Chris Powell: Serious cases, not tests, should measure pandemic
— Photo by Raimond Spekking
MANCHESTER, Conn.
Everybody is tired of the COVID-19 epidemic, and no one is more entitled to be tired of it than Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont. It has devastated the finances of state government, commandeered its management, crippled education at all levels, and worsened many social problems.
While people admire the governor's calm and conscientious manner, they may lose patience as his plan for returning Connecticut to normal starts reversing. Of course the epidemic is not the governor's fault and he deserves sympathy, but his reversal amid fears that the epidemic is surging again should prompt reconsideration of the measures being used to set policy.
Are the governor's premises correct?
The primary measure of the epidemic, in Connecticut and other states, is the "positivity rate," the percentage of daily virus tests reported as positive. One day about week ago the rate exceeded 6 percent, setting off hysteria among news organizations, before falling the next day to a more typical 3 percent. But these figures don't mean that 6 or 3 percent of the state's population is infected. These figures mean only that infection has reached those levels among people who chose to be tested in the previous several days.
Infection levels among the entire population of the state may be lower or higher than the daily "positivity rate." Paradoxically, a higher rate might be much better. That's because most people who contract the virus suffer no symptoms or only mild symptoms and do not require special treatment even as they gain antibodies conferring some immunity. Indeed, if the governor's data is analyzed in another way, so as to calculate what might be called the serious case rate, the positivity rate loses relevance, the virus looks less dangerous, and the epidemic looks less serious.
For the eight days from Oct. 26 through Nov. 2, the governor reported 7,806 new virus cases, 50 new "virus-associated" deaths, and 107 new hospitalizations. If deaths and new hospitalizations are totaled and categorized as serious cases, the serious case rate for those eight days was only 2 percent of all new cases, substantially below the positivity rate for those days -- 3.4 percent -- and way below the one-day positivity rate that caused alarm.
The mortality rate for the week was only six-tenths of 1 percent of all new cases -- and that is measured only against known new cases. If the mortality rate could be calculated from all new cases, including the week's unreported cases -- asymptomatic people -- it likely would be much smaller.
After all, it seems that 7,649 of the 7,806 people who figured in the virus reports for those eight days -- 98 percent of them -- were simply sent home to recover, perhaps with some over-the-counter or prescription medicine.
At the governor's Oct. 26 briefing Dr. John Murphy, chief executive of the Nuvance Health hospital network, tamped down the fright. Murphy noted that treatments for the virus have gotten much more effective since the epidemic began in March -- that while there is as yet no cure, there are medicines that slow the virus and aid recovery, and that as younger people with fewer underlying health problems have become infected, the virus fatality rate and the average length of hospitalization have fallen by half.
The great concern at the start of the epidemic -- hospital capacity -- remains valid, but it deserves reconsideration too. Back then the Connecticut National Guard set up field hospitals with nearly 1,700 beds, including more than 600 at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford. They weren't used before they were taken down, and with fewer than 400 virus patients hospitalized in the state last week, presumably the state, if pressed, could handle at least a quadrupling of patients.
None of this argues for carelessness, like that of college students partying in close quarters without masks, nor for reopening bars, where the virus may spread most easily. But it does argue for continuing the gradual reopening that was underway before a bad positivity rate scared everybody.
Of course, news organizations delight in scaring people with the positivity rate, but they are enabled in this by the governor's stressing it instead of the serious case rate.
If the infirm elderly and the chronically ill are better protected, fear may subside and relatively normal life may be possible again.
Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester.
Brigham sets hospital fundraising record for Boston of $1.75 billion
Outside the Brigham
BOSTON
“Brigham and Women’s Hospital has completed its “Life. Giving. Breakthroughs” campaign, receiving over 200,000 donations from 80 countries. The donations totaled $1.75 billion, setting a new record for hospital fundraising in Boston.
The hospital’s campaign began in 2013 and includes a $50 million donation from Karen and Robert Hale for the new Hale Building for Transformative Medicine. Robert Hale is the co-owner of the Boston Celtics. The building, finished in 2016, is the first to have a 7-tesla MRI machine in North America. The funds also helped in building the Thea and James Stoneman Centennial Park, as well as doubling the size of the newborn intensive-care unit and the creation of a new Center for Child Development.
“These advancements underscore the power of philanthropy and the impact a grateful community can make when they give back to help others,” said Susan Rapple, senior vice president and chief development officer at the Brigham.
The New England Council congratulates Brigham and Women’s Hospital for this historic fundraising campaign. Read more here.”
Wouldn't want to waste her?
“After the cancer got down in his bones, old Bill
didn’t want much to kill — not even on the wing.
