Jim Hightower: Perry to run Energy Dept. for crony capitalism

Via OtherWords.org

Rick Perry has taken quite a tumble since being governor of Texas. He was a twice-failed GOP presidential wannabe and then ended up being a rejected contestant on Dancing with the Stars, the television show for has-been celebrities.

But now, having kissed the ring of Donald Trump, Perry is being lifted from the lowly role of twinkle-toed TV hoofer to — get this — taking charge of our government’s nuclear arsenal.

That’s a position that usually requires some scientific knowledge and experience. But as we’re learning from Trump’s other Cabinet picks, the key qualification that Trump wants his public servants to have is a commitment to serve the private interests of corporate power.

That’s why Perry — a devoted practitioner of crony capitalism and a champion of oligarchy — has been rewarded with this position.

As governor, Perry went to extraordinary lengths to let the fossil-fuel giant Energy Transfer Partners run a pipeline through the ecologically fragile, natural wonders of Texas’s pristine Big Bend region. In fact, he rammed it right down the throats of local people, who were almost unanimously opposed.

Perry then accepted a $6 million campaign donation — i.e., a payoff — from the company’s corporate boss, who later made Perry a paid member of the corporation’s board of directors.

Perry also privatized a state-run, low-level nuclear-waste facility, turning it over to Waste Control Specialists, a firm owned by a major campaign contributor. Then he let the corporation double the amount of waste dumped there, while reducing its legal liability for damages.

Finally, after taking even more cash from the owner, Perry pushed to let him put high-level nuclear waste in the dump.

Rick Perry has zero expertise or experience for the job of energy secretary, but he has plenty at stiffing the American people and our environment.

Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, public speaker, editor of the populist newsletter The Hightower Lowdown and a member of the Public Citizen board. 

Feeding our color hunger

A Red-Bellied Woodpecker in Southbury, Conn. 

-- Photo by Thomas Hook.

We thirst for color in the winter, and many birds give it to us. That's a big reason that we set out bird feeders -- to feed our color hunger. Of course, in the process we also end up feeding the squirrels,  but they put on a manic show that can also help alleviate our seasonal affective disorder. And the ability of so many creatures to survive the brutality of winter may remind us that we, who have it so much easier, can do so too.

Rock is the Maine thing

"Toward Cranberry'' {Island, Maine}  (oil on Lexan panel), by James Mullen, at Alpers Fine Art, Andover, Mass. The Maine Coast must be among the most beautiful coasts in the world. If only the water were a little warmer.

Maggie Kimball: Tree of heaven's hellish effects on the environment

The tree of heaven, known also as stinking sumac, (USDA photo)

Via ecoRI News

Adored for its beauty and ease of growth, and despised for its harmful, everlasting effects, the tree of heaven truly is glorious. Although it's deserving of our admiration for its aesthetics, New England statesmust hop on board to regulate the distribution of this invasive tree, to combat its negative impacts within diverse ecosystems.

With a name like “tree of heaven,” one could form a mental picture of a gorgeous, heavenly tree. One with luscious budding flowers, attractive bark and magnificent leaves extending from a sky-piercing trunk. These imaginative assumptions are true for tree of heaven’s appearance. Its godly strength and resistance to disturbance lets it  stand out as a glimpse of a lifeform within a concrete jungle.

While in a city setting this tree is able to thrive, but its ability to also thrive in environments holding an abundance of native plants makes this tree destructive. What lacks from its physical appearance is this species’ inner demons that are far more damaging than its exterior suggests.

Within a diverse ecosystem, this tree will not only outcompete surrounding species for resources, it will actually poison and kill them.

The tree of heaven, known also as Chinese sumac and stinking sumac, is an aggressive invasive species taking over the United States state by state. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, tree of heaven has invaded 41 of the 50 states and has extended its reach through much of Canada, since its introduction, in 1784.

First planted on an estate in Pennsylvania by William Hamilton, it was introduced to New York City some 40 years later. Since its preface to city streets, tree of heaven has been able to establish itself as a pioneer species, successfully surviving amongst minimal resources where other species cannot. It has the ability to tolerate saline soils, air pollution, a range of soil pH and drought, making it a perfect tree for city habitat.

Where air pollution is highly concentrated and natural flora is scarce, it's incredibly important to find a species that can withstand such conditions. In a flourishing, diversified area with optimal resources for many species to live in, such as southern New England, this plant becomes a noxious invader. A characteristic of some highly invasive species is allelopathy: a host of chemicals a plant releases into the environment that act as a germination and growth inhibitor.

