Mike's blog

August 25, 2006

Local life as it is

Letter writers took us to task for two items on our Aug. 24 front page – a story about grain-alcohol sales at state liquor stores and the lead photograph of a young man on a rope swing above the river in Penacook. The complaints were similar: The readers accused us of encouraging behavior dangerous to young people.

The story covered Executive Councilor Peter Spaulding’s efforts to stop state liquor stores from selling 190-proof grain alcohol. A reader in Henniker wrote:

“So, how many students, college or otherwise, will now try and get a hold of grain alcohol?

“I understand your need to inform the public about these types of issues, but is this type of article going to really help?

“Shall we hold the Concord Monitor responsible for any future injuries or deaths caused by the consumption of grain alcohol?”

Of the lead photograph of the rope swinger, a Webster reader had this to say:

“You did it again! . . .

“The young person is in a place he is not supposed to be, therefore trespassing, ignoring the signs and the law. It looks like so much fun. That’s what any other teen would think and some young ones as well. A copycat thing to do. . . .

“This is a dangerous practice, and your photographer, Lori Duff, should use some common sense.”

These readers underestimate young people, overestimate the Monitor’s power to influence behavior and misunderstand our mission.

Young people are bombarded with bad behavioral role models every day: foul and violent lyrics in music, harsh images in video games and movies, cheating and steroid-gobbling athletes, an ad culture that uses sex to sell and values appearance over substance. Somehow, with the help of parents and educators, most kids make it through all that.

You’d have to be a naïve young person not to know that there are a lot of rope swings over our local rivers. Or that there isn’t potent liquor out there. I don’t buy the idea that the Monitor should ignore these things because showing them will somehow give kids ideas they haven’t already had.

We try to make the newspaper a mirror of the communities we cover. It is the job of our reporters and photographers to record life in our area as they find it. We can’t ignore common behavior like kids swinging on ropes because it is dangerous or illegal.

Making such acts off-limits to our photographers would not prevent rope-swinging any more than ignoring a story on grain alcohol would keep young people in the dark about some new evil.

Posted by Mike Pride at 05:21 PM | Comments (0)

August 23, 2006

Nothing like it

I am wary of analogy. When someone begins a comment with “X is like Y,” I automatically think, “No, it’s not.” Nothing is quite like anything else.

In recent days I’ve heard a particularly troubling analogy twice. I won’t name the speakers because analogy is a common rhetorical device. I’m sure if I looked back on all the dumb analogies I’ve made over the decades, I’d wince plenty.

The analogies that troubled me were to terrorism. In separate conversations I’ve heard people in the political realm compare both the nation’s health-care and environmental challenges to terrorism. The point was the same: Dealing with those issues is just as critical as dealing with terrorism.

Here’s what the speakers said: The single mother with a sick child and no health insurance? Terror. The environmental havoc that global warming will wreak? Terror.

These are bad arguments. Yes, some people without health insurance feel a desperation bordering on terror. And if the power of Hurricane Katrina was indeed an early sign of global warming (a big if, I think), the results in New Orleans and elsewhere on the Gulf Coast were truly terrible.

But to compare these or any other political issues to terrorism is unhelpful and misleading.

Terrorism is the deliberate slaughter of innocent human beings for a fanatical purpose. There is nothing like it. Certainly there is no political issue like it. To use it as a point of comparison will always diminish it.

Health care and the environment are important issues. But issues should be discussed, and positions defended, in their own right. I hope the effort to use the tragedies caused by terrorists to raise public interest in other issues is not the trend I fear it is.

Posted by Mike Pride at 06:18 PM | Comments (1)

August 22, 2006

Still a classic

This is the season for reading at the camp where my wife and I live in the summertime. Not that it isn’t always the season for reading for us, but it is easier in summer after a morning walk to while away the hours on the porch poring through newspapers and books.

Because I commute to work in summer, I also listen to books on tape. Over the last week or so, I have been reintroduced to an old friend – Paul Baumer, the narrator and lead character in All Quiet on the Western Front.

Since my youth, I have loved the literature of World War I – the great poems Of Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sasson and others, the diaries and memoirs of Vera Brittain and Robert Graves, the histories by Martin Gilbert and others, even the recent trilogy by the novelist Pat Barker, the third of which, The Ghost Road, won the Booker Prize.

I first read Owen in earnest during the Vietnam War. The distance between the rhetoric and the reality of war seemed universal and timeless.

That thought came back to me as I listened to All Quiet. When American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq speak about their wars, it is easy to see what a challenge it is for them to relate their experiences on the ground to the objectives laid out by political leaders far removed from the front. I wound up thinking that All Quiet should be required reading for any young man or woman considering enlisting in the military – and for any national leader before he or she decides to send a nation to war or to expand a war. The wars we think we are about to fight seldom turn out to be the wars we thought they would be.

Erich Maria Remarque, a World War I veteran and a sports writer from Lower Saxony, wrote All Quiet on the Western Front during the 1920s. It is the story of a group of schoolmates who, in the flush and naïveté of youth, enlist together and grow up, suffer and die as German soldiers on the Western Front. The book was published in January 1929. Eighteen months later, it had sold 2.5 million copies in 25 languages.

As Hitler rose to power in the early 1930s, the book was banned and burned in Germany. Nazis disrupted the premiere of the film, also a masterpiece. Remarque eventually lost his German citizenship and became an American.

Listening to the book last week, I found its power undiminished. Obviously, technology has changed warfare since World War I, for better and for worse. But in clear, powerful prose, Remarque relentlessly destroys any mystery or romance a young person might associate with soldiering. His is a riveting book – a classic for its time and for ours.

Posted by Mike Pride at 12:39 PM | Comments (1)

August 17, 2006

$17,564!

In June I listened to the arguments before the state Supreme Court on the latest challenge to the way New Hampshire pays for schools. This is the never-ending Claremont case. It was impossible to know how the court might rule on the question before it.

But the core of Claremont – the terrible inequity among districts’ abilities to provide a sound public education – still burns hot.

I am reminded of this every time I edit a letter to the editor from Mary Paradise, the head of teacher contract negotiations for the Pittsfield School Board. On behalf of the board and the teachers’ union in Pittsfield, Paradise is sending the Monitor a series of letters making the case to the town’s voters for a one-year contract that the two sides agreed to last month.

Paradise’s latest letter, which will appear in tomorrow’s Monitor, is an eye-opener. Consider just one fact from it: During the school year just past, a beginning teacher with a family insurance plan had a before-tax income of $17,564.

$17,564!

Work a little overtime, and a kid can make that much flipping burgers.

Pittsfield was an original plaintiff in the Claremont suit, and it has received some relief from the court’s rulings. But if the court needs a jolt to stiffen its backbone on Claremont, the teacher contract in Pittsfield should provide it.

Like other poor districts, Pittsfield struggles to pay competitive wages and retain good teachers. Its teachers pay 50 percent of their health insurance costs. Even before benefit differences are included, veteran teachers make between $5,000 and $9,000 less annually than their counterparts in comparable districts.

Those who argue that Pittsfield taxpayers are chintzy and do not support education might want to take a look at the property tax base Pittsfield works from. Just to cite two nearby towns, Barnstead has more than twice as much taxable property per student, Alton more than six times as much. The properties on just two coves in a big-lake town probably exceed Pittsfield’s entire tax base.

The differing tax burdens among towns were at the heart of the Claremont decisions. If anything, that disparity is widening.

Overtaxed though they are, I hope Pittsfield voters approve the one-year teacher contract at a special district meeting later this year. I hope the board and the union press on on salaries and benefits, as they have vowed to do.

But the problem here is beyond the ability of a Pittsfield or an Allenstown or a Claremont to solve. That’s why the Supreme Court ruled against the state in the Claremont case, and that’s why the court should strengthen its earlier rulings when it decides the current case.

It is a travesty and a tragedy that the state of New Hampshire continues to ignore its constitutional obligation and to turn its back on the children of poor towns.

Posted by Mike Pride at 01:59 PM | Comments (1)

August 15, 2006

Are we safer? Wrong question

I have a bad feeling about the coming political season. I foresee an argument about a question to which there is no satisfactory answer: Has the George W. Bush presidency made America safer?

You’ve already heard the answers.

From the Democratic side: Of course not. Bush has led us into a quagmire in Iraq. His policies have created more terrorists, not fewer.

From the Republican side: Of course we’re safer. Isn’t it a great relief that we are fighting the terrorists over there rather than fighting them here?

The Monitor editorial board heard a version of the Republican argument this morning from Gov. George Pataki of New York. It’s better to have our soldiers fighting them there than our civilians fighting them here, he said.

But Pataki also used an analogy that resonated with me. He compared the War on Terror to the Cold War, in the sense that ideology was at the heart of both. Much as the Cold War was a fight between freedom and rigid state control, our current war is a fight between freedom and Islamic extremists who detest freedom. Without criticizing any past actions of the Bush administration, Pataki called for creating international alliances to join the United States, Britain and our few other allies in the fight.

On the drive to work this morning, I listened to The Exchange, the New Hampshire Public Radio talk show. The subject was the 45th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall. This was a defining moment of the Cold War. Laura Knoy’s guest, Jackson Janes, a German studies professor from Johns Hopkins University, commented on whether people in the ensuing years thought the wall would ever be torn down. Someday, they said, “but not in my lifetime.”

I lived through the entire Cold War. Janes's “not in my lifetime” comment was apt. When the wall actually fell and the Soviet bloc disintegrated, I remember thinking that the mind-set of my generation had been stripped away. It was so sudden. One day, all world events had to be viewed through the East-West prism. The next day, the prism had disappeared. In 1992, Francis Fukuyama wrote a book called The End of History whose title and ideas struck a chord with us old Cold Warriors.

But of course history did not end. A new enemy found us: Islamic fundamentalists bent on destroying the West and all that we stand for.

As I listened to Professor Janes talk, a question occurred to me: Were the fears spawned by the Cold War – principally the Strangelovian madness of nuclear annihilation and the state control over individuals at the heart of the communist regime – more potent and present than the fears spawned by the War on Terror?

I don’t know the answer. Frankly, although I did duck-and-cover drills as a boy and served two years right at the Iron Curtain as a young man, I don’t remember ever being afraid. I can’t say the same about the War on Terror, but that may simply be that I know more now than I knew then. Or that my worries now are more focused on future generations - my children's and my grandchildren's - than on my own.

What I am sure of is that the politics of fear are empty, whichever side they come from. “Are we safer?” is the wrong question. It is also the perfect question for a political campaign – one with no clear answer and one bound to be polarizing.

I’m not quite sure what the right question is for the coming campaign and the 2008 presidential race, but it might go something like this: Which political leaders are best equipped and most inclined to persuade other free nations that the War on Terror is their fight, too?

Posted by Mike Pride at 03:00 PM | Comments (2)

August 14, 2006

Action Jackson

My daughter-in-law tells a riddle about parenthood that goes like this:

Why do you put 2-year-olds to bed at 7:30?

The answer: So you can go to bed at 8.

More than two decades after we last had a 2-year-old of our own, my wife and I spent this past weekend taking care of our grandson, Jackson. Alone. Just us and Jackson.

People in the office have heard me refer to Jackson (lovingly, of course) as “Bruiser,” “The Linebacker” and “Pinball.” He is ripped: big shoulders, bulging chest, all muscle, no fat. One of his favorite words is “run,” and off he goes, a miniature Forrest Gump. “Pinball,” by the way, refers to the way he bounces off things and seems to gain speed and energy from each collision.

