Category: Granite Views

In a curious way, the pandemic has closed us into our houses and into ourselves at precisely the time when there is so much at stake in our state, our country and the world that would call forth our efforts and actions. For many this brings great worry and frustration. There are so many needs, so many competing causes, and so many voices, often strident, angry and competing. Many friends say they have quit following the news or have severely curtailed their watching, listening or social media engagement, looking instead for some peace and quiet to find meaning in all this.

As a retired professor of comparative religion I am familiar with many forms of retreat, reflection and inward turning. But I know, too, that inward growth, nurtured in quietude and silence, can give purpose and energy to outward action. My daily morning meditation takes its start from some reading chosen from my library. Today’s seemed especially timely. It is “A Prayer for the world” by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner. I share it here so that it might serve others as it has me.

A Prayer for the World

Let the rain come and wash away
the ancient grudges, the bitter hatreds
held and nourished over generations.
Let the rain wash away the memory
of the hurt, the neglect.
Then let the sun come out and
fill the sky with rainbows.
Let the warmth of the sun heal us
wherever we are broken.
Let it burn away the fog so that
we can see each other clearly.
So that we can see beyond labels,
beyond accents, gender, or skin color.
Let the warmth and brightness
of the sun melt our selfishness
so that we can share the joys and
feel the sorrows of our neighbors.
And let the light of the sun
be so strong that we will see all
people as our neighbors.
Let the earth, nourished by rain,
bring forth flowers
to surround us with beauty.
And let the mountains teach our hearts
to reach upward to heaven.
Amen

You can contact Steve Reno at [email protected].

In just a few days we may have an election that sees one of the highest turnout rates ever — and this is during a pandemic.

Many voting models suggest that as many as 150 million people will cast ballots in the Nov. 3 election. That’s about 65 percent of eligible voters nationwide.

In New Hampshire turnout is expected to be at an even higher rate, likely over 70 percent of eligible voters.

According to the New York Times on Oct. 26, about 61.3 million votes nationwide have already been cast in the 2020 election — a record number.

In a map on the Times website, they demonstrated how that number represents 44 percent of the total vote in 2016. In New Hampshire, 181,577 votes have been cast so far, according to WMUR’s politics newsletter on Oct. 27.

As with many states, New Hampshire made it easier for voters to vote by absentee ballot in this time of the coronavirus. This election, with our ability to request a ballot and return it to the town clerk — even all within the same day, if you wanted — we got a taste of something very close to the early voting that other states offer.

But this easy absentee voting isn’t something we’ll likely see for the next election. Here voting generally means going in person to polling places that are generally open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for one day. But planning when in your day to vote isn’t always easy. It can be hard to break away from work or to go in the early morning or the evening when it means there might be a line and you’re crunched for time. Many school districts make Election Day a holiday, which means you have to figure out what to do with the kids when you make your voting plans. What if there’s a wait? What if they get fidgety?

Forget gaming out what party benefits from what kind of voting; there’s something to be said for just getting more voters involved, and not just during the presidential election years but for other elections as well.

What would offering people more options for when they vote — by mail or in person before Election Day — look like in New Hampshire? What would it mean to have more Granite Staters exercising their right to have a say? In the aftermath of this election, it’s worth taking a closer look at making voting easier for everybody, not just those who have some flexibility in their Tuesdays.

Right now it seems as if there are many things that we have no control over and simply have to endure for the duration. A few topics that come to mind include Covid-19, the upcoming election and associated political nonsense, and the Supreme Court nomination process. Having been basically locked down for several months now without access to my normal outside world activities, my focus has shifted to another pressing issue that falls in the same category: western conifer seed bugs.
These pesky pests have invaded our home for the past several weeks, zooming breezily throughout the house without a seeming care in the world. Hunting them down and removing them from the premises has become a new hobby, bordering on full-time job. I choose to think of this exercise as a polite eviction, which is legal in New Hampshire since the Covid-19 stay was lifted in July. I have called our pest control service but was advised I am a day late and a dollar short. These fall invaders need to be dealt with in mid-August. Apparently, they are harmless but do emit a slight odor (defense mechanism) when attacked. Therefore, I try to deal with them in a non-confrontational manner, hoping for a meeting of the minds and a mutually agreeable exit from the premises. Today alone I escorted countless from our home.
Western conifer seed bugs come inside looking for warmth and overwintering sites. It is hard to get rid of them once they have arrived as their intention is to stay for the holidays straight through winter. They are noisy and very active flyers, enjoying their exercise during daylight hours, particularly in areas where I am working. Of course, they have also been known to fly at nighttime. Just this evening one flew from the chandelier straight onto my fork of broccoli precisely as it was poised and ready to enter my mouth. Please cue “mutually agreeable exit from the premises.”
These bugs are a resilient lot and seem to be thriving during the pandemic. Perhaps they are no different from the rest of us, just looking for a safe space to quarantine over the winter until they can once again enjoy the fresh air. The experts say they don’t reproduce in homes or damage household furnishings. Worse houseguests have come and gone, and I assume western conifer seed bugs will follow suit.

Hippo’s annual magazine, Cool Things About New Hampshire, will hit newsstands next week. It highlights many of the local, independently owned businesses and nonprofits that make our corner of America unique.

