Lighter fare on today’s menu:
Medieval Life After COVID
Take The Money And Run
Advocates for medical freedom — the right to make personal and family health choices without government interference — packed Wednesday’s Executive Council meeting, creating a chaotic atmosphere that resulted in the cancellation of the meeting, with New Hampshire State Police escorting threatened state employees out to their cars.
The protest at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College concerned two contracts totaling $27 million in federal funds that would assist the state in its efforts to increase COVID-19 vaccination rates.
“We are tired of the federal government that won’t give us any options … It will take away our ‘live free or die’ and make us do things that are unsafe,” shouted Terese Grinnell, who continued, “We will be taking an injection that has proven to have adverse reactions up to and leading to death.”
Gov. Chris Sununu issued a news release after the meeting, saying, “I will not put members of the Executive Council or State Agencies in harms way.
Andrew Manuse, chairman of Rebuild NH, the group that organized the protest, said it was supposed to take place outside the Executive Council meeting. “Unfortunately, a handful of individuals not connected to our organization led some of the protesters inside the meeting room and disrupted councilors as they attempted to attend to the people’s business. Despite efforts to direct public discourse by way of letters, emails, and peaceful demonstrations outside the building, these agitators were able to feed off people’s raw emotion and misdirect them.”
House Speaker Sherman Packard, R-Londonderry, said, “Our Constitution guarantees the right to free speech, but disruption of government meetings, and threats to government officials, is absolutely unacceptable. The events we witnessed today were disgraceful and contrary to civil public discourse. Governor Sununu and the Executive Council members did the right thing by putting people’s safety first.”
Senate President Chuck Morse, R-Salem, agreed, saying, “I fully support Governor Sununu’s decision to postpone today’s Executive Council meeting due to the threatening behavior by protestors that was directed towards the governor, councilors, and state employees. This behavior is totally unacceptable because it tears at the very fabric of New Hampshire’s long tradition of respectful civil discourse. Government must be allowed to carry out the people’s business free from intimidation and disruption.”
Suspicions about vaccines have been with us since they were introduced, but the government’s support of vaccination has also been consistent. David Leonhardt, who writes the New York Times’ “The Morning” newsletter, noted that, in 1777, “smallpox was a big enough problem for the bedraggled American army that George Washington thought it could jeopardize the Revolution. An outbreak had already led to one American defeat, at the Battle of Quebec. To prevent more, Washington ordered immunizations — done quietly, so the British would not hear how many Americans were sick — for all troops who had not yet had the virus.”
Opposition to the smallpox vaccine led a Cambridge, Mass., pastor to take his case against the vaccine all the way to the Supreme Court in 1905, before losing. Justice John Marshall Harlan said that the Constitution did not allow Americans always to behave however they chose. “Real liberty for all could not exist,” Harlan wrote in his majority opinion, if people could act “regardless of the injury that may be done to others.”
Medieval Life After COVID
The organizers of King Richard’s Faire in Carver, Massachusetts, believe that people are eager to escape reality by experiencing magic, jousting, kings, wizards, fire-eaters, minstrels, jugglers, and talented dogs.
King Richard’s Faire is New England’s largest and longest-running Renaissance festival and it is marking its 40th anniversary season, running for eight weekends between Labor Day and Columbus Day.
Activities take place on the festival’s 80-acre wooded site in Carver. Having shut down last year due to the pandemic, organizers are asking that people either be vaccinated against COVID-19 or that they wear masks. There is online ticket-buying; on-site ticket booths will accept only cash.
Take The Money And Run
A Danish artist who received $84,000 for a work of art delivered two blank canvases to the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg, Denmark, saying they were titled “Take the Money and Run.”
The museum had paid Haaning to recreate two of his previous works: 2010’s “An Average Danish Annual Income” and “An Average Austrian Annual Income.” Both used actual cash to show the average incomes of the two countries. Haaning received bank notes to use in the work, along with his $84,000 compensation, according to museum director Lasse Andersson He told CBS News that the contract also stated that the museum would give Haaning an additional 6,000 euros to update the work, if needed.
At the time the original works were exhibited, the Danish piece highlighted the average income of 328,000 kroner, approximately $37,800, while the average Austrian salary illustrated was around €25,000, or $29,000.
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