Police are asked to do too much
— Photo by Scott Davidson
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
There’s something to be said for those fliers cropping up in Providence that say “Don’t Call the Police. Scan for Alternatives’’ around a bar code. The Providence Journal’s Madeleine List wrote about this in the Oct. 27 paper.
If you scan the QR code with your smartphone you’ll be taken to a Web site that lists agencies that city residents can use to obtain assorted services, such as for housing, mental health and substance-abuse issues. These are things that the police don’t necessarily have to be brought into.
Unfortunately, Ms. List’s article says, the list also includes domestic violence. The police need to handle that.
The main point, to me, is that police are called upon all too often to act as social workers rather than as anti-crime and public-safety personnel. There’s no way that cops can be trained and otherwise resourced to adequately address all the problems that they’re unfairly called upon to face these days. School personnel are also increasingly asked to serve as social workers, especially in places with lots of dysfunctional and impoverished families, many with only one parent around – the mother. The more of these functions that can be spun off to specialized agencies the better.
Of course, some of these problems are intertwined. Much criminal behavior is caused by perpetrators’ mental illness. So you sometimes need to bring in the police and social services.
Stop these mobile mobs
— Photo by J.T. Thorne
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
It’s a big challenge, but Providence and the Rhode Island State Police need to do a better job monitoring the sort of flood of riders of ATV’s, mopeds, motorcycles and dirt bikes (sounds like a Trump rally) that assaulted parts of Providence last Sunday, ruining the day for thousands of residents. The police need to have a better idea of when and where these people, many from outside the city, are grouping before they can sweep through Providence’s streets, with many participants dangerously ignoring traffic laws. Roadblocks and the credible threat of mass arrests are needed to stop therm.
Trying to control these invasions, of course, poses dangers in themselves, as
witness a very troubling crash involving a police car and a young man riding in this mob last Sunday, who, as I write this, was in a coma. But it’s far more dangerous to let these riders disrupt the city than to let them roam at will in their packs. They need to be made very afraid of law enforcement. Unfortunately Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza is seen as weak, which encourages their dangerous activities. Engendering a little fear of the mayor would be a good preventive.
These mobs don’t belong in cities.
Repel the roadblockers
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal224.com
“As Columbus announced when he knew he was bounced
It was swell, Isabelle, swell.’’
\
--- From Cole Porter’s 1935 song “Just One of Those Things’’
I’m with Rhode Island Democratic state Sen. Leonidas Raptakis, who wants to make it a felony to block a highway, which is what seven activists promoting “Indigenous Peoples Day’’ and denouncing Christopher Columbus did Oct. 13 in Providence on the north-bound side of Route 95, the main street of the East Coast.
This outrageous act, which might have gained the lawless Trump’s “law and order” campaign some voters, could have caused fatal accidents and have blocked such emergency vehicles as fire trucks and ambulances. These idiots belong in the slammer for a good long time. Nobody has a First Amendment right to block essential public infrastructure.
Also, let’s not romanticize Native Americans. Like the hemisphere’s European occupiers, they inflicted their share of horrific brutality. Tribes would fight each other, as well as invading, land-hungry white people, with awful violence. What they didn’t have was immunity to diseases from Europe and Europeans’ weaponry.
On a jewel of a day
Looking north on the Seekonk River, between Providence and East Providence, on Oct. 19. Narragansett Boat Club is on the left.
Providence’s College Hill on a beautiful fall day
Results of a stroll by New England Diary on Oct. 14
Squirrel crisis in walnut mystery
From Robert Whitcomb’s Digital Diary, in GoLocal24.com
I’ve been amused by a minor controversy about, it is alleged, a population explosion of squirrels in Providence’s gentrifying Fox Point neighborhood. The weird thing is that the busy little rodents are accused of leaving walnut shells all over the place, though there are few walnut trees in our area. Does that really present a serious hardship for residents? There are lots of oak trees, which this year – perhaps because of the drought? – are dropping impressive supplies of acorns.
