Afternoon nap

 

"Katrina'' (oil), by VINCENT GIARRANO,  at Susan Powell Fine Art, Madison, Conn. in his show there, through Sept. 14.

At least the barber is still there, often

Photo and commentary by WILLIAM MORGAN

 

Amidst the tourists and the traffic that clog the so-called prettiest village in Maine in the summer, there is this wee reminder of simpler times, of when Wiscasset was a village.

The drugstore, the shoe store, and the hardware store are all gone. But Charlotte is still calling herself the village barber – she does not run a salon or a spa or a place to get a pedicure. She is still – when she feels up to it–just cutting hair.

You have to wish for her recovery.

Llewellyn King: The medical-research crisis

  The Bermuda Triangle is where aircraft, ships and people disappear. That is as may be.

Another less-mysterious triangle swallows good ideas and great science, and leaves people vulnerable. It is the triangle that is formed by the way we conduct medical research in the United States, the role of the pharmaceutical industry in that research and the public’s perception, driven by political ideology, of how it works.

The theory is that the private sector does research, and everything else, better than the government. But the truth is the basic research that has put the United States ahead of the rest of the world -- as a laboratory for world-changing science and medicine -- has been funded by the government.

It is the government that puts social need ahead of anticipated profit. It is the government that puts money into obscure but important research. And it is the government which will keep the United States in the forefront of discovery in science and medicine.

It is no good for politicians to rant about the importance of children taking more and harder math and science courses. Before they open their mouths, they should look at the indifferent way in which we treat mathematicians and scientists. We treat them as little better than day laborers, called on to do work ordered by government, then laid off as political chiefs change their minds.

A career in research, whether in physical sciences (such as astrophysics) or medical sciences (such as cell biology) is a life of insecurity. Had we put the dollars behind Ebola research years ago (the disease was first identified in 1976), we would not now be watching what may become a tsunami of death raging across Africa, and possibly the world. Shame.

Any gifted young person going into research nowadays needs career counseling. They will be expected to give their all, with poor pay and long hours, to serve mankind. Then the funding will be cut or the research grant will not be renewed, and they will be on the fast track from idealism to joblessness.

You may have heard of the celebrated virus hunter, W. Ian Lipkin, M.D., director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, because he has been called on for expertise in Ebola. What you might not know is that Lipkin is so starved of funding that he has had to use crowd-funding to support his research on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, the ghastly disease commonly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).

Nothing is more damaging to research than funding instability. The universities and many research laboratories -- including those run by the government -- operate like concertinas. They expand and contract according the whim of Congress, not the needs of science, public health or American leadership.

Industry is not the answer to absent government. Pharmaceutical companies spend an astonishing amount -- up to $3 billion -- to bring a new drug to market. But traditionally agencies of government, particularly the National Institutes of Health, seed research where the social need is apparent or where the discoveries, like an Ebola treatment, are defensive. Big Pharma often comes in later, as the developer of a drug, not the discoverer. Discovery starts with lowly dedication.

Sometimes the cost and risk initially is just too high for private institutions to take a therapy from the laboratory to the doctor’s office. Most drugs, contrary to legend, begin in the research hospitals, the universities and in government laboratories long before drug companies develop manufacturing techniques and shoulder the giant cost of clinical trials.

Developing new drugs has become too expensive for the private sector, according to a recent article in Nature. The magazine says the drug pipeline for new antibiotics, so vital in fighting infectious disease, has collapsed as Big Pharma has withdrawn. The latest to leave is Novartis, which has ceased work on its tuberculosis drug and handed it over to a charity coalition.

Government funding for medical research is now at a critical stage. It has flat-lined since 2000, as medical costs have ballooned. Also, congressional sequestration has hit hard.

Stop-and-start funding breaks careers, destroys institutional knowledge and sets the world back on its scientific heels. That is to say nothing of the sick, like those with Ebola or CFS, who lie in their beds waiting for someone to do something.

<em> Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of <em>White House Chronicle</em>, on PBS. His e-mail is lking@kingpublishing.com.</em>

Nausea and nostalgia

 

"Mermaid Parade at Coney Island,'' by EMILY CORBATO, in her show "Glorious Women,'' in the Firehouse Art Gallery, Newburyport, Mass., through Sept. 7.

