The 25,000 Dollar Question: What’s the Price of Adventure?
It’s fair to say Scott Mason bit off a little more than he could chew.
In April, the Eagle Scout embarked on an ambitious one day traverse of the northern Presidential range in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Early into his hike, he twisted an ankle, but chose to continue. A few miles later, Mason re-considered and [...]
The Essential Summer Adventure Reader
One of summer’s quiet pleasures is the chance to escape with a good book for some relaxed reading. Most book stores stock to the brim with paperback romance novels and fantasy fiction for the beach-going crowd – but what’s on the shelves for the would-be adventurer, facing the daunting challenge of a placid vacation with [...]
The Politics of Chopping
Inhabitants of the backwoods of New England are well known for their staunch libertarian streak. Tucked among the wrinkled countryside of hills and lakes one finds hippie farmers practicing subsistence farming, redneck locals out for late evening beer-and-rally sessions, and well-to-do gentry from Massachusetts constructing their dream habitations. The glue that holds our communities together [...]
False Summit: China, the Olympic Torch, and the Politics of Climbing Everest
This spring, the world watched as the Olympic torch made its way on an 85,000 mile journey from Athens to Beijing. The event was a PR nightmare from the start: the flame began its 130 day “Journey of Harmony” only weeks after Tibet erupted in the most violent political crackdown seen in a generation. In [...]
Yardsale Economics
Painted garden gnome: two dollars. Play Station 2: forty-five dollars. Assorted dishes and cookware: one dollar each. Winter coats: ten dollars. This Memorial Day weekend, out came the folding card tables and handwritten signs, lawn chairs, tarps, and boxes upon boxes of cheap plastic junk. As gas prices rose and the consumer confidence index plummeted [...]
One Answer to New England’s Home Heating Crisis
Steve Frechette is an oilman. So I was a little surprised when I dropped by his house on a muggy July day to find him standing waist deep in a trench, wrestling with two 10 foot steel posts. They stuck up like goal posts some six feet apart from each other. A four inch conduit [...]
As Congress Procrastinates, Many Communities Face a Cold Reality
Ten days ago, New Hampshire made headlines by announcing that it would participate in Citgo’s Low Cost Heating Oil Program. Although the effort is coordinated by the Massachusetts-based nonprofit Citizens Energy Corporation, there’s no hiding the real source of this helping hand: Hugo Chavez, and the good people of Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. That New [...]
