Some random observations as summer rounds the far turn and thunders down the home stretch.

Transportation officials in both states are rightly concerned about the safety of construction workers engaged in the many road and bridge projects underway in the Upper Valley; thus their emphasis on urging motorists to slow down and use caution in work zones. A couple of recent experiences suggest to us that the hard-working flaggers employed on construction sites could also use some help in making things safer for everybody.

For example, the Route 5 reconstruction project south of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction at the end of July was a scene of mass confusion for motorists trying to enter the road from adjoining businesses. There was no clear indication of travel lanes or of which flaggers to obey among several present, some of whom were employing hard-to-decipher hand signals to direct traffic. In one case, one flagger was waving his arms around his head in a way that resembled nothing so much as a man beset by a swarm of angry hornets. Flaggers have a thankless but important job, and should get whatever direction and help they need from those who employ them.

Recent Valley News stories about the expanding Indian and Caribbean dining options in the area are further testimony to one of the most notable transformations the Upper Valley has undergone in the past 35 years. The area was certainly not a dining desert in 1988, but the options were quite limited as to variety and the culinary traditions represented. By contrast, the dining scene now in the Upper Valley is rich with ethnic and regional specialties that would have seemed exotic back then but that are borderline cosmopolitan now. This is just another reminder of how everyone benefits when communities welcome newcomers of varied backgrounds who are determined to make their way toward whatever their American dream is.

The repeated flooding in parts of Vermont this summer provides dramatic evidence of the ongoing havoc wrought by man-made climate change. While media attention is naturally focused on those catastrophic consequences, it should not obscure the quieter degradation that climate change is imposing on day-to-day life in the Upper Valley — which is experiencing another summer of intense heat, high humidity, gray skies and clouds of bugs. We fear that the clear, bright, breezy summer days of the cherished past are dwindling down to a precious few. Enjoy them when and while you can.

This is the summer when the phrase "government transparency" went from cliche to oxymoron. The Hartford School Board and the Hanover Selectboard provided rich settlement agreements to make, respectively, their long-time school superintendent and their short-time town manager disappear a year before the end of their contracts. Neither board condescended to provide the taxpayers with a word of explanation for why their money was being used to pay public servants not to work.

Later in July, the New Hampshire Supreme Court placed Associate Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi on paid administrative leave for 90 days and relieved her of her judicial and administrative duties. This highly unusual development was announced in a five-line order signed by the court's four other justices. It contained no information with which the public could evaluate the court's decision in this matter — the ultimate test of governmental accountability. The court thus holds the public in contempt, as do the Hartford School Board and the Hanover Selectboard.

It's not at all clear that the Boston Red Sox are a playoff-caliber team, but at least the Sox are playing an interesting, if erratic, brand of baseball this summer. This is a distinct improvement over the prior two last-place seasons, in which the Sox were both irrelevant and worse yet, boring.

The mention of baseball brings to mind a line attributed to the game's philosopher king, Yogi Berra, who is purported to have said, "In baseball, you don't know nothing." The wisdom of Yogi is equally applicable to politics. President Biden's decision to stand down as his party's presidential candidate in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris, combined with the ineffable weirdness of J.D. Vance, was a game-changer in a matter of days.

Bear in mind that in the 12 weeks before election day, the game could change again and again in unexpected ways. Events have a way of defying the best efforts of polls and pundits to read the tea leaves. A cease-fire in Gaza? A wider war in the Middle East? A tanking stock market? Interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve? A candidate health issue? A brilliant debate performance? An old scandal coming to light? A resurgence of youthful interest in presidential politics? We do know a little about the game at this point, but not all that much, and what we think we know is subject to the whims of the unknowable.