Locals are arguing about such solutions as poisoning, which I hope is avoided. It would kill other creatures, too, including dogs and cats.
Frank Carini: The partial recovery of the Seekonk River
Looking out at the Henderson Bridge over the Seekonk from Providence’s Blackstone Park
From ecoRI News (ecori.org)
When driveways, highways, rooftops, patios and parking lots cover 10 percent of a watershed’s surface, bad things begin to happen. For one, stormwater-runoff pollution and flooding increase.
When impervious surface coverage surpasses 25 percent, water-quality impacts can be so severe that it may not be possible to restore water quality to preexisting conditions.
This where the Seekonk River’s resurgence runs into a proverbial dam. Impervious-surface coverage in the Seekonk River’s watershed is estimated at 56 percent. It’s tough to come back from that amount of development, but the the urban river is working on it, thanks to the efforts of its many friends.
The Seekonk River, from its natural falls at the Slater Mill Dam on Main Street in Pawtucket, R.I., flows about 5 miles south between the cities of Providence and East Providence before emptying into Providence Harbor at India Point. The river is the most northerly point of Narragansett Bay tidewater. It flows into the Providence River, which flows into Narragansett Bay.
While it continues to be a mainstay on the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management’s list of impaired waters, the Seekonk River is coming back to life.
“I started rowing at the NBC [Narragansett Boat Club] 10 years ago when I realized that I was on the shores really of a 5-mile-long wonderful playground,” Providence resident Timmons Roberts said. “I just think it’s a magical place, and seeing the river come back to life has meant a lot to me.”
The Narragansett Boat Club, which has been situated along the Seekonk River since 1838, recently held an online public discussion about the river’s recovery.
Jamie Reavis, the organization’s volunteer president, noted the efforts that have been made by the Blackstone Parks Conservancy, Fox Point Neighborhood Association, Friends of India Point Park, Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, Providence Stormwater Innovation Center, Save The Bay, and Seekonk Riverbank Revitalization Alliance, among others, to restore the beleaguered river.
“Having rowed on the river for over 30 years now, I can attest to their efforts,” Reavis said. “It was practically a dead river. It almost glowed in the dark back in the day. It is now teaming with life. Earlier this summer, a bald eagle flew less than 10 feet off the stern of my single with a fish in its talons. Watching it fly across the river and up into the trees is a sight I will not soon forget, nor is it one I could have imagined witnessing 30 years ago.”
Decades of pollution had left the Seekonk River a watery wasteland.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries some of the first textile mills in Rhode Island were built along the Seekonk River. The river, and one of its tributaries, the Blackstone River, powered much of the early Industrial Revolution. Mills that produced jewelry and silverware and processes that included metal smelting and the incineration of effluent and fuel left the Seekonk and Blackstone rivers polluted.
There are no longer heavy metals present in the water column of the Seekonk River, but sediment in the river contains heavy metals, including mercury and lead.
Swimming in the Seekonk River, which doesn’t have any licensed beaches, and eating fish caught in it aren’t recommended because of this toxic legacy and because of the continued, although declining, presence of pathogens, such as fecal coliform and enterococci. The state advises those who recreate on the river to wash after they have been in contact with the water. It also advises people not to ingest the water.
But, as both Roberts and Reavis noted, the Seekonk River is again rich with life and activity. River herring, eels, osprey, cormorants, gulls and the occasional seal and bald eagle can be found in and around the river. The same can be said of kayakers, fishermen, scullers, and birdwatchers.
The river’s ongoing recovery, however, is threatened by rising temperatures, sewage nutrients and runoff from roads, lawns, parking lots, and golf courses in two states that dump gasoline, grease, oil, fertilizer, and pesticides into the long-abused waterway.
The Sept. 30 discussion was led by Sue Kiernan, deputy administrator in the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management’s Office of Water Resources. She has spent nearly four decades, first with Save The Bay and the past 33 years with DEM, working to protect upper Narragansett Bay.
