InDepthNH.org (https://indepthnh.org/category/features/page/58/)
Voices of the personalities and people of the Granite State.
The state of New Hampshire has accepted a $50 million federal grant to build affordable housing. How much of the current housing shortage that will ease is an ongoing question, one that podcast producer Roger Wood asked Elissa Margolin, the executive director of the nonprofit New Hampshire Housing Action NH.
The number of registered voters is considerably smaller than it was after the 2020 general election because checklists were purged — as they are required to do at least once every 10 years — before this election.
This podcast is important not only because it stresses the power we have when we join together to make our voices heard, but because it offers some real and pragmatic ideas for what we can do right now as citizens of New Hampshire and the planet to foster change and sustainability.
My dad was in the occupation of Japan, the Korean War, the Bay of Pigs and Viet Nam twice. He was injured a number of times and said that he should have earned three Purple Hearts. That was when Lieutenant General Chesty Puller was in charge, and he didn’t award many.
And here we are, another midterm election over and I muse joyfully on the action taken by so many people around our beautiful country. We voted. We canvassed. We spoke our truth. We are recommitted to democracy.
In the Executive Council, state Senate and state House races, Democratic candidates received more votes than their Republican counterparts, but will still be in the minority.
History is, of course, about the past, but we study it to understand the present. In the present, New Hampshire has a Nazi problem.
In the fall of 1976 I can recall stopping the car at the side of the road in the midst of the winter’s first snowfall at the peak of foliage season. I jumped out, tears streaming down my face, and ran to catch a snowflake on my tongue, as the swirling colors of the autumn storm were brushed into my soul from a pallet in the hands of grandmother earth.
Did Donald Trump sabotage the Republican party in this election? And did successful gerrymandering in New Hampshire by the Republicans changing districts to favor themselves help Republicans in the state Senate election?