Granite Slate

NH Guard Honors Fallen with Photo

                     "Saying goodbye to Sgt. David Stelmat"

   New Hampshire National Guard Magazine features a dramatic cover photo in its summer edition to honor Sgt. David Stelmat, the Littleton man who was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq on March 22. The cover, shown here, shows soldiers carrying Stelmat's casket at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport. Ken Williams of the Concord Monitor took the photo.
   It's a move seemingly at odds with a Pentagon policy against the publishing of photos of U.S. military personnel slain in Iraq (related LA Times story June 23, 2008 here and Washington Post story here). But this magazine cover stands out and rises above. It is a fine tribute to a soldier and medic who simply wanted to help others.

   Media covered the solemn event, keeping with the wishes of his family.

  Maj. Greg Heilshorn, the state National Guard's public affairs officer, wrote an article to explain the use of the photo, including the decision to use it as a vertical image. He also conducted a Q&A with Williams and with one of the men carrying the casket. Heilshorn wrote in the magazine:

   "Williams’ image of the honor guard carrying Stelmat’s casket on a cold, snowy morning, and a NHNG color guard standing at attention in the background is searing. He captured a sacred moment in our history and we are grateful for his permission to reprint the photo. We wanted to leverage as much of the cover space as we could, even if it meant that you would have to turn the magazine due east to view it. Stelmat is the N.H. Guard’s third combat loss in Operation Iraqi Freedom. We think this is a dignified way to honor his service and grieve his loss."

    You can read the magazine in full at the NH National Guard Web site.

   This great photograph, like the magazine itself, is a service to New Hampshire's citizen soldiers and airmen and to their many important missions. It's yet another reason New Hampshire National Guard Magazine is one of the state's great publications.

Film Office takes flight

   The search for the next On Golden Pond continues. The New Hampshire Film and Television Office is working with Southwest Airlines to promote the Granite State as a great place for lights, cameras, action. FTO Director Matthew Newton says in yesterday's announcement,

“There are so many advantages to shooting in New Hampshire: there’s no sales tax, no income tax, no general film permits to fill out and the costs for food, lodging and other expenses tend to be lower than they are elsewhere. Then there’s the natural beauty of our mountains, lakes, forests and beaches, our classic New England villages and urban settings, and a myriad of other locations all ready to be used as sets. Constructing any of those would be an outrageous cost for a producer; here, they’re ready to go.”

   See the state's press release here.

The Satirical Barack Obama

  Both the campaigns of Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain are calling The New Yorker's cover illustration a tasteless and offensive piece of work.

   Hello, it is a work of satire, The New Yorker responds.

   The cover represents key attacks from Obama's right-wing critics, from the fist bump with his wife to the burning flag. And there's the name game, with a portrait of Osama Bin Laden over the hearth. Satire or cheap shot? We've got to remember, these people are trying to sell magazines.

   Controversy sells.

   What do you think?

Gone to the dogs

   Ah, summertime, when journalists pull out those hard-hitting political stories, like which presidential hopeful has won over dog owners. We've already read what these people like on their dinner plates, what they like in their DVD players, and whether or not they like long walks on the beach. Now The Associated Press reports here that pet owners favor Republican John McCain over Democrat Barack Obama, 42 percent to 37 percent.

   Dog owners especially like McCain, the AP-Yahoo poll found.

Gone Boating

 

Cheney's Summer of Discontent?

   Seymour M. Hersh, writing in the latest edition of The New Yorker, reports from his array of sources that Vice President Dick Cheney was seeking a reason to rally public support for a harder military line on Iran. The story captures a bit of the ultra-covert operations ongoing in the Middle East. One excerpt:

"The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington," he said.

   It's a wild story on how close military strikes could be. And today we learn that Iran has test fired missiles. Cheney is in other news today. The Times reports his office removed language about potential health risks from a report on global warming. The Hersh story, "Preparing the Battlefield," is here .

Firefighters to endorse Shaheen

   Fast break: The union representing New Hampshire professional firefighters is endorsing Jeanne Shaheen in the U.S. Senate race against Republican incumbent John E. Sununu. In a bit of stagecraft, we have learned the endorsement will come tomorrow at the firefighters' hall in Manchester, the site of telephone jamming and related chicanery in the 2002 election. Shaheen never played the jamming card as a reason for the loss, but her friends sure did. Congressman Paul Hodes, the Democrat representing the 2nd District and a Shaheen family friend, is trying to fan the embers of the aging case on The Hill. The location of this endorsement ensures the Hodes/Shaheen jamming inquiry, regardless of whether or not anything comes of it, will be trumpeted by Democrats until November. It could sound like "Taps," but not if Senator Sununu has anything to say about it. Sununu, after all, was called a "giant killer" for his campaign savvy and success six years ago. He knocked off incumbent Bob Smith before defeating Shaheen, a former three-term governor.