Still, he did have that crack young bitch Pointer Belle,
just now getting round to her best, her prime-years savvy,
Would she be the wrong damned creature ever to waste?’’
— From “Well, Everything,’’ by Sydney Lea, a former poet laureate of Vermont. He lives in Newbury, Vt.
A ruffled grouse, one of the most popular victims of New England hunters in the fall. The poem talks about grouse hunting.
The Connecticut River from Newbury, Vt,
Marker of former bridge in Newbury.
Murmur of a memory
“In places faded. Tonight a ghost, a murmur of a love epistle’’ (acrylic and mixed media on canvas), by Melissa Herrington, in her show at Lanoue Gallery, Boston, through Nov. 30’.
Masochistic meal preparation
Coot
“Everybody remembers the recipe for cooking a coot: put an ax in the pan with the coot, and when you can stick a fork in the ax the coot is done.’’
— John Gould, in “They Come High,’’ in New England: The Four Seasons (1980)
Coot hunting used to be a favorite coastal New England sport in November. My father was one of the enthusiasts for a few years, operating out of a duck blind on the shore of Massachusetts Bay. The culinary charms of these stringy, oily birds elude me.
— Robert Whitcomb
From Feathered Game of the Northeast (1907)
William Morgan: Raymond Hood and the drama of the American skyscraper
In 1916, a little known, 35-year-old architect and Rhode Island native proposed a monumental civic structure for downtown Providence. Raymond Hood's Civic Centre would have been sited where the Industrial Trust Building was later built; it was to be 600 feet tall and would serve as courthouse, library and prison. Its tower would symbolize progress and prosperity at the head of Narragansett Bay.
A few years earlier, Hood had done his thesis at the prestigious École des Beaux Arts, in Paris, on a design for a city hall for his hometown of Pawtucket. While neither of these fanciful schemes was built, they demonstrate the early vision of a man destined to become of one of the 20th Century's most significant skyscraper architects.
Raymond Hood, Proposed City Hall for Pawtucket. Year-Book of the Rhode Island Chapter, American Institute of American Institute of Architects, 1911
“Raymond Hood and the American Skyscraper,’’ an exhibition initially organized for showing to the public at the David Winton Bell Gallery, at Brown University, opened online only on Sept. 11. The show, underwritten by the Brown Arts Initiative and Shawmut Design & Construction, features loans of drawings and photographs from RISD, MIT, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania and the Smithsonian Institution. Hit this link to see the show.
Ralph Adams Cram (left) and Raymond Hood in Bermuda, c.1930. Hood worked for Cram as a young architect; Cram designed the Pawtucket Public Library. Courtesy, Cram & Ferguson Architects
Beyond the lectures and other materials associated with the show, one can access information on Hood through the handsome 48-page catalog written by two of the show's co-curators, Prof. Dietrich Neumann and Brown doctoral student Jonathan Duval (the other curator is Jo-Ann Conklin, director of the Bell).
Catalog cover with Rockefeller Center, with the soaring RCA Building.
Hood would go on to design several iconic skyscrapers of the 1930s, serve as the head designer of Rockefeller Center, and would be, in Neumann's words "the most powerful architect in New York City." Significant exhibitions like this one reacquaint us with sometimes forgotten figures and force new assessments of their contributions to our cultural landscape.
RCA building at Rockefeller Center, photographed in 1933. Library of Congress.
Hood died far too young at 53. And in one of those ironies of architectural history, Modernists denigrated as too conservative the skyscraper that secured Hood's career and transformed him from dreamer to real player.
Howells & Hood, Chicago Tower. PHOTO ©Hassan Bagheri
As Neumann and Duval remind us, Hood was a struggling draftsman when he teamed up with the fashionable New York architect John Mead Howells (designer of Providence’s Turks Head Building) to enter the major international competition to build the Chicago Tribune's headquarters building in 1922. Howells and Hood beat out 262 other entrants from 23 countries with their skyscraper scheme.
I remember professors in college and graduate school ranting about the shortcomings of the Tribune Tower, labeling it "dishonest" for hiding its modern steel frame underneath a cloak of eclectic, historicist detail. It is time to acknowledge that Hood's design was the one that deserved to win, and to accept that the verticality of Gothic was wholly appropriate for such a soaring form.
Almost 100 years after that famous controversial contest, the Tribune Tower remains an absolute triumph, proudly standing in the skyscraper capital. Hood's more streamlined skyscrapers in New York – the RCA building, the Daily News Building and the McGraw-Hill Building – still inspire us, and they are especially instructive when placed against formless pieces of real estate such as Providence's proposed Fane Tower.