During the weekend, when we weren’t out harvesting blueberries and blackberries, for which Jackson has an extraordinary capacity, I spent the good part of the weekend trying to divine the mind of a 2-year-old. I mean, what is going on up there? At times, the boy seemed charming, loving and perfectly normal. He put the plastic flamingo on the letter “F,” aped animal sounds on command and counted to 13 over and over. But then, suddenly, he would zone out and slip off into the next room in search of an electric socket or, more likely, do precisely the opposite of what we had told him to do. And do it again. And again. "Tantrum" might be too stark a word for his most headstrong moments, but probably not.

As far as I could tell, there were no logical connections between the responsive Jackson and the devious Jackson. Only one thing gave us comfort in these personality flips: They were accompanied by expressions very reminiscent of those that crossed his father’s face 28 years ago. These were familiar expressions, even though Jackson seemed to be just trying them out: the Clinton-lip pout, the evil eye, Don’t Tread on Me.

When you first become a grandparent, other grandparents tell you how wonderful it is to spend time with grandchildren – and to send them home to their parents. I’ll admit I had this thought last night when my wife drove away with Jackson and peace returned to our domain.

But that is not the thought that lingers from his visit, nor was I left thinking about the few difficult moments of his stay with us. Rather I woke up this morning thinking what an amazing challenge it is for his parents to guide him through this phase of his life. Also, how this adorable little tyke brings to the world such a headlong desire to grasp life and how we, as grandparents, have the high privilege of watching him become.

Posted by Mike Pride at 06:59 PM | Comments (1)

August 11, 2006

The real man from Hope

We met the real man from Hope when Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas came by for an editorial board yesterday. Huckabee, a Republican whose first career was as a Southern Baptist pastor, is considering running for president.

President Bill Clinton left Hope, Ark., as a young boy and grew up in Hot Springs. Huckabee, who is nine years younger than Clinton, was born and raised in Hope.

Huckabee made a joke about this that he has no doubt told a hundred times during his political career. Clinton, Huckabee said, used the line “I believe in a place called Hope” because it sounded so much better than “I believe in a place called Hot Springs.”

As I listened to Huckabee, I heard a politician comfortable in his skin as an Arkansan who was trying to figure out what from this repertory would work on the national stage and what he would have to invent. Although he and I are far apart in our thinking on many issues, I liked him.

For one thing, Huckabee is a governor. Governors who want to be president are usually far more down to earth than senators who want to be president. As a governor, you have to deal with real people and real issues. You have to get things done. The meaningless prattle of Washington does not pollute your speech.

Huckabee’s most appealing quality is humanity. When he said that his first reaction in dealing with Katrina refugees in Arkansas was to feed and house them and worry about the cost and the paperwork later, he was totally believable. When he spoke with passion and urgency about health care, you could see how his own heroic conversion from an obese man to a trim one had led him to look outside himself. Certainly one of his most practiced answers was his take on why his background as a pastor is not a political liability but an important qualification.

“There is not a social pathology in this world that I couldn’t put a name and face to,” he began. Soon he was detailing the human misery – alcohol problems, money problems, marital problems, unwanted pregnancies – that he regularly dealt with as a preacher. This experience, he said, led him to be more understanding of the human condition.

“If faith is real, it does affect what you do” as an elected official, he said. Asked to name his party’s biggest flaw, he said that while Republicans had been keen on seeing that their policies helped those at the top, it had not been sensitive to people on the bottom. When he began to analyze the growing gap between the rich and the poor and the difficulties of the middle class, he sounded like a Democrat.

Huckabee is one of a large cast of characters whom New Hampshire and Iowa voters will see a great deal of during the next year and a half. He has a lot to learn. Although I came away with a good first impression, he was fuzzy on the war in Iraq and unresponsive on Social Security.

If he decides to run, he will profit greatly from grassroots campaigning in New Hampshire. He will have a good touch for it, too, shaping his positions by what he hears from voters.

Posted by Mike Pride at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)

August 04, 2006

Boys will be boys

Brownbag lunches at the Monitor give our staff an opportunity to hear from experts. We’ve had many poets, writers and journalists speak with the staff over the years. Later this month, Bill Chapman, the paper’s lawyer, will give a lunchtime seminar on the Right-to-Know law and libel laws. And yesterday, Peter Francese paid us a visit.

Peter is a genial and knowledgeable demographer who lives in Exeter. Although reporters often call him as a news source for their stories, he last spoke with our whole staff three years ago. His charge then was to help us lay the groundwork for the Monitor’s content-driven redesign, which continues to this day, by telling us about our readers.

Peter’s main message in 2003 was that New Hampshire had a large and growing elderly population. One result of this session was the creation of a reporting beat at the Monitor on the issues of aging. Meg Heckman has ably filled it from the start.

During yesterday’s session, Peter gave us more of the same with a new twist: New Hampshire’s burgeoning elderly population is accompanied by a mass exodus of young people. Our state is getting older both because people over 55 are moving here in droves and because people 25-44 are leaving. I’ve written a column for the Sunday Monitor Viewpoints section about the consequences of this demographic shift.

While we had Peter here, we also touched on another troubling subject: the falling percentage of young men going to college. For years, the proportion of males to females in colleges and universities has shrunk. I asked Peter why. Here is what he said:

1. Eighteen-year-old men can make pretty good money in the job market – for 18-year-old men. Thus, for them, the short-term cost of attending college is greater than for girls.

2. Boys mature later than girls. Many young men say when they graduate from high school that they’ll go to college someday, but they never do.

3. College is generally seen as leading to office jobs. To an 18-year-old man, “working in an office sounds like some form of slow death.” (Women form 47 percent of the American workforce but 52 percent of the whire-collar workforce.)

4. The cost of a college education has grown disproportionately.

The problem with this trend is that whatever short-term benefits young men may enjoy in not going to college, the long-term costs are far greater. As Peter told us, there are more and more young men out there who really should have gone to college.

Posted by Mike Pride at 05:51 PM | Comments (2)

July 27, 2006

Island getaway

We spent part of our July vacation in Florida. In all the years I lived there as a child and a young man, I had never been to Sanibel and Captiva, the two gulf islands just off Fort Myers. The islands are connected to the mainland by a causeway and to each other by a short bridge.

I’m sure old-timers would say Sanibel and Captiva aren’t what they used to be, but they’re still pretty cool. They’re famous for shells, birds and flora. Apparently they lost their cover of Australian pines, the long-needled evergreens that I remember well from my youth, to Hurricane Charley in 2004. But in many places the vegetation remains thick, tangled and close to the ground.

We stayed at a resort on Captiva, ’Tween Waters Inn. We were there for a mini-reunion with several members of my high school class. As it turned out, one of them, Cynthia Cohlmeyer, had a special connection to the inn and the islands. Her connection made the visit special for the rest of us as well.

In high school, we knew her as Cindy Darling. Her grandfather was Jay Norling “Ding” Darling, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist who lived from 1876 to 1962.

I knew nothing about Ding Darling, but more than 40 years after his death, his presence is everywhere on Captiva and Sanibel. We first noticed this when we saw that his cartoons and wildlife paintings graced the walls of the main restaurant at ’Tween Waters Inn.

Darling was not only a fine editorial cartoonist (his cartoons appeared on the front page of the Des Moines Register for decades) but also a conservationist of the first order. Long before the environmental movement took hold in this country, many a Darling cartoon depicted human disregard for and mistreatment of the Earth.

Darling was a Republican and a Teddy Roosevelt conservationist, but he wound up in the administration of the other Roosevelt. FDR appointed him director of the U.S. Biological Survey. He started the duck stamp program, among other good deeds, designing the first stamp himself. He also got private financial backing to bring several sportsmen’s organizations together as the National Wildlife Federation, believing – correctly – that this would strengthen the voice of conservationists.

Most impressive for a visitor to the islands that Darling loved, a foundation formed after his death carried on his work. One of his favorite bird-watching locales is now the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge. In its visitors’ center, one exhibit is built around his drawing desk and another includes the colorful work of the young artists who compete each year to design the duck stamp.

Every time I visit Florida’s Gulf Coast, I am amazed by the high-rises that blot out yet another beach. I’m sure Captiva and Sanibel have lost much of the wild charm that first attracted Ding Darling to them, and no doubt developers have further designs on the islands. But it retains at least vestiges of the old Florida.

Along with a resolve to return one year in winter and spend time in the refuge, I departed with this thought: What an amazing personal legacy for one human being. Known during his day as one of the nation’s great editorial cartoonists, Darling is even better known today by his posterity as a protector of nature.

Posted by Mike Pride at 06:02 PM | Comments (0)

July 06, 2006

Back soon

Mike's blog is taking a break. See you soon.

Posted by Mike Pride at 07:45 AM | Comments (1)

July 05, 2006

The new neighbor

I spent much of the Fourth of July working on writing projects on the back porch of our camp. Writing is a natural act to me, and it feels especially natural in the still of the dawn’s early light. Although my eyes were fixed on the screen of my laptop, they were also alert for animal movement around me.

The air was a little murky, a little yellow, the pond morning gray. I saw a great blue heron swoop in and land on a rocky peak that rises maybe six inches out of the water near our shore. I saw a mink swim toward our boulders with its catch. Then a raccoon walked right through the backyard. I stood for a better look, and the raccoon heard me, stopped and looked back. We made eye contact for two seconds before it bounded into the woods.

During the weekend I had seen a large bird in a deadish tree at the pond’s edge. Leaves obstructed its head from my view, but I saw that its body was a mottled brown, and I saw it at a distance in flight. It seemed to be about gull size. I guessed that it might be an osprey, but T.C. Cutter, who lives across the pond, didn’t think so. I know most of the birds on the pond, and maybe they know me, but this was a new neighbor.

I took a break from my work just after lunch. As I did, I looked out and saw our friends, Judi and Rich Locke, in their thankfully quiet aluminum launch, idling 20 feet from shore. Rich had on his goofy Fourth of July hat, a real attention-getter when the Lockes tour the pond, and Judy held her hand to her forehead as a visor. They were peering up into the tree at the bird I had seen. They kindly offered to pick me up and take me around for a better look. I grabbed my binoculars and climbed aboard.

The bird did not seem to mind the intrusion. It sat there while I catalogued its traits: leg color, eye color, beak shape. Clearly this was no raptor; it looked like a heron.

As we prepared to leave it in peace, the bird began to stir. Suddenly it defecated, and copiously, sending a white stream splashing into the pond below. “Must be a male,” said Judi Locke.

My brain hung onto the bird’s characteristics until I got back to the porch, but I didn't need them. I picked up my bird book and quickly found the bird’s spitting image. It was as though the photographer had shot the bird's picture right in that tree, 30 feet from where I sat.

It was an immature black-crowned night heron, a/k/a Nycticorax nycticorax. Bird literature says many unkind things about this species. They are the squat members of the heron family and do not assume the look their name implies until they turn 3. They are sluggish hunters, one guide says, mainly just standing there waiting for a fish or frog to happen by. They rob the nests of gulls and other heron species, gobbling their chicks. They eat just about anything, including garbage.

One guide describes their table manners this way: “Prey is shaken vigorously until stunned or killed and then juggled about in the beak and swallowed head first. They have strong digestive acids that can dissolve even bones. Their feces are white and limey because of the dissolved calcium.”

Well, I am always elated when I see a bird new to me, and it didn’t bother me one bit that the black-crowned night heron is a bad actor.