Whenever I see a picture of an  oceanfront amusement park I think of the nausea produced by eating great quantities of cotton candy and riding on roller coasters that would not pass muster by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

--Robert Whitcomb

Firehouse Center for the Arts features Emily Corbato's photography exhibit, "Glorious Women" in the Firehouse Art Gallery through September 7. Meet the Artist during ArtWalk on Saturday, August 16, 3:30 - 5:30 PM. Corbato's black and white photography documents women from many parts of the world, all engaged in ordinary daily activities. The universality of women's lives is apparent: in a city in Peru, or New York, or Martha's Vinyeard; sewing, shopping, laughing, enjoying Plum Island, Disneyland or Coney Island, the location on the g

Screen shot

 

Your brain after hours on the Internet:  Mostly cloudy. (Double exposure by LYDIA WHITCOMB)

Charles Chieppo: State tax cuts a dubious priority

BOSTON

Supply-side economics has been a subject of fierce debate ever since it came into the mainstream when Ronald Reagan was first elected president, in 1980. Do large tax cuts stimulate economic growth that makes up for the reductions in government revenue associated with lower tax rates, or do they just stimulate budget deficits?

As with so many questions, the answer is “it depends.” But in Kansas, where the administration of Gov. and former U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback has embraced the strategy, it’s looking like the result will be a whole lot of red ink.

Saying that they would provide a “shot of adrenaline” for the state economy, in 2012 Brownback pushed through a set of massive tax cuts. The income tax on small businesses was eliminated and the standard deduction for married couples filing jointly increased from $6,000 to $9,000. Three personal-income tax brackets of 3.5, 6.25 and 6.45 percent were reduced to two brackets of 3 and 4.9 percent.

Additional cuts enacted last year will push the top state income-tax rate down to 3.9 percent by 2018. By then, the total tax cut will amount to more than $4 billion. Even more cuts were passed in the waning days of the Legislature’s recent session.

So far, the results are not encouraging. In May, the Legislature’s nonpartisan research staff projected a $238 million shortfall in the approximately $15 billion state budget by July of 2017. But when tax revenues for April, May and June of this year came in a total of $334 million below benchmarks, the legislative research staff moved up the date for the projected shortfall by a year.

Moody’s downgraded the state’s bonds in May. This month, Standard & Poor's followed suit, citing Kansas’s “structurally unbalanced budget” and failure to match the tax cuts with spending cuts. By raising the cost of borrowing, the downgrades will exacerbate the failure to enact spending cuts.

S&P also said the tax cuts would leave the state with dangerously low reserves. Last month the Brownback administration said Kansas had $435 million on hand on June 30. The legislative research staff now says the number was $380 million.

And there’s little sign of adrenaline — at least so far. New business filings are up, but so are forfeitures and dissolutions. Overall, the number of net new businesses declined between 2012 and 2013.

The Reagan tax cuts did indeed provide a shot of adrenaline, helping topull the country out of its 1970s malaise and into the boom of the mid-1980s. But like the Kansas cuts, they weren’t accompanied by spending reductions and led to spiraling deficits. Supporters of the tax cuts counter that increased military spending during that time brought about the downfall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

Whatever your view of them, there are two big differences between the Reagan tax cuts and what Gov. Brownback is doing in Kansas. The first is that federal taxes account for by far the biggest part of the overall tax burden. Changing state tax policy simply has much less economic impact.

Then there’s the magnitude of the cuts. When President Reagan took office, in 1981, the top individual income-tax rate was nearly 70 percent; by 1988 it was down to 28 percent. That kind of cut to a much larger portion of the overall tax burden had an exponentially greater impact than cutting Kansas’s top income tax rate from 6.45 to 3.9 percent over roughly the same amount of time.

Even if you believe in supply-side economics, the smaller impact that state and municipal taxes have on the overall economy and that, for the most part, the days of confiscatory tax rates are thankfully behind us make tax cuts a dubious choice as the centerpiece of local governments’ economic policy.

Charles Chieppo is the principal of Chieppo Strategies, a public-policy writing and communication firm.

Dining vs. digital delirium

 

"Sam and Don'' (digital print), by PAUL WEINER,  at Brickbottom Gallery,  in Somerville, Mass., in the show "Anxiety and Relief in the 21st Century,'' Sept. 7-Oct. 18.

The gallery asks how  we can turn anxiety into relief in our far-too-fast, churning, Internet-driven world.  We suppose having an unrushed dinner with the lights turned down helps. So, the gallery argues, does making art.

