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By DAN MACKIE

Presidential primary season is upon us, as it is every four years. Little deal New Hampshire gets to feel like a big deal and local pols hope to catch a rising star and win a key post in the next administration.As a longtime New Hampshire voter, I...

By DAN MACKIE

A funny thing happened on the way to a DHMC operating room. On the morning of July 26, as I pondered my fate on a hospital gurney, a medical professional asked me if I knew “exactly” why I was there that day.I chuckled. “If I wasn't here,” I said, “my...

By DAN MACKIE

I have never had much interest in gambling, other than in matters like eating dicey leftovers from the fridge. “I have an iron stomach,” I tell my wife and chief risk assessment officer, Dede, who does not always approve.As for sports gambling, which...

By DAN MACKIE

I think I know how to save America: Bring back the station wagon.That’s a bold statement, but stick with me. When America ruled the world, station wagons ruled the road. Roof racks were common and could hold half the nation’s GDP, hopefully strapped...

By DAN MACKIE

I have read quite a few self-improvement books in my life but when I finish them I seem to be much the same person I was on page one. “Awaken the Giant Within!” “Be Rich Now!” “Be So Full of Yourself That You and Everyone Else Will Hardly Be Able to...

By DAN MACKIE

Shockingly — SHOCKINGLY — I haven’t heard back from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas about my offer to put him up for a week or two for an Upper Valley vacation with certain, albeit limited, luxury elements.He has been kicking back with...

By DAN MACKIE

On a recent night as we watched the NCAA basketball tournament, I blurted out to myself and the universe, “Now why didn’t I play college ball?”It was an ironic lament, about the road not taken, the ball not dribbled.My wife, Dede, lowered her knitting...

By DAN MACKIE

If the weather predictions have come true this week, it is, as you are reading this, minus-70 degrees out, too cold even for snowmen and polar bears.Cars won’t start. Dogs won’t go out. Water won’t boil. It’s so close to absolute zero that icicles are...

By DAN MACKIE

Right as 2022 was ending (on a locally sleepy note), the news dropped that Lebanon may get a casino on the Miracle Mile.What timing! It just so happened that I was dreaming up fantastic scenarios for the New Year when this whopper dropped in my lap....

By DAN MACKIE

The people who claim that age is just a number are delusional and bad at math.One of them is on a TV commercial that plays often during the Nightly News and Jeopardy!, both of which must draw an older audience. Ads push potions for diabetes, breathing...

By DAN MACKIE

Halloween is right around the corner, a dark corner. A treacherously dark corner. There is someone or something at the dark corner ready to jump out at you. Did I mention it was dark? It might be a creepy clown or a political activist who wants your...

By DAN MACKIE

Summer is over, fall is here and winter has already sent the oil bill. Yikes! Inflation aside, I’m not bothered by the changing of the seasons. I could sum up our recent summer in just two words: too hot. When the temperature passes 85 I start...

By DAN MACKIE

The FBI, like the queen of tidiness Marie Kondo, has a decluttering service. Who knew? Apparently not Donald J. Trump, who had trouble letting go of Top Secret and Even More Secret materials taken from the White House, from which he was evicted by...

By DAN MACKIE

I would mock the hysterics who are overreacting to the name change at the former Vermont Public Radio, except that I am one of them.It is bad. It is wrong. I don’t like it, and you can’t make me.In case you missed the biggest radio disaster since the...

By DAN MACKIE

The Hartford Historical Society recently shared a list of notable natives copied from Wikipedia. Among them are a passel of politicians, Horace Wells, who you should think of kindly when you go to the dentist, since he was a pioneer in anesthesia, and...

By DAN MACKIE

I’m calling this week’s column Fun With Inflation! We’ll look at why the carpenter ants of the world economic order are chewing through your net worth and what you can do about it.You can read this column, for starters. Just 800 words (more or less)...

By DAN MACKIE

It’s been a grueling spring for the Boston Celtics on the road to the NBA Finals. We are tired, we have faced adversity, we are staying up past our bedtimes.It may seem a little odd to say “we,” but I am a role player, doing my bit from home here in...

By DAN MACKIE

It’s graduation time, when Pomp and Circumstance fills the air again and again and again. When the list of degree-getters gets awfully long, there’s a moment when a kid named Zywicki can be a hero.Three cheers for the end of the alphabet!The return of...

By DAN MACKIE

I don’t know about you, but sometimes this time of year when the sun and the warmth are just so, I momentarily find myself with nothing to complain about.It is a sad state of affairs.Although I am a reasonably happy person, I know that complaining is...

By DAN MACKIE

I have noticed that the opinion pros at the Valley News are skeptical about the branding “journey” that has — presto, chango — given us Dartmouth Health.Calling a shift in marketing strategy a “journey” is like putting itching powder on a journalist....