Also on today’s menu:
Elderly Hit Hard By Affordable Housing Shortage
State Reviews Board Of Medicine Conduct
Free Speech Explanation, Illustrated
Four people died and 32 were injured on April 16 during a shooting spree at Alexis Dowdell’s 16th birthday party at a dance studio in Dadeville, Alabama. Among them was Alexis’ 18-year-old brother, Phil, who came to get her after hearing that someone at the party had a gun.
Police have yet to name a suspect or a motive, and both Alexis and her mother said they did not know what had led to the shooting. The gunman was still at large.
“All of a sudden you hear gunshots and you just see everybody running towards the door and people falling and screaming,” Alexis told the BBC. Phil pushed her to the ground, she said, before the two became separated in the chaos. She was able to get out and hid behind another building in case the attacker was still on the loose. When she eventually went back inside, she discovered that her brother had been shot.
Through Sunday, there have been 163 mass shootings this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The advocacy group says 225 people have died and 642 have been injured, not including the shooters.
Elderly Hit Hard By Affordable Housing Shortage
Twenty percent of Granite State residents are older than 65, but with median home prices reaching $445,000 last month, a shortage of apartments that can accommodate a disability, and few openings at assisted living facilities, the elderly are facing particular housing challenges.
In 2017, the state began allowing accessory dwelling units as standalone or attached second homes on a single lot, which allows a person to financially afford to live at home. An effort to expand that to two accessory dwelling units per lot died in the House this year, and many towns have been slow to adapt zoning laws to accommodate such dwellings.
Elissa Margolin, executive director of Housing Action NH, said residents need to recognize the importance of diversified housing. In many communities, zoning laws have been built around the idea of restricting growth and excluding low-income housing as being undesirable. Changing that mindset is difficult.
State Reviews Board Of Medicine Conduct
The New Hampshire Department of Justice conducted a review of how the New Hampshire Board of Medicine handled physician complaints between 1994 and 2019, concluding that the board should make public the civil lawsuits and non-disciplinary Letters of Concern arising from the complaints.
The DOJ review followed a series of articles by the Boston Glove in September 2022, concerning a now-retired cardiac surgeon, Dr. Yvon Baribeau, who practiced at Catholic Medical Center in Manchester between 1994 and 2019. The Globe reported that Baribeau “has one of the worst surgical malpractice records among all physicians in the United States,” having settled 21 malpractice claims “including 14 in which he is accused ofcontributing to a patient's death.”
The Department of Justice said the review boards should provide greater transparency, conduct more efficient investigations and dispositions of complaints, and provide more robust and effective data collection tools for investigators.
Free Speech Explanation, Illustrated
Because the free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution can be used to incite violence against others, case law has carved out exceptions to hold those making such statements accountable for their actions. Increasingly, however, Americans are calling for censorship to keep people from voicing opinions that they do not want to hear. That is a threat to everyone’s free speech rights, and creates the danger of pushing certain ideas underground where they can fester unchecked. Instead, if someone’s speech crosses the line, our free speech rights give us the opportunity to point out the harm and allow people to consider the effect of their words.
Free speech is self-healing, helping attitudes to evolve, so commonplace prejudices in the past are now considered inappropriate. Yes, some views are deeply held and difficult to change, but by having the freedom to express them, the conversation becomes public and those with opposing views can make their case and gradually move toward a public consensus.
The Free Press has published an excerpt from a chapter in Tim Urban’s What’s Our Problem? A Self-Help Book for Societies in which he discusses free speech using a fictional land called Hypothetica to show how easily people can be forced into saying— and eventually thinking — the same things, and how free discourse can overcome such censorship.
Café Chatter
On Rock, Paper: Good morning Tom, I always enjoy reading your comments in the News Café. I still need my Union Leader, Laconia paper & the Newfound Landing. A newspaper was always part of my life growing up. My father would make sure that he had at least 3 different papers every day. The “Record American” was one that my sister & I loved as we were growing up.
— Barbara Greenwood
I read newspapers every day. I read your articles with interest. It has concerned me for sometime that many people get their “news” from places like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. There is so much disinformation out there.
— Candace Skurnik
Tom, what a beautiful piece. I too am a holdover from print journalism, and what I miss most about it is 1., reaching into other people's lives and 2, making sense of the world for my readers.
— Kathleen D. Bailey
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