Champagne weather; politics and state wealth

  This has generally been a beautiful summer in New England -- not too hot, not too cool and soothing breezes most days.

Of course, as the mutual fund companies are compelled to note in their marketing, past performance should not be taken as assurance of future success.

It's tough to think of weather that could be nicer than nice weather in this corner of the world.

xxx

The story this week about Rhode Island's unemployment rate, at 7.7 percent, now the third highest in the country, got me thinking about how little  effect state tax  and other policies may have on prosperity. Or rather, in some places, they may have effects that surprise ideologues.

For instance, Georgia,  Mississippi and, somewhat less so, Nevada have long had regressive taxes  --  disproportionately hitting the poor. They tend to be light on environmental and other regulations and to give lots of public money to companies promising to locate or expand there.

Mississippi now has the highest jobless rate in the nation, at 8 percent. Georgia is second, at 7.8 percent. Rhode Island is in third place, tied with Michigan and Nevada.

Rhode Island's median household income is ranked at 17th in the nation, Georgia's at 33th,  Michigan's 34th (post collapse of car industry), Nevada's at 27th and Mississippi's at 50th.

The governors of all the states listed except Rhode Island are conservative Republicans.

After a half century of huzzahs for the alleged prosperity-fueling effects of Sun Belt tax and regulatory policies, the states there remain at the bottom of the household-income pile. The richest states are in the Middle Atlantic and Northeast -- as they have long been. And they have high taxes and lots of regulations. But some of these states have clearer, simpler, better written regulations than others. Clarity and predictability of regulations seem to be quite important in encouraging businesses to expand.

Rhode Island lags  in wealth rankings for its region. It does that because  of its absurd smallness (which skews its numbers), slowness in moving to new industrial models, dense  and badly written regulations exacerbated by an excessive number of jurisdictions (39 cities and towns!)  that discourage business creation and expansion and corruption, or,  probably more, the perception of corruption .

Corruption is doing well in other states, too, including Connecticut and Massachusetts. It has, however, always seemed to me, from decades of observation, that Rhode Island had a disproportionately high number of  particularly petty grifters. But of course, there's no way to prove that. That the "colorful'' Vincent Cianci is considered a serious candidate for mayor of Providence may also suggest either a suicidal or a bread-and-circuses mentality in too much of the state's electorate.

Anyway, if the eastern third of Connecticut were a state, its jobless  rate and household income would look a lot like Rhode Island's.

But that Rhode Island is a "liberal'' state per  se doesn't seem to be a problem.  Other "liberal''  states in the region --- e.g., Massachusetts and Maryland --- do very well indeed.

 --- Robert Whitcomb

Gamut of emotions from A to Z

"Double Carré''  (oil on wood panel), by Richard Whitten, in his September show at Dedee Shattuck Gallery, in Westport, Mass.

 

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Llewellyn King: 2 potential dam catastrophes in the making

This is a tale of two hydroelectric dams. Two dams far from each other, but either of which could produce the next great humanitarian crisis.

The first is the Mosul Dam, which stretches across the Tigris River in a valley north of Mosul, Iraq. As dams go, this one is a civil engineering horror. It was captured by the Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.  But Kurdish and Iraqi forces, aided by American air power, have taken it back, at least for now.

Should the two-mile-wide dam fail, Mosul would be wiped out and the damage would extend to Baghdad. Loss of life could reach 500,000, and millions could be deprived of water and power. An immense catastrophe piled on the daily pain of Iraq.

The second dam, far away in Southern Africa, on the Zambezi River, is the Kariba. This 55-year-old dam, by some measures, is the world’s second-largest. It was a civil- engineering masterpiece and has held up well, given the spotty maintenance by its owners — Zambia, on the north bank and Zimbabwe, on the south bank.

If the Kariba Dam fails, as it is predicted to do in three years without repairs, surging water would rip a vast trench down the length of the Zambezi River on its route to the Indian Ocean. The wall of water would take out another giant dam, Cahora Bassa, in Mozambique. Loss of life could reach 3.5 million, with untold damage to wildlife. Central Southern Africa would lose 40 percent of its electric supply.

While the Mosul and Kariba dams are linked in their potential lethality, they are very different structures.