According to The Nature Conservancy, the bark, roots and leaf litter of tree of heaven contain an allelopathic chemical known as ailanthone. The tree uses this biochemical to prevent other plants from establishing and also disrupts the growth rates of existing native plants.

Like many invasive species, tree of heaven likes to establish itself in disturbed areas such as forest edges, roadsides and wastelands. This is a cause for concern because if it has established itself in an area such as a forest edge, it will most certainly encroach on the native flora, and over time reduce the diversity of plant life in the area.

A change in plant diversity will alter the abundance and diversity of wildlife within the area, because natural food sources will be removed. Not only will it kill the surrounding species, by releasing up to 400,000 wind-dispersed seeds a year, according to the U.S. Forest Service, this tree will be able to further establish itself in the disturbed open areas where it had previously killed off native plants.

Although tree of heaven is registered as an invasive species, Rhode Island has failed to prohibit the human distribution of this invasive species. The state of Rhode Island is in essence allowing greater potential for the tree to invade vital ecosystems that Rhode Islanders hold dear, and putting native species in danger.

I urge the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management to list the tree of heaven as not only an invasive and noxious plant, but to also prohibit the possession, transport, planting and propagation of the tree to further ensure the safety of Rhode Island’s native plants.

Maggie Kimball is a University of Rhode Island student studying wildlife conservation and biology.

But how to store it?

About 10 percent of New England’s electrical power now comes from renewables and it’s growing at a good clip,  mostly thanks to wind and solar power. That means less reliance on fossil fuel from outside the region, including the gas produced by fracking (that kind of drilling does poison some water supplies, by the way.)

The big problems in accelerating this push toward clean power are that the region’s 20th Century power grid is not set up well for the variability of electricity from solar and wind; it lacks large-scale ways to store electric power from such fluctuating sources.

If engineers and scientists can figure out how to efficiently store massive quantities of electric energy from renewables, aided by, for example, better forecasts of sunshine and wind, the region could  finally become electricity-independent. Until then, we’ll have to take the natural gas that we can, despite the complaints of gas-pipeline NIMBYs who offer no  plausible suggestions on how to keep the lights on and a functioning local economy without it.

David Warsh: The principle of reciprocity

SOMERVILLE, Mass.

I learned the Golden Rule as a child from the New Testament of the Bible.  It was among the chief teachings of Jesus: Treat others how you yourself want to be treated. Soon I learned its prohibitive form as well:  Don’t do things to others that you yourself would resent. Since then I’ve learned that the rule was nearly universal in early civilizations: Egypt, China, India, the Near East, Greece, Persia, Rome.

Religion has retreated considerably since I was young – Christianity in particular. New disciplines have advanced from the social sciences to fill in some of the resulting gaps; arts & letters and, of course, the entertainment industry, fill others. The field with which I am most familiar is called, somewhat misleadingly, game theory, or, more plainly, strategic thought. The science-minded among us long ago translated the Golden Rule into the Law of Reciprocity. Thomas Schelling, one of its major prophets in the years since 1945, died earlier this month.

Schelling was one of those who showed that applications of the principle of reciprocity lay at the heart of relations among nations, tribes, neighborhoods, as well as persons. Conflicting interpretations of it today are at the heart of tensions among the United States, Russia and China. It was 38 years ago that China embarked on an ambitious program of economic reforms, and 25 years ago that the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Fifteen new nations, including Russia, emerged instead. To be reminded of what happened then, see this concise and wise account of that complicated event by Mary Dejevsky in London’s Independent.

It might be said that the communist experiment failed because it violated the Golden Rule in so many different ways, from horrific to banal. Equally well it might be said that the Russian Revolution succeeded because a highly motivated cadre of citizens imagined putting into practice another biblical injunction by replacing a constitutional monarchy with authoritarian rule. This religious norm was translated into social science “law” by Karl Marx, in the early years of the escape from religious authority in the Europe.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is a basic principle of sharing that animates much of human family life, and has been generalized with great restraint to other social circumstances, though hardly all. You have only to look at this Wikipedia entry to see how little progress has been made in understanding the project.