About the “night” word, incidentally, only speculation in the guides: Generally these herons do not begin to feed till dusk. Other herons are prone to attack them by day, but after breeding season, perhaps feeling safer, they are sometimes seen in broad daylight.

Later yesterday afternoon, Greg Chase, another pond friend, sailed his Sunfish to about the point where I had first seen the Lockes. Greg had heard about the heron and come to see it, but it was gone. We chatted, and I told him what I had found out about the bird and said I was sure it would be back.

“Good to have a new neighbor on the pond,” Greg said, and he swung his sail to catch the wind, and off he went.

Posted by Mike Pride at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)

July 02, 2006

Biden hits the ground running

Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware is making the rounds in New Hampshire. He’s running for president, he says.

Biden is a man with a hole in his reputation, which, on a practical level, makes his candidacy an exercise in self-delusion. It is beyond me why anyone would want to go through repeated questioning on the speech-lifting problem that disqualified him from the presidential chase nearly 20 years ago. And if no one is asking this question – why did you do that, senator? – Biden can be sure his candidacy is not being taken seriously.

Plus, Biden is the quintessential United States senator, with more than 30 years of legislating to muddy the meandering stream of his rhetoric. He’s not Bob Dole, referring to bills by shorthand and reminding people of decade-old subcommittee votes. He’s smoother than that. But Biden is quick to sink listeners in the mire of policy history, with an emphasis on his seminal role. In the latter respect, he lacks Dole’s modesty.

And yet one of the enduring values of New Hampshire’s presidential primary campaigns is the opportunity they give the parties – especially the out party – to figure out where they stand. In this respect, Biden deserves a careful hearing.

The senator gave the Monitor editorial board a long interview on Friday. The next day we published Monitor reporter Lauren R. Dorgan’s excellent account of the highlights of the interview.

The Iraq war is the stickiest issue for every presidential candidate. There is a temptation to seek a position on one of the poles, creating the false impression that the choice is war vs. surrender.

Biden knows it’s not that simple. He has not only followed the war every step of the way as an insider but has also made repeated visits to Iraq to assess the situation on the ground. As he describes it, our future policy there rests as much on the realities of troop strength as on presidential resolve. The force level will have to be reduced substantially in coming months because it cannot be sustained. Any sense of how to proceed in Iraq, Biden says, must begin with that realization.

The current debate on the airwaves – and, I might add, in the run-up to the midterm elections – is cut and run vs. stay the course. This Rovian scenario is a Republican dream, and so far the Democrats are playing right into it (see Connecticut, and the party’s crusade to do a Bob Smith-ectomy on Sen. Joe Lieberman). Dems have plenty of issues on their side – the administration’s deadly incompetence after Katrina, its ocean of red ink and, above all, its woeful post-Shock and Awe performance in Iraq. But their schism over the war prevents them from presenting a unified front on anything.

Biden’s knowledgeable, reality-based views on Iraq, and his guarded optimism about the outcome there, provide a strong direction for his party. Whether they will do anything for his own prospects for 2008 is beside the point. Taking to the stump in New Hampshire as an avowed presidential candidate provides a bigger megaphone for Biden’s positions than he would otherwise have. That in itself is good for both his party and his country.

Posted by Mike Pride at 07:29 PM | Comments (2)

June 30, 2006

Muddled thinking, Kos, et al.

The Daily Kos, a hot political blog, is coming down hard on the New Hampshire primary. Check it out.

Here's what I think about Kos's case:

It wasn’t an unfair system that gave the Dems their nominee in 2004. It was a poor field. New Hampshire wasn’t a rubber stamp; New Hampshire voters just saw the same thing Iowa voters did. To be crisp but cruel about it, Dean crumbled in the spotlight, Lieberman had no pop, Clark was an amateur, etc., etc. Kerry was the best of the lot – and the best prepared to be president. He would have been president, too, if he hadn’t pulled a Dukakis when the Swifties came after him.

All this foolishness about trying to strip Iowa and New Hampshire of their traditional roles in the nominating process is just the Democrats stressing about something that doesn’t matter while they waffle about what does. What’s the Dems’ answer to “cut & run,” “the white flag of surrender” and “he was for the war before he was against it?” If they can’t agree on an alternative message that resonates for 2006, the Rove political ethic will continue to reign.

The problem for Dems in 2008 is not what state gets an early caucus or primary. It is this: Who is going to lead them in figuring out what they stand for?

Posted by Mike Pride at 05:59 PM | Comments (1)

Flashback

I was on a panel yesterday before a journalism student group at Franklin Pierce College’s Manchester branch. The subject was press coverage of the New Hampshire presidential primary, and along with practical advice, we panelists peddled our campaign tales.

My favorite came from Kevin Landrigan, veteran political reporter for the Telegraph in Nashua. Here’s how it went:

As a young reporter for the Eagle Times in Claremont in 1980, Landrigan had a chance to ride on Ronald Reagan’s bus one morning. Reagan was trying to rescue his candidacy after George Bush I’s victory over him in the Iowa caucuses. The scuttlebutt Landrigan had heard from the national press corps suggested that Reagan was slow on the trigger and too old to be president. Landrigan prepared his questions diligently, but he worried that if what he had heard was true, Reagan would be particularly unresponsive at 7:30 a.m., the time of the interview.

Landrigan got on the bus and asked his questions. Reagan’s answers were crisp and on point. The interview went by faster than Landrigan had imagined. Before he knew it, Reagan was asking him questions: Where had he grown up? How long had he been a political reporter, and why had he chosen that career?

Kevin Landrigan’s story had many facets. It was about the education of a young reporter: See for yourself, don’t swallow the conventional wisdom. It was about Ronald Reagan: He made the adjectives used to minimize him – too old, too slow-witted – seem plain silly. And it was about the New Hampshire primary: This is where would-be presidents must connect with regular people – even 20-something reporters.

Postscript (another point of view)

Like my last blog entry, today’s Wall Street Journal editorial concerns the decision of the Journal, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times to publish the story of the government secretly accessing financial records.

Posted by Mike Pride at 03:32 PM | Comments (0)

June 28, 2006

Question No. 9

In response to my blog entry last week on The War Tapes, a reader asks:

“I’m curious if you have any opinion on the recent controversy over the newspaper reports detailing a secret but legal government program which scans bank records. Were the various newspapers right to report on this program? Did you agree with Bill Keller’s letter to his readers? Or is it only newsworthy if a secret program is illegal?”

This is foreign ground to me as the editor of the Monitor. In my career I’ve had to deal with government officials who didn’t want things published but never on national security grounds. So my opinion is based only on many years of following such issues.

Jack M. Balkin, a blogger whose column appears on today’s Concord Monitor Forum page, makes clear that the Bush administration is as good as or better than its predecessors in playing the leaking game. This consists mainly of leaking information it thinks will be to its political advantage and crying “national security” when something is leaked that it doesn’t want out.

This administration does have an advantage its predecessors did not. This consists of two elements. The first is a Greek chorus, masquerading as journalists, that is quick to take up its tune, often thoughtlessly but with much tumult and shouting. The second is a communication system – the internet and 24-hour news networks – that amplifies the howl from a reliable administration perspective.

Three newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, found out about and published stories about the government scanning of bank records.

This raises two questions for me: First, if three newspapers found out about it, how secret was it? And second, how come most of the press’s critics left the Wall Street Journal out of their plaint?

I believe in a vigorous press and have a great deal of faith in the editors of big newspapers to make the right decisions in these cases. I am never surprised to hear an administration – this one or any other – wage a “national security” defense. And ultimately, although my faith is often sorely tested, I believe the public has the ability to look beyond the political hubbub and figure out who is right and, more important, what is right.

Finally, Bill Keller, the executive editor of the New York Times, did a superb job explaining why the Times went with the story. I’ve pasted the crux of his argument below, but you can read the whole thing at the New York Times website, nytimes.com.

"The Administration case for holding the story had two parts, roughly speaking: first that the program is good – that it is legal, that there are safeguards against abuse of privacy, and that it has been valuable in deterring and prosecuting terrorists. And, second, that exposing this program would put its usefulness at risk.

“It’s not our job to pass judgment on whether this program is legal or effective, but the story cites strong arguments from proponents that this is the case. While some experts familiar with the program have doubts about its legality, which has never been tested in the courts, and while some bank officials worry that a temporary program has taken on an air of permanence, we cited considerable evidence that the program helps catch and prosecute financers of terror, and we have not identified any serious abuses of privacy so far. A reasonable person, informed about this program, might well decide to applaud it. That said, we hesitate to preempt the role of legislators and courts, and ultimately the electorate, which cannot consider a program if they don’t know about it.

“We weighed most heavily the Administration’s concern that describing this program would endanger it. The central argument we heard from officials at senior levels was that international bankers would stop cooperating, would resist, if this program saw the light of day. We don’t know what the banking consortium will do, but we found this argument puzzling. First, the bankers provide this information under the authority of a subpoena, which imposes a legal obligation. Second, if, as the Administration says, the program is legal, highly effective, and well protected against invasion of privacy, the bankers should have little trouble defending it. The Bush Administration and America itself may be unpopular in Europe these days, but policing the byways of international terror seems to have pretty strong support everywhere. And while it is too early to tell, the initial signs are that our article is not generating a banker backlash against the program.

“By the way, we heard similar arguments against publishing last year’s reporting on the NSA eavesdropping program. We were told then that our article would mean the death of that program. We were told that telecommunications companies would – if the public knew what they were doing – withdraw their cooperation. To the best of my knowledge, that has not happened. While our coverage has led to much public debate and new congressional oversight, to the best of our knowledge the eavesdropping program continues to operate much as it did before. Members of Congress have proposed to amend the law to put the eavesdropping program on a firm legal footing. And the man who presided over it and defended it was handily confirmed for promotion as the head of the CIA.

“A secondary argument against publishing the banking story was that publication would lead terrorists to change tactics. But that argument was made in a half-hearted way. It has been widely reported – indeed, trumpeted by the Treasury Department – that the U.S. makes every effort to track international financing of terror. Terror financiers know this, which is why they have already moved as much as they can to cruder methods. But they also continue to use the international banking system, because it is immeasurably more efficient than toting suitcases of cash.”

Posted by Mike Pride at 08:07 AM | Comments (2)

June 27, 2006

Singing with the Chicks

My Fathers Day present from my daughter-in-law Melissa was the new Dixie Chicks album, Taking the Long Way. She’s a big fan. I’ll bet she and Grace, my 5-year-old granddaughter, can already sing along with the new songs.

I first heard the Chicks a few years ago while riding shotgun in their family SUV. I’m long past the age when I pay much attention to popular music, but I liked what I heard. For one thing, I’m a sucker for Vietnam War songs (Billy Joel’s “Goodnight Saigon,” for example) and the Dixie Chicks’ sentimental ballad “Travelin’ Soldier” stuck in my mind.

That Christmas, Melissa gave my wife and me Home, an earlier Chicks album. It mixed well with other folk-country music we sometimes play: the Subdudes, Loretta Lynn, Roy Orbison, the Traveling Wilburys, Greg Brown. The Chicks struck me as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in skirts.

But of course, since those days, the Dixie Chicks have transcended the pop music world. In March 2003, just before the invasion of Iraq, the Chicks’ lead singer, Natalie Maines, a Texan, said at a London concert: “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.”

