
New cases575 (May 18 to May 24)377 (May 25 to May 30)
Current infections: Hillsborough County124136
Current infections: Merrimack County3638
Current infections: Rockingham County8275
Information from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services

Covid-19 news

New cases of Covid-19 continue to be on a sharp decline in the Granite State. According to daily public health updates from the New Hampshire Department of Health & Human Services, there was an average of 71 new cases per day over the most recent seven-day period available (May 24 to May 30). That’s a decrease of about 37 percent compared to the previous seven-day period.

On May 28, Gov. Chris Sununu issued Executive Order 2021-10, extending the state of emergency in New Hampshire due to the pandemic for another 14 days through at least June 11. It’s the 21st extension he has issued since declaring a state of emergency in March 2020.

State-managed fixed vaccination sites across New Hampshire have now closed to first-dose appointments, according to a press release from DHHS. As of June 1, each of the state-run sites is now only providing second-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccinations. There are more than 350 other locations across the state, including many hospitals and pharmacies, that will continue to administer first-dose appointments. According to the release, all of the state-managed sites will close on June 30.

District settlement

The United States Department of Justice announced last week a settlement agreement with the Nashua School District, following the department’s investigation into the district’s English language learner programs. According to a press release, the department “found widespread failures to provide these students with the instruction and support they need to learn English and participate fully in school.” The department commended the district for entering into the agreement and noted that the district was cooperative throughout the investigation and is committed to improving its programs and practices. According to the agreement, the Nashua School District will: Identify English learners and enroll them in appropriate classes; provide ESL instruction to all English learnear students, including students with disabilities; ensure the district has enough teachers certified to teach English as a second language; train teachers of academic core subjects like math, science and social studies on how to help English learner students understand the content; train school principals on how to evaluate teachers of English learner students; communicate school-related information in a language that Limited English Proficient parents can understand; and monitor students’ progress and the effectiveness of the English learner programs. The Justice Department will monitor the district for three full school years, the release said.

Mask lawsuit

In other school litigation, two local school districts are being sued by students’ parents who say their mask requirements are illegal. According to a May 28 report from WMUR, the parents are asking for an emergency order to prevent the districts from requiring students to wear face masks. The parents’ attorney, Robert Fojo, has filed two separate civil lawsuits against SAU 41, Hollis-Brookline, and SAU 25, Bedford, the latter for which he is also a plaintiff. According to the report, the lawsuits say that masks restrict breathing and have caused the plaintiffs’ children to develop acne and rashes on their faces, and as well as anxiety and headaches. Fojo said in the report that the mask requirement goes against a statute that prohibits any kind of restraint or behavior control technique. “Parents are exasperated and exhausted with these requirements. … It’s completely unnecessary and frankly, it’s akin to a form of child abuse,” Fojo said in the report. According to the report, Bedford requires masks in school, but they are not required at lunch, recess or for outdoor activities, and teachers provide mask breaks throughout the day, while Hollis-Brookline requires masks indoors and outdoors when social distancing cannot be met, and it also provides periodic mask breaks. Superintendents said they could not comment on pending litigation. A hearing for the Hollis-Brookline lawsuit is scheduled for June 4 and for Bedford’s on June 11, the report said.

Money saved

New Hampshire’s soup kitchens, food pantries, emergency shelters, family crisis centers and after-school programs will save a combined $400,000 each year as of June 1, when the New Hampshire Food Bank eliminated shared maintenance fees. It has been a long-time goal, according to a press release; as a Feeding America food bank, the New Hampshire Food Bank had charged its partner agencies a per-pound fee to cover the cost of warehousing and distributing food, with the fee set by Feeding America (currently 19 cents per pound). Now, with the help of many donors, those shared maintenance fees will be eliminated permanently, allowing the New Hampshire Food Bank’s 400+ partnering food pantries, neighborhood centers, low-income housing sites, senior nutrition centers, family crisis centers, hospices, soup kitchens, emergency shelters, after-school programs, and day care centers to enhance their operations with the money they save.

DrugFreeNH

In light of Covid-19’s impact on substance misuse, The Partnership @DrugFreeNH (The Partnership) has restructured its organization and priorities and has relaunched it website, drugfreenh.org, which now provides up-to-date information and resources for individuals and families struggling with the use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. According to a press release, New Hampshire American Medical Response released a report in May showing that overdose numbers are rising in Nashua and Manchester, and first responders are facing the new challenge of people ingesting dangerous mixtures of drugs, such as opioids and methamphetamine. The Partnership’s website offers current alcohol and other drug prevention information for individuals, schools, parents, health care providers, young adults, or anyone who works with or is interested in NH youth, and the I need Help Resource Page lists numerous supports and services. The Partnership is also launching a series of events over the coming months, including planning and advisory meetings, as well as training opportunities. If you’re interested in joining The Partnership, visit drugfreenh.org/contact-us.