2017 is going to be a banner year for exegesis.  Congress is planning to probe U.S. relations with Russia. Russia is planning to probe itself, in connection with the centenary of the October Revolution.  Something will be learned in each case. If you’re among those becoming bored with Trump News All the Time, stay tuned here for developments in social science.

David Warsh, a veteran business journalist and economic historian, is proprietor of economicprincipals.com.

'Longing for the tomb'

"Through winter-time we call on spring,
And through the spring on summer call,
And when the abounding hedges ring
Declare that winter's best of all:
And after that there's nothing good
Because the spring time has not come--
Not know that what disturbs our blood
Is but its longing for the tomb."

--  W. B. Yeats

Charles Pinning: Christmas amongst the chosen in R.I.

Yule Night in King Hall at St. George's School circa 1960. (Photo courtesy of St. George's School Archives.)

There was no mistaking now that it was winter at St. George's School, in Middletown, R.I. The trees bare against a streaked pewter sky, the cold of frozen ground passing through your leather heels. Up the hill from the ocean came the salt air. Snow crystals gathered on bare spots in the grass and blew across the walkways.

But we were adolescent blast furnaces, roaring through the night, the tips of our wet hair freezing as we whisked coatless across the quadrangle in ties and sport coats toward the Gothic chapel that loomed above our world.

We took our places in the dark wood pews, looking at each other across the aisle, snuffling and glistening in the sudden warmth. We made faces and shot spitballs. We indulged in vile sign language.

Two nights earlier, the Christmas festivities had begun here with the singing of hymns and the appearance of Mary and Joseph and the Baby Jesus placed in a manger in front of the altar, surrounded by shepherds and angels.

But tonight was our more usual 15 minutes of chapel prayers before repairing to the medieval majesty of King Hall dining room, decorated with garlands and wreaths for Yule Night – an ancient and more pagan ritual before we were set free for vacation the next morning.

A faux boar’s head with an apple in its mouth was borne into the hall by boys costumed as Elizabethan pages. Following them, the Master and Mistress of the Feast. The Jester followed with a squirt gun. A Christmas tree glowed on the Head Table’s platform.

Beneath a ceiling of vaulted wood from which hung the colorful silken flags of the original Thirteen Colonies, we boys and faculty families dined by candlelight on roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. Surrounding us on the wood-paneled walls were the engraved names of the graduates in each class dating back to the 1890s.

After dinner, tables were moved away and a space cleared in front of the massive fireplace and the Yule Log was lit. We gathered ’round, forming a crescent in front of the hearth. A Mummers play of St. George and the Dragon was performed, the violent shadows playing upon the wall-carved names of Astors and Vanderbilts and the faces of their heirs that tonight stood side-by-side.

The Dragon slain, as was his eternal fate, our headmaster stood in front of the leaping flames and lead us in song. “Hark the Herald Angels Sing…” and I gazed upon the faces of my friends, many of whom would leave tomorrow for fancy vacations in Bermuda or the Bahamas, or skiing in Vail or Chamonix.

I saw faces that were young and healthy, wan and worried. I saw faculty members who made us do our lessons and wives who poured our tea. I saw boys who were confident and strong and others, so unsure; so young and lost. I saw rich boys who would go home to sumptuous apartments on Park Avenue and not see their parents, not even once. I saw a Black scholarship student who would go home to a Harlem tenement just a few blocks from others’ Park Avenue addresses.

I saw our star hockey player who just two weeks before had had a puck knock out both front teeth.

I saw Freddy, a Third-Former from Auchincloss Dormitory, where I was a prefect, responsible for making sure that  he was in his room by nine; that he did his studies and kept his room straightened. I looked at his face in the glow and thought about his older sister, whom I’d gazed upon longingly when the family had visited him over Parents Weekend. How could I work this?

I didn’t think about Vietnam and the draft that could soon take me. Nor did I think about what a lucky duck I was to be a micro dot of privilege.

It ended with “Silent Night.” It all crumbled with singing “Silent Night,” as it does for everyone, always.

I fought back tears, weeping inside for I don’t know what. Everything. My Mom and Dad and brothers. For all of us, rich and poor and in between. For we are all in need, even if it doesn’t look that way.

Charles Pinning,  an occasional contributor, is an essayist and novelist who lives in Providence.

A painterly use of photography

Work from Cree Bruins's show "Drawn to Light'' through Jan. 1, at Kingston Gallery, Boston.