   UPDATE: The official word from the Professional Firefighters of New Hampshire came out mid-afternoon. This campaign event is on for 1 p.m. tomorrow at the offices of the Manchester Local, 85 Sheffield Road.

Others were too graphic to print

   The Beverly Horribles July 4th parade, which mocks current events with biting satire, poked fun of the baby mamas at Gloucester High School. There are 17 pregnant teens in Gloucester. They may or may not have made a pact to get pregnant. Some blame the movie Juno. Others point to Jamie Lynn Spears, a new mom at 17. It was all too much for parade participants to ignore. One float starred girls dressed in maternity dresses, dancing with pillows under their clothing. (And it's re-ignited a class war between gritty Gloucester and tony Beverly, home to former Mass. Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, by the way.) The floats had statements, such as "GHS girls went to band camps [and] came back pregnant tramps." Some of the signs, The Boston Globe said, "were too graphic to print." They weren't really. One read, "We didn't use a rubber, now we're stuck cooking supper." Another read, "Jamie Lynn led us to sin." When in doubt, blame a Spears. Here's the clip below.

Bad Air Daze

   New Hampshire, the pollution tailpipe of the country, has issued an alert for 48 hours worth of harmful air. Officially, Tuesday and Wednesday are known as Air Quality Action Days. It means you don't want to take any physical action, lest you cough up a lung as you inhale high concentrations of fine particle pollution. Don't go for that noon run. Don't exert yourself in any fashion. Don't pass go. Where are the presidential politicians when these summer Red Alert days arrive? The air pollution will be greatest in Cheshire, Hillsborough, Merrimack and Rockingham counties -- as well as anywhere over 3,000 feet. It's a combo of air pollution from the Midwest -- and New England -- smogging over the region with these hot temperatures. You can read the NH Department of Environmental Services press release here in full, but symptoms of ozone exposure include coughing, wheezing and pain when inhaling deeply. By Thursday, scientists say we can breathe a little easier.

Unite for Dot Com

   The social networking bug has fully infected the presidential campaigns. Read today's NYT story here. See excerpt here:

Mr. Obama, now the presumptive Democratic nominee, credits the Internet’s social networking tools with a “big part” of his primary season success.

“One of my fundamental beliefs from my days as a community organizer is that real change comes from the bottom up,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “And there’s no more powerful tool for grass-roots organizing than the Internet.”

Talk of a Rock the Vote never sounded so quaint.

Happy Fourth of July Weekend

Old Glory, Old Story

   A holiday built for patriotism is home-made for our political friends. Gov. John Lynch throws himself into the Fourth of July as other executives have done since Exeter was the colonial capital. He visits Manchester on Thursday for an Independence Day celebration. On Friday, Lynch hits three parades: Raymond at 8:30 a.m., Amherst at 10 a.m., and Merrimack at 1 p.m. He then zips over to Portsmouth for a Fourth of July fete at Strawbery Banke Museum.

   The holiday weekend has other political events on tap, including a Saturday fund-raiser for Executive Councilor Ray Burton and a Saturday picnic for the Coalition of NH Taxpayers.

Better Duck in those Duck Boats

   Vice President Dick Cheney will celebrate the Fourth of July in the cradle of liberty. Cheney will attend a reenlistment ceremony on the USS Constitution, aka Old Ironsides, the Globe reports. He may stick around Boston for other Independence Day activities.

   Who knows: Fireworks, Symphony, Freedom Trail ... Duck Boats for the duckhunter?

Labarre Jurors: Phew, it's over.

   Sheila Labarre's world effectively ended with her scream, "I didn't harm my animals! I didn't kill any animals!"

   One of the jurors recently told me an anecdote about that emotional outburst. It seems one juror's spouse visited the courtroom for that wild scene. In a trial with many ups and downs and bouts of boredom, it was his only chance to see his wife on the jury and witness the trial in action. Talk about picking your spots. Imagine their discussion later that night: Honey, is every day like this? It was a crazy moment in a trial which found Labarre not insane. Such is justice.

In Memory of Murchie

   When Dave Murchie wasn't the life of the party, he was the party. Murchie worked for some 40 years as a Budweiser salesman. When he wasn't working he was a civic-minded family man, a joker, and a Hibernian whose eyes would grow misty every St. Patrick's Day as he'd belt out "Danny Boy." Murchie, of Newport, NH, died Saturday. He was 73. Click here for his obit. He was kind of an uncle to me, being such a good friend to my parents. It was one of the great gifts in my life when, upon surviving my teens, I realized Dave was such a good friend to me. Funerals often come with a lot of hyperbole, cliche and the like. But on the eve of this guy's interment, allow me to tell it like it is:

   We lost one of the good ones this week.