Tag: 240808

Quality of Life 24/08/08

New Hampshire girls and mental health

In an Aug. 2 article, Nashua InkLink, nashua.inklink.news, reported that according to a recent study by the New Hampshire Women’s Foundation, “50% of girls in the state suffer from mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicidal thoughts. This rate is the highest in New England and surpasses the national average of 41%.” The article went on to quote data from New Hampshire’s Department of Health and Human Services revealing that girls in the state attempted suicide twice as often as boys between 2011 and 2023. The reasons for the challenges for New Hampshire’s girls remains unclear.

QOL score: -3

Comment: Read the report at nhwomensfoundation.org/status-of-girls-nh.

Problematic liverwurst

Deli meat supplier Boar’s Head (boarshead.com) initiated a recall of its Strassburger Brand Liverwurst on July 25, after learning that it might be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, a bacteria that causes the food poisoning listeria. The company subsequently expanded the recall to include “71 products produced between May 10, 2024, and July 29, 2024, under the Boar’s Head and Old Country brand names,” according to a July 30 USDA announcement.

QOL score: -1

Comment: For a full list of recalled products, visit fsis.usda.gov/recalls-alerts or the Boar’s Head website.

We’re smaaahties

As reported by Newsweek (newsweek.com) in an Aug. 1 online article, New Hampshire residents have the second highest IQs in the United States; we average 104.2, with Massachusetts just edging us out with an average score of 104.3. The Intelligence Quotient, or IQ score, assesses a range of cognitive abilities and attempts to reflect these in a two- to three-digit score. As the article points out, human intelligence is too complicated and nuanced to be truly reflected in one number. Nevertheless, it is gratifying to outscore the rest of the country, which has a reported average of 97.43.

QOL score: +1

Comment: Mississippi placed the lowest in the U.S. with an average IQ score of 94.2. The U.S. itself ranked 26th among countries; Japan placed first, with an average IQ score of 106.48.

Hidden treasure

Contractors renovating a barn for Manchester resident Toni Pappas discovered a cache of vintage baseball cards last week, including a Ted Williams rookie card. As reported by WMUR in an Aug. 4 online article, “The collection was hidden in the walls of Pappas’ barn, where she lived with her late husband for many years and where he grew up.” Altogether, workers and friends found 52 baseball cards from the late 1930s and early 1940s.

QOL score: +1

Comment: “Billy Pappas was a baseball Hall of Famer at the University of New Hampshire, a player for his Air Force football team,” the article reported. If any of the cards are sold, the proceeds will go to a sports scholarship in his name at the University of New Hampshire.

QOL score: 76

Net change: -2

QOL this week: 74

What’s affecting your Quality of Life here in New Hampshire?

Let us know at news@hippopress.com.

Games go off in Paris

The Big Story – The Summer Olympics: We’re just a few days from the close of the Paris Olympics, which have been a mixed bag for the American team.

On the bright side they had far and away won the most overall medals — 71 to 46 by next best China — as Week 2 started. But while tied with China for most gold medals at 19 each, that was less than expected, in large part due to their swim teams winning just eight golds, their fewest since 1988.

Sports 101: Name the four pitchers named AL Cy Young award winner as a Red Sox

News Item – Ledecky Surpasses Thompson: Down goesJenny Thompson. Not quite, but the all-time record set by the great freestyle swimmer from Dover of 12 medals and eight golds was passed by Katie Ledecky when she won her 13th overall and ninth gold on Saturday. Even more astonishing is that all of the Top 20 times in 1500-meter freestyle ever swum have been done by her.

News Item – Blake the Flake: Three days after I chastised Blake Snell in this space for willingly coming out of several games with no-hitters in progress, he finally did it. Hell froze over against the Reds on Friday when Snell struck out 11 and threw 114 pitches in the 3-0 win as he pitched his first complete game in 202 career starts.