The Mosul Dam was a rush job, ordered by Saddam Hussein in the 1980s without regard to the engineering realities on the site. It is anchored in gypsum, which dissolves in water. So leaks in the foundation have to be plugged daily with “grout,” a mixture of cement and sand. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the Mosul Dam is fundamentally the wrong structure for the location, and called it the “most dangerous dam in the world.”

Even with careful tending, the Mosul Dam is in danger. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, many of the workers who have kept the dam going fled when the Islamic State arrived, and only one dedicated manager is known to have remained.

The United States spent $33 million trying to stabilize the Mosul Dam, but the money, according to an inspector general’s report, was largely wasted. Now the United States cannot bomb near the dam for fear of destabilizing it further.

Apart from general-maintenance issues, the Kariba Dam issues are a little simpler. When the dam was built, between 1955 and 1959, it was planned that the river flow would be controlled though six sluice gates set in the wall. These empty into a plunge pool before the water flows downstream.

The trouble is that the plunge pool has grown from an indentation in the riverbed to a vast crater 285 feet deep. There it swirls around with great force and is eroding the basalt rock on which the dam is anchored. The dam is eating itself alive. All the sluice gates dare not be opened at once, and have not been since 1966.

The fix is a mixture of blasting the plunge pool, so the water goes downstream without creating a whirlpool, and injecting grout — in the form of underwater concrete — to shore up the foundation.

A consortium of the World Bank, the European Union and the African Development Bank this month agreed to provide $250 million to save Kariba. Engineers say the work must be done in the next three years or it will be too late.

If Zimbabwe and Zambia can agree on the contracts and let them in time, work should begin next year. But in that part of the world, the only thing that moves fast is the Zambezi River. The future of Mosul Dam is anyone’s guess.

Llewellyn King (lking@kingpublishing.com) is executive producer and host of "White House Chronicle," on PBS.

 

The color of orange

 

"Nan's Borderland" (acrylic on canvas), by IRMA CERESE,  at Alpers Fine Art, Andover, Mass., in its "Warm Winds, Cool Waters'' show.

Raja Kamal and Arnold Podgorsky: Our steps to end Gaza war

If a biblical saw could carve Israel out of the Middle East and to drift toward Cyprus as an island, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would disappear. As no one wields such a mighty weapon, the antagonists must learn to survive with the neighbor they have. Since modern Israel's founding, in 1948, Arabs and Israelis have gone to war numerous times. Not counting the two Intifadas and many smaller skirmishes, Israel and its neighbors fought wars in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, 1993, 1996, 2006, 2009, and 2014 – more than one war each decade of Israel’s short history. Over time, the faces of Israel’s adversaries have changed and Israel achieved peaceful resolutions with Egypt and Jordan.  More recently though, religious and demographic changes inside both Israel and its adversaries have produced an increasingly intractable situation.

In Israel’s first four wars, its enemies were nation-states with conventional military forces – principally Egypt, Syria and Jordan, supported by other Arab countries. Adversaries and targets were clearly defined; the conflicts were relatively brief and the strategic results were unambiguous. The Six-Day War of 1967 resulted in Israel becoming a de facto regional military superpower. In the wake of the October 1973 war, the Arab countries realized that Israel could not be defeated militarily.

Today, Israel’s most ardent enemies – Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon – are driven by extreme religious ideologies.  The approach that Israeli leaders have deployed to counter these foes has offered but brief advantages.  Israel’s reliance on “hard power” has not and, in the long run, cannot pave a road to peace. As a result conflicts erupt easily and frequently.

Each time Hamas and Israel engage militarily, any peaceful solution becomes more elusive and unachievable. The repeated fighting is increasingly costly to Gaza’s trapped population as Israel and Hamas become more aggressive in the use of lethal weapons and Hamas deploys human shields. Hamas rockets targeting Israel are more sophisticated than those used in previous wars, while Israel deploys deadly, contemporary weapons, including drones. The result is tragically high casualty-counts displayed on global networks and social media.

As Israel’s enemies have grown more ideologically extreme, so too has Israel. Israel has its own religious and ideological extremists, and the current coalition government reflects no true commitment to making peace. Seeing no historical evidence that concessions produce peace, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s own Tea Party ties his hands and limits what he can offer to the Palestinians. Leaders on both sides of the conflict dictate policies that harden attitudes and tighten the knots at the core of their disputes.