She spoke about how water quality in upper Narragansett Bay, including the Seekonk River, has improved through efforts both large and small, from the Narragansett Bay Commission’s ongoing combined sewer overflow (CSO) abatement project to wastewater treatment plants reducing the amount of contaminants being dumped into the waters of the upper bay to brownfield remediation projects to the many volunteer efforts, such as the installation of rain gardens and the planting of trees, conducted by the organizations that sponsored her presentation.
She noted that nitrogen loads, primarily from fertilizers spread on lawns and golf courses, that are washed into the river when it rains, lead to hypoxia — low-oxygen conditions — and fish kills. Since 2018, six reported fish kills that combined killed thousands of Atlantic menhaden have been documented by DEM’s Division of Marine Fisheries in the Seekonk River.
Kiernan said excessive nutrients, such as nitrogen, stimulate the growth of algae, which starts a chain of events detrimental to a healthy water body. Algae prevent the penetration of sunlight, so seagrasses and animals dependent upon this vegetation leave the area or die. And as algae decay, it robs the water of oxygen, and fish and shellfish die, replaced by species, often invasive, that tolerate pollution.
While these nutrient-charged events remain a problem, she said, the overall habitat of the Seekonk River is improving. Kiernan noted that in recent years some 20 species of fish, including bluefish, black sea bass, striped bass, scup, and tautog, have been documented in the river.
The Seekonk River is still a stressed system, but Kiernan said the river is seeing a positive trend in its recovery.
“We’re not in a position to suggest that its been fully restored, and honestly I don’t think that we’ll be in a position to do that until we get the CSO abatement program further implemented,” she said. “But I think you can take some satisfaction in knowing that there are days where things look OK out there.”
Frank Carini is editor of ecoRI News.
Liminality and simultaneity
“Consumed Structure With Road III,’’ by Denny Moers, in his monoprint show “Within a Liminal Space,’’ at Periphery Space @ Paper Nautilus, Providence, through Nov. 1.
The gallery says:
“‘Within a Liminal Space’ explores the tension between the known and the unknown. From the Latin root limen, meaning threshold, liminal is a transitional place separating the familiar from the unrecognizable. This area can be uncomfortable for many, but it is an area that artists know intimately. Whereas some photographers might anxiously move the paper in the chemical bath, anticipating the images they think will appear, Moers thrives in this space, embracing the process, accepting the uncertainty.
“Looking at Moers's photographs as liminality, another word comes to mind – simultaneity. The hazy, mirage-like images in contrast with a hard edge of color remind me of a past I can't quite bring into focus and a future that is sharply taking shape. He shows us a road that shines slick with color in the foreground while the trees and barn in the background are seen in black and white as nature envelopes them. These images are intriguing and mysterious, full of meaning, waiting to be understood.’’
Roll with the chaos
“What you find coming through” (gouache, India ink, walnut ink, soft pastel, coffee, colored pencil, graphite, watercolor, Rives BFK paper, acrylic ink and paint), by Max Van Pelt, in his show “Tendency,’’ at Cade Tompkins Projects, Providence, through Nov. 14.
Some are very nice
David Berry (1795-1889) was a Scottish-born horse and cattle breeder, landowner and benefactor in colonial Australia.
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
Being threatened with eviction from your home because you’ve lost job, as has happened to so many people in the COVID crisis, can obviously be traumatic. But the denunciations of landlords as a class can be very unfair, and the eviction suspensions that some politicians promise are dangerously simplistic.
Many landlords are small-business people, for whom the loss of rent can be devastating, enough to drive many of them out of business. When that happens, the effect may be to decrease the available housing and drive up rental prices.
And while the image of landlords, at least to many people, may be negative, most are honest people trying to balance making a profit and being responsive to their tenants.
Being a landlord can be pretty unpleasant. Some tenants are irresponsible or worse, blithely damaging property, delaying their rent payments even if they have the income to pay, having loud parties and otherwise being a pain in the neck.