Manchester is hosting a community clean-up along the downtown railroad on Saturday, June 5, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. According to a press release, the city’s Department of Public Works will begin on Bedford Street east of the Mill Girl Stairs and at the parking lot on the corner of Granite and Canal streets. Trash bags and gloves will be provided.

The National Foundation for Governors’ Fitness Councils announced last week that three more New Hampshire schools will receive new $100,000 fitness centers as part of the Foundation’s Don’t Quit! Campaign. According to a press release, Londonderry Middle School, Portsmouth Middle School and the Groveton School in Groveton will unveil the fitness centers during ribbon-cutting ceremonies this fall.

On June 4, several local communities will host blood drives from noon to 6 p.m. According to a press release, drives will be held at the Milford Masonic Temple (30 Mt. Vernon St.), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (105 Wind Song Ave., Manchester), Bishop Peterson Hall (37 Main St., Salem) and IBEW Local 490 (48 Airport Road, Concord). Covid-vaccinated people can donate, and in most cases there is no waiting period. Visit redcrossblood.org or call 1-800-REDCROSS to register.

The Nashua Public Library announced last week that library patrons can now use their cards to check out four free passes to a Nashua Silver Knights home game at Holman Stadium. Passes can be reserved at nashualibrary.org.

Freed of fear

The stores are full of patriotic paraphernalia right now. I can skip past the metallic flag pinwheels; the red, white and blue wreaths; even the super-fuzzy flag blanket. But anything emblazoned with “America the Beautiful”? I start singing.

Katherine Lee Bates wrote the poem that would become the lyrics of our unofficial national anthem in 1893, inspired by the vista from Pikes Peak in Colorado. Samuel Augustus Ward had composed the melody earlier and in 1910 the words and music were wed. To me as a kid, “America the Beautiful” ranked right up there in holiness with “Silent Night.” Fifty years later at a family reunion I shivered with emotion as we cousins from across the country sang it together. Imagine my delight during this year of division when I stumbled on a new rendition by New Hampshire folk musician Steve Schuch. Weaving together Bates’ words and others inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Schuch and collaborators created a version that seeks to unite all ages, colors, religions and voices, a vision of America for everyone. You can listen and download sheet music at americathedream.org.

Another iteration of “America the Beautiful” is in a recent report recommending how to meet President Biden’s ambitious “30 by 30” environmental goal. Biden’s challenge to Americans is to conserve at least 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030. Although the report describes principles rather than plans, one step endorsed is creation of a Civilian Climate Corps. Echoing FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps, Biden’s program would put a new, diverse generation of Americans to work in well-paid jobs that restore the environment and build community resilience to climate extremes. Unlike the original CCC, Biden’s would include women and people of color.

I hiked Mt. Pemigewasset last week. It’s a popular mountain in Franconia Notch, not as rigorous as the towering 4,000-footers but high enough to provide a spectacular vista. Stepping out of pine forest onto bare ledges near the summit sent strains of “America the Beautiful” pulsing through me. According to New Hampshire’s 52 with a View: A Hiker’s Guide, Frank O. Carpenter wrote about this “striking view” and the “rugged shoulders of LaFayette” in his own guidebook in 1898, not long after Bates penned her anthemic poem. In the 1930s, Roosevelt’s CCC cleared hiking and ski trails in this area, enabling generations to appreciate New Hampshire’s beauty.

I’m grateful to those who inspire me with their words and music and to those who have protected some of our lands and waters. I am hopeful that a new generation of much more environment-concerned Americans can lead the way in meeting the 30 percent by 2030 challenge. That’s the Americana I buy.

Army of the Dead (R)

Army of the Dead (R)

Dave Bautista and team attempt to capture millions of dollars from beneath an abandoned Las Vegas casino that’s surrounded by zombies and about to be nuked in Army of the Dead, a film from director Zack Snyder.

That sentence might be all you need to help you decide if you’re in or not.

