To the editor,
I would like to thank John M. Rodgers and Bill Dawson for their reasoned and balanced letters on firearms. We need to hear from sensible gun owners. The NRA does not represent its membership well nor are they in tune with the Supreme Court's most recent ruling on the issue; DC vs Heller, 2008. A hefty 74 percent of NRA members support universal background checks. Nationally, the figure is 91 percent. Universal checks are a done deal unless the right wing brats in the U.S. House obstruct them. Wayne Lapierre, who seems to have no conscience, is nothing more than a well paid lackey for the gun manufacturers. Consider his 1999 view that universal background checks are reasonable. Why the change? Did he experience a concussion? Drugs maybe? Why the radical flip-flop from being sane to insane? Gun nuts remind me of the Baader-Meinhoff gang. This gang of left wing German terrorists of the 1970s and 1980s was pathologically fearful and hateful towards government.
The gun nut argument against universal background checks rests upon a ridiculous assumption that criminals will get guns anyway. So its pointless to even try? That is warped thinking. Since rape laws don't always work should be say we don't need them? The gun nut stance only makes it easier for dangerous people to get weapons. They are oblivious to such a reasonable line of thought. Gun shows promote loopholes and grey markets. Licensed dealers have to do background checks but some tables sell with "no questions asked" and "no background checks". These tables are magnets to felons and felons to be and this has not even occurred to the paranoid extremists. Hello? Anyone home?
James Veverka
Tilton

To the editor,
Oh! Not another night of snow! But this one was different than most, I didn't like it, but I kept on looking. The snow was falling across the way in front of someone's outdoor light and it was a beautiful scene. It took me back to when I was eight or nine years old. My two sisters and I shared a bed and there was no heat in the third floor bedrooms. Mama would walk up to the third floor with a warm flat iron from the first floor, which she heated on a black stove in the kitchen. It was hard to go from the first floor to the third floor, but she did. She ironed our sheets then wrapped the flat iron in a towel for more heat in the bed. It was warm and cozy. Mama said goodnight and told us not to forget to say our prayers. We got in bed and my sister said, "Look it's snowing out!" We all jumped out of our bed and ran to the window.
The snow was coming down across the way, it was soft and beautiful right in front of the ark light. We planned our next day for sledding. Suddenly, Pa called up to us, "What's going on up there?" We all said nothing, and he told us to get to sleep. When we heard the door close we whispered under the covers. The next day was a Saturday and we could go sledding! Off to sleep we went after our prayers.
The next morning we did our chores and had warm oatmeal for breakfast. Then, we donned our clothes like Rolly Pollies from boots to hand-made mittens. We only had two sleds, so I got to ride.
Then we went to Pine Ave. It was only 10 minutes from home in Brockton, MA and it was already crowded. When we went back home we were really cold. Mama made us ginger tea, so we wouldn't get sick. We grew up on remedies. Those days it was hard to find good doctors.
I am the 90-years-old now, and the only one left from a big family (my mom had 12 children). I have very nice things to look back on. Now I live in an excellent nursing home, Belknap County, and they give me very good care. We play all sorts of games and listen to music. My husband and son come to visit me often.
Liz O'Neil
Laconia