After my wife and I moved out of our old (built 1835) two-family house in a then rather marginal part of Providence to work abroad, we rented out the place for a few years. In that time, we saw a pretty wide range of tenant behavior, from highly responsible custodians to deeply irresponsible and selfish ones, including somebody who sawed through an antique door to create a cat entrance. We eventually moved back to the house, taking all of it over, but then, after a couple of years, moved a dozen blocks away to a single-family house because there was too much drug-related crime in the neighborhood at the time. (It’s much better now.)
Anyway, in the current public-health and economic anxiety, let’s not demonize whole economic classes, though I might make an exception when it comes to private-equity billionaires….
Explosive evenings
M-80
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
Residents of Providence are being increasingly disturbed by fireworks and firecrackers being set off for hours every night, especially in poorer neighborhoods. Lots of these are being illegally used, since in Rhode Island only ground fireworks and sparklers can be legally ignited – in other words, quiet displays -- with firecrackers, rockets and mortars or other devices that launch projectiles banned, except, I assume, for professionally run public fireworks displays that we used to enjoy on special occasions, especially The Fourth and New Year’s Eve.
The racket, injuries and fire threat from illegally used fireworks is one of those quality-of-life issues, like graffiti, that can drive people away from a city. The police must crack down hard. And the explosives are hurting the sleep we need, especially in these tenser-than-usual times. If some folks see the fireworks as an expression of personal or political liberation many more see them as reminders of entrapment in an urban dystopia.
Knock it off.
Ah, if only people were as interested in reading the Declaration of Independence as in making a lot of noise.
The fireworks frenzy is happening in other cities, too. Please hit this link.
The year-round fireworks dilutes the excitement that we used to feel as we approached the public celebrations of the Glorious Fourth of July, which I suppose won’t happen this year in most places. When I was a kid we lived on the coast and so most of the fireworks spectacles we enjoyed were on beaches. But we also, probably illegally, had our private shows, mostly involving devices such as M-80s, cherry bombs and Roman candles, in backyards – with the nearby thick woods muffling the noise a bit. But that was only on the Fourth, when the local cops, who seemed to know everyone in town, would look the other way.
My father would stock up several years worth of fireworks in Southern states, where laws were lax. (Now the laws are very lax in New Hampshire — Live Free and Blow Off Your Hand.
Then there was the little cannon he set off every year on the Fourth. We had a loud old time for several hours.
A few boys would light and throw M-80s and cherry bombs at each other (but only on The Fourth!), displaying the same sort of idiocy as in the BB-gun wars they had through the year, in which it was possible to lose an eye or two. Cheap thrills indeed!
Self-portraiture in the pandemic
From Ashley Pelletier’s show “Reflections,’’ at Periphery Space @ Paper Nautilus, Wayland Square, Providence. through Aug. 15.
The gallery says:
“Because of the coronavirus pandemic, we have all had to figure out how to deal with feelings of stress that isolation has caused. For many artists, time in the studio has been a way to cope. Pelletier found that creating work during this time has expanded her practice of self-portraiture. The 14 paintings in “Reflections’’ show her process as it starts with the exterior of the body and goes to the interior — from the representational to the abstract.’’
'And in the end defeat -- '
The waist is larger than the belt --
For put them side by side --
The one the other will exceed
With ease -- it cannot hide --
The foot is wider than the shoe --
For try them inch by inch --
The one the other won’t fit in --
Without a mighty pinch --
The mouth is greater than the will --
For show them something sweet --
The one the other will defy --
And in the end defeat—
—”The Waist Is Larger Than the Belt,’’ by Felicia Nimue Ackerman, a Providence poet and philosophy professor
William Morgan: Public art — banality and grandeur
Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo commissioned a poster that would honor the dedication, sacrifice and nobility of medical workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
That the Sheppard Fairey poster, entitled "Rhode Island Angel of Hope and Strength," has been maligned by Republicans, who see it as "an image of Communist propaganda,’’ is less surprising than that it was commissioned by the state's canny chief executive.