This movie begins with a short scene and then a credits montage that shows us how a zombie virus is unleashed on the city of Las Vegas and how a group of people go from being normals to battle-hardened zombie killers. When the “present day” story actually gets going, we’re caught up on the post-zombie-outbreak world. Zombies have been walled off in the abandoned Las Vegas; survivors like Scott Ward (Bautista) and his friends have already been lauded as heroes, rewarded with medals and sent back to their hourly-wage lives, and the only people living with the zombie threat are those in what I think is a detention camp in the quarantine zone for people the government think could be infected. Kate (Ella Purnell), Scott’s daughter, works in the quarantine as a volunteer. They have a difficult relationship in part because Scott had to stab his wife/Kate’s mom in the head because she was a zombie.

This seems as good a time as any to explain this universe’s zombie rules: Zombies become zombies when a zombie bites them. Most zombies become mindless flesh-seeking zombies that shamble around. Zombies bitten by the boss of the zombies become “alpha” zombies who are more thinky and have motivations, work as a group and respond to orders from the head zombie. As with most zombie stories, to kill a zombie you gotta destroy the brain.

These zombie rules are why most people don’t go inside the walled city of Las Vegas, even the people who, like Geeta (Huma Qureshi), a mother of two, are pretty sick of the lousy accommodations and constant abuse by the guards in the quarantine area. But when the president decides to drop a low-grade nuclear weapon on Las Vegas to kill all zombies forever, Geeta decides to buy a way out of the new Barstow detention camp they’re being sent to so she sneaks in to Las Vegas to steal some unspecified money.

Scott, meanwhile, has been hired by businessman Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) to steal a very specific pile of cash: There is, Tanaka tells Scott, $250 million sitting in a vault beneath one of the casinos. In the two days before the government plans to nuke the city, Tanaka wants Scott and his team to retrieve it, for which Scott will receive $50 million, to split up however he wants. He hires his old zombie-fighting buddies Maria (Ana de la Reguera) and Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick) as well as safe cracker Dieter (Matthias Schweighofer) and helicopter pilot Peters (Tig Notaro, Christopher Plummered in after the movie was shot; while if you know this you can tell, it isn’t super-distracting and Notaro brings the right kind of energy to the story). The team also includes a few red-shirt people and a villainous Tanaka representative played by Garret Dillahunt. Though Scott doesn’t want Kate to have anything to do with the mission, she eventually joins in because Geeta has gone missing inside the city.

My biggest problem with this movie is probably that it’s too long. It comes in at nearly two and a half hours and it doesn’t use that time — probably about 45 minutes or so longer than it needed to be — to do anything particularly exciting with the story or entertaining in the moment. It gives us some story lines we could have lived without (to include some go-nowhere stuff about the head of the zombies and his queen) and probably a few extra “no, really look at the gore” shots that, I guess, might be exciting for fans of red corn syrup.

The length weighs down what is probably this movie’s most winning aspect, which is just how likeable Bautista is and how solidly OK the chemistry is with the core group of heist-ers. Slicing off some characters and the detours into their motivations (and deaths; spoiler alert I guess but when a team starts off this big it’s clear not everybody is going to make it) would have given the movie a little more energy.

For all of that, Army of the Dead is perfectly acceptable zombie entertainment — not too bleak and not too quippy with just enough visual fun. B-

Rated R for strong bloody violence, gore and language throughout, some sexual content and brief nudity/graphic nudity, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Zack Snyder with a screenplay by Shay Hatten and Joby Harold, Army of the Dead is two hours and 28 minutes long and is distributed by Netflix. It is also in theaters.

Featured photo: Army of the Dead (R)

Flavors of Haiti

Chef Chris Viaud is on the far right. From the left is Chris’s brother Phil, Phil’s wife Sarah, their father Yves, mother Myrlene, sister Kassie, sister Katie and Chris’s wife Emilee. Courtesy photos.

Local chef, family present monthly Haitian dinner series

On New Year’s Day, Culture in Milford shared a piece of owner and chef Chris Viaud’s Haitian heritage through a menu special of soup joumou, a pumpkin-based soup also commonly referred to in Haiti as “freedom soup.” The response was so positive that Viaud decided to turn it into a dinner series, bringing his entire family together to present authentic Haitian dishes each month.

Ansanm, as the series is now known, gets its name from the word meaning “together” in Haitian Creole. Viaud, along with his parents, Myrlene and Yves, siblings Phil, Kassie and Katie, wife Emilee and sister-in-law Sarah all work together to present a menu of scratch-made Haitian items that are now prepared and served out of his other Milford restaurant, Greenleaf.