The magazine pulls its cool things from our annual Hippo Best of Readers’ Poll (published this year in August). These people and businesses are part of what makes our community a community. On an economic level, they help keep our hard-earned dollars in New Hampshire. For every $100 we spend at a local business, $68 stays in the local economy; at a national chain, $43 out of every $100 spent stays here, according to independentwestand.org. I would guess even less stays local when we buy online from Amazon.

This sense of community that local independent businesses help foster requires lots of in-person interaction. Often, it’s that personal service that gives them a competitive advantage.

As one might imagine, the pandemic has been especially challenging for independently owned small businesses and nonprofits. Many national chains, such as McDonald’s and Taco Bell, have seen revenues trend up recently as consumers shift toward drive-thrus. Amazon, Walmart and Target too have all seen a rise in revenue as consumers opt for more online shopping.

Additional government support may be needed to save many small businesses, but with the political climate the way it is, it’s doubtful that any aid will be coming.

That leaves us, the consumers, to vote with our dollars, to make an effort to support the corner cafe rather than always heading to Dunkins or to shop at the local health food store rather than defaulting to Whole Foods. We get the community — with its cool, unique people and businesses — that we support.

Just as I’m asking you to support, as much as you reasonably can, local independent businesses by voting with your dollars, I also ask you to financially support the Hippo, which is also local and independent. For nearly 20 years we’d been completely ad-supported (99 percent of those being local ads) but that source of revenue has rapidly declined recently and we now need broader community support from readers.

We are so grateful to the readers who have already contributed (and we especially love the notes of support!). Please go online to hippopress.com to contribute or mail a contribution to: HippoPress, 195 McGregor St., Manchester NH 03102. We appreciate any amount (and we have some extra thank-yous for those who become members).

Thank you for reading, thank you for contributing and thank you for all the ways you support this community that is so important to us all.

My submission this month was submitted past deadline, an uncharacteristic practice for me. There is just so much going on and it’s hard to find the space to pull it all into words. The grand jury result regarding Breonna Taylor’s murder and the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg are weighing heavily on my mind.

Both of these situations can be addressed through voting, but they certainly hold very different spaces on the ballot. One is determined through our higher offices, those of the president and senators, and the other through local elections.

We often spend so much time focusing on the high offices, a space where our realm of control is not as acute, and overlook equally critical roles in our own backyards such as county attorney and sheriff. I am guilty of this as well, as I can tell you far more about Joe Biden or Donald Trump than I ever could about my county and town officials.

Daniel Cameron, the Attorney General in Kentucky, was elected to office, not governor-appointed like here in New Hampshire. His office determined what charges to pursue in the Breonna Taylor case. They held her fate and there are many across the country, myself included, who feel like he was the lead in denying her the justice she deserved.

This is not to say that we shouldn’t pay close attention to our presidential election or United States Senate races. The vacancy on the Supreme Court has made many of us acutely aware of how much these roles matter in terms of our individual and collective rights, but I believe they’re often prioritized over the races that we have the most input and control over.

As November inches ever closer, take a look at your municipality’s sample ballot. How many names do you recognize? If there are several who are unfamiliar to you, take a few hours to research the candidates and determine whether they fit the ideals you have for your town, county, state and nation.

The next time my piece is published, we will have, in theory, determined who will be sitting in the Oval Office for the next four years. We will also have selected a governor, state Representatives, a state Senator, executive councilors, sheriffs, county commissioners, and many, many more officials.

I hope you’ll join me in making a little extra effort, to move beyond party and politics, and ensure we are fulfilling our obligations as “the people.” We are, after all, the ones with the most power in the United States.

As our country reaches the unenviable milestone of 200,000 deaths from the pandemic, the New York Times this week printed pictures and brief profiles of some who perished. In the same issue, the paper recounted the many ways those deaths have affected survivors, especially family members of all ages. Those stories resonate deeply in all of us, for we cannot help but imagine how we would cope with such a loss. Often unreported in such accounts, however, is the impact of a family member’s death on their children or siblings. My mother died at a young age, when I was abroad and my only sibling, a sister, was 16. Through the telescope of time, and many conversations with my sister, I have gained a deeper understanding of how she coped with that loss, especially at her age and with no real support.

Recently I learned a startling statistic: In New Hampshire, 1 in 13 children will experience the death of a parent or sibling before the age of 18. Perhaps this is not news to you as you may well know of such a case or, perhaps even, have suffered such a loss.

Some have observed that contemporary American society generally tries to keep death at a distance. We treasure youthfulness, seek to extend our healthy lives, but then, when death occurs and the details are kindly and efficiently undertaken by others, we are left standing at memorial receptions struggling to find words to console the family and close friends of the deceased.

How often, in the midst of such gatherings, is there a small child, or perhaps a teen, standing apart, deep in their own grief? Adults will “get on with their lives,” we may think; theirs are many ways of coping. But what of the children?

Friends of Aine is the only organization in New Hampshire whose sole mission is to support those grieving children, teens and families who have experienced a significant death. This small nonprofit, through a network of trained volunteer facilitators, leads activities in small groups to create an opportunity for our grieving population to share their personal experiences, explore topics related to grief, learn coping strategies, and help in the all-too-human task of mourning.

Friends of Aine are seeking volunteers. Perhaps at this time, when we all are finding ways to

help others, Friends of Aine might be an option. Visit friendsofaine.com