Workers Monument in front of the Soviet Pavilion at the 1937 Paris Expo
State-sponsored art is rarely memorable, whether a monument to heroes of the Soviet Union or an official presidential portrait (remember the 1965 painting of Lyndon Johnson by Peter Hurd, which LBJ declared "the ugliest damn thing" he'd ever seen). Our postage stamps and coinage are generally nothing to write home about either.
Official portrait of former Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri, which is so realistic that it looks like a photo; the various trappings of office and private life are displayed, as if the man alone were not enough.
Rhode Island School of Design alumnus Fairey is best known for his now iconic 2008 Obama campaign poster, simply labeled HOPE. The Rhode Island Angel's graphic style comes from a long tradition of jingoistic American posters, particularly those from World War I. (“Hope” is the official Rhode Island motto.)
1918 War Bonds poster.
Our COVID-19 angel is pretty tame, especially compared to the public art produced by totalitarian regimes. Both Fascists and Communists almost always revert to the same sort of school textbook realism.
The similarity of different totalitarian regimes' art: Hitler and Stalin as benign fatherly figures.
The issue here is not really one of a partisan polemic (workers of all political stripes wear similar jackets and caps) but the unfortunate tendency of governments to support a flaccid realism.
Irish Famine Memorial in downtown Providence is a tribute to banality – the most simplistic imagery.
— Photo by William Morgan
It may be that government-supported public art, particularly statuary, is oxymoronic. But if we are going to have it, it needs to rise above triteness — for example, of the proposed Dwight Eisenhower monument in Washington — and at least aim for something noble or transcendent.
Proposed statuary for the Eisenhower Memorial in Washington. This D-Day tableau is modeled after a photograph, but this lacks that famous image's immediacy and poignancy.
Red Army Memorial in Sofia, Bulgaria. This has a lot more life than the proposed Eisenhower statute; It’s Soviet Realism at its powerful best.
The curse of such memorials is a sense of literalness, although we get some credit for quickly abandoning the European precedent of portraying our leaders in classical garb.
George Washington in the North Carolina Capitol, by the Italian neoclassical sculptor, Antonio Canova, 1821.
— Photo by William Morgan
It seems unlikely that the sort of politico that conflates flag waving with patriotism will actively encourage any sort of abstraction, as so unlikely but did brilliantly happen with the Vietnam Memorial in Washington.
In an age of all kinds of visual media, perhaps it is time to search for more eloquent and sophisticated expressions of commemoration and grief.
Until that time, we can remember the golden age of public art in this country, the period from the Civil War (which demanded a lot of statuary) to the Great War.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Shaw Memorial, Boston, 1884-97.
— Photo by William Morgan
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, arguably the greatest sculptor whom American has produced, understood the difference between verisimilitude and a powerful naturalism. Saint-Gaudens's monument to Col. Robert Gould Shaw and the black soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment opposite the State House in Boston remains one of the most moving works of American art.
Shaw Memorial, detail.
— Photo by William Morgan
Saint-Gaudens also designed the so-called "double eagle" $20 gold piece at the behest of his friend Theodore Roosevelt. Liberty depicted on the coin – and soaring above Colonel Shaw – is the distant ancestor of the Rhode Island Angel of Hope.
William Morgan is a Providence-based architecture writer. His next book, Snowbound: Dwelling in Winter, will be published by Princeton Architectural Press this autumn.
The Silver Age
Looking across the head of Narragansett Bay to Providence from the East Providence shoreline.
— Photo by William Morgan
Who wouldn't be?
