The problems Sheila Zakre of Concord encountered while trying to secure quality home care for her aged mother through a state program could be an aberration. Client satisfaction surveys conducted for care-giving agencies suggest it is, and we certainly hope so. Zakre, whose account appeared in last Sunday's Monitor, described cursory case management, untrained staff, unexpected cancellations and a high turnover rate - 13 different home health care workers in five weeks. The Department of Health and Human Services' "Choices for Independence" program, created to save taxpayers money while allowing the elderly and disabled to stay in their own homes, won't succeed if her experience is common.

A little more than a month ago, Jim Sudak, director of Concord Area Transit, the operator of the city's little-used trolley system, said that reducing fares from $1.25 each way to $1 for rides all day and changing routes was "the final option, before it just goes away." Fares were more than halved and routes were changed, but, in a sign of what's been wrong with the trolley experiment all along, Sudak didn't tell anyone. Signs were posted inside the trolleys, where of course no one who didn't already ride them would see them. The CAT system took out just one newspaper ad to alert the community to the efforts it was making to increase ridership.

On Monday the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that 49 million Americans, about one in six, suffer from what is bureaucratically known as "food insecurity" and colloquially known as frequent or chronic hunger.

It has come to our attention that some of you didn't get the memo, oh, a couple of centuries ago explaining that not all products live up to their marketing claims. That's right, we don't mean to alarm you, but those before-and-after cellulite cream photos may have undergone a little doctoring, your pet may not love you for purchasing the Snuggie for Dogs, and, sadly, even with a tub of Floam in your hands, the fun is eventually going to stop.

Congratulations to Henry Ladd Sr., age 81, for once again getting his deer. If he gets another next year, as we assume he will, he should age it, as he always has, by hanging it from a tree in his yard on White Rock Hill Road in Bow.

Concord's delegation to the Legislature has more clout these days than at any time in recent history. Its members include the president of the state Senate, the majority leader of the state House, leaders of four standing committees and a member of the influential House Finance Committee.

Last month, the city of Concord, led by Ward 10, the folks who vote at Broken Ground Elementary School, placed first in New England in a contest to pledge to do as much as possible to reduce our carbon footprint. Concord narrowly edged out Keene and Portsmouth for the win. Now the city has to make good on its promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So let's think big.

How much of what goes on at town hall should ordinary citizens get to know about? How much of what happens in a courtroom - and how much of what's buried in the court clerk's files - should people get to see? How much of the state government's business should be available for public scrutiny?

Famously lauded by abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier in his poem "New Hampshire" and home to just a handful of slaves between 1645 and 1840, our state seems almost to stand outside the dark shadow of slavery - especially here in the capital, where it's rare to find even a mention of a slave. But Rep. David Watters's bill to create a monument commemorating New Hampshire's slaves gives us reason to look more closely at the history of slavery here - and what we find may surprise us.

At least three of the 13 people murdered at Fort Hood last week had arrived at the Army base only a day or two earlier. Another had raced back to work weeks after a heart attack. Three had survived tours of duty in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Last month, 13 Hillsboro teenagers met in a park to take over-the-counter and prescription drugs, in some cases along with alcohol. One girl succumbed to seizures, and several teens were hospitalized. No one died. Ascribe that to dumb luck. Why did the teens play Russian roulette with their lives? Blame it on their as yet unformed brains, on youthful feelings of invulnerability, on ignorance, boredom, peer influence or all of them combined. Sad to say, as shocking as the story is, it is distressingly common.

The recession has been hard on real estate values, which have dropped by half in some places. In Detroit, for example, the average sale price of a home this year was $13,638, less than the cost of most new cars.

The remarkable life of Robert Rines came to an end last Sunday, but not his influence on Concord. Franklin Pierce Law Center, the state's only law school, was the vision of one man who was an inventor, patent attorney, musician, composer and educator.

As of Oct. 10, the United States had suffered 292 confirmed H1N1 deaths, one quarter of them children and adults under 25 years old, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control. Some of the victims conceivably might have lived had a vaccine to minimize the effects of the virus been available sooner. Others who became severely ill would have been spared or fared better if vaccine supplies had been adequate.