Cate McQuaid write in The Boston Globe; "In her series 'Drawn to Light,' Bruins makes jazzy collages from bits of cut-up slide film, which she has exposed and chemically processed to derive a soft, smoky palette....

"A century ago, photographers sought to re-create paint's materiality, making brush strokes in the darkroom. In Bruins's work film comes full circle, just as it fades in the face of digital photography. It becomes the material.''

Chris Powell: The big political question for the day after Christmas

By Charles F. Parsons for Currier & Ives, 1862.

Frank Capra's 1946 film, It's a Wonderful Life, to be broadcast again tonight at 8 by NBC television, is loved most for its personal message of discovery at Christmas: that its hero's life has been, unbeknownst to him, crucial to his family, friends, community and even his country. 

Such general encouragement may seem more needed than ever these days; indeed, this may be, sadly, the cause of the film's popularity. But It's a Wonderful Life may be more important still for its overlooked lesson in democratic economics, a lesson arising from the struggle for survival of a combination credit union and savings bank, the Bailey Building & Loan in the Everytown of Bedford Falls. 

The Building & Loan's founder and chief executive, Peter Bailey, has died and its board of directors is deciding the institution's future. The richest man in town, Potter, a misanthropic banker, ruthless landlord and board member, played by Lionel Barrymore, proposes to dissolve the Building & Loan, and his callousness angers Bailey's elder son, George, played earnestly by Jimmy Stewart, who has been working as assistant to his father. 

POTTER: Peter Bailey was not a businessman. That's what killed him. Oh, I don't mean any disrespect to him, God rest his soul. He was a man of high ideals -- so-called. But ideals without common sense can ruin this town. Now you take this loan here, to Ernie Bishop. You know, the fellow who sits around all day on his ... brains, in his taxi. I happen to know the bank turned down this loan. But he comes here, and we're building him a house worth $5,000. Why? 

GEORGE BAILEY: Well, I handled that, Mr. Potter. You have all the papers there -- his salary, insurance. I can personally vouch for his character. 

POTTER: A friend of yours. 

BAILEY: Yes, sir. 

POTTER: You see, if you shoot pool with some employee, you can come and borrow money. What does that get us? A discontented, lazy rabble instead of a thrifty working class. And all because a few starry-eyed dreamers like Peter Bailey stir them up and fill their heads with a lot of impossible ideas. Now I say. ... 

BAILEY: Now hold on, Mr. Potter. Just a minute. Now you're right when you say my father was no businessman -- I know. Why he ever started this cheap, penny-ante building-and-loan I'll never know. But neither you nor anyone else can say anything against his character, because his whole life was. ... Why, in the 25 years since he and Uncle Billy started this thing, he never thought of himself. Isn't that right, Uncle Billy? He didn't save enough money to send Harry to school, let alone me, but he did help a few people get out of your slums, Mr. Potter. Now, what's wrong with that? Why, you're all businessmen here. Doesn't it make them better citizens? Doesn't it make them better customers? You said that ... what did you say a minute ago? "They have to wait and save their money before they even think of a decent home." Wait? Wait for what? Until their children grow up and leave them? Until they're so old and broken-down that they. ... Do you know how long it takes a working man to save $5,000? Just remember this, Mr. Potter: that this "rabble" you're talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn't think so. ... 

xxx

At the board's insistence, George Bailey takes over in his father's place to keep the Building & Loan going, and soon he forestalls a run on it, part of a general financial panic, by putting up the money he has saved for his honeymoon and by preaching to a mob of frightened depositors about how they should not withdraw their money but instead have faith in the institution, because their money isn't kept in cash in the safe but rather is invested in the houses, the mortgages, the very lives of their neighbors. 

Of course this is Capra's metaphor for politics and the world: that there is progress when everyone is given a chance, a little capital and credit, when people play by the rules, look out for each other, and don't take too much more than they need, and that selfishness is the ruin of everything. 

Something like this -- more or less a policy of helping to make middle-class everyone who aspired to it and would indeed play by the rules, a policy of democratizing capital and credit -- made the United States the most prosperous country and the most successful in elevating the human condition. 

But for a few decades now the price of obtaining and maintaining those "two decent rooms and a bath" and the middle-class life to go with it has risen as real wages have fallen for most, largely under the pressure of government's unrelenting taxes in the name of services that have not really been rendered, a welfare system that has subsidized what somehow is not permitted to be called the antisocial behavior it is, and a plutocracy that has gained control of both major political parties. 