“Am I Blue” (encaustic with saral tracings and transfers), by Angel Dean, a Providence-based painter and musician
You just didn't notice it
“Viral Dance” (oil on canvas), by Gretchen Dow Simpson, Providence-based painter and photographer and long-time contributor to The New Yorker and other publications
N.E. virus response: Beth Israel making swabs; Home Base director takes role; Dartmouth working on better test
— Photo by Raimond Spekking
From The New England Council (newenglandcouncil.com)
As our region and our nation continue to grapple with the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic, The New England Council is using our blog as a platform to highlight some of the incredible work our members have undertaken to respond to the outbreak. Each day, we’ll post a round-up of updates on some of the initiatives underway among Council members throughout the region. We are also sharing these updates via our social media, and encourage our members to share with us any information on their efforts so that we can be sure to include them in these daily round-ups.
You can find all the Council’s information and resources related to the crisis in the special COVID-19 section of our website. This includes our COVID-19 Virtual Events Calendar, which provides information on upcoming COVID-19 Congressional town halls and webinars presented by NEC members, as well as our newly-released Federal Agency COVID-19 Guidance for Businesses page.
Here is the April 21 roundup:
Medical Response
Beth Israel Producing Testing Swabs to Combat Shortage – Faced with a dwindling supply of testing materials, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has begun producing their own testing swabs in collaboration with local academics and manufacturers. The new swabs are already being used to test potential COVID-19 patients and will begin production on a larger scale soon. Read more from WBUR.
Home Base’s Gen. Jack Hammond Tapped to Lead Boston Hope Medical Center – General Jack Hammond, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Red Sox Home Base Program, has been chosen by Gov. Charlie Baker (R-MA) to serve as co-medical and operations director at Boston Hope Medical Center. Gen. Hammond will draw on both his personal experience serving in the military and in his role at Home Base to work with state and local officials to coordinate care for the unsheltered and those in post-acute care. Read more in The Boston Globe and the press release.
Dartmouth College Researchers Developing Improved Test – Researchers at Dartmouth College are working to create a new, improved test for COVID-19. The lab has partnered with a California biotech company to make the test more reliable and quicker to produce results. The test awaits FDA approval as it is being compared to the test currently being used in the United States. Read more from The New Hampshire Business Review
Economic/Business Continuity Response
Worcester State University Receives $484,000 Grant to Improve Remote Learning – To support its transition to remote learning, Worcester State University (WSU) has received over $484,000 in grants from a Boston venture philanthropy firm. The funds will be used to cover a variety of expenses, such as laptops and a university-wide texting system to remind students of upcoming deadlines. The measures are designed to especially help first-generation students, a demographic already more likely to drop out of school. The Worcester Business Journal has more.
Community Response
City of Providence Buys 34,000 Masks for Frontline Workers – The City of Providence has partnered with its firefighters union to purchase 34,000 N95 masks for first responders directly exposed to the virus. Masks, along with other protective equipment such as gloves, will be distributed to responders and other essential personnel who require them. Read more from WPRI.
UnitedHealth Announces $5 Million to Support Healthcare Workers – UnitedHealth Group, as part of its initial $60 million commitment to combating the coronavirus pandemic, has announced a $5 million initiative to support the healthcare workforce. Specifically, the funds will be directed toward efforts to procure more personal protective equipment (PPE) and to provide mental health support to those working directly with COVID-19 patients. Read the press release here.
Stay tuned for more updates each day, and follow us on Twitter for more frequent updates on how Council members are contributing to the response to this global health crisis.
Staring at 'nonspectacular' flora
“Inside/Outside’’ (oil on canvas) , by Maria Napolitano, in her March 2-May 3 show “Garden Fragments,’’ at Periphery Space at Paper Nautilus, Providence. She explains:
“The work in this show invites you to stop and take a closer look at the ordinary and non-spectacular flora that surround most of our lives. To do this, I mix up painterly, cartoony and diagrammatic approaches which I use to draw attention to the fragile relationship we have with our ecosystem. Whether it be based on the dried remnants of last year’s garden or visual memories I collect from a winter walk in the park, I combine observation and imagination to provide an insight into my everyday interaction with nature. “