However fretful you may be feeling about the H1N1 virus, try not to lose any sleep over it. We mean that literally. As health officials race to fill the shortage of vaccines, they're vigorously promoting other means of flu prevention, including frequent hand washing, covering coughs, avoiding contact with sick people and getting adequate nutrition and rest.

Merrimack Valley High School should allow Jordan Westgate, a graduating senior who has completed U.S. Army basic training, to appear in his high school yearbook portrait wearing his Army uniform and in company with the American flag.

A new study by the Josephson Institute of Ethics reports that young people ages 17 and younger are five times more likely than older adults to embrace lying and cheating as a way to get ahead in life. They're nearly four times more likely to deceive their bosses and three times more likely to keep change given to them by mistake.

Concord's city elections have been pretty low-key this year with many incumbents, including the mayor and the president of the school board, running unopposed. Are city residents largely satisfied with their elected leaders and the direction of the city - or apathetic?

A neighbor's home was consumed by fire last week, and we were there to watch the Concord Fire Department in action. Seeing firefighters wearing respirators crawl along a truck's extended ladder until they are directly above the flames and then swing an ax to open holes in a roof is to appreciate the risks they take on behalf of the public. Their performance was magnificent. Everyone did his job calmly and seemingly without instruction. But it was what happened later that really stands out.

Last month, FairPoint Communications became the second major utility in recent New Hampshire history to declare bankruptcy. The first, of course, was the 1988 failure of Public Service of New Hampshire. It was that case that set the precedent that federal bankruptcy laws take precedence over state laws. That means that what happens next with FairPoint, the little North Carolina company that bought Verizon's landline business in New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont for $2.4 billion, will be up to a judge, not to the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission and other state regulators.

Concord voters are lucky to have two excellent candidates vying to serve the one-year school board term created by the resignation of Megan De Vorsey.

The next Concord City Council will face what could be an even more trying year financially than the current one.

Gov. John Lynch and the Legislature balanced the state budget in the usual way, with measures that included passing more costs down to cities and towns. Led by the New Hampshire Municipal Association, a host of cities, towns, counties and school districts plan to respond by suing the state for violating the constitutional ban on unfunded mandates.

Part 2 of Article 78 of the New Hampshire Constitution, the provision that bans judges and sheriffs from holding office after they reach 70, should be repealed. In the meantime, lawmakers should override Gov. John Lynch's veto of House Bill 665, a bill that would expand the pool of retired judges allowed to hear cases periodically to include mentally and physically fit retirees, no matter what their age.

Gov. John Lynch and a number of other politicians appear to be suffering from reefer madness. No, not the drug-crazed abandon of young marijuana smokers in the 1938 anti-drug film that bombed as propaganda and packed them in as a cult comedy. That was fiction. The symptoms of this modern form of reefer madness are real.

We really hate to play the prude, the party pooper, the stick-in-the-mud schoolmarm, but we believe the time has come to slip on the cardigan, peer down on the world through our trifocals and say it: Halloween has gone too far.

The dream of lowering Interstate 93 where it passes through downtown Concord to reconnect the city with the Merrimack River remains a possibility. It's in the city's master plan, and the proposal was submitted years ago to the federal transportation officials who will oversee the widening of the highway. But that dream may never become a reality. Concord, once a turn in the economy makes launching new projects feasible again, shouldn't wait for federal action to begin to make the river a bigger part of life in the city.

'Is football any better than dog fighting?" That's the question writer Malcolm Gladwell asks in an Oct. 19 New Yorker article on football and the high rate of brain injuries associated with the sport.

Oh, if only Hooksett Rep. David Hess was right and the Democrats were "laying the groundwork for an income tax." Sadly, most New Hampshire Democrats in leadership positions, even those who have long supported an income tax, were quickly cowed by Gov. John Lynch's repeated veto threats. Though they may cross their fingers behind their backs when they do so, they have largely obeyed the Republican pledge not to support a new broad-base tax. Their predecessors in 1999, when the House and Senate each passed a different form a bill creating an income tax despite then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen's veto threat, showed more courage.

It's too early to say what Concord's new or refurbished schools will look like, how much it will cost to consolidate the city's eight elementary schools into five, whether all three construction projects will be done at the same time and, if not, which one or two will be launched first. Those questions will be answered in the next two months. Unless the Legislature suddenly decides to suspend the school building aid program that pays 43 percent of the cost of new construction, ground should be broken on at least one project next year.