This created a firestorm. People smashed their Chicks’ CDs. Red-state country stations banned their music. People wrote them threatening letters. On the Comedy channel one night, I saw a redneck comic do a truly nasty routine trashing Maines and the Chicks. It was red meat to the crowd.

From a marketing standpoint, going political was a dumb move for Natalie (may I call her Natalie?). And she wasn’t exactly a profile in courage when she realized the consequences of her words. A few days after the blowback began, she said: “I apologize to President Bush because my remark was disrespectful, and whoever holds that office should be treated with respect.”

The anti-Chick crusade rolled right over this non-apology apology.

Three years later, the controversy is background buzz to the new album. It was the story line in the reviews, and it landed the Chicks a gig on Terry Gross’s Fresh Air. There they got to talk about how the reaction to Natalie’s remarks turned their world upside down. This was great marketing. Fresh Air is an NPR show whose audience is likely to be sympathetic to Natalie’s original statement, supportive or her First Amendment rights and susceptible to buying the Chicks’ new album just to spite the evil Red Staters.

But for me, it’s all about the music. Truth be told, in the slivers I had heard, the music sounded over-produced and over-orchestrated – not raw enough for my tastes. After my Fathers Day present arrived in the mail, I slipped Taking the Long Way into my car stereo with some trepidation.

I’ll tell you what: I’m liking several cuts, none more than “Not Ready to Make Nice,” in which Natalie and the Chicks answer their critics. It’s rare that a pop song rises above sentiment to convey emotion, but this one seethes with defiance and resolve. Already I find myself singing along to its slow opening and listening closely to make sure I’m catching all the lyrics when they get fast and angry. It’s a song that forces you to listen actively, and it isn’t the only one on the album I’d say that about.

I haven’t sent my daughter-in-law a thank you card for the Fathers Day gift yet. I guess I’m hoping this blog entry will do the trick.

Posted by Mike Pride at 07:32 PM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2006

Grunts

Early in the Iraq war, the country struggled with a crucial question: Could a citizen oppose the war and support the troops? Last night at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, I saw the answer right before my eyes.

The occasion was the New Hampshire premiere of The War Tapes, the movie shot by soldiers from a New Hampshire unit and directed via the internet. Afterward, I moderated a panel discussion with Director Deborah Scranton, Executive Producer Chuck Lacy, Maj. Greg Heilshorn and the three stars of the movie, Mike Moriarty, Steve Pink and Zack Bazzi.

I say stars, but the three men were also grunts – infantrymen. From Humvee escorts to profane needling to s--- detail, the movie the three men helped to shoot had no role for glory. Cynicism, humor, resignation, danger, brutality – yes – but no glory. Their unit, Charlie Company, 3rd of the 172nd Mountain Infantry Division, had a job to do, and the men did it and survived and came home changed.

When the lights came up after the movie last night, I sat on the stage surveying the crowd. I knew many people there. If someone had polled the crowd, I’ll bet at least 60 percent would have said they either opposed the Iraq war from the beginning or had serious reservations about it. But only one thing flowed from the crowd to the soldiers onstage: appreciation. And it flowed from the soldiers back to the crowd as well. They appreciated being appreciated.

The first question from the audience came from a woman who wanted to know how to help her 20-year-old son through the aftermath of his tour in Iraq. Give him time and space, the soldiers counseled. The next questioner was a Vietnam veteran haunted by the parallels between their war and his. These young Iraq war veterans said they could not understand how a country’s citizenry could blame the soldiers of the Vietnam generation for the unpopular war in which they fought.

This exchange struck a chord with me. There is a point in the film when the men touch down at Maguire Air Force Base in New Jersey. They have made it home. Soon they are on buses passing the blue sign welcoming them to New Hampshire (a cheer from the Cap Center audience). A throng of relatives and friends has gathered to greet them. Thirty-five years ago, I returned to McGuire from two years overseas. Once I had been bused to the Philadelphia airport, my fellow Americans greeted me with cold stares and disgusted looks. I couldn’t wait to get out of my uniform.

What I saw last night was that the public can separate the policy from the men who volunteer to carry it out. Yes, the audience had just seen a compelling documentary in which Moriarty, Pink and Bazzi bared their souls. But the warmth the audience projected was meant not only for them personally but also for all the men and women who put on the uniform.

One moment I’ll not forget from this event came at the very end. In fact, it came after the end – after I had closed the questioning and the audience and the soldiers had applauded each other. A beefy man with close-cropped hair came to one of the microphones, and the crowd hushed. I thought: Uh-oh. The man identified himself as a Marine and explained that Marines don’t necessarily follow the same rules as everyone else. Then the man said he had only one message for the soldiers on stage, and he popped to attention and drew his right hand to his brow in a salute.

Posted by Mike Pride at 09:19 AM | Comments (2)

June 21, 2006

Fields of dreams II

No story this week has drawn more response from Monitor readers than Eric Moskowitz’s piece Tuesday on the forfeiture of a youth baseball playoff game. Several letters will appear in tomorrow’s paper.

I must put in my two cents.

I know of the incident only what I’ve read in the paper. I coached in the 10-12-year-old playoffs more than 10 years ago. It was intense, and I loved it – even though my team lost in the league finals and I had to console a bunch of teary-eyed boys. (There is crying in baseball.)

Here’s what I think:

It is hard to believe a veteran coach did not know his own daughter was ineligible to pitch. But what is more disturbing is that some adults are arguing in letters to the editor that the rulebook doesn’t matter. What kind of lesson does that teach kids? I understand from the coach’s letter that the rulebook also says forfeits should be rare in the league, but the power to interpret the rules is not his.

Here’s what the coach should have said to the team (and maybe he did say it – I don’t know – I wasn’t there): I made a mistake, and I’m sorry. The umpires and the league president have the authority to enforce the rules, and we have to accept their decision and move on. This is nobody’s fault but mine.

Baseball is supposed to be fun, and there's no doubt this rhubarb took the fun out of this particular game. But it also created a teaching moment. The worst thing that could come of it is not the loss of a ball game; it is a child losing respect for the rulebook and the system put in place to enforce it.

Posted by Mike Pride at 07:00 PM | Comments (0)

June 19, 2006

More on that photo

At the risk of offending with too much defending, I’d like to respond to a couple of comments readers made about “The war hits home.” This was my entry last week about our use of a photograph of the girlfriend of Russell Durgin crying as she watched a television news report of his death in battle in Afghanistan.

Here are excerpts from the comments:

“The photographer must have returned with a variety of other shots that would have added visual impact to the story without displaying for the world a family’s moment of grief. The current trend in mass media to seek out and display the most private, painful or tragic aspects of human emotion . . . diminishes our respect for each other and our society.”

And:

“The true test of journalists should be, can they paint a picture in the mind’s eye without the use of a visual aid? . . . A picture of his girlfriend on the front page being depicted as devastated is shameful, invited or not.”

The true test of journalists is to use all the talent and judgment they have to convey to the public the reality of what happens. A photojournalist’s job is to capture THE moment that encapsulates an event. Yes, to some extent it is the reporter’s job to “paint a picture in the mind’s eye,” but the words and pictures should work together to tell the story.

As for the current media trend being to convey “the most private, painful or tragic aspects of human emotion,” there is nothing new or recent about it. It has been part of what the media do for as long as there have been media. I would only add that this tradition also includes the responsibility to capture the other end of the emotional spectrum – the joy, love and surprise of human events. There was no joy in the photograph in question, but there was love, and there was caring.

And far from diminishing respect for each other, publishing that picture should only enhance readers’ respect for Michele Dougherty, the Durgin family and the sacrifice of Russell Durgin. The photograph was the farthest thing from a gratuitous appeal to base emotion.

As far as I am aware, there was no internal dissent at the Monitor over publishing this picture. But there are news photos over which we argue. Dan Habib, the photo editor, usually knows when a photo might be too graphic or raise other issues of taste. In such cases, we always discuss the pros and cons openly and make the best decision we can. And while we know many of our readers see – and even seek out – graphic images on television and the internet, the standards we employ are far higher than the standards of those media.

That said, as a rule, I would rather that when we err, we err on the side of publication. We would not be doing our job if we withheld vital information, including images that wrench the heart, for fear of offending some readers.

Posted by Mike Pride at 08:45 AM | Comments (0)

June 16, 2006

Fathers

I am a lucky father. I still have my father, who is 89 and takes a short walk every day. And I have three sons, two of whom are loving fathers and all of whom seem determined to be self-sufficient and useful. We are a scattered family, but this is the American way.

I see in my family the seasons of fatherhood. From afar, my father enjoys news about his grandchildren and the arrival of his great-grandchildren. My sons, meanwhile, discover both the joys and challenges of fatherhood. And I am in the middle, trying to bridge the generations and worrying about both my father and my sons.

I don’t think my father did much to prepare me for fatherhood. In fact, our relationship was burdened by that very real 1960s phenomenon known as the Generation Gap. We fought about nearly everything when I was in my teens. Fortunately, when the reconciliation came later, it was at least as profound as our differences had been.

I vowed I would be a different kind of father, but I’m not sure I was. I am sure I was blessed with a different kind of sons. We actually had relationships when they were in their teens. These were not always easy, but I knew it was important even during the rough patches that we keep talking, and we always managed to so.

That said, I’m not sure I did any more to prepare my sons for fatherhood than my father did to prepare me. And now I have reached a point in life where I have a hard time keeping up with the boys. They are extremely helpful to us when they visit, and we have nice, easy times when we see each other. But they don’t e-mail or call me often enough for me to keep track of what they’re thinking or what really matters to them. They are men. Men go it alone.

I’m not complaining about this; I have nothing to complain about. I couldn’t be prouder of my sons. One is a computer engineer who will soon move to Bermuda, where his wife has been posted with the Foreign Service. One began his life as a doctor this week at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston. And one just finished his first year of law school.

When I brag to friends about our three sons, I often say I regret that my wife and I didn’t have a fourth child. I mean, it’s great at our age to have free computer help and medical and legal advice, but where’s the dentist?

The most astonishing thing about the seasons of fatherhood is how quickly they pass. I hope you make the most of yours.

Happy Fathers Day.

Posted by Mike Pride at 06:38 PM | Comments (2)

June 15, 2006

The war hits home

In a letter that will appear in tomorrow’s paper, a reader criticizes the lead photograph on today’s front page. This is the picture of Michele Dougherty crying as she watches a television news report about the death of her boyfriend, Russell Durgin, who was killed in Afghanistan. Here are excerpts from the reader’s complaint:

“Is it actually news to anyone on the planet that people are in anguish when a loved one dies, especially so young and unexpectedly? Does a newspaper really need to report the fact that his girlfriend is devastated? I wonder how the person who took that photograph, and the editor who decided to use it, would feel if they were the ones on the newspaper’s front page at the moment of their most personal and deepest pain. To me this isn’t journalism, it’s exploitation, and I’m disappointed in the Monitor. Leave the sensationalism to the tabloids. This brave young man deserved better, and so do your readers.”

I disagree with the writer, and I want to explain why and to share the circumstances of our coverage of Durgin’s death, including the photo in question.

To me, the photograph and the story brought the war on terror home in a way that nothing else to date has. I mean in no way to diminish the deaths of other soldiers, but Durgin was known not only to his loved ones and to the townspeople of Henniker and Weare but also to Monitor readers – and to some Monitor staffers.

He was one of seven lacrosse players at John Stark High School whom Monitor reporter Meg Heckman profiled three years ago, just after the war in Iraq began. All had joined the military after high school. Heckman is an alumna of John Stark. Her brother Jim was the co-captain of the lacrosse team and stayed in touch with Durgin after graduation.