There seem to be more people who, if too confused or demoralized to be dangerous, are still closer to being a "rabble" than the country saw even during the Great Depression. 

Even at its best now Christmas is seldom more than an itinerant charity that, necessary as it may seem, tends to suppress the great political question of the day after Christmas, the question of how things can be organized to ensure that everyone has a good chance to earn his way in decency. But the great joy of Christmas is that the answer has been given, that we are not lost, that the country has been shown the way and can recover it -- that society can work for all, that it really can be a wonderful life if enough selfless people make it a political one. 

Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer, based in Manchester, Conn., and an essayist.

'Nearer to spring than we were in September'

"I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.

'We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,'
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December."

--   Oliver Herford, “I Heard a Bird Sing’’

Allan Klepper: Erev Xmas 2016

By   Rechteinhaber und eigenes Foto

Erev Xmas 2016

It’s Christmas Eve, again time to believe

In that jolly fellow Santa Claus.

A tumultuous year, but we are still here

To reflect upon events gives us pause.

Nobel Literature Prize to poet/singer Bob Dylan.

Invited to attend to accept; wasn’t willin’.

Perhaps underlying reason won’t state,

To me, it appears he’s a simple ingrate.

The Galaxy Note 7; smart phone to desire

Can no longer fly for fear of a fire.

The Flint, Michigan, lead-in-the-water crisis,

And homegrown terrorists patterning ISIS.

A Google computer aptly named Alphago

Beat Korean master champ at the game of GO.

And war continues in Syria with no peace.

While attacks on police officers increase.

Most Russians banned from the Rio Olympics,

Caught red-handed using illegal doping tricks.

Exit European Union, the Brits have voted.

National, self-interest feelings were noted.

Notice no mention of the elephant in the room,

Half the country thinks we’re headed for doom!

Time named Trump person of the year

Of a divided nation, so many still fear.

Hillary Clinton had her server from hell.

Thomas Jefferson had server problems as well.

While Hillary email confidentiality abused,

Sally Hemings was the server ole Thomas used.

Senator Sanders gave Democrats a real Bern!

Though Millennials didn’t vote Clinton in turn.

Feds agree: Our election Russians did hack.

Obama has promised that we will byte back!

The Internet gave fake-newsers what they desire;

The absolute right in a theater to yell “FIRE!”

In Rhode Island, all was not great.

‘Cooler & Warmer’: loser logo for our state.

We’re getting closer to tolling of trucks

New super computer can’t deliver needy bucks.

Ethics Commission now State House oversees.

A move shenanigan-watchers doth please!

And will promised legislative legal attacks

Remove the onerous annual car tax?

But Gov. has something about which to crow:

New businesses to RI: the workforce to grow!

Hamilton was the Broadway Musical Show

Kindled desire of U.S. History to know.

Unless you’re planning a pregnancy tonight,

Don’t worry about a ZIKA mosquito bite.

Autonomous vehicle tests get the nod.

We’ll soon be riding in a driverless pod.

VW diesel auto pollution

Resulted in vigorous EPA prosecution

Calling for diesel owners’ restitution

And VW company executives' execution.

Latest research: amyloid brain plaques the target;

Details of this Alzheimer’s cure; somehow I forget…

Tom Brady’s deflategate suspension from hell

By NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

It’s said success is the revenge that’s best,

So far the Patriots are meeting the test.

Despite injuries and aches, they’re on their game.

While Brady sets NFL records for the Hall of Fame.

Let’s take a moment to reflect on the year.

Some impactful celebs that’re no longer here:

A final goodbye to Fidel Castro,

Famous Cuban Communist foe.

Antonin Scalia, court’s right-as-can-be.

And, To Kill a Mockingbird’s – Harper Lee.

Arnold Palmer – head of Arnie’s Army.

And boxing legend  Muhammad Ali.

Elie Wiesel – Laureate for Holocaust pain!

Singer “Prince” for song Purple Rain.

Robert Vaughn, Man from Uncle’s Napoleon Solo,

Janet Reno – A.G. when Feds torched WACO.

Shimon Peres – Israeli Minister Prime,

Morley Safer – 60 Minutes reporter sublime.

Grant Tinker – TV’s Mary Tyler Moore,

Gene Wilder – Young Frankenstein’s gore.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Edward Albee wrote.

