Also on today’s menu:
Dog Tale: First Ice Rescue Of The Year
Danbury Woman To Lead State Grange
Man Charged In Child’s Death Planned To Run
The Point To Be Made
Tim-James Everett, senior adviser for Paugus-Elm Development, has a grander vision for the “Opechee Loop” extension of the Winnipesaukee-Opechee-Winnisquam Trail that he says would “pull the four corners of Lakeport together and make that a focal point of the WOW Trail.” The proposal includes a covered gazebo, bike racks, benches, and a broad cobblestone walkway that is wide enough for two directions of travel, divided by a line of shade trees.
The Opechee Loop, proposed more than a year ago, would extend the WOW Trail along Elm Street, with possible loops through the former Laconia State School property and Ahern State Park. WOW Trail President Allan Beetle said his group has raised about $450,000 for the extension and would support Everett’s idea, but would need to seek grants and a buy-in from the city of Laconia to expand upon the original plans. “It’s more of a promenade, it’s spectacular,” he said. “It would be a beautiful addition to Lakeport, and to adjacent neighborhoods, getting in and out of Lakeport on a bike. We’re all for it; the only question is now how to fund that project. It’s beyond the funding that we were able to secure for that project.”
City Manager Kirk Beattie said, “The city’s position is that whatever we do for work in that area regarding the WOW Trail will be in cooperation with Mr. Everett’s plans, and his plans will be in cooperation with the city and WOW Trail. His work is on private land, and ours is on city-owned property. We do not want these projects to be built in a silo; rather, we want to work together to make sure that city/grant funds are being spent as intended and with the best final project possible.”
Dog Tail: First Ice Rescue Of The Year
Belmont Fire Chief Michael Newhall said his department received a report of a dog through the ice on January 24 around 6:30 p.m. Betsy Chapin, the owner of a six-year-old Australian shepherd-poodle mix named Finn, noticed that her other dog “was acting a little weird” and realized that Finn had escaped through an electric fence on the property. She found Finn about 40 feet from the shoreline on Lake Winnisquam and called for help.
Firefighters Nate Manville, Jim Hayes, and Lieutenant Chris Griffin responded to the call, and Griffin, clad in a cold-water suit, inched his way across the ice toward Finn, anchored to a fellow responder. The ice broke under him as he reached the dog, but he was able to pick up the dog and bring him to shore. “He was kinda hanging onto the shelf,” Griffin said. “He saw us coming, and he was just kinda waiting and hoping. He was a good boy, let us help him out of the water and get him to shore. I'm glad he’s uninjured.”
Griffin has done ice rescues involving humans before, but he said this was his first time rescuing a dog. “The police department gave him a nice heated blanket. He acted like nothing was happening, and I’m still upset.”
Danbury Woman To Lead State Grange
Tricia Taylor, master of Blazing Star Grange 71 in Danbury, has been elected master of the New Hampshire State Grange. To celebrate the appointment, the local grange will hold an open house on Sunday, February 5, from 2 to 4 p.m.
Taylor’s ancestors were charter members of both Blazing Star Grange and Mont Calm Grange in Enfield. She has served on many grange committees and now will lead the state organization as it celebrates its 150th year of serving rural communities, strengthening families, advancing education, and supporting agriculture.
Blazing Star Grange 71 formed in Danbury in December 1875 and is located at 15 North Road, near the intersection of routes 4 and 104.
Man Charged In Child’s Death Planned To Run
A tipster contacted police to say that Murtadah Mohammad, 25, was packing his belongings into his car in an apparent attempt to run after his seven-year-old son, Jaevion Riley, had been found unresponsive in his Eastern Avenue apartment in Manchester last week. The child died on January 24 at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Jaevion had burns over 15 to 20 percent of his body as well as missing teeth and marks from being beaten with a charging cable, according to the affidavit filed in Hillsborough Superior Court North in Manchester. The child also suffered a heart attack during the last incident of abuse, according to the affidavit.
Police issued an order to hold Mohammad if he was spotted, and he was arrested on January 19, two days after the child’s hospitalization, as detectives were typing an application for his arrest warrant, according to the affidavit.
The Point To Be Made
When the world and I were young,
Just yesterday.
Life was such a simple game,
A child could play.
It was easy then to tell right from wrong.
Easy then to tell weak from strong.
When a man should stand and fight,
Or just go along.But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light.
Today there is no black or white,
Only shades of gray.— “Shades of Gray” by Barry Mann and Cyntha Weil, performed by The Monkeys
Due to a morning appointment, the News Café had to close early yesterday, before I had completed the discussion about “Putin’s Perspective”. The point I was working toward was that we need to keep in mind how our actions are perceived by others, and how those perceptions can lead to atrocities such as the Russian president’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin is not the only world leader to interpret the United States’ emphasis on “regime change” under recent presidencies as aggression and interference in sovereign nations. The fact that we built up Saddam Hussein and then turned on him under false pretenses after 9/11 was a shock to the world; and after U.S. diplomats had promised that the West would not encroach on Eastern European countries, George W. Bush invited Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO, giving the appearance that the U.S. was extending its reach to the Russian border. Putin was right to be concerned.
What he did with those concerns is another story. It hardened him in his determine to restore Russia to its former glory, and the fact that the West offered such a weak response to the annexation of Georgia and Crimea emboldened him to seek control over all of Ukraine.
By vilifying Putin without taking into consideration how our own actions helped to solidify his views is to see things only in black-and-white, when it’s really shades of gray.
Support Our Efforts
Do you have a story to tell?
The News Café is a virtual meeting place where, each weekday, we discuss the news of the day: local, statewide, national, and international. Mondays are reserved for more personal observations which only paid subscribers will receive, while Tuesday through Friday will draw from news stories published by various sources.
The News Café relies on subscriptions, rather than on advertising and grants, for its support. That frees us to provide an independent focus on events and cultural issues without having to weigh whether it would upset advertisers or fit into grant guidelines. Our only obligation is to provide information we believe is useful to our readers.
Subscriptions to this newsletter are available for as little as $5 per month. Subscribers can share their knowledge, thoughts, and questions about any topic, and we may select some of those subjects for more in-depth analysis.
If you’re unable to pay but still want to receive all of the free public posts in your in-box, click the Subscribe button and select a free subscription.
Download the app to view or hear an audio version of the posts, and to join in a group chat.
Visit us at www.libertymedianh.org