On the endangered New Hampshire dialect: "Apparently there are technical terms (shibboleths) to describe ourlocal accent — ‘non-rhoticity’ and ‘broad A’ — are two. In anutshell, non-rhoticity means that those of us with a traditionalaccent have lost the letter ‘R’ somewhere. Still don’t get it? Hearingthe overused phrase "park the car in Harvard yard," spoken […]

As The Da Vinci Code furor heats up again in advance of the movie, I recall here something Umberto Eco, raised Catholic, long lapsed, wrote last year (thanks to Karl Keating for the tip to this quote)… "We are supposed to live in a sceptical age. In fact, we live in an age of outrageous […]

This morning was opening day for fly-fishing-only trout ponds in New Hampshire. I fished the pond at Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, NH. I got there just as the sky lightened, and the parking lot was already full and there was a good, companionable, crowd on the water. Not so much that you couldn’t […]

I’m sitting at a little table getting my glassesorder toted up in the front room of the Nashua Eye Care shop in Merrimack, nextto the H&R Block, when a woman hits the gas instead of the brake, and in a stroke of bad luck or panic, leaves her foot there and backs her SUV over […]

Easter Morning 2006 Originally uploaded by Ernesto and Kristen Burden. It was hard to get David and Sofia to pose for a picture (I was thinking to recreate the shot below) before we left for church — must have been the chocolate!

ernie_ana_easter Originally uploaded by Ernesto and Kristen Burden. This was my sister Ana and I on Easter Sunday in Dorset, Vt., sometime around the year of 1974. Finally began going through the trove of old, fading family photos and began scanning them in to preserve. This is one the first little treasures I came across. […]

Last night after the Mass of the Lord’s Supper at Saint Marie Parish inManchester, a great many of the parishioners processed with lightedcandles, following the priests and robed altar servers, the elevatedcross, the sacred Host, a truck on which musicians played, through thecity to Sacred Heart Parish. Police cars and motorcycles stoppedtraffic at the intersections […]

An interesting section from National Geographic on the Gospel of Judas find. While a good read, its central feature comes off as a bit an apologetics work for the document’s veracity. Proponents of the document not only as authentic but historicaly accurate are cast as adventure heroes. Elaine Pagels, a religion scholar with a distinctly […]

Happy Pixie Originally uploaded by Ernesto and Kristen Burden. What else can one say? She’s trouble — the best kind. Kris just uploaded this new shot to Flickr.

From the Wahsington Post: "Newspapers continue to attract huge increases in their online readership, particularly among younger, affluent audiences who are probably not picking up the printed version on their doorstep, according to a report issued by the Newspaper Association of America."