Heckman spoke with Durgin again for a story on the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war, and then told her editor she felt too close to the former John Stark lacrosse players to cover them any longer.

We are working on a project on the experience of New Hampshire soldiers in the war on terror. As part of this project, reporter Chelsea Conaboy was assigned to do an update on the seven Stark men.

At the beginning of May, Conaboy spent 2½ hours interviewing Jean Durgin, Russell’s mother. Michele Dougherty, Russell's girlfriend, was present, too. This past Tuesday, Conaboy interviewed Sean Durgin, Russell’s twin brother, who is in the Air Force and expects to be deployed soon.

The next morning, Heckman called Conaboy to inform her that Russell Durgin had been killed in Afghanistan. Conaboy’s first reaction was disbelief. Then she went to work.

Not wanting to call Jean Durgin for fear that she might not yet know that her son was dead, Conaboy called the National Guard and John Stark High School seeking more information. Then her phone rang. It was Michele Dougherty, making sure the Monitor knew about Russell’s death and inviting Conaboy and a photographer to Jean Durgin’s house to cover the story.

Russell’s family was open and accommodating to Conaboy and Brian Lehmann, our photographer, and so was Dougherty. Conaboy spoke with them all, including Lester Durgin, Russell’s father. They all thought it was important that we get the story right.

Back at the Monitor, Lehmann and his editors chose the photograph of Dougherty to lead today’s paper. Because it was such a strong and personal image, Lehmann decided to call Dougherty and describe it to her before we ran it in the paper. She did not object.

This morning, Dougherty told Conaboy she appreciated the Monitor’s coverage.

I’m proud of the way our staff handled this story. Our job as journalists, even in the most horrific circumstances, is to hold up a mirror and show what really happens. The anguish that a distant war death causes on the home front is important news. To cover it is neither exploitation nor sensationalism, especially when reporters and photographers act with sensitivity and courtesy, as ours did yesterday.

I am grateful to the Durgins and to Michele Dougherty for their openness during a time of unthinkable loss. I believe they have done a public service by sharing their grief and their thoughts, including the family’s conflicting views about the war itself.

I am deeply saddened by Russell Durgin’s death – more so because the family has helped me to know him.

Posted by Mike Pride at 07:12 PM | Comments (5)

June 13, 2006

Mmm-mmm . . . DO-nuts!

I got carded last weekend.

Well, not exactly.

I got asked. I went to Dunkin’ Donuts, and the fellow behind the corner, a cheerful young man who looked like he had taken full advantage of the fringe benefits of his position, asked me if I qualified for the discount.

I was perplexed by the question, thinking there must be some kind of discount card for regular Dunkin’ Donuts customers. I’m not that regular a customer, although the coffee rolls (microwaved 45 seconds with a pat of margarine on top) rank near the top of my wife’s and my guilty pleasure list. I was there mainly to get a chocolate frosted donut with sprinkles for Grace, our perfect 5-year-old granddaughter, and glazed donuts for Jackson, our he-man 2-year-old grandson, neither of whom we spoil in any way when they stay with us. Naturally, as long as I was at DD, I also ordered coffee rolls for Monique and me.

When I acted confused about whether I qualified for the discount, wagging my head somewhere between a nod and a shake – I mean, who wants to volunteer too readily that he doesn’t qualify for the discount? – the counterman rephrased his question.

“Are you over 55?” he said.

I grinned and said, yes, I was.

On the way home, several things occurred to me, none of them worth the 76 cents I’d saved on my purchase.

The first was that once upon a time people said I looked younger than my age. Maybe they were just being kind, but it’s certainly not true anymore. If I didn’t look over 55, the counterman wouldn’t have asked. I mean, it wouldn’t do Dunkin’ Donuts much good to have its employees asking 51-year-olds if they were over 55.

My second thought was that this particular discount had a cruel twist – a cruller twist, you might say. So what Dunkin’ Donuts is offering here is a discount intended to entice me to eat more donuts. And the more donuts I eat, the sooner I . . . expire, to use a euphemism that always gives me a chuckle.

But the third and final thought was even worse than that. I turn 60 next month, so unless Dunkin’ Donuts just started offering this deal, I’ve missed nearly five years of discount coffee rolls.

Some days it only seems like you win.

Posted by Mike Pride at 06:06 PM | Comments (2)

June 12, 2006

And in this corner . . .

To cut to the chase, here is the last quotation from a Christian Science Monitor story on the paper’s editorial board meeting with the noted pollster John Zogby:

“This could be Nixon redux – 1968 – for Al Gore. This could be his moment.”

Nixon, ’68: That’s when Richard Nixon, after losing the 1960 presidential race and the 1962 California gubernatorial race and telling reporters they wouldn’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, won the White House.

The comparison is intriguing in some ways. Gore’s narrow presidential defeat will be 8 years old in 2008, just as Nixon’s was in 1968. Nixon was a two-term former vice president and the out-party candidate during an unpopular war, and he ran on a serious domestic issue: law and order. Gore is a two-term former vice president from the out party, and he is championing a serious issue: global warming.

Of course, there are differences, too. Nixon was a political animal in ways that Gore is not. Nixon was also obsessive and brooding; Gore simply seems uncomfortable in his skin – unable to be himself in public. (I’ve got nothing against beards – I’ve had one nearly all my adult life, but when Gore grew one after the 2000 election, all I could think of was Floyd Patterson wearing that silly fake beard after the 1962 loss to Sonny Liston.)

So what about Gore in ’08? We ran a George Will column today encouraging him to run, but anything Will says on this subject is suspicious. Most people – even Democrats – respond to the idea of a Gore candidacy with groans. I mean, in 2000, he ran as a near-incumbent on an eight-year record of peace and prosperity, and he lost.

My own view? First, please recognize that as a New Hampshire editor, at this stage in the quadrennial cycle, I am an official greeter. My philosophy about the first primary has always been the more, the merrier.

That said, Gore ought to run for president. New Hampshire is a place to test ideas, and Gore has a big one. New Hampshire also tests people. Gore isn’t the same person he was in 2000. As Zogby suggested, we had many new Nixons – why not a new Gore? If he’s learned, if he’s grown, if he’s come to know himself, this is the place where all that will show – and where the voting public will recognize it.

If not, what’s lost?

Posted by Mike Pride at 06:55 PM | Comments (0)

June 08, 2006

The right of rights

As a warm-up for the Fourth of July, by which date I fully expect the rains to have ended
around here, I’m going to turn the blog today over to another Concord editor. His name is Nathaniel P. Rogers, and he died 162 years ago. In the 1830s and 1840s, he ran a paper called The Herald of Freedom in Concord.

The Herald was an abolitionist sheet, and the excerpt below, from an essay called “Free Speech,” was written to exhort abolitionists to speak freely and openly in spite of the unpopularity of their position.

Even though that issue was settled long ago, I hope you’ll bear with Editor Rogers. His point is as important in America today as it was when he wrote it:

“The right of speech – it is the right of rights – the paramount and paragon attribute of our kind. It is glorious among brutes, when it is free. The roar of the lion – it is majestic and sublime in his native desert. Not so, when he grunts under the stir of the poker, in the menagerie. The scream of the eagle, in the sky – or on the crag, where he lives and has his home – how unlike his most base croak, when they withhold his allowance in the cage that you may hear him make a noise. The one is free speech, in ‘free meeting.’ The other, speech-making, under chairs, boards and business committees. How different the wild note of the fife-bird, in the top of the high pine, when the setting sun awakens her throat after the shower, – how different from the chitter of the poor caged canary, in the pent-up street of the city. But illustration fails. The glory and beauty of freedom cannot be illustrated. It must be witnessed – experienced and felt.

“Speech is the only terror of tyrants. It is the thing they cannot control or encounter. Brute force has no tendency to match it. ‘Four hostile presses,’ said Bonaparte – the most formidable brute the modern world has seen – ‘are more to be dreaded than a hundred thousand bayonets.’ So, he might have said, is one hostile press, if it is free. And if it is free, it will be hostile to tyranny. . . .

“It is the uttered word that awakens the dead and that moves mankind. Words are the storm that “awakens its deep.” Words revolutionize society and nations, and change human condition. Monarchy builds its bastiles to imprison them. It erects them amid the silence of the people, and it is only Speech that can throw them down.”

Posted by Mike Pride at 06:25 PM | Comments (0)

June 07, 2006

Win some, lose some

As state politics heads for its summer snooze, there are both good tidings and bad about what we’ll wake up to come fall.

The bad news first: It’s disheartening that Doug Scamman is stepping down as speaker of the New Hampshire House. Scamman wasn’t having as much fun in the job as he used to. That’s because he’s a throwback to a more bipartisan and compromising way of creating state law. Scamman didn’t say so, but a large bloc of Republican reps is rigid in its thinking, unyielding in its stances and unpleasant for a moderate Republican speaker to work with.

Scamman's departure does not bode well. His leadership helped make the House a progressive foil to the more conservative state Senate.

But events concerning the Senate’s possible future softened the blow of Scamman’s announcement.

The coverage of last weekend’s state Democratic Party convention focused mainly on the presidential candidates who spoke there. I found this worrisome. The downside to the primary is that national candidate star power can blot out more vital matters.

Specifically, I worried that when filing for the fall elections opened today, the Democrats would still be without strong candidates in many districts.

False worry. As you can read on tomorrow's Monitor front page, several good ones have signed up already, meaning that voters will have choices for a change. And perhaps the 2007-08 Senate will moderate as a result, with Democrats cutting into the lopsided GOP majority.

Posted by Mike Pride at 07:00 PM | Comments (1)

June 06, 2006

The reviews are in

The War Tapes, the film about a New Hampshire-based infantry unit's year in Iraq, has drawn mainly positive reviews. It was shot by the soldiers themselves.

"Powerfully distressing," one critic calls it. Another says the film takes the concept of embedded reporting "pretty much right inisde the soldiers' brains."

The exception is the Village Voice reviewer who chastises the soldiers for their “mercenary self-regard” and calls the film itself the “cinematic equivalent to a ribbon magnet.”

The reviews are collected at the Rotten Tomatoes site.

The film has its New Hampshire debut at Concord's Capitol Center for the Arts on June 22.

Posted by Mike Pride at 03:29 PM | Comments (1)

Fields of dreams

I just have to weigh in on Concord’s tee-ball debate. I have some experience in this realm, ancient though it may be.

For those who didn't read Eric Moskowitz’s original story and follow-up in the Monitor, the question is whether to call outs when 4 and 5-year-olds play baseball. After a rebellion among some parents, the league has ruled that for the few days remaining in the season, there will be outs.

When I coached tee-ball, I think the youngest kids in our league were 6 or 7. We had outs and kept score. But two memories of those days illustrate the two sides of the current debate.

One was that my team had players at shortstop, second and first who were adept at turning double plays, a great rarity in our league. We were supposed to move players around each inning, but I resisted. I told myself that these abler kids belonged in a higher league, and the least I could do was give them a chance to hone their fielding skills. Besides, some of the less able kids might have gotten hurt playing infield.

The second rationale had some legitimacy, and my favorite moment in eight years as a coach supported it.

During a game at the White Park field, there was an annoying buzz in the distance toward left-center, but I didn’t know what it was. At some point I decided my outfielders needed to play deeper. When I turned to holler to them, all three were standing stone-still with their backs to the infield. They were mesmerized by a remote-control boat speeding across the surface of the White Park pond.