News Item – Chaos at Pats Training Camp: With team leader Matthew Judon sulking and showing up the brass over his contract status, Drake Maye off to a mostly rough beginning, the Globe’s Prince of Darkness Dan Shaughnessy likening Jerod Mayo to “Daddy Butch Hobson” and talk radio and the rest of the media horde as usual making a bigger deal out of it than it was, Week 1 of the Mayo era got off to a rough start.

The Numbers:

20 – consecutive losses for the Chicago White Sox as the week started, leaving them one behind the record 21 straight lost by the 1988 Baltimore Orioles.

57 – consecutive game winning streak for the U.S. Women’s Basketball team in Olympic competition dating back to 1992 after beating Germany 87-63 over the weekend to move into medal round play.

64 – years America went since winning gold in Men’s 4 Rowing competition in 1960 before doing it again last week.

… Of the Week Awards

Olympic Relative of the Week – Trinity Rodman: The worm Dennis Rodman’s daughter delivered a laser shot clutch goal in the 106th minute to give the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team a 1-0 win in a tense battle with Japan to send the U.S. on to face Germany in the semi-final round.

Quote of the Week – Steve Kerr: What he should have said to stem the nonsense after Jayson Tatum’s much discussed DNP. “We have an embarrassment of riches on this roster, that’s the best way to put it. I mean these guys are all champions, All-Stars, Hall of Famers, however you want to put it. So the whole thing is are we committed to the goal? That’s it.”

Random Thoughts:

Since the Dodgers went all in to get the best pitcher at the trade deadline in the Tigers’ Jack Flaherty, guess their explanation for DFA’ing now Red Sox hurler James Paxton a week earlier because they had a logjam in the rotation thanks to three of starters returning from injuries wasn’t really true, was it?

Sports 101 Answer: The Red Sox Cy Young winners were Jim Lonborg, Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez and Rick Porcello.

Final Thought – Tatum’s Olympic DNP: First it’s been mis-characterized as a “benching.” It wasn’t, as rarely do guys get benched before they play the first game. Second, there are only so many minutes in a game and it’s not an “everybody gets a trophy” event. So comments by loudmouth nitwits like Kendrick Perkins (“he was disrespected”) and Charles Barkley (everyone should play 10 minutes) are wrong.

Instead it’s for an Olympic gold medal so the best guys should play, period. It’s a team of all-stars, so it will happen to guys not used to ever getting a DNP. If you can’t deal with it don’t come on the team in the first place.

Now having said all that, I said what I said last week about Steve Kerr’s original reason for not playing Tatum in Game 1 was because it being a match-up thing was ridiculous.

But it’s possible a DNP was a good thing for JT anyway. Because for once maybe he’ll get mad about something, anything, to let it drive his play. With the best outcome being his learning about playing with emotion for a change.

Lastly, about the noise from the cheap seats. If they don’t win gold, guess who’ll be flapping their gums the loudest about America’s Olympic failure? Yup: the two dimwits who say everyone should play to assuage their ego — Charles and the open mouth, insert foot ex-Celtic Perk.

Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.

Tax help

New website from the NH Dept. of Revenue Administration

Ora LeMere, Assistant Commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration (NHDRA), spoke about the Department’s new website, unveiled this summer, that is designed to be easier to use, will be more responsive to Granite State taxpayers, and will optimize access to its Granite Tax Connect portal, which enables taxpayers, tax professionals and other NHDRA customers to manage their accounts, according to a press release. Visit revenue.nh.gov.

Can you give a brief overview of what the NHDRA is and does?

The Department of Revenue Administration is the taxing agency for our great state of New Hampshire and we are responsible for administering the tax laws that drive the revenue…. Generally speaking, we have divisions that make up the DRA. We have the admin unit, that would be myself, the assistant commissioner, and the commissioner, Lindsey Stepp, at the head of that. We have an Audit Division, a Collections Division, Municipal Property Division and lastly a Taxpayer Services Division, each having different functions to make sure that we fairly and efficiently administer those tax laws to our constituents.