Four years ago, Michelle Obama picked up a shovel and made a powerful symbolic statement about America's food and farm future: She turned a patch of White House lawn into a working organic garden.
That was a great move, earning kudos from just about everyone this side of Monsanto and the pesticide lobby. But now, as she begins another four years in the people's mansion, the first lady is probably asking herself: "How can I top that? What can I do this time around to plant a crop of common sense in our country's political soil that will link America's farmers, consumers, environment and grassroots economy into one big harvest of common good?"
Thanks for asking, Ms. Obama, and please allow me to intrude into your thoughts with a one-word suggestion: hemp. Plant a good, healthy stand of industrial hemp next to your organic garden!
This would, of course, drive the anti-drug zealots up the wall (a good place for them, I think). "Holy J. Edgar Hoover," they'd scream, "hemp is a distant cousin of marijuana!"
Well, yes, but the industrial variety of cannabis lacks the psychoactive aspects of pot, so their hysteria is misplaced. Industrial hemp won't make anyone high, but it certainly can make us happy, because it would deliver a new economic and environmental high for America. Plus, hemp production is firmly rooted in American history. Question: Besides being founders of our republic, what did Thomas Jefferson and George Washington have in common? Answer: Both farmed hemp. Most of America's founders were strong promoters of this extraordinarily useful agricultural crop, with Jefferson declaring it to be "of first necessity ... to the wealth and protection of the country."
The first draft of our Constitution was written on hemp paper. "Old Ironsides" was powered by sails of hemp cloth. As late as World War II, the government urgently pushed farmers to grow the crop as part of a "Hemp for Victory" program.
So why are American farmers today prohibited from producing this patriotic, profitable, pesticide-free plant? Political nuttiness. Most recently, in a frenzy of reefer madness, U.S. drug police decided that President Dick Nixon's "Controlled Substance Act of 1970" not only outlawed marijuana, but also its non-narcotic cousin, industrial hemp.
If ignorance is bliss, they must've been ecstatic, yet their nuttiness remains the law of our land today.
While our nation is the world's biggest consumer of hemp products (from rope to shampoo, building materials to food), the mad masters of our insane "drug war" have lumped hemp and marijuana together as "Schedule 1 controlled substances" — making our Land of the Free the world's only industrialized country that bans farmers from growing this benign, profitable, job-creating and environmentally beneficial plant. Thus, the U.S.A. is consuming millions of dollars' worth of products made from hemp, that hemp comes from producers in other countries, because our farmers aren't allowed to grow it in the U.S.A. and reap the economic benefits here at home.
The good news, though, is that a wave of sanity is now wafting across America. In Colorado, for example, farmer Michael Bowman and Denver hemp advocate Lynda Parker helped pass Amendment 64 in last fall's election. While it legalizes personal pot use, which got all the media attention, it also directs the legislature to set up a program for "the cultivation, processing and sale of industrial hemp."
Bowman now hopes to be the first American farmer in generations to plant a legal crop of it. Appropriately enough, he hopes to do so on April 30 — the 80th birthday of family-farmer hero and hemp champion Willie Nelson.
Even red states like Kentucky are on the move. Its Republican ag commissioner, backed by its Chamber of Commerce, is campaigning to legalize hemp farming there, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is cosponsoring a national bill with Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden to take hemp off the controlled substance list.
As Bowman puts it: "Can we just stop being stupid?" To help move us in that direction, he's seeking 100,000 signatures on a online petition requesting that President Obama include the words "industrial hemp" in his Feb. 12 State of the Union speech. I'm sure the president would appreciate my advice on this, so I suggest he say: "First thing tomorrow morning, Michelle and I are going to give a symbolic jumpstart to the development of a thriving hemp industry in America by planting a stand of it on the White House lawn."
To sign Bowman's petition, go to the White House website: petitions.whitehouse.gov.
(Jim Hightower has been called American's most popular populist. The radio commentator and former Texas Commissioner of Agriculture is author of seven books, including "There's Nothing In the Middle of Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos" and his new work, "Swim Against the Current: Even Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow".)

To the editor,
Dear residents of Gilmanton:
I am running for the position of selectman. Many of you remember me from the years I spent behind the desk in the Town Clerk's Office. Since that time, I have served one term as selectman and three years on the Budget Committee. Over the years I have learned a lot about how the town works, how it is financed, how it is managed on a day-to-day basis. I also have heard a great deal from many people about what affects them and what is important to them.
I know that the challenges are great, that there are often, perhaps always, conflicting interests at play. I come to the decision to run again for selectman with no self-interest, no agenda other than to try to balance the needs of the people with the wants of the people, but first and foremost, promising to abide by the existing rule of the people, as set down in ordinances and laws.
I further promise not only to pay heed to the loud and present voice, but also to seek out the silent voice of those not present, as well as the quiet voice of tradition and history. I seek to listen respectfully and to decide fairly.
I hope you will show your support for me by voting for me on Tuesday, March 12 and, no matter what, pay attention to what the board is doing and make your voices heard!
Betty Ann Abbott
Gilmanton