I was wrong about leaving my double-play combo in place most of the time. My ulterior motive was competitive; I wanted the team to win. By trying to push my team to the best result on the field, I’m sure I deprived some kids of opportunities to learn and enjoy the game. I knew all along that it was the adults, not the kids, who caused most of the problems in youth sports. I just didn’t realize until later that in some ways I was one of those adults.

I have loved baseball my whole life, and it is important that it be played right. But most adult coaches are much too serious about both lessons and outcomes. The most important thing an adult can give a tee-baller – or any really young player – is the chance to have fun. At that level, and even some higher levels, whatever rules maximize the pleasure of baseball are the rules to employ.

I know – easy to say from an armchair far from the fields of dreams. But I’m pretty sure about this.

Posted by Mike Pride at 12:36 PM | Comments (3)

June 02, 2006

In time of war

The surprise hot topic of the week was Memorial Day.

Monitor readers were full of opinions: Concord’s parade was too short. Too many people ignore the purpose of the holiday and turn the weekend into a three-day barbecue. Antiwar veterans should have stayed home from the parade. Antiwar veterans had every right to march. Political expression dishonors the dead. Politicians have ulterior motives for marching in parades. The state’s official observance on the traditional May 30 is the real Memorial Day. Or is it?

There are several reasons the debate was sharp.

To deal with the most basic one first, it is a shame there is not a single Memorial Day. I prefer May 30, but we have lost that fight. New Hampshire should adopt the federal holiday even though it leads to a three-day weekend. Having two holidays dilutes the meaning of Memorial Day even more than observing it on Monday.

The real problem is participation. Memorial Day should not be observed mainly by brothers and sisters in arms. Every American should make time to honor those who have sacrificed their lives for our country.

This year’s debate went well beyond the perennial issue of when Memorial Day should be.

In part, that is because the deaths of soldiers are so fresh in mind. Memorial Day 2006 was about deaths long ago, but it was also about mourning – and questioning – deaths that are occurring now.

Things in Iraq and Afghanistan are going badly. America’s active participation in World War II lasted from Dec. 7, 1941, until Aug. 15, 1945 – three years, six months and eight days. If we date the current war to 9/11, an event often compared to Pearl Harbor Day, the war on terror has now lasted four years, eight months and 21 days. And in Iraq at least, its end point is as uncertain as its cause is murky.

I thought invading Iraq was a mistake from the start, but I still try to put the best face on it. The other day, I found myself telling someone that for all the blood and treasure our country is expending there, maybe 20 years from now Iraq will be a better place. Then I thought: How pathetic! Is that the best I can do?

My darker side tells me our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is creating more, not fewer, enemies and making our future worse, not better.

I’m sure many people have things over there figured out much better than I do. My point is that the Memorial Day debate reflects our differences about the war. Those who want to keep the day pure – to limit its focus to honoring the nation’s war dead – believe that introducing arguments about the current war taints that purity. Veterans who paraded against the war believed their protest honored soldiers both dead and living.

I see both sides of this debate, although I come down strongly on one side.

The feeling for Americans killed serving their country is strong. They deserve their day.

But I also know that some men I buried as a soldier on funeral detail during the Vietnam War opposed the war. It is a misperception to think that all who make the supreme sacrifice believe in – or even understand – the cause for which they die. The stones in a military cemetery may line up in neat rows, but in life the people who lie beneath them possessed all the variety of thought and opinion of the human condition.

As a journalist, of course, I cherish freedom of expression. I applaud the Veterans for Peace for marching and making their point. I don’t see how a protest against the war in Iraq interferes with the ability to have solemn feelings for the war dead. I wonder if those offended by the protesters have thought enough about our mission in Iraq.

We’d all be better off if Memorial Day were observed on a single day and if more of the public showed up to observe it. And while we’re honoring our dead, we’d all be better off if, instead of quietly acquiescing to our national leaders, we used the occasion to engage in more debate about a policy that continues to send our men and women to their death.

Posted by Mike Pride at 05:31 PM | Comments (2)

June 01, 2006

THE issue

“The machine in Washington is broken, and Charlie Bass is a cog in that machine.” Bass “is a nice enough guy who has been ground up and spit out” by Washington.

“Charlie Bass has a record as a strong independent voice for New Hampshire.” He is “an agent of change.”

These were the opening words in the most important political campaign this year in New Hampshire. They were also a sign that the silly season has begun – the time when challengers stick labels on incumbents – “a cog in (the) Washington machine” – and incumbents resist them – “a strong independent voice for New Hampshire.”

The speaker in the first case was Paul Hodes of Concord, the Democrat who lost to Bass in 2004 and announced yesterday that he was going to try, try again. The speaker in the second case was Bass’s spokesman, Scott Tranchemontagne.

What today’s Monitor story about this race did not mention was the war in Iraq. On that issue the race will be decided.

Bass has been a rubber stamp for the president on the war. From Bass’s “independent voice,” his constituents have not heard a peep of doubt or disapproval.

It remains to be seen how Hodes will position himself on the war. It won’t be enough to tie Bass to Bush. Voters will want to hear a clear alternative.

And since one congressman can do only so much, the real question is what the Democrats intend to do about the war. So far, they haven’t offered much of an alternative – or they’ve offered so many alternatives, from staying the course to pulling out now – that they’ve given voters nothing to fasten on. This is not an easy issue.

Bass has been so safe in this district for so long that many observers say he’s safe again in 2006. I don’t think so. Fair or not, his fate is tied to Iraq – and to whether Hodes and his party can make a plausible case for what the country should do there.

Posted by Mike Pride at 10:03 AM | Comments (3)

May 25, 2006

Take 2

Maybe you read the quotation in today’s paper from New Hampshire author Howard Mansfield about his interview yesterday for C-SPAN-2’s Books TV program.

“You always come away from these things rewriting what you said in your mind,” Mansfield said.

I was one of the other authors interviewed at Gibson’s Bookstore, but it had been a while since my last such appearance. I had forgotten this “what I should have said” aspect to the process. Of course, it washed over my brain right after the interview.

But this was my fault, not the fault of the process. I was talking for the first time to a reporter about a book I have been working on for three years in my spare time, a book that is due at the publisher next week.

What I had failed to do was prepare. Preparation in this case means distilling what the book is about and the two or three most important points you want to make about it before an interviewer asks you about it.

Shortly after yesterday’s interview, I knew just what to say.

Since I probably won’t get a second chance on radio or TV for months, please allow me to rehearse here.

The book is Too Dead To Die: A Memoir of Bataan and Beyond. I am the co-author with Steve Raymond, who actually survived the Bataan Death March and 3½ years as a POW of the Japanese.

The theme of the book is survival. Steve endured horrific hardships. He ate bugs, rats, silkworms and rotten fish guts in hopes of getting protein in his diet. He suffered cruelty, desperation, illness and indifference and witnessed death so often he became inured to it. He was in Japan when B-29s rained bombs on its major cities. And he lived to tell about it.

The Bataan story is an old one, but rising generations probably know little or nothing about it. Steve kept a diary during captivity and first drafted his memoir beginning in 1946, before time had smoothed over his memories of the experience. When I first laid eyes on the manuscript, its authenticity and immediacy jumped off the page. I knew I had been entrusted with a historical account that should be not only preserved but also published.

World War II soldiers are dying off rapidly, many without having shared their stories. This is one that will soon be told, and I am grateful for the chance to help make it happen.

Posted by Mike Pride at 06:03 PM | Comments (2)

May 24, 2006

My year as a blogger

I recently celebrated my first anniversary as a blogger by not posting an entry. Lazy me.

But this is my 149th entry since my first posting last May. I expected to do more, but life got in the way.

Here are five thoughts from a year of blogging.

1. It isn’t easy.

By nature a blog is quick writing. Readers don’t expect fine-tuning and polish. But as a journalist and writer, I cannot lower my standards too much. For one thing, my favorite high school English teacher reads my blog. To borrow a phrase from Robert Graves, she’s the reader over my shoulder.

The secret of writing well is to make it seem effortless. And that takes a lot of effort.

2. Reader response is gratifying.

I knew this from writing for the paper. But after a blog entry, it’s fun to hear from people I know and people I don’t, people from around Concord and people from any of the many and ever-shifting communities that frequent the internet.

Although fewer people write than I’d like, I’ve posted more than 200 responses during the year, so in sheer numbers readers were more productive than I was.

3. Readers like the personal stuff best.

I don’t have the emperical data to support this assertion. In fact, personal entries in the blog sometimes draw negative comments (“Save it for your diary!”) if they draw any at all. But when I hear about the blog from readers close to home, it is almost always after entries about a swim with loons, leaf-raking or my granddaughter Grace's first day of preschool.

4. Blogging is a good way to explain newsroom decision-making.

I’ve made entries here about suicide coverage, photo selection, front-page story choices and many other issues of news judgment. I like the two-way immediacy the blog provides: the ability to recount a decision almost as soon as it is made and the chance this gives readers to share their thoughts.

I wish there were more back-and-forth, but I thank the readers who have weighed in.

5. I’m still not sure what a blogger is.

I don’t read enough blogs to be an expert. Based on a year’s experience, I’d say my blog is a hybrid: an inside look at the Monitor, a little politics, some personal stuff, reflections on the news (and sports), mini-book and movie reviews.

In terms of writing the blog, several oughtas occur to me often. I oughta report more. Shoe leather is never to be underestimated. I oughta link to more other things on the web. I’m not sure any reader has ever clicked on any of the links I’ve provided, but linking seems like an important aspect of blogger world.

And, most of all, I oughta write more often.

Or maybe not, you’re thinking.

Posted by Mike Pride at 09:25 AM | Comments (2)

May 19, 2006

What makes news?

Visitors to the Monitor are often curious about how we decide what is news. Everyone knows a flood is news, but what about when there are no floods? What about when editors and reporters have some discretion over what makes it into the paper?

Between raindrops this week, editors had two meetings that might shed light on this question from very different perspectives. One dealt with our coverage of arts, entertainment and lifestyles, the other with mental health care in our city and around the state.

With leadership and good work from editors Allison Steele and Vanessa Valdes, we’ve been talking about arts and lifestyles coverage for months. It is an important phase of our content-driven redesign. Like other phases, this one began with a questionnaire asking readers what they wanted. We learned a lot about where local people go and what they do for entertainment. Readers also told us what they enjoy reading.

Next Thursday and Friday, we’ll debut the new sections, which are titled A&E and Friday. Mark Travis, a longtime Monitor editor, will have a column in Sunday’s paper giving some details about what readers can expect.

This week’s meeting was a brainstorming session. We kicked around ideas about the content of the first few weeks’ sections. While it’s important that the sections be informative, we hope readers will have as much fun reading and looking at them as we did planning them.

A somewhat different group of editors and reporters met the day before to talk about mental health coverage. This was a logical follow-up to a session several days earlier with three officials in the field, including Louis Josephson, who runs the Riverbend Community Mental Health Center in Concord.

What we learned during that session startled us – or it startled me anyway. Years ago, to its great credit, New Hampshire went from a state that was warehousing mentally ill people to a state that was a leader in community-based treatment. We are a leader no longer.

Too many mentally ill people cannot get the care they need when they need it. Too many are on long waiting lists for housing that is too scarce. Too many are homeless. Too many very young people who may be mentally ill are waiting too long to be diagnosed and treated.

