Also on today’s menu:
Felch Resigns As Laconia Election Moderator
The Masked Stork
The Belknap County Delegation took Dr. David Strang at his word when he declared on July 31 that, “If the county delegation can form an emergency meeting to name additional [Gunstock Area] commissioners such that a quorum won’t be jeopardized and the commission can continue to function, then I will be happy to tender my resignation at that time.” Representative Harry Bean (R-Gilford), with the backing of nine other representatives, called an emergency meeting on August 1, at which the delegation named Denise Conroy as a fourth commissioner, ensuring a quorum of three members if Strang were to resign. The problem: Strang did not attend attend the meeting, so did not resign “at that time.” The delegation nevertheless voted to accept Strang’s resignation, based on his pledge to do so.
When Doug Lambert called a special meeting of the Gunstock Area Commission on August 15, based on his role as chair-pro-tem in the absence of a chair (Peter Ness had given up his position on July 29) or a vice-chair (Strang), the doctor’s attorney, Dan Hynes, filed for an emergency injunction to prohibit the meeting, naming Lambert as a defendant. Stating that Strang had not resigned, and therefore was chair-pro-tem rather than Lambert, the complaint said, “This request could not be submitted before this morning [August 15] as the August 15th meeting of the Gunstock Commission was publicly noticed late Friday August 12th after the courts had closed and was not discovered by plaintiff until Saturday August 13th …. Attorney Dan Hynes is filing the complaint via a limited appearance so that it may be promptly filed through the e-file system.”
Lambert, who received notice of the case at 12:03 a.m. on the 15th, personally filed a response that morning, stating that the notice of the meeting had been posted prior to 11 a.m. on the 12th. He also argued that Strang’s complaint was directed at the wrong person, since it was the Belknap County Delegation that had accepted Strang’s resignation. “There have been 12 days available for Plaintiff to act,” he wrote. “To do so at midnight at the end of a weekend following that period does not indicate an emergency.”
Laconia Daily Sun reporter Catherine McLaughlin, reporting on the case, writes that Judge Elizabeth Leonard denied Strang’s request “on an ex parte basis,” allowing the August 15 commission meeting to take place. A hearing on Strang’s complaint is scheduled for Sept. 2 at 8 a.m. in Belknap County Superior Court.
Felch Resigns As Laconia Election Moderator
Laconia’s Ward 6 moderator, Tony Felch, has resigned following Attorney-General John Formella’s conclusion that there were significant defects in the vote-counting process in recent Laconia elections. Formella has ordered the appointment of an election monitor for the September 13 primary.
Laconia’s Ward 5 moderator had discovered Ward 6 ballots from prior elections in the side compartment of a ballot collection box during the November 2, 2021, city election. A state inventory of ballots on April 6 determined that all 179 of the ballots found in the side compartment were from 2020 elections, with 120 from the primary and 59 from the general election, and that none of those votes had been counted. “The ballots in the side compartment were not counted because Laconia Ward 6 Moderator Felch did not understand the basic functions of the ballot collection box,” Formella stated.
Furthermore, instead of hand-counting only write-in votes on the ballots, the ballot clerks had counted all of the votes on ballots with a write-in, which meant that dozens of ballots in the 2020 general election had been counted twice — once by the ballot-counting device and a second time by Felch and a ballot clerk. Formella said that led to about 500 double-counted votes across all races on the ballot.
The investigation concluded that there was no evidence of deliberate or intentional misconduct, simply “by Moderator Felch's complete failure to understand the duties and operations of elections and his role as the moderator.” Formella noted that “there remains a possibility that the number of votes lost from the uncounted ballots or added from double-counting could have been outcome determinative for some races,” but, “Due to the fact that the deadlines for any recount for races on the ballots in question have long passed, there are no statutory mechanisms to revisit the vote counts for 2020 elections in Laconia Ward 6.”
The Masked Stork
An article by Boris Kagarlitsky in Russian Dissent argues that “it is completely pointless to discuss the motives or logic of people who support the SMO [special military operation] in Ukraine. Repeating the words of official propaganda (whether heard on TV or spoken by superiors at a work meeting at which attendance is mandatory), these people do not deeply engage with the meaning of what was said. Therefore, attempts to convince, to find counterarguments, or to employ facts and logic against these beliefs are useless, because there are no real convictions at play, and most importantly, no one is interested, really. No one feels any sense of personal involvement. … They “support” it because the question of one’s personal preference between “support” or “against” is, in principle, meaningless. It’s not about “zombie” propaganda, but about indifference. Not about patriotism, but about the fact that the state is perceived as something alien, abstract and distant; about the futility of forming an opinion, which is both unnecessary and pointless.”
He continues, “Russians live behind high fences, in isolation from each other. And where there are no physical fences, there are emotional barriers. The apathy of the public majority can only be overcome by a common misfortune, from which it will no longer be possible to hide. However, in addition to this majority, there is also a sizable minority, which also constitutes a fair portion of society. This population isn’t divided into supporters and opponents of the SO, nor even into supporters and opponents of the authorities generally, but into those who somehow are able to live in society, and those who exist outside of it. … And it is on them, alas, that the fate of the inert majority will depend.”
It seems that same sort of isolation and apathy is overtaking the United States. There are people who accept official propaganda from the right or the left without question, uninterested in the facts, and there are those so disgusted by American politics that they simply ignore what is going on in order to live their lives in peace — until they are directly affected.
I am reminded of the Masked Stork, a figure that briefly flitted across the Dartmouth landscape, shouting the motto: “Apathy Transcends Reality.” Wearing a mask and cape in the early 1970s, he ran across campus, calling on Dartmouth students to join him in the Cult of Apathy. The Dartmouth Alumni Magazine recounted how “the Stork claimed that the god Howara, Giver of Truth, had come to him in an erotic dream over Homecoming Weekend and commanded that he preach to his fellow students about the joy to be found in perfect apathy. Heeding Howara’s call to service, the Masked Stork rode his rusting five-speed bicycle through the nighttime campus and distributed leaflets that proclaimed what he called Howara’s great truth.
The Masked Stork wrote frequent letters to the Daily Dartmouth, saying, “Dartmouth students care for little more than football, tapping kegs, and getting into law school. I am only asking that they take the next logical step and care about absolutely nothing at all.”
In the end, it was apathy toward his message that killed the Masked Stork.
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