John Glenn – ace, astronaut, and senator of note.

Nancy Reagan, Pete Fountain, Gwen Ifill, it’s a crime.

Florence Henderson, Garry Marshall, Gordie Howe, didn’t rhyme.

Zsa Zsa Gabor was a great housekeeping spouse.

Eight divorces, claims she always kept the house…

Tonight we select tomorrow’s movie to see,

Then on a Chinese Menu: Column “A” or Column “B”.

Our lunar calendar takes holidays for rides,

A few years ago Thanksgiving coincides.

Then we celebrated our Thanksgivakah,

Tonight, a single light, Merry Chrismannakah!

And a Joyous Kwanzaa with no animus,

Finally, A Festivus Just For The Rest of Us!!!

The Fat Ladies Sing

We revel in our candy bars
And cookies, cake, and pie.
That vegetables taste wonderful
Is one humongous lie.

But now we face admonishment.
Our size sets off a fuss.
The war against obesity
Includes a war on us.

We know our girth is plentiful,
But listen to our voice.
When thinking of our corpulence,

Why can't you be pro-choice?

 -- Felicia Nimue Ackerman

Behind the scenes at the Internet

Bankruptcy filing would be a basis for Providence resurgence

From Robert Whitcomb's Dec. 15 "Digital Diary'' in GoLocal24.com.

Ken Block, the systems analyst and formerRhode Island gubernatorial candidate, and Alan Hassenfeld, former CEO of Hasbro, are right to urge that Providence promptly be put into bankruptcy protection. (I have said for years that the city should do this.)

The city’s vast $1.9 billion liability for unfunded pensions and capacious retiree health benefits, and largely intransigent municipal unions, make it impossible for the city to dig itself out of its hole unless it goes into bankruptcy, with a  highly experienced, decisive and tough receiver appointed by a federal judge to make drastic and long-overdue changes.

The aforementioned liabilities can be blamed largely on  past mayors’ (especially the late, outstandingly corrupt  thug Vincent Cianci) sweetheart deals with labor unions in return for their political support,  and wishful thinking about, for instance, the rates of return possible for the city’s investments.

Paying for this immense debt eats up money that otherwise could go into better city services and lower taxes. Better services and lower taxes would, of course, make Providence much more attractive to taxpaying businesses and individuals that might consider moving to it. The city’ssuperb location, distinguished educational and other institutions (albeit too many of themofficially “nonprofit’’ and thus sharing little of  the tax burden) and many cultural charms would have drawn many businesses, large and small, over the past few decades if its fiscal condition had been healthy.

Providence is already effectively bankrupt. It’s past time to accept that and enter a fast and efficient bankruptcy process. Detroit has recently done just that and is now enjoying a revival. So has Central Falls. And Providence has much more going for it in the long run than Detroit, especially in  location and institutions. It’s embarrassing for politicians and residents in general to admit that their city is bankrupt, but energizing to know that bankruptcy can help shovel out the manure left by years of irresponsible governance.

Disinfecting Providence’s finances would, of course, be a big boost to all of Rhode Island, which is in many ways a city-state, and indeed to all of southeastern New England, of which Providence is the center.

Merry Christmas from the King of Commerce

Norman Rockwell (1894–1978)

"Santa and Expense Book'' (oil on canvas), by Norman Rockwell, for the Saturday Evening Post cover of Dec. 4, 1920. This is in the collection of the National Museum of American Illustration, Newport, R.I. Image courtesy of American Illustrators Gallery, NYC.

Frank Robinson: Ending the year with 'a bodyguard of ghosts' all around us

Photo by THOMAS HOOK (Connecticut-based nature photographer and essayist). He writes:

"We had our first proper snowfall last weekend. The next day on the white snow was a single, battered oak leaf. 

"This reminded me of what anthropologist Loren Eiseley wrote of the world of primitive men who might see 'portents in the fall of a leaf.' This solitary leaf  on the freshly fallen snow stamps autumn as dead and winter as ruling.''

December poem, by Frank Robinson

The letters in our new mail box

somehow seem

more important now.

xxx

This crossword puzzle is a bear.

Fifty years on,

and I’m still working on the first clue.

xxx

Begin every day with a poem

and get it over with

(with thanks to W.C. Fields).

xxx

This old skin I sleep in every night –

like a suit I should have sold

years ago.

xxx

Women have no illusions,

they know the cost of everything,

including love.

xxx

It will happen very slowly,

one second every million years.

