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A look back at the week in news

By Staff | Sep 28, 2013

How to begin to judge the success of Nashua effort

Although Nashua’s new branding effort has been in the public eye for several weeks, the official launch came Wednesday, when more than 100 local dignitaries and citizens gathered on Water Street, at the banks of the Nashua River, for the grand unveiling.

With a contemporary logo designed to symbolize key elements comprising Nashua’s past, present and future, and a tagline meant to convey the city’s entrepreneurial spirit – “Dare to Begin” – speakers stressed that the initiative begins a new era for the Gate City.

Specifically, the strongly expressed sentiment was that the branding campaign creates a foundation from which public and private sectors of the city can speak with a common voice.

The initiative “allows our city to offer a consistent and compelling message, gets us all moving in the same direction,” said Ward 5 Alderman Mike Tabacsko.

“Nobody was saying the wrong thing, but we weren’t saying the same thing,” said former Nashua Chamber of Commerce President Lori Piper.

It’s no secret that the new branding effort has faced some pointed criticism since first becoming public; not everyone in the community agrees it encapsulates the true spirit of Nashua. However, it’s difficult to imagine any branding initiative could achieve unbridled adulation.

The larger issue is, if the campaign becomes a strong rallying point for the city’s disparate interests to craft a homogeneous and authentic message, then it will be successful.

Will the real Frank Guinta please stand up?

‘The news out of Washington is pretty depressing these days. Politicians in both parties seem more interested in fighting than making tough decisions and solving our problems.”

So begins Frank Guinta’s video explaining why he is running to win back the 1st District congressional seat he lost to Carol Shea-Porter a nearly a year ago.

So it’s curious that, this week, Guinta embraced the Republican strategy to force a federal government shutdown unless Democrats agree to defund the Affordable Healthcare Act – a choice of tactics that suggests Guinta is among those who “seem more interested in fighting.”

Curiouser still, in April 2011, then-U.S. Rep. Guinta sponsored “The Government Shutdown Prevention Act.”

With the government a week away from running out of money that year, Guinta issued a press release that said, “This bill shows the House is serious about ending the ridiculous string of short-term funding bills. We want all of Congress to finally do the responsible thing and fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year.”

Exactly.

Both seem responsible for bicycle tragedy in Seabrook

It is one of the more tragic stories in recent memory.

Just hours after being stopped for speeding and driving without a license last Saturday, a Seabrook teen plowed into a group of bicycle riders in Hampton, killing two women and injuring two others. She admitted to police that she took her eyes off the road just before the accident occurred.

But here is the real kick in the gut. A 48-year-old woman was arrested Wednesday and charged with selling the teen pain-killing prescription drugs and giving her the keys to the car she drove into the riders, knowing she didn’t have a license. The charges against the second woman – sale of a controlled drug – are trivial compared to the negligent homicide charges facing the teen. However, if the allegations are true, one can’t help but feel that both are equally responsible for this horrible event.

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