Our meeting at the Monitor this week was another brainstorming session to answer this question: How can we best inform readers about this major public issue? We wound up with a good list of story ideas and a resolve to fit them in over the next several months.

I wish we could focus even more attention on this issue and move more quickly to inform readers about it. But in this business, there is always more to do than we can get done. That is both a joy and a frustration.

Posted by Mike Pride at 06:24 PM | Comments (1)

May 17, 2006

Flutie to Phelan

It is a play every New England football fan has seen so many times it is hard to know whether we really remember it. Doug Flutie to Gerard Phelan, Nov. 22, 1984.

Flutie retired the other day after a 21-year run as a pro. He is one of the class acts in sports. A Heisman Trophy winner, a 40,000-yard passer and three-time Grey Cup champion in Canada, a Patriot three times, a scrambler, a runner, a thrower, the last – or latest, at least – of the drop-kickers, a little man in a big man’s world.

Off the field, he started the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism. He was as well-spoken, wholesome, candid and interesting as an athlete can be. For New Englanders, it was hard not to root for Flutie, even when he came to town wearing the wrong colors.

For all that, it is the Miracle in Miami that fans will never forget.

He and his roommate Phelan had come to the Boston College team as a quarterback and a running back at the bottom of the depth chart. As Phelan told the Daily News at Brandeis University last year, after a linebacker knocked the wind out of him, an assistant coach asked if he wanted to switch to receiver. When the coach told him he would be fifth-string, Phelan figured it was a promotion.

Flutie and Phelan were fanatics about practice and conditioning, and by their senior year, their work ethic and talent had made them stars.

The game against Miami, the defending national champion, was a doozie. When it reached that fateful final play, Flutie had already completed 33 passes for 428 yards and Phelan had caught 10 for 178. Six seconds remained and BC trailed 45-41. Flutie lined up the Eagles at the Miami 48.

Here is how Gerald Eskenazi of the New York Times described what happened next:

“In the huddle, Flutie called the ‘Flood Tip’ play. In theory, there would be two other wide receivers besides Phelan in the end zone. Phelan’s job was to tip the ball to them. Flutie scrambled back, all the way to his 37, and then, under pressure, went to his right. . . .

“Phelan, one of several receivers lined up right of center, was 1 yard past the goal line when the ball arrived. In front of him, three defenders tumbled over one another, attempting to get to the ball. But the other receivers were not nearby. So Phelan caught the ball himself.”

In memory, it is impossible that little Doug Flutie heaved the ball so far. It is impossible how long the ball hung in the misty air. It is impossible that Phelan had broken free just past the goal line or that the ball Flutie threw was the same one that descended into Phelan’s hands. And it is impossible that Phelan’s soft hands received the ball and held it, almost seeming to do so without touching it.

Flutie will be missed, but we fans will always have Miami.

Postscript

Two entries ago, I wrote about the most popular content on Concord Monitor Online and how knowing what online readers like influences our news judgment in the daily print edition.

I used the May 10 numbers as an example. On that day, the story on our American Idol panel was at the top of the list with 2,833 readers. The second-place story had 2,295.

We’ve been watching reader use of the Monitor website closely during the floods.

On Monday, the four most popular online stories were flood-related, topped by the governor’s declaring a state of emergency, with 6,170 readers.

Yesterday, the 16 most popular stories were flood-related. Thousands of people used our interactive map of flood events. The No. 1 destination that day was “Our pictures, your pictures.” This is the collection of flood-related photographs shot by both our photographers and our readers. It provided a quick way to tool around the area and see the damage. On that day alone, 4,677 users of Concord Monitor Online did just that.

Thank you to the many visitors to the website. Y’all come back.

And thanks again to all the readers who sent us pictures. We’ll be asking for your help in the future. It’s good to know there are so many of you out there.

Posted by Mike Pride at 05:04 PM | Comments (0)

May 15, 2006

Flooded

Thank you, Sherrel Sandoe. Thank you, Dick Hanson. You, too, Dale Roy. And Mallory Parkington, Lenny O’Keefe and Ry Amidon. Thanks to all who, like these people, contributed flood photographs to our website yesterday. And, please, keep them coming.

Today was an extraordinary day in the life of the Monitor. But then it was also extraordinary for many of our readers. Flooding forced people to evacuate their homes. Impassable roads closed many schools. The police, fire and rescue radio crackled all day long, sending public servants to deal with all manner of troubles. At St. Paul’s School, rising waters threatened historic buildings and caused what may be millions of dollars worth of damage. Students there were sent home two weeks early.

The newsroom was alive with the challenge of covering this huge story. Our photographers – Photo Editor Dan Habib, veteran staffer Ken Williams, freelancer Alan McRae and intern Brian Lehmann, who just flew in from Nebraska over the weekend and was working his first day – fanned out throughout the area. Artist Charlotte Thibault set to work on graphics to help tell the story.

Reporter Meg Heckman rode a school bus with evacuees. Annmarie Timmins toured Concord and covered the flooding at St. Paul’s School. A regional team – Walter Alarkon, Laurie Dorgan, Anne Ruderman. Joelle Farrell and Liz Walters – checked out the towns around Concord. Chelsea Conaboy, who covers the environment, reported on why the drenching rains of the last few weeks had caused such a calamity.

Editors became reporters. Allison Steele went to Hooksett, Manchester and other hard-hit areas south of our circulation area. Managing Editor Felice Belman gathered material to assemble what we call the roundup for tomorrow’s front page – our effort to put the big picture in a single story. Ralph Jimenez hit the road to collect color for tomorrow’s editorial.

Our director of product development, Mark Travis, directed the development of the online edition on the fly. All day long he and Don Hollen posted live updates on the flooding. Along with reporters in the field, staff writer Margot Sanger-Katz fed them material. Travis also used a new feature to collect photos from readers – and they responded. You can link to their contributions from our home page.

You can also link to an interactive map, which was primarily the work of Geordie Wilson, our publisher. If you click on a highlighted spot on the map, you can find out what happened there and, in some cases, link to photographs. Here, for example, is the link attached to the pointer to St. Paul’s School: “St. Paul’s School is sending students home. The rector reports significant damage to the Kittredge complex, Ohrstrom Library, Clark House, the Post Office and Hargate. The central heating plant is underwater and has been shut down. The sewage pumping station is also underwater and not functioning. See photos.”

Our night desk arrived in mid to late afternoon to figure out how to play the material our staff had gathered in tomorrow’s paper. The challenge is bigger than on most days because the story is so huge. The night editors’ job will be to decide photo play, help the reporters shape their stories and put it all together in a cogent package that encapsulates the day.

As I write, Dan Barrick is working on the front page and the local pages inside the A-section, and Nick Kershbaumer is doing the B section, with the cover page devoted to flooding coverage. The night wire editor, Jeannette Beltran, was evacuated from her apartment in Newmarket, and Belman told her to take the night off. (Beltran did feed Belman material from east of here that will be in the roundup tomorrow.) Bill Platt, pinch-hitting for Beltran, is assembling, editing and laying out the world and national coverage inside the A-section. Habib will be back after dinner to help lay out the photos.

We see our website as a great new tool for carrying out our mission of giving readers timely and reliable information that affects their lives. Stories like today’s are a crash course in learning to use Concord Monitor Online. What we can do with it, Travis told me late today, seems limited only by our imagination and by how much time we devote to it.

We’re still a small newspaper, and covering a story like this flooding is a huge challenge. We’re doing our best to use the new technology to augment the old, but the ethic that guides us remains the same: We come to work each day knowing that readers will judge us by tomorrow’s paper.

Posted by Mike Pride at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)

May 12, 2006

Voting with your fingertips

Most days, I get a report of which Monitor stories are most read on this website. You can see a less detailed version of this report on our homepage under the label “Most read stories.” The only difference in my report is that it lists the number of readers for each story. For instance, the report for Thursday began like this:

Our ‘Idol’ panel checks in (05/10/06) 2833

Who’s afraid of Stephen Colbert? (05/09/06) 2295

Ready for a mega-store in Hooksett? (05/10/06) 1326

Man sentenced in drunken driving death (05/10/06) 1234

Fire chief put on leave (05/10/06) 1154

Gas – and a niche (05/10/06) 1115

. . . and so on. My list had 20 more entries, including six obituaries and two letters to the editor. The one common denominator was that every story was local. While Concord Monitor Online is a different medium, its core mission shares one all-important value with the mission that the print newspaper has always had: Local is the franchise.

As editor, what do I learn from seeing what is most read on the website each day?

First, and you wouldn’t know this from seeing one day’s list, our online readership is going up, up, up. We like that, especially since newspaper circulation is also rising. We’re in the information business, not just the newspaper business. The more readers, the better. We’re trying to add web-only content that pushes this trend along.

Second, readers flock to stories about fires, accidents and crimes. In this, they are no different from traditional newspaper readers.

Third, shopping and other consumer-related stories are extremely well read.

Fourth, people like to know what their neighbors think about things that matter to them. That’s why the Monitor’s American Idol panel is at the top of the list. It’s why the letters that make the list tend to be the sharpest opinions on the hottest topics.

Fifth, the readership numbers are prone to the quirkiness of the web. That’s why Katy Burns’s column last Sunday on Stephen Colbert remained second most read on the website four days after it ran. Colbert’s performance at a Washington correspondents’ dinner made the talk-show circuit, and Burns’s commentary about it struck a nerve. Someone out there in cyberspace found it and shared it widely. I don’t have the data to prove it, but I’m certain most of the many thousands of web readers of the column were from out-of-state.

I read other things into the story rankings, but those are the main ones. Overall, I see the list as a good, if imperfect, guide to what readers want. And what readers want is an important component in deciding what we give them in the daily paper.

I’m aware of the danger of pandering to readers. Local television news does this to a fare-thee-well with its drumbeat of violent deaths, arrests and accidents interrupted briefly for self-promotion and feel-good features. This coverage gives viewers a sense of local life that is very different from what most of us experience every day. It also contributes precious little to the informed citizenry upon which democratic government depends.

There is no danger that the Monitor will take a similar ratings-driven approach to the newspaper. In our content, we’ll remain heavily invested in public affairs, from politics and government to education to health care to business. We’ll continue to provide a forum that allows a wide avenue for public discussion of issues that matter.

On the other hand, we can’t ignore the online readership numbers. As I suggested above, web readers are no different in their druthers from traditional newspaper readers. They are voting with their fingertips, and we’d be foolish to dismiss what they’re telling us about our content.

Posted by Mike Pride at 07:31 PM | Comments (0)

May 11, 2006

A dark and stormy night

Abe Rosenthal’s obituary in today’s New York Times included the adjectives “stormy,” “combative,” “self-centered,” “intimidating” and “abrasive.” This was no surprise to me. I first encountered – I won’t say met – Rosenthal in 1985, when he addressed my class of Nieman Fellows. He was the executive editor of the Times, and I was on sabbatical as editor of the Monitor, finishing an academic year of soaking up all I could at Harvard.

Rosenthal came to dinner one night, and we fellows, all journalists, expected a cordial but frank discussion with one of the lions of our profession. Instead, Rosenthal was cranky. He also probably drank a little too much wine at dinner, even while crabbing about its quality.

When we sat down afterward to talk, Rosenthal had no opening remarks. He just wanted to answer our questions and converse with us. Or so he said.