Even so, I’m glad

I won’t be around

when it happens.

xxx

Am I proud or sad,

to pass my father’s “Sell by’’ date

by ten years?

xxx

For this, I gave up

family and friends,

for a hearty handshake at the end?

xxx

When you have a job,

You succeed or fail every day.

When you don’t,

you neither succeed nor fail.

xxx

I have no time, I have no time,

I’m too busy doing nothing.

xxx

In this place, no one is alone;

everyone comes with a bodyguard of ghosts.

xxx

Growing old, dying, lousy weather –

Oh, Margaret, you deserve better.

xxx

Is she so beautiful

because she’s so young,

or because I’m so old?

xxx

A hard choice:

recognition now,

or immortality when I’m dead?

xxx

On the beach –

I’m smarter than the waves,

smarter than the sand,

a genius compared to the sky,

so I’ll enjoy it all while I can.

xxx:::

At least it celebrates spring,

the nest they built

in our Christmas wreath.

-- Frank Robinson

Mr. Robinson is a poet, former director of the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, former director of the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design and an art historian.

Llewellyn King: Gifts to us from 'The Overcomers'

Certain gifts are given to us year in and year out. They are the gifts that keep on giving and they come, to my mind, from people I call “The Overcomers’’

This Christmas week A. A. Gill, one of Britain's most extraordinary newspaper columnists, died at 62.

Gill was nominally a food critic. He used that position as a launch pad for some of the most entertaining and acerbic writing anywhere.

His column in the Britain's The Sunday Times was a weekly joy. But Gill didn’t get there easily. First, he nearly died from alcoholism at 30.

He wrote a book about it.

Gill straightened out his drinking, but he never straightened out his awful spelling and severe dyslexia. He overcame them largely by phoning in his columns.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, one of the greatest literary talents to come out of South America, struggled with terrible spelling, which he detailed in his extraordinary autobiography, Living to Tell the Tale. But it didn’t stop him from authoring masterpieces like One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera.

Willard Scott, who had a successful career in radio in the Washington, D.C., market before making it as a personality and weatherman on NBC's Today show, suffered acute stage fright. He testified before Congress so that his experience would help others.

But in my random selection of overcomers, the biggest is Laura Hillenbrand, the author of two nonfiction bestsellers, Sea Biscuit: An American Legend and Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption. Both were massive works of research and narrative writing.

The back story, though, is one of suffering, terrible unrelenting suffering. Hillenbrand is afflicted with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

This is a disease that knows no mercy; a life-sentence disease without a cure and no proven therapy. It punishes sufferers for any effort, even mild exercise, condemning them to bed, often for days. The symptoms are extreme fatigue, migraine headache, aching joints, hyper-sensitivity to light and sound, and dysphasia. Some patents are bed-ridden for years.

Hillenbrand missed her own wedding because she was unable to walk downstairs or to look down. Yet, this overcomer researched and wrote two extraordinary books. Just as important, in a seminal July 7, 2003 essay in The New Yorker, she told her own story, comforting fellow sufferers and prompting the medical world to take ME more seriously.

My favorite overcomer was a waiter at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., known simply as Mr. Blue. He was a man of such innate dignity that everyone called him “Mister,” and no one seemed to know his first name.

Blue had had a hard life as an African-American with no education. In fact, he was illiterate and I was one of the few to find out.

At the club in the 1970s, when I knew Blue, the waiters carried loose, paper checks on which members wrote their orders and club numbers. Blue survived by feats of memory, remembering who had written out which check by keeping them in order. One day, his system failed: He dropped his checks. Mr. Blue was distraught to tears.

Shame is a powerful censor and, like most censorship, it neither helps the sufferer, nor does it do anything for the body politic. No one wants to be famous for their inadequacies or their sickness. But going public comforts and is a gift. It is the gift, so important in the holidays, of saying: You are not alone.

In that spirit, I have to go public with this: I am, for a broadcaster, a bad sight-reader. I have mild dyslexia, and I've been humiliated by my terrible spelling all of my long life in journalism. Happy holidays!

Llewellyn King, based in New England and Washington, is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS, and a veteran publisher, columnist and international business consultant. His e-mail is llewellynking1@gmail.com. This piece first ran on Inside Sources.