Gaza is the tragic focus of the conflict, but it could also be the crucible through which a solution is forged. Gazans often describe their home as the largest jail in the world. With 1.8 million inhabitants living in only 139 square miles, it is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Israel’s total blockade of Gaza leaves the area’s economy in shambles, with an unemployment rate approaching 50 percent.  The latest war will surely make matters worse. With restrictions on travel, import and export, fishing rights and banking, the quality of life in Gaza has been deteriorating for a decade or more, yielding hopelessness and the rise of religious fundamentalism. To counter these trends, a paradigm shift to “soft power” and economic development is desperately needed.

The  killings of  Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and  Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin left a vacuum in which few could move the needle toward peace. No Israeli leader since Rabin has had the creativity or mandate to advance toward peace in a meaningful way, while the refusal of many Palestinian to countenance Israel’s existence under any conditions has stifled serious discussion. Lacking vision, leadership, leaders on both sides have been mere guardians of the status quo.

As a nation-state itself, it falls to Israel to make the bold move to confirm its moral leadership and provide Gaza a path to integration as a member of the civilized world.  Netanyahu should unilaterally propose the following actions for peace:

1.            Easing significantly the blockade of Gaza.

2.            Allowing and encouraging economic activity there, including the freer movement of people in and out of Gaza, fostering employment and education.

3.            Removing restrictions on funds entering Gaza.

4.            Providing tax incentives to Israeli firms to open plants adjacent to Gaza where Gazans might seek employment.

5.            Removing restrictions on exports from Gaza.

6.            Spearheading an international “Marshall Plan” for Gaza to help rebuild the economic infrastructure.

These actions would accelerate the rebuilding of Gaza.  They would improve Gazans’ standard of living significantly, helping to reduce the hopelessness that drives many to extremism. Collectively, these actions would be a far better investment in Israel’s security than any weapon. What would Netanyahu require in return?

1.            Hamas agreement to a truce, to disarm Gaza, and to support the above package.

2.            An international plan and pledge to monitor that disarmament, including eliminating all rockets currently possessed by Hamas and eliminating tunnels.

3.            An international force of about 25,000 to oversee border security between Gaza, Israel and Egypt.

While these steps alone would not achieve a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, they would significantly improve the situation on the ground and establish a framework for a future status agreement. Citizens of Gaza and Israel’s neighboring towns would have the opportunity, over time, to develop the habits of peace.  Netanyahu would emerge as a visionary leader, earning the global respect shared by Rabin and Sadat.  Netanyahu must be willing to make bold decisions to avert the next war.

Raja Kamal is senior vice  president of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, based in Novato, Calif.  Arnold Podgorsky is an lawyer and president of Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, DC, a Conservative synagogue.  This column states their personal views and not the official views of either organization.

Robert Whitcomb: All in the family

The Demoulas family fight over Market Basket, the New England supermarket chain they own, has been a spectacle.

Arthur T. Demoulas was ousted in June as the grocer’s chief executive officer by a group led by his cousin Arthur S. Demoulas. The Arthur S. side has demanded much higher dividends and wants real estate owned by the company to be transferred directly to the family. They would rather take a lot more money now than reinvest it in the enterprise. Arthur T. is greedy, too, but not so openly. He’s done some dubious self-interested stuff involving the transfer of company assets. Still, he’s more of a reinvestment guy than is Arthur S.

The drama’s centerpiece has been many employees’ love of Arthur T. The older ones seem to love him the most, in part because of a profit-sharing fund for employees that could get some employees more than $1 million each when they retire. They worry that the Arthur S. side may have other plans for that money.

Arthur T. has paid his people pretty well — for a low-wage industry — e.g., cashiers start at $12 an hour, $4 above the Massachusetts minimum wage. And there are such nice things as Christmas bonuses. But it was Arthur T.’s frequent cozy encounters with his workers that really did the PR trick. He’d go to funerals of members of employees’ families, call employees with problems to see how they were doing, introduce employees to his wife and, all in all, be a highly visible and friendly presence.

He certainly understands the value of being known as a kindly boss — in energizing his work force to be more productive, reducing the costs of worker turnover (in training, etc.) and building customer loyalty. Patrons like to see familiar faces in stores, which is  obviously more likely with low employee turnover. A little niceness goes a long way in hard-nosed American capitalism. Witness the big PR impact of a  corporate monetary contribution to  a popular charity, although cynics might note that the contribution is usually a very small percentage of the CEO' s pay.