Joseph C. Goulden interviewed several of us about this session for his 1988 book, Fit to Print: A.M. Rosenthal and His Times. Rather than relate what happened that night from memory, I’ll just quote Goulden's passage about it:

“The nastiest exchange of the evening began when Ed Chen of the Los Angeles Times asked Rosenthal if he had read a recent New Republic article by Fred Barnes saying The New York Times had become neo-conservative. Rosenthal said he had not read it, then he ‘flew into a tirade about how no one had called him, and how dare anyone venture an opinion of the Times without calling him,’ Mike Pride recollected. Howard Simons [curator of the Nieman program and former managing editor of The Washington Post] sent for a copy of the article, and Rosenthal skimmed part of it. . . . This guy never talked to me, he repeated, and we would never do a thing like this in The New York Times without talking to the head guy. That kind of journalism would never appear in The New York Times.

“To the surprise of most persons in the room, Pride spoke up. The other fellows considered him the most mild-mannered member of their group, the unlikely person to challenge Rosenthal, especially given Rosenthal’s visibly mounting temper. But Pride had heard enough.

“ ‘It occurred to me that what he was saying was absurd. I said to him, ‘Hey, wait a minute, your newspaper runs play reviews, book reviews, without talking to the authors. You run political commentaries, opinion pieces, without talking to the principals. Although I haven’t read the Barnes piece, it seems to me The New Republic is a journal of opinion and commentary. . . .

“ ‘I don’t think I got all this out before he turned on me. His denunciation was loud and personal. “Maybe that’s the way you do it in your newspaper, but we never allow that kind of crap in The New York Times.”

“ ‘I tried to restate my question, but he shouted me down, so I just sat back, a little red-faced, and clammed up. . . . There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before Howard Simons jumped in to cool things down and change the subject.’

“The evening broke up, and several fellows commiserated with Pride. ‘I didn’t see much reason to take Rosenthal seriously. He had no basis for criticizing me or my paper.’ Simons called the next day. ‘He said Abe had asked him to apologize to me. Howard said Rosenthal knew he had gotten out of hand and wanted me to know he was sorry I had borne the brunt of it. I thanked Howard and told him not to lose any sleep over it.

“ ‘For me, the editor of a 21,000-circulation newspaper in the rock and ice of northern New England, this was a humorous outcome worth the moment of discomfort the night before. Here was the former managing editor of The Washington Post calling the editor of the Concord Monitor to apologize for the executive editor of The New York Times over an argument about an article neither of us had read.’ ”

In the ensuing years, I had other more positive encounters with Rosenthal, but of course this is the one I remember best. Reading his obituary today, I recognized that his testiness and imperiousness that night were typical of his authoritarian management style. Some might say that this style, combined with his ambition, brilliance, experience and principles, served him well in transforming the Times. I think he’d have been even better without it.

Posted by Mike Pride at 10:04 AM | Comments (2)

May 09, 2006

Lapdogs?

Here is a paragraph from a letter to the editor that will appear in tomorrow's Monitor responding to Katy Burns’s column in today’s paper. Burns’s subject was Stephen Colbert’s appearance at the recent White House Correspondents Association's dinner in Washington, D.C. Here is what the letter writer had to say:

“Colbert was equally justified in his criticism of the mainstream media, which enjoys full lapdog status. Never has it seemed less independent, less committed to the discovery and reporting of truth or less willing to be healthily skeptical of what it is told by those in power. In short, it accepts truthiness over actual truth. Its cravenness is confirmed by its tsunami of twaddle about whether Colbert was funny while it frantically flouts calls for self-examination.”

I had two reactions to this statement.

First and foremost, the writer is dead wrong about the lapdog press. During the last year, newspaper reporters have exposed the Jack Abramoff scandal, chased the corrupt Rep. Duke Cunningham out of office and found massive corruption in Ohio state government. Reporters have shown how badly FEMA works and how ill-served the flooded Gulf Coast was by government at all levels. They have risked their lives to get to the truth in Iraq, an increasingly difficult and dangerous assignment. They have covered the human costs of the war. More to the letter writer’s point, reporters have told the public about Bush administration policies that include a string of secret prisons and the secret wiretapping of American citizens.

Lapdogs? I don’t think so.

But . . .

It has long seemed to me that the White House press corps is much too big. I’m talking about the people who travel with the president and follow his every move. I understand why metropolitan newspapers all want to have their own reporters at the White House (ego, partly), but it is a great waste of talent.

I’ve known and respected a few White House correspondents. It’s a big job that people earn through succeeding in other beats. But when I see a huge roomful of reporters quizzing the president at a press conference, at least three-quarters of them are superfluous. Their readers would be better served if they were elsewhere digging up important information.

So, lapdogs, no; misused talent, yes.

Posted by Mike Pride at 05:39 PM | Comments (4)

May 08, 2006

Sight and sound

In June’s high light she stood at the sink
With a glass of wine,
And listened for the bobolink,
And crushed garlic in late sunshine.

I watched her cooking, from my chair.
She pressed her lips
Together, reaching for kitchenware,
And tasted sauce from her fingertips.

“It’s ready now. Come on,” she said.
“You light the candle.”
We ate, and talked, and went to bed,
And slept. It was a miracle.

This is “Summer Kitchen” from Donald Hall’s new book of selected poems, White Apples and the Taste of Stone.

On Friday, I drove Hall down to Cambridge. This was our annual pilgrimage to a session with the Nieman Fellows at Harvard. I am the chauffeur and introducer, and Don reads poems and talks with the Fellows about poetry. “Summer Kitchen” was one of the poems he read.

During the discussion, Bob Giles, curator of the Nieman program, mentioned how much like a painting the poem seemed. To him, it was a scene told through the poet’s eyes, much as an artist might observe and paint it. I thought this was a keen observation. The poem made me think of certain Dutch and Flemish artists of centuries past. I could see Vermeer looking into that kitchen in the light of late afternoon and painting a woman licking sauce from her fingers. Like Hall’s poem, Vermeer’s paintings often portray women who seem not to know they are being watched. The artist is not so much a voyeur as an observer stopping time to preserve a domestic act that a lesser eye might not even see.

Hall’s answer to Giles surprised me. No, Hall said without a pause, he remembered how this poem had begun and what had driven it, and it had nothing to do with the scene in the poem or even with the sense of sight. For Hall, it was all about sound. Without referring to the text, he rattled off “high, light, wine, sunshine.” He spoke of how he worked “candle” and “miracle” into the rhyme scheme. He mentioned that fellow poet Hayden Carruth had suggested that he add the word “her” to the last line of the second stanza, even though it introduced an extra beat. Originally the line had read: “And tasted sauce from fingertips.”

I have heard Hall talk about sound many times. He once scoffed at a well-known biographer who had written a life of Keats without discussing the sound of his poetry. Thomas Hardy is one of Hall’s favorite poets, and he often quotes from a Hardy poem to demonstrate the way a poet uses sound.

What I liked about the discussion of “Summer Kitchen” was the way Bob Giles’s perception of it and Hall’s perception of it both seemed right to me. That is one of the joys of poetry. You can go back to a lovely little lyric like this again and again and see it in different lights. As good as it is to know that Hall was obsessed with sound while creating it, the reader needn't stop there.

Postscript

If you’ve ever wondered how our local good gray poet plays outside of New Hampshire, a couple of clues showed up in print recently. The poet Billy Collins gave Hall's White Apples and the Taste of Stone a warm and thoughtful review in the Washington Post last month. And in The New Republic, Rochelle Gurstein’s joint review of memoirs about their late spouses by Hall and Joan Didion reminded readers that the real recent masterpiece on mourning was Hall’s book of poems on Jane Kenyon’s death, Without.

Posted by Mike Pride at 09:37 AM | Comments (0)

May 04, 2006

Naming names

For at least 20 years, I’ve been collecting funny names. Funny to me, that is. Not necessarily funny to those who have to live with them. Which is why, in spite of an itch to do so, I have not uttered a public peep about my list. Until now.

Here’s what changed. A friend forwarded me a blog about a New York lawyer named Sue Yoo. Funny, eh? At least as good as the Car Talk guys’ fictitious Dewey, Cheetham and Howe, and Sue Yoo is an actual lawyer.

The blog about Sue Yoo suggested that there is a whole class of names, called aptronyms, that inadvertently describe their bearers’ occupations.

After adding Sue Yoo to my list, I quickly spun through it in search of other aptronyms. I found a few. And I found some close calls. And I thought, heck, let the readers decide.

Ernest Shepherd, the onetime Concord minister, is surely an aptronym. At the time of Carol Cordial’s listing, she worked in support services in the governor’s office; assuming she was indeed cordial, her name might be an aptronym.

But what about the board of plumbing nominee Wayne A. Fishpaw or the beer industry lobbyist William Pitcher? Or nurses Cheryl Woundy and Nicy Ladd? Or Lt. Col. R. Geoffrey Pine-Coffin, who led a British parachute unit on D-Day?

I’m pretty certain Texas A&M economist Tom Saving is an aptronym, but I wonder about Hope Butterworth, the angel who has run the Concord soup kitchen for so many years.

On my list, there is a starting nine for a baseball team, chosen entirely for their names. I don’t think they’re aptronyms. Closer to onomatopoeia but not quite that either. For one thing, only two of them are or were real ballplayers. Can you guess which two? Here’s the lineup:

Buzz Chew
Spud Patch
Biff Poggi
Chop Pough
J.J. Putz
Roman Knuckles
Rinker Buck
Frank Bonk
Bart P. Snarf

And, warming up in the bullpen, Wacko Hurley.

(The manager is Brick P. Storts III.)

There is the travel writer Sandy Shore, which may be an aptronym, and the PR specialist Rebecca Wind. Because the names of copy editors Karl Muench and Gary Ruff doubtless do not reflect the quality of their work, they are probably not aptronyms.

Crystal Ball might be an aptronym if she read palms. Alas, she is – or was – a North Country restaurateur. Polly Ester, a lifeguard, could be one, too, but you’d have to see the suit.

Then there are John Minor Wisdom, the judge, Kelly Blizzard, the spokesperson for highways, and Woody Fogg, who tracked hurricanes for the state. And how about Caroline Welcome, the cemetery trustee? Not quite aptronyms, do you think?

There are situational rather than occupational near-aptronyms, too. I think of Maureen Nix, who protested a spending article at a school meeting, and Lance Lalumiere, who was arrested for arson.

That’s enough for now. Maybe more names another day, if the opportunity presents itself. I’ve become more selective over the years, but my list is nearly 200 names long. As I said, I collect them for fun and don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. On the other hand, there are plenty of categories – a list of mellifluous names like Florville Larmony and Miranda Fulleylove, for example. Or, shall we say, Victorian names like Cantwell F. Muckenfuss III, Cromwell Schubarth and Tewksbury (Tooky) Crapster. Or names with risqué connotations like . . .

Well, as I said, maybe another time.

Posted by Mike Pride at 01:46 PM | Comments (3)

May 02, 2006

Recommended reading

John Carroll, former editor of the Los Angeles Times, spoke last week to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Seattle. Carroll is now with the Shorenstein Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

As Carroll says in the speech, he’s been pondering the state of American journalism. The speech contains some inside baseball aimed at Carroll’s fellow editors, but he also discusses issues that we editors worry deeply about. They are issues that good citizens should also worry deeply about, including the erosion of daily journalism as a vital check on government.

Here’s a link to Carroll’s piece.

In a somewhat related exchange, here are two more links: one to a Wall Street Journal editorial critical of what the Journal sees as "the unseemly symbiosis between el