“As I’ve been growing as a chef, I’ve always had a desire to learn more about my heritage through food. I just had this innate feeling that I needed to do more and relate food back to the beginning for me, to what I grew up eating,” Viaud said. “The concept was also born out of a desire to bring my siblings and parents closer to learn more about the food, because in the coming years we’ll be sharing it with my daughter as well.”

Ansanm’s logo features an illustration of a hibiscus flower, the national flower of Haiti, along with the red and blue colors seen on the Haitian flag.

Viaud’s mother, Myrlene, with whom he has memories of helping out in the kitchen growing up, is the primary head chef of the series. Depending on the month, most dinners are served on the third or fourth Sunday, with online pre-ordering available a few days before. While the first few dinners were takeout only, the most recent one also had a dine-in option at Greenleaf.

Items have included griot (marinated twice-cooked pork) and poule nan sós (braised chicken in Creole sauce), each of which is often served with rice, plantains or pikliz, a spicy pickled vegetable slaw consisting of cabbage, carrots, onion and peppers. Diri djon djon, a rice dish made with black mushrooms that are native to Haiti, is another item recently added to the menu.

“Diri djon djon is the most iconic rice dish in Haiti, just because the mushrooms are so hard to find and are expensive,” Viaud said.

Other featured menu options are a potato and beet salad; chicken or mushroom and vegetable pate; and a Haitian-style spaghetti with peppers, onions and spices in a tomato sauce. Ansanm also offers a scratch-made pineapple upside down cake for dessert, as well as bottles of Cola Couronne, a tropical fruit soda known as the oldest manufactured soft drink from Haiti.

New dinner pre-orders are regularly updated through Ansanm’s website and social media pages.

“Seeing its growth has been tremendous,” Viaud said of the series. “We’ll definitely be doing some fun things this summer, like hopefully hosting a dinner outside with a steel drummer doing live Caribbean music.”

Ansanm
Visit ansanmnh.com or follow them on Facebook and Instagram @ansanm.nh for updates. Dinners are typically held during the third or fourth Sunday of each month, with all orders prepared and picked up at Greenleaf (54 Nashua St., Milford).

Feautred photo: Braised chicken with rice and peas, fried plantains, and pikliz. Courtesy photo.

On The Job – Victoria Bombino

Victoria Bombino

Dental assistant

Victoria Bombino is a dental assistant at Simply Pediatric Dentistry & Orthodontics in Pelham, where she works alongside the dentist to provide dental care for children.

Explain your job and what it entails.

Understanding patient care, which means helping make the kids feel comfortable at the dentist; educating kids on the importance of good oral health; and working closely with [the dentist] Dr. Boulos doing frenectomies, fillings and anything relative to [dental procedures]; as well as customer service, making sure the dentist is a fun place to go to, and ensuring that parents feel good about the experience as well.

How long have you had this job?

I’ve had this current job for roughly four months now. I’ve been in the dental field for three years.

What led you to this career field and your current job?

When I was younger, I didn’t like my smile, but I loved going to the dentist. I had the opportunity in high school to start [attending] a technical high school. It had [a] dental assisting [program] there, and that immediately drew my attention. I decided to try it out, and I’ve stuck with it ever since. I attended the University of New England for dental hygiene to continue [the education], but, due to Covid, I took a semester off, and that’s when I ended up landing a job here, as a dental assistant. … Ultimately, I would love to become a dentist.

What kind of education or training did you need?

[To be] a dental assistant, you need your high school diploma, as well as your radiology [training requirement], which is an additional course that you have to take. … You have to always stay up to date with the current technology and the best practices of dentistry. There are … certain procedures where we use certain [equipment], such as the Solea laser, that the dentist has to go [receive training] on, and then the dentist will show the assistants the right and wrong ways [to operate it]. … I’m still working [toward becoming] a Certified Dental Assistant; there are multiple other courses and certifications [required] to become a CDA.

What is your typical at-work uniform or attire?

For our work uniform, we wear scrubs with a water-resistant lab coat over it. … Advanced PPE for patient and team health is huge. We wear a Level 3 mask, and we wear a face shield over it when we’re working closely with a patient. We throw away our used masks every second that we can and put on a new one. I even wear a hair cap, just to make sure everything stays nice and safe for everyone.

How has your job changed over the last year?

Dental offices have always taken the highest level of safety precautions when it comes to personal hygiene, such as hand washing, and wearing PPE, so it has changed less than a lot of people might have guessed. We have [added] extra [precautions], though, such as reduced waiting room time and full sterilization of the dental rooms between each patient.