Since Arthur T. was ousted, many employees have gone on strike and staged demonstrations to demand that he be rehired. Many have risked being fired. All of this has lost the company many millions of dollars in sales.

“We are a family and they messed with our dad [Arthur T.],” Charlene Kalivas, who has worked for Market Basket for 18 years, told Bloomberg News. Rosa Pereira, a Market Basket deli manager, told the same outlet how at an opening of a new company store, Arthur T. said to her: “Congratulations on our new store. He didn’t say ‘my store’; he said ‘our store.”’ (Of course, the “our” legally means the shareholders, not the employees.)

Family-owned-and-run businesses can have some big strengths. Some studies suggest that they perform better and last longer on average than nonfamily companies, in part because family companies’ leaders worry less about maximizing short-term profits and more about building the company for the long term. A public company CEO is apt to only hold his job for several years and tends to be heavily rewarded for making quick profits.

Still, even closely held companies such as Market Basket are not “families.” They are teams and — in the end — the majority owners  and senior execs will almost always make their calculations based on economic self-interest — maximizing profit, share price and senior executive pay. Obviously, the owners’ and senior execs’ personalities and whether they’re likely to bump into employees on a day-to-day basis can play some supporting roles in the drama. Owners and executives who live far away  understandably care less about inflicting pain on employees than do ones close by.

Workers who entrust their lives to corporate entities make a big mistake. Out of self-respect and to make a living, employees should do their jobs as best they can while realizing that companies are self-interest machines. And bear in mind some advice a new boss gave me a long time ago: “As soon as you have a new job, you’d better start looking for the next one.” We all want someone to take care of us. In the end, that someone must be us. Executives come and go, companies are bought and sold. (Another chain will probably buy Market Basket and lay off thousands to pay off the debt to buy it.)

There may be some comfort in knowing that for those who have 401(k)s and/or old-fashioned pensions, the cold, hard calculation now more dominant in American capitalism than at any time perhaps since the 1920s has expanded their retirement funds even as globalization, automation (automatic checkout machines may ultimately wipe out even most Market Basket cashier jobs) and information technology continue to hollow out the American middle class.

American public policy heavily favors capital over earned income. Those who fully realize the implications of that have done much better than people working long hours at low wages in part because a very rich boss smiles and asks after their families.

Robert Whitcomb, who oversees New England Diary (newenglanddiary.com),  is a Providence-based writer, editor and business consultant, a former finance editor of the International Herald Tribune and a former editor at The Wall Street Journal.

Don Pesci: Nader's nattering in Conn.

  VERNON, Conn.

Ralph Nader once again is prowling the countryside saying things that are not so much wrong as passé. He does this because he himself is passé. Consumer advocacy, Mr. Nader’s specialty, reigns supreme everywhere in Connecticut, which only a short while ago sent to Congress the nation’s first consumer-protection senator, Dick Blumenthal, a little stiffer than Mr. Nader, but made from the same ideological cloth.

Not having kept up with the times, Mr. Nader seems to be laboring under the illusion that both major political parties in the United States “continually reject even considering cracking down on corporate crimes, crony capitalism or corporate welfare.”

Not at all true. In fact, the fight against crony capitalism may play a significant part in the Connecticut gubernatorial race this year.  Guess which one of the parties has rejected crony capitalism? Hint: It isn’t the party of Jefferson, Jackson and  the Nutmeg State's late and iconic Democratic boss, John Bailey. Is it not curious that the sharp-sighted Mr. Nader could have failed to notice that real capitalists have an aversion to fake capitalists?

In a column that appeared in The Hartford Courant, Mr. Nader, who appears to be supporting Jonathan Pelto for governor this year, asks rhetorically, “What if they [both major political parties] reject a proven, superior way to educate children? What if they refuse to consider an end to unconstitutional wars or to a grotesquely twisted tax system favoring the rich and powerful — to name a few of the major agenda items not even on the table for discussion by the two parties?”

Apparently, Mr. Nader’s “superior way to educate children” is the same as Mr. Pelto’s superior way to educate children -- which, for reasons not mysterious, is the same as the education lobby’s superior way to educate children. This method involves unlinking education outcomes and salaries, the rejection of testing to measure educational outcomes, and supporting without question or hesitation extravagant union demands, however much they strain taxpayers' ability to pay.

