HINSDALE, N.H.-Third Act has it wrong. If you drive, ride, or take a bus to a protest, you benefited from fossil fuels. To protest a bank investment in fossil fuels makes a person not only uninformed but also a hypocrite.
Everything from the clothes on your back to literally everything you consume was brought by fossil fuels (trucks). Your smartphone? That has plastics (based in petroleum), and if you have stayed or know someone in a hospital, petroleum-based plastics are necessary and save lives. If you wear clothing, fossil fuels made it possible. If you live in a house or apartment, fossil fuels built it.
Even beloved electric cars require mining, done by fossil-fuel-powered machines.
Fossil fuels are here to stay.
HINSDALE, N.H.-Woody Bernhard correctly points out that during Covid lockdowns, skies cleared, waters cleared, and it was like a miracle. All we need to do is receive everything for free, and we can all stay home forever! We need food to magically appear on shelves or in our pantries.
HINSDALE, N.H.-The LGBTQ organization Out in the Open expresses support for legalizing sex work (prostitution) and safe spaces for people to access/use drugs. Would they support safe spaces for people to use alcohol and become intoxicated? How about a place for people to access and smoke cigarettes (or vape)?
HINSDALE, N.H.-On the front page of the May 8 edition of The Commons are two articles. One is about Winston Prouty seeking to build 300 housing units, but finding it difficult to secure financing. The other is about how wealthy Vermonters like Ben Cohen, Jerry Greenfield, and others favored a tax increase on the wealthiest Vermonters to (allegedly) raise funds for housing. Here's a thought: Instead of turning that money over to the government, why don't wealthy Vermonters concerned about...
I had to respond to Robin Rieske's piece. First, cigarette companies targeted everyone regardless of race or any other factor. (Remember the rugged white Marlboro Man?) Most companies want everyone to buy their product. Second, a lung is a lung, and cigarettes affect every smoker exactly the same way! I would rather see people smoking cigarettes than using illicit drugs. If you bring beer, even "light" beer, to an already intoxicated person to "keep them and others safe," you are...
Protesters need to think harder. When you block roads or bridges, when you prevent people from going about their business, who are you winning over to your cause? Not the worker who can't be tardy to work one more time or they'll be fired. Not the person trying to rush their ailing pet to the veterinarian. Not the parent rushing out to buy baby formula. People trying to go about their business aren't suddenly going to be won over to...
Smoking was once common in the public square - in restaurants, on airlines, in parks, everywhere. Then the health risks (not just to the smoker but to others around the smoker) were made public. After that, smoking was banned everywhere, because it is a public health hazard. The author is onto something here - albeit misapplying the concept to cars. Why not take the approach to banning smoking and apply that to public drug use? Put up signs and outright...
Nancy Braus seeks to blame Ronald Reagan for the current housing situation, from unaffordability to lack of options. Haven't we had some Democratic party presidents since Reagan? Haven't Democrats had control of the House and Senate at times since Reagan was president? Don't Democrats run any states, or cities, where, presumably, they have "fixed" the housing problem? In Vermont, the Democratic Party has complete control of the Legislature, yet Vermont has the second-highest homeless population per capita, second only to...