What do you wish you’d known at the beginning of your career?

Individuals can be scared at the dentist, but it’s OK; try not to take it personally, and just comfort them as much as you can.

What was the first job you ever had?

My first job was at a prom dress store called Glitterati in Danvers, Mass.

What’s the best piece of work-related advice you’ve ever received?

Leave work at work.

Five favorites
Favorite book: Divergent by Veronica Roth
Favorite movie:Miss Congeniality
Favorite music: Country
Favorite food: Anything Buffalo
Favorite thing about NH: The scenery. Waking up and seeing all the trees never gets old.

Featured photo: Victoria Bombino

Turtle power

New children’s book helps kids cope with pandemic life

Most people who are stuck at the mechanic’s for three and a half hours wouldn’t use the time to write an entire children’s book. But Kathy Brodsky of Manchester is not most people; when the words “Talula Turtle” popped into her head as she was waiting for her car last November, she took out her iPhone and started writing. The result is How Talula Turned Her Day Around, a newly published children’s book about coping with some of the challenges of Covid-19.

“She’s the cutest little thing who doesn’t like to wear a mask,” Brodsky said of Talula.

Though the waiting room location was unusual, writing stories in a short amount of time based on ideas that just come to her is Brodsky’s style.

“Even though I have no idea where any one of my poems will go, once I get the first four lines, I’m up and running,” she said.

Like all of Brodsky’s books — this is her 16th — How Talula Turned Her Day Around offers life lessons meant to comfort or inspire young kids.

“I’ve been a therapist for 51 years,” said Brodsky, who still sees clients three days a week. “I think being a therapist shows up in my books. … [Or] the books show up because I’m a therapist.”

Talula was born from the emotional impact that Covid has had on the world — a heavy topic made relatable to kids by showing how hard it’s been for Talula to adjust to wearing a mask and being away from her friends.

Discussion questions at the end of her books give kids the chance to talk more about their feelings; in Talula, one of the questions is “How has Covid-19 changed your life?”

“What’s happened with Covid is a huge loss for everybody,” Brodsky said. “It’s a loss of life as we knew it before. … Whenever there’s a loss we go through a grieving process. We’re shocked, then we deny it, we get angry. … Everybody’s just been trying to deal with this loss.”

Knowing she had to get Talula published quickly because of the immediacy of the topic, Brodsky couldn’t use her usual illustrator, Cameron Bennett, who was working on another project. Instead, she turned to her niece, Sarah Zeogas. While Bennett has hand-painted Brodsky’s previous books, Zeogas digitally illustrated Talula.

She and Zeogas worked together to get both the book and a corresponding coloring and activity book published by March. Since then, it’s been used in schools and read aloud during public library story times.

“[My books] have very simple words … but they can be much more than that,” Brodsky said.

The words for the first picture book that Brodsky wrote, My Bent Tree, came to her during a walk, when she noticed that a tree she’d walked past many times before was bent. She started repeating rhyming words to herself on her way home, and the book became a story of a tree that got struck by lightning and is now different from all the other trees.

“It’s for anyone dealing with any kind of difference,” Brodsky said, who didn’t fully realize her own connection to the book until it was done. “My Bent Tree was my story — when I was born I had polio.”

Brodsky never planned to become an author — “I had no idea I could write,” she said — but positive feedback from a poem she wrote in an invitation to her mom’s birthday party prompted her to enroll in an adult education writing class.

Brodsky self-published her first book, Moments in Our Lives, in 2004. It’s her only adult book, a collection of poems, and she’s planning to add on to it and re-release it in the near future. She also has another kids’ book in the works called Stover Learns to Swim, her third book featuring Stover the pig, who learned all about fitness and healthy eating in Stover, and then overcame his fear of staying away from home in Stover Goes to Camp. This time, Stover is afraid of swimming. The story stems from Brodsky’s time as a swimming instructor.

“When I first came to Manchester in 1970, I was the only swim instructor at the YMCA,” she said. “I had a 14-year-old boy [who was afraid to swim], but all of his friends were swimming.”

Though Brodsky has finished writing Stover Learns to Swim, she’s waiting on Bennett to return from abroad so he can hand-paint the illustrations. She hopes to publish it this year.

How Talula Turned Her Day Around
How Talula Turned Her Day Around and all Kathy Brodsky’s books are available for purchase on Amazon or at kathybrodsky.com.

Featured photo: How Talula Turned Her Day Around

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