It may surprise Mr. Nader, but Steve Forbes -- to be sure, a successful businessman (via  his family's Forbes Magazine) and therefore suspect -- long ago supported a flat tax that even redundantly wealthy progressive tax supporters such as Warren Buffett would pay. Other Republicans favor a fair tax. The idle rich love progressive taxation because they alone are able to afford pricey tax lawyers to exploit a tax code awash in exceptions, which is why, come to think of it, Mr. Buffett’s  effective tax rate is less than that of his secretary.

Republican libertarian heartthrob Rand Paul, who most recently has called for demilitarizing the police -- police, mind you -- is the opposite of a warmonger, and the U.S.  Constitution has played a major role in Tea Party gatherings. One gasps at the thought that in some important respects Mr. Nader may be at heart a closet Randian Republican.

Mr. Nader’s fire in his column is pointed in two directions: at the Journal Inquirer newspaper,  of Manchester, which from time to time has spanked his backside, and at the notion that spoilers are spoilers.

Jon Pelto, for most of his life a Democrat, has entered this year’s gubernatorial contest as an Independent. Some reporters and commentators have noted that Mr. Pelto might well end up “spoiling” the campaign of Gov. Dannel Malloy, who prevailed over his Republican challenger, Tom Foley, in his first gubernatorial campaign by an uncomfortable razor-thin margin.

  In preference polls, Mr. Malloy noted recently, the needle hasn’t moved a jot since the first Malloy-Foley gubernatorial campaign. Mr. Foley once again is challenging the sitting  progressive Democratic governor and, marvel of marvels, the notion has been bruited about that Mr. Pelto’s Independent campaign might “spoil” Mr. Malloy’s progressive re-run against Mr. Foley – meaning that Mr. Pelto may draw a sufficient number of votes from Mr. Malloy so as to cause him to lose his gubernatorial election bid. A similar brief has been filed against Joe Visconti, once a Republican and now an Independent who is challenging Republican Party hegemony on the right.  Among some eccentrics on the left, the irascible Mr. Nader in particular, it has now become inadvisable to state the bald truth – which is this:

Jon Pelto’s presence in the gubernatorial race is designed to move Mr. Malloy further left, while Mr. Visconti’s presence in the gubernatorial race is designed to move Mr. Foley further right. Neither of them have a snowball’s chance in Hell of becoming governor. If either of them were successful in actually winning the gubernatorial contest, the victor will have been a successful spoiler.

The chief defect in Mr. Nader’s complex character is that he does not know when to stop protesting; this is the disabling defect of the entire Western World since the beginning of the Protestant Revolution, which helped lead to the Enlightenment. The protesters do not know when they have won; they continue protesting until all their gains have been lost.

Mr. Nader lives in Connecticut, the most progressive state in what used to be called, before the near total victory of the administrative state, the American Republic. He has won. He should go home, pop a beer, watch a ball game, and celebrate the destruction of the Republican Party in Connecticut.

Don Pesci (donpesci@att.net) is a  political columnist who lives in Vernon, Conn.

Autumnal August morning

 

"Walking'' (oil on linen), by JUANITA McNEELY, in her show "Indomitable Spirit,'' at the Kzniznick Gallery, in Waltham, Mass., through Oct. 8.

April 16, 2014

Beautiful early-hours/late-summer morning today as I drove down Blackstone Boulevard in Providence.  Lots of walkers. Some runners.  Patches of color already appearing in the leaves of some trees. Some have already fallen and are turning crinkly on the ground.  That and the soft light through the high clouds give more  of a sense of Indian summer than real summer.

We  bring our mood  (in this case autumnal) to nature and nature reinforces it.

Sadly, none of the exercisers this morning included the lady in the picture above.

Horizontal summer

 

"Early Morning, Duck Creek'' (oil on recycled wood), by  JOHN MULCAHY, at Alpers Fine Art, Andover, Mass., in its "Warm Winds, Cool Waters'' show.

Waiting for Ambien

''A Problem is a Body of Water'' (oil on canvas), by MAYA BRODSKY,  in  summer exhibition at the University of Maine Museum of Art, in Orono, through Sept. 20.

Emily Schwartz Greco/William A. Collins: Solar getting brighter

OtherWords cartoon by Khalil Bendib

NORWALK, Conn.