With no sales tax or income tax in the state, what taxes do people in New Hampshire need to pay?

The most focused, if you will, are business taxes, which include the Business Enterprise Tax as well as Business Profits Tax. We have the Meals and Rooms Tax, we have the property taxes and we have the Interest and Dividends Tax, which I’m sure you’ve heard is phasing out. I think those are the majority of our taxes. We do have transparency on our website that gives information into each of our individual taxes, that also includes Tobacco, Communication Services, some smaller taxes….

What do these taxes fund in New Hampshire?

The taxes generally bring in around $2.9 billion in revenue each year and that is divided up and it is appropriated to different agencies to fund many different things. Funding can include the Department of Safety. Road Toll [Bureau] has a tax that they also administer. There are a few other taxes that we don’t administer but it all, for the most part, goes into funds … so we can fund the main functions of our state…. We fund 80 percent of the General Fund.

What types of feedback led to the website updates?

We have had overwhelmingly positive feedback since we went live. The DRA put in enormous effort to get this off of the ground in-house. We did not contract with an outside vendor. We chose to use the expertise in-house to get it off the ground. We were super proud of it. There is a webmaster link at the bottom that we all monitor constantly and the feedback that we’re getting is exceptional.

Would you like to expand on the updates you all are most proud of?

We had a taxpayers’ services section added right to the home page … It explains what a tax notice is or who to contact. It links to other agencies in the state that may be helpful or a taxpayer may need to visit in doing business in this state. The taxpayer assistance site has information about what forms to use, the laws and rules, tax fraud, it’s probably one of the most utilized pages on our site. We also made sure that our smaller businesses, mostly restaurants and hotels or short-term rental types of taxpayers, had their own page as our Meals and Rooms Operators. This page has a plethora of information and has links that help an operator know what they need to do, how to get to our portal to file or to apply for a license. … we try to make it customer-centric, taxpayer centric, and give them areas in which to visit where they wouldn’t need to click all around the site to find certain information that was pertinent.

Why is it important to have a tax website focused toward the needs of taxpayers?

I mean, plainly stated, taxes can be confusing. It’s really important that not only we administer those tax laws fairly and efficiently but we do so in a friendly and supportive manner…. the support that we try to provide for our constituents is ready and available at all times.

—Zachary Lewis

Featured image: Courtesy photo.

News & Notes 24/08/08

Mosquito tips

The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services sent out a press release reminding people that we are in the thick of mosquito season.

In New Hampshire, three viruses circulate among mosquitoes: Jamestown Canyon virus, Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus and West Nile virus. So far this summer, one mosquito batch each from Londonderry and Keene have tested positive for Jamestown Canyon virus and one mosquito batch each from Manchester and Nashua have tested positive for West Nile virus, the release said. This year so far, there have been two adults from Belknap County hosptialized with Jamestown Canyon virus but no human infections of West Nile or Eastern Equine Encephalitis viruses, the release said.

“Mosquito-transmitted diseases can have long-term impacts on people’s health,” said State Epidemiologist Dr. Benjamin Chan in the release from the Department’s Divison of Public Health Services. “The risk for diseases like West Nile virus and Eastern Equine Encephalitis will only increase as the summer progresses and we move into the fall, so everyone should take steps to prevent mosquito bites.”

All three viruses have flu-like symptoms, such as fever, muscle aches, headaches and fatigue, the release said. In rare cases, the diseases can infect the nervous system including the brain and spinal cord, the release said.

To prevent bites, the release recommends:

• Wearing protective clothing including long pants and long-sleeved shirts, and insect repellents.

• Taking precautions in mosquito habitats including forests, marshes and tall grasses.

• Eliminating standing water.

• Making sure doors and windows have tight-fitting screens.

Call the division with mosquito-borne disease questions at 603-271-4496 and see dhhs.nh.gov for the map of mosquito-borne illness risk levels and detections in New Hampshire.

