In his recent Opinion piece, Randall Balmer listed many of the benefits of life in the Upper Valley that he and a group of friends had compiled (“An Upper Valley Wish List For 2019,” Jan. 6).
What surprised me was what Balmer left out.
For me, one of the real benefits of living in the Upper Valley is the number and variety of churches and places of worship for people of different religious beliefs and practices.
The Roth Center for Jewish Life at Dartmouth College, the Religious Society of Friends on Lebanon Street in Hanover, Wellspring in West Lebanon, the Upper Valley Zen Center in White River Junction and many Christian churches including Catholic, Episcopal and several Protestant denominations make up just a small part of this essential Upper Valley offering. Dartmouth’s Tucker Center invites people of many different faiths to share in conversation with one another.
We are truly blessed.
I agree with Balmer that the entrance from Norwich into Hanover is an eyesore. However, the “flowers and a bit of landscaping” he recommends are already present in (where else?) the garden in front of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, one of the most beautiful green spaces in town. So, churches can provide a spiritual home for many as well as an agreeable, welcoming landscape — two reasons why they should not be overlooked.
Judy McCarthy
Grantham
I live at the end of a direct road surrounded by woods and fields. I have no problem with hunting. However trapping is a very cruel way to kill.
Often trappers do not actually trap “nuisance furbearers.” My dog was caught in a trap for many hours last year. Her foot was damaged and it cost us a large vet bill. We were told that it was the second trapped dog the vet had treated just that week. The more coyotes one kills the larger the pup population the next year. Hence, trapping does no good to solve these nuisance animals. I am not aware of a nuisance problem with rabbits. I believe that the snowshoe hare is almost exclusively the only food eaten by the endangered lynx.
Why are we spending money to pay trappers? Without bounties, I doubt if much trapping would be happening.
Trapping animals in municipalities may be needed in certain cases, but that is done by Fish and Wildlife, as it should be. The Fish and Wildlife Department should stop this inhumane, unnecessary bounty killing.
The trapping recommendations suggested are better than the current ones, but can we not go further by banning trapping altogether?
Kit Hood
Sharon
With the investigations of president Donald Trump ongoing, one relevant question begs answering: Did he “drain the swamp” as promised?
Although Trump’s administration has been unusually chaotic — he is on his third chief of staff, his third national security adviser, his sixth communications director, his second secretary of state, his second attorney general and soon his second defense secretary — instability and corruption are not synonymous.
On the other hand, criminality and corruption are one and the same. In only two years, Trump’s personal lawyer, his campaign chairman, his campaign foreign policy adviser, his deputy campaign chairman and his national security adviser have all been convicted of crimes.
There’s an old saw that says you can judge people by the company they keep. In that vein, one is reminded of then-White House Counsel John Dean’s words to President Richard Nixon in 1973, after several Watergate conspirators close to the White House were unmasked, advising of “a cancer within, close to the presidency, that’s growing.”
Not convinced? Consider:
■ Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke resigned for alleged corrupt behavior.
■ The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Brenda Fitzgerald, resigned due to a conflict of interest resulting from owning tobacco and drug stocks.
■ Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross faces myriad conflict-of-interest allegations, including owning stock in shipping companies tied to Vladimir Putin.
■ The Donald J. Trump Foundation, run by the president’s two adult sons and daughter, voluntarily dissolving after being charged with “a shocking pattern of illegality.”
■ Trump’s illegal payoffs to his mistresses, as alleged by his personal attorney.
The evidence leads to one conclusion: The Trump administration is permeated with a sordid cast of swamp characters. As Watergate showed us, this level of moral and legal stench does not exist without the participation of the president. He alone has the power to turn the spigot on or off. Guys like Trump don’t drain swamps. They live in them.
Len Ziefert
Enfield
One needs to wonder about this government shutdown. Seems to me it’s gone on just long enough to give all President Donald Trump’s servants who may have been on the fence (pun intended) a $10,000 raise while we who have to work for a living have been laid off or forced to work with no pay.
Most likely, those who get the raise will support the shutdown. Meanwhile, those people who cannot make their bills and obligations are forced to sit and stew and accept it. What’s wrong with this picture?
Byron Baribeau
Sharon
Instead of all this a fuss in New Hampshire about college student voting rights, wouldn’t absentee balloting make students enfranchised and everyone happy?
Patricia Henderson
Fairlee