In some ways Worcester is wonderful

Inside the Worcester Art Museum, the second-largest art museum in New England. It was founded in 1898, in Worcester's industrial heyday.

Adapted from an item in Robert Whitcomb’s Dec. 15 “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com.

Worcester, which I have always seen as “New England’s Pittsburgh’’ because of its metal-related companies, is enjoying a revival, including in manufacturing, which first made it rich. Indeed, in a recent three-year period, the Worcester area’s manufacturing sector grew 15 percent as measured by revenue.

The city also has numerous higher-education institutions that are contributing to its renaissance, but probably the University of Massachusetts Medical Center has been the most important, helping to turn the city into a major biomedical center. Further, there are big redevelopment projects underway downtown. Some of the revival is simply the westward expansion of the booming Greater Boston economy but some of it is due to healthy homegrown boosterism.

And there are such distinguished cultural centers as the Worcester Art Museum and some gorgeous suburbs, such as Princeton and Harvard, Mass.

Worcester has plenty of problems, of course, but its recent success is edifying for other mid-size cities, in New England and beyond. If only its winters were tad milder. Some of the city is around 1,000 feet above sea level, which makes for considerably more snow and ice than in, say, Boston, Hartford and Providence.

By the way, Worcester is somewhat misleadingly called “the second-biggest city in New England,’’ with a population of about 181,000, compared to Providence’s about 180,000, but the latter’s metro area has many more people than Worcester’s – about 1.3 million compared to Worcester’s about 800,000. Worcester proper has far more square miles, at 38.6, than Providence’s 20.6.

Like Boston and some other Colonial-era towns, Providence’s area is small because other towns in its area were quickly incorporated well before Providence could absorb their acreage as its population and economy boomed in the 19th Century. Consider that while the population of Boston itself is about 667,000, its metro area has about 4.7 million people (or "souls,'' as people used to say).

Out west, on the other hand, cities, such as Phoenix, could easily gobble up vast stretches of unincorporated and under-populated land – much of it effectively wasteland.

Chuck Collins: The rest of us pay for rich, show-off philanthropists' gifts

Via OtherWords.org

It’s the season of giving.

When you hear about a billionaire “giving back” — like Nike founder Phil Knight’s $400 million gift to Stanford, or hedge funder John Paulsen’s $400 million donation to Harvard — do you feel a warm glow?

They could’ve kept their money and bought another house or private jet, you might think. But what if you heard that the tax write-offs billionaires claim for gifts like these force the rest of us to shell out more?

Suddenly that glow doesn’t feel so warm.

Compare that generosity to what you’ve probably seen in your own community. In every small town in America — at the local convenience store or diner — there’s “the jar,” a special collection for someone who needs an operation or has faced one of life’s misfortunes.

Everyone who can chips in. No one writes it off their taxes.

Keeping score that way would be as unseemly as asking for a tax break for coaching a neighborhood youth sports team, volunteering at a shelter, or making a casserole for someone coming home from the hospital.

Unfortunately, this is the wave of the future. More and more, our country’s charitable giving is dominated and controlled by billionaire mega-donors, their foundations, and donor-advised funds, according to a report I coauthored for the Institute for Policy Studies.

Between 2003 and 2013, itemized contributions from people making $10 million or more increased by 104 percent. The number of private grant-making foundations, mostly established by wealthy individuals and their families, has doubled since 1993. Today there are over 80,000.

Meanwhile, charitable giving by low and middle-income donors has steadily declined, reflecting stagnant wages, declining homeownership, and growing economic insecurity by low- and middle-income families. From 2003 to 2013, itemized charitable deductions by donors making less than $100,000 declined by over a third.

This top-heavy philanthropy poses a danger to charities, too. It makes their funding less predictable and pressures them to focus on wooing a finite, relatively small number of mega-donors, rather than on doing the important work many of them do.

But the largest peril is for our democracy. Unchecked, private foundations can become blocks of concentrated, unaccountable power with considerable clout in shaping our laws and culture. They can become extensions of the power, privilege and influence of a handful of rich families.

In this season of giving, we’ll hear plenty about billionaires “giving back” through donations to education, the arts, health, and medicine. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that you and I are subsidizing the charitable choices of the wealthy.

Maybe we’d all be better off if these billionaires just paid their fair share of taxes.

Chuck Collins is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and a co-editor of Inequality.org. He’s the author of the recent book Born on Third Base.