With so many homeowners and businesses making greener energy choices, private utilities — along with big oil, gas, coal, and nuclear companies — see the writing on the wall.Unlike some other denizens of the fossil-fueled set, this gang isn’t beating oil wells into solar panels, retiring nuclear reactors, or embracing wind and geothermal power. Instead, these guys are trying to coax lawmakers into rigging the rules against increasingly competitive new energy alternatives.You see, the bulwarks of conventional energy are good at math. And the math is increasingly not in their favor.Solar panels are growing so affordable, accessible, and popular that sun-powered energy accounted for 74 percent of the nation’s new electric generation capacity in the first three months of this year. Wind power comprised another 20 percent, geothermal 1 percent, and natural gas plus other sources accounted for the final 5 percent.

Coal didn’t even register.

OK, so that first-quarter surge was kind of an anomaly because it included the inauguration of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, the world’s largest solar-concentrating power plant. Through a vast array of seven-by-ten-foot mirrors located on federal land along the California-Nevada border, this remarkable site produces enough energy to power 140,000 homes. Another vast utility-scale project aptly called “Genesis Solar” ramped up too.

But the U.S. solar industry did install a record amount of new capacity in 2013. And once enough folks produce their own power on their rooftops and utility-scale clean energy becomes commonplace, demand for the juice generated by the dangerous and dirty oil, coal, gas, and nuclear industries will fizzle.

Can you imagine the economy weaning itself off of fossil fuels by the middle of this century? That’s what Denmark has officially pledged to do.

Besides, we all need to visualize this possibility. Unless most of humanity transitions to a new way of life powered by climate solutions, global warming could ultimately render the Earth uninhabitable.

Can you guess who is trying to manipulate legislation to squeeze a few more years out of the dirty-energy status quo instead of helping make a requisite green transition happen?

The American Legislative Exchange Council — a secretive national network known as ALEC — is stalking state capitols for just this purpose. ALEC’s lobbyists push a broad conservative agenda in statehouses through templated bills they tweak for state lawmakers.

What are these bills calling for? In states like Arizona, Utah, and Oklahoma, there are efforts to essentially tax homeowners who lease solar panels. But mostly ALEC is aiming for something bigger: gutting individual state “renewable portfolio standards.”

Those wonky-sounding regulations require utilities to provide a certain percentage of power from renewable sources at some set point in the future.

Alternative-energy leader California, for example, has committed to drawing a third of its juice from climate-friendly sources by 2020.

And who’s paying for this dirty work?

Edison Electric Institute (EEI), the trade association for the 70 percent of the U.S. utility industry controlled by private companies, is behind it — according to the Center for Media and Democracy. It’s joined in this legislative attack by coal giant Peabody Energy, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Koch Industries and other big fossil-fueled interests.

It may be hard to believe, but so far, foes of systematically encouraging renewable energy growth are losing. Badly. Even in Kansas. That state’s GOP-controlled legislature refused to repeal its renewable energy standard a few months ago in a 63-60 vote.

All 13 state-targeted efforts to chip away at or kill renewable energy standards have failed so far this year. Not one state rolled back its standards in 2013 either.

Who could have guessed that renewable energy would be so hard to foil? Well, anyone who pays attention to all the jobs it generates.

The solar industry now employs at least 142,000 people in the United States. Solar workers outnumber coal miners in this country. In Texas, solar supports more jobs than ranching and California has more solar workers than actors. Wind jobs are growing fast too. They hit a total of 80,000 last year.

Sorry, ALEC. Even the reddest states can’t ignore this rising tide of green jobs.

Emily Schwartz Greco is the managing editor of OtherWords, a non-profit national editorial service run by the Institute for Policy Studies. OtherWords columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk, Conn. This piece originated on  OtherWords.org.

Robin Williams the golf historian

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FLSXMS8ABAAU&h=JAQGTkgG9  

This is an uncensored version of Robin Williams on the invention of golf.

'Unnovation' for New England

  Ben Schreckinger had an interesting piece in the Aug. 10 Boston Globe called '''Unnovation can move New England forward'' in which he discussed (too vaguely in my view) how, away from  what The Boston Globe sub headline called the "startups and venture capitalists of Greater Boston,'' the region can energize its economy with a return to manufacturing and farming.

An example: Portland, Maine, becoming a center for ''sustainable food processing'' -- presumably with a lot of that food being grown in New England's lengthening growing seasons