New historic places

The New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources has announced in a press release that the State Historical Resources Council has added seven properties to the New Hampshire State Register of Historic Places. These include:

• First Baptist Church of Manchester, built in 1872 in the Italianate style, which played a role in the creation of several other Baptist churches in the city and offered spaces for non-Baptist congregations to meet and grow, according to the release.

• The First Unitarian Congregational Church, dedicated January 10, 1861, and the third Congregational meetinghouse in Wilton, the first to be built solely as a Congregational Church rather than as a meetinghouse for both church and town use. It combines elements of both Greek Revival and Gothic Revival architectural styles with a small addition added in 1924, according to the release.

• The James A. Bryant Memorial Library, built in Northwood in 1941 and named for its benefactor, a Union Army veteran. It was the town’s first permanent and free-standing library, although its library operations ended in 1989 and the building now houses the local historical society’s collections, according to the release.

• The Josiah and Sarah Brown Farm in Stratham, with a main house built in the Federal style in 1816 and what appears to be a seventeenth century two-story ell that may be one of the oldest existing buildings in town.

• Peterborough’s Kyes-Sage House, which was built in 1845 and is an example of Carpenter Gothic architecture, a variant of the Gothic Revival style of architecture that was popular in homes between the 1840s and the 1870s.

• The Acworth Village Store, a relatively unaltered example of a mid-nineteenth century commercial building built in 1865.

• The Aldworth Stone Gateway, erected in 1906-1907, a physical reminder of Harrisville’s history of summer estates built in the early 20th century and was the entryway to wealthy industrialists Arthur and Alice Childs’ home through much of the 1930s.

Learn about the nomination processes for the New Hampshire State Register of Historic Places at nhdhr.dncr.nh.gov.

Food drive

According to a press release, Belletetes, a family-owned and -operated lumber and building supply company based in New Hampshire, started a month-long food drive at all 10 of its locations in support of the New Hampshire Food Bank.

Belletetes will supplement food donations with a monetary contribution to the New Hampshire Food Bank, a program of Catholic Charities New Hampshire, and will place donation bins at the front of each store, including at 80 Northeastern Blvd., Nashua; 129 Sheep Davis Road, Pembroke, and 89 Route 13, Brookline, according to the release. Visit nhfoodbank.org/get-involved/donate/most-needed-items or belletetes.com.

In other food news

2024 is “The Year of the Plum’’ according to the New Hampshire Fruit Growers Association. Last year a cold snap wiped out almost the entire crop across New Hampshire, but in a July 29 press release the Association announced that “plums are making a major comeback this year.” The press release went on to say that while plums are typically harvested in August, many growers have already begun harvesting. To see if there is an orchard with plums near you, check out the NHFGA website at nhfruitgrowers.org/find-an-orchard.

Save the date for the 46th annual Alton Bay Boat Show, returning to the Alton Town Docks on Saturday, Aug. 10, from 9 a.m. to noon and featuring a variety of vintage boats on display. Admission is free. See the nhbm.org/alton-bay-boat-show for details

Pianist Asiya Korepanova will perform with cellist Yoni Draiblate of the Florida Orchestra and vocalist Kimberly Oppelt for a “Classical Confection” lawn concert at Crow’s Feat Farm in Kensington (178 Drinkwater Road, 498-6262, crowsfeatfarm.org) on Sunday, Aug. 11, at 3 p.m. Tickets start at $10. A picnic lunch is offered at 1 p.m. for $30.

Head to Cinemark Rockingham Park in Salem (15 Mall Road, 890-7111) for a series of “Big in ’84” films including The Karate Kid on Monday, Aug. 12; The Terminator on Tuesday, Aug. 13, and Gremlins on Wednesday, Aug. 14, at 7:15 p.m. Tickets cost $5 plus fee at cinemark.com. The series continues through Aug. 18.

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