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Well, this morning in Lawrence started out with a bang as demolition crews took down two 100-year-old smoke stacks near Sal’s headquarters. We were on hand to talk to some of the neighbors who grew up looking at those big old stacks. One woman — who does not appear on the video — is 95 and has lived across from the old mill all her life, with several generations of her family still in the home. It was demonstrative of just how tight-knit some of these Lawrence neighborhoods remain despite the changes around them. The twin stacks that served as a backdrop to their home for so many years, however, are now gone. Out with the old and in with the new.

Eagle-Tribune TV is going on the road tonight and will be streaming video live from City Hall beginning at 7:30 p.m.

With incumbent City Mayor Michael Sullivan’s term set to expire and 10 candidates vying to replace him, today’s primary results could very well yield a more clear picture of who the real contenders are.

Polls in today’s primary election close at 7 p.m. and results are expected sometime after 8 p.m. We’ll be on hand talking with candidates and supporters about the day’s vote, predictions and city issues. We’ll announce the primary winners as the results come through live on the Web. Check The Eagle-Tribune home page from 7:30 p.m. on to link to the live video feed.

One of several images being circulated by LaRouchePAC.

Probably the most extreme and shocking imagery out of yesterday’s crowd gathered outside the president’s town hall meeting in Portsmouth was a picture of Barak Obama with a Hitler mustache. The doctored photo — in various forms — has been popping up at protests around the country. There were several versions at Portsmouth High yesterday. But before you heave your disgust at conservatives speaking out against the president’s health care proposal, take a look at the source.

Democratic activist and perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche. His LaRouchePAC has been circulating materials equating Obama to Hitler.

The posters are being circulated by LaRouchePAC, an organization headed by Democratic activist Lyndon LaRouche. Although LaRouche and followers share criticisms of the president’s proposal with other detractors, they’re not in the same crowd at all. It’s a fine point that we in the media can easily gloss over, but it showcases the many different groups and factions that are speaking out in the health care debate. Looking down the driveway leading to the high school yesterday, one side of the road consisted primarily of those supporting the president’s plan. The other side consited largely of those opposing it. But when you start to pick apart the layers, you find opinions — and affiliations — are not so easily delineated.

Why Hitler? Comparing our president to history’s most reviled leader who systematicaly led the extermination of an estimated 11 to 22 million people (depending on your counting method) is fearmongering at its worst. Hitler sought to purify the Aryan race by killing those who didn’t fit the Nazi ideal. He headed a fascist government that controlled every aspect of its citizens’ lives and forbade dissent. This isn’t Nazi Germany and Obama is no Hitler.

The LaRouche campaign is comparing Obama’s proposal to the health care system that existed in Germany under the Nazi regime. Uder that system, government health care was the only option available to citizens. Probably the more crucial difference, however, is the fact that the system was run by Nazis hell bent on genocide. It’s not a minor point.

RELATED:

• Eagle-Tribune story on the Obama visit
• Raw video of yesterday’s demonstrators
• Video feature of demonstrators

Judy Hurst of Ocean Park, Maine, Linda Dupere and her husband Lenny Dupere, both formerly of Derry and now of Campton, were on hand to demonstrate outside at the town meeting that President Barack Obama was holding at Portsmouth High School on Tuesday to discuss his health care plans. Photo by Allegra Boverman/Eagle-Tribune Tuesday, August 11, 2009.

It’s easy to concentrate on the circus aspects of it: A chorus of singers caroling in German while holding up a sign comparing President Barak Obama to Hitler clashes with the tunes being played by a group calling itself “The Leftist Marching Band.” A man carrying a U.S. flag and wearing some sort of pseudo-colonial-era shirt shouts to passersby that he’s ready to fight when “the Chinese come knocking down my door.” There are a lot of slogans, a lot of jabs of the “your momma” variety.

“You’re parasites … You want health care? Try getting a job,” a man with a megaphone shouts from the side of the street dominated with those protesting the president’s health care plan. On the other side, a man shouts back to a heckler, “you gotta problem? We can meet after!” A few feet down, a woman decked in red, white and blue twirls a baton.

It would all be kind of funny, if it wasn’t real.

President Barak Obama’s town hall meeting at Portsmouth High School today is part of a series of such meetings the president is holding across the country to drum up support for his health care reform plan.While a select number of ticket holders asked the president questions inside, outside supporters and protesters alike lined the road. It’s easy to concentrate on the circus aspects of such demonstrations because — well, they make themselves difficult to ignore. People shouting, waving signs at other people waving signs. Zingers, jabs and taunts seem to overpower those seeking information. Civil discourse? Well, it’s more like shaking a box full of bees.

The ability of citizens to take to the streets wielding signs and slogans (right or wrong) is one of the things that have made this country the world’s shining example of democracy. It showcases our ability to allow discent. It doesn’t always showcase our best behaviors, however. One can’t help but wonder if the real democratic process isn’t happening quietly on the sidelines. Not from those who are shouting slogans, but to those asking questions. There were a few of those people there today, too.

President John Quincy Adams in his early years before becoming president.

Sure, he’s been dead for 161 years, but you can now follow former U.S. President John Quincy Adams on Twitter. And — as this Twitter user can attest to — he’s pretty Twitter savvy. This just in from our Associated Press wire:

John Quincy Adams tweeting thanks to Mass. society

By JEANNIE NUSS
Associated Press Writer

BOSTON (AP) - It seems John Quincy Adams was way ahead of his time.

A high school student touring the sixth U.S. president’s archives recently noticed his bite-sized diary entries looked a lot like tweets.

Starting Wednesday, history will meet modern technology as the Massachusetts Historical Society begins posting Adams’ updates from 200 years ago on Twitter. The historical society will include a presidential tracker of sorts, linking maps to show Adam’s progress on a diplomatic trek to Russia as U.S. minister.

The tweets will include mentions of his favorite reads, memorable meals, weather updates and the daily drama of months at sea.

His updates are concise enough to put Twitter experts to shame: “Thick fog. Scanty Wind. On George’s Bank. Lat: 42-34. Read Massillon’s Careme Sermons 2 & 3. Ladies are Sick.” (This one, from Aug. 6, 1809, comes in at 109 characters, well under Twitter’s 140-character limit.)

The Aug. 31 entry was even tighter, at only 91 characters: “Calm and light winds. Pleasant weather. Lat: 59-23. Long: 17-15. Cimon and Lucullus. Cards.”

His 95-character line showed Aug. 15, to be more eventful: “Weather fine- wind scanty. Lat: 44-13. Long: 53-40. This afternoon I found the Caboose on fire.”

Librarians and historians at the society say they hope to connect a new online generation with Adams by bringing his life into the 21st century. The group’s Web site has digital copies of Adams’ diaries that show his whimsical script.

Adams’ Twitter-ready entries suggest the micro-blog phenomenon has century-old roots. But no one knows what the former president would think of his diaries being used as social networking fodder. Perhaps he’d be LOL (laughing out loud).

Society librarian Jeremy Dibbell said Adams didn’t intend for his diaries to be published.

“When he’s doing this it’s not really for public consumption, although I think the Adamses kind of knew that what they were writing would be read for many years hence,” said Dibbell, an assistant reference librarian co-coordinating the society’s Twitter feed.

Robert Remini, an Adams biographer and historian of the U.S. House of Representatives, said such a public man would be pleased to know the online world was following his daily life two centuries later.

“I don’t think he would mind that,” Remini said. “It’ll show what a dedicated person he was in working for the public good.”

Follow John Quincy Adams on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/JQAdams_MHS

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