McGraw-Hill Building, New York, PHOTO © Hassan Bagheri
The effort that Brown has applied to the work of Raymond Hood is the sort of public service that universities offer the commonweal. Such scholarship is especially welcome now, as study of great architecture and urbanism is crucial to rebuilding after a time of pandemic.
Providence-based architecture critic and historian William Morgan has taught the history of architecture at Princeton University, The University of Louisville and Roger Williams University.
His latest book is Snowbound: Dwelling in Winter
Ross E. O'Hara: Online-learning advice for college students
From The New England Journal of Higher Education, a service of The New England Board of Higher Education (nebhe.org)
BOSTON
The majority of college students were largely disappointed by remote learning this past spring, with many reporting a strong preference for in-person instruction. Bearing in mind the low expectations that many students carried into online courses this fall, what advice can we give to help them succeed in this final month? As colleges across New England and the country continue to announce spring plans that include online courses, what can we share to prepare students for success in 2021?
While the internet is saturated with “hacks” for online learning, I want to connect you with the best experts I know: Students.
Since March, the Persistence Plus mobile nudging support platform has asked more than 25,000 students from both two- and four-year institutions about their experiences with remote learning. Specifically, we gathered their advice about how to excel in this format, and I saw four key themes emerge. I have also paired their insights with science-based exercises that can be shared with students to bolster their motivation and improve their performance in online courses.
1. Set a schedule. The most frequently offered advice was the need to set a regular schedule—especially in asynchronous courses—and stick to it. Several students mentioned examining the syllabus for major assignments and noting due dates in advance, working ahead on those assignments to the extent possible and regularly checking email and the course website. Here’s some of what they said:
“Make a schedule for classes, study time, completion of assignments, breaks, etc., and build enough discipline to stick to the schedule.”
“Make a schedule for time to study. Prioritize due dates on assignments and exams. It is not as difficult as you may think. Discipline and focus is key.”
“Work as far ahead as possible, get assignments done as soon as you get them so you don’t have to worry about it, and set a scheduled time each day to work on school.”
“Write everything down and log into your classes and email to check for new reminders and announcements every day.”
One way that students can go beyond just setting a schedule is with “if-then” plans. We all naturally underestimate how long it takes to complete projects (known as the planning fallacy). To counteract this optimism, students can make very specific plans for when and where they will work on assignments (for example, “I will read Chapter 1 at the dining room table after my daughter goes to sleep on Wednesday night.”) The more specific they are, the more likely they are to follow through.
Yet the best-laid schemes of mice and men oft go awry. Students should also develop contingency plans for common obstacles (such as “If my daughter doesn’t fall asleep by 9 p.m., then I will read Chapter 1 before she wakes up the next morning.”) No one can foresee the future, but anticipating the most likely problems and pre-designing solutions will help students stay on track. You can facilitate students’ if-then plans by prompting them to complete the exercise via an email, a poll within your institution’s learning management system, or even providing space in the syllabus to craft if-then plans for each big assignment.
2. Create a study space. Students noted how important it is to have a quiet, peaceful (but not too relaxing!) area for schoolwork. The goal of such a space is to create focus without inducing grogginess. They suggested:
“Find a place where you can be composed and stay focused with your priorities.”
“If you can, set aside someplace that is specially for school work so that you can focus when doing work and then relax when you go to bed (if you only have space in your bedroom then just make sure not to do work on your bed, work only on your desk).”
“Find a place in your home to go that is designated to your studies.”
“Don’t attend virtual classes in bed! Try working at a table or desk for effective productivity. Working in your bed allows you to be too comfortable and can cause you to fall asleep or lose focus.”
Given the COVID-19 pandemic, this area is most likely within students’ homes. But as we all know, our homes are often crowded with partners, children, parents and roommates. One advantage of a dedicated space is that it sends a signal that this person is studying and shouldn’t be interrupted. Moreover, a regular study space takes advantage of state-dependent memory. When you learn something, cues from the environment become associated with it: the feel of your chair, the smell of the room, the taste of your coffee, even your mood at that moment. If students put themselves into those same circumstances when they need to recall that information (i.e. for the exam), they’ll be more likely to remember.
3. Ask for help. We heard over and over that students must reach out for help, especially from their professors, if they get stuck. If you’re a professor but you might be difficult to reach (you’re dealing with plenty of crises too!) build a system that makes it easy for students to connect with other faculty, former students, campus tutors, tech support and each other. Students advised:
“Don’t be afraid to email professors and/or classmates/peers for understanding of the coursework and/or additional assistance.”
“Professors make it very easy, they work with you and they provide all the resources you need to be successful. Don’t forget to ask questions.”
“Make group messages with your peers so you can keep each other on track, and ask each other questions.”
“Don’t be afraid to reach out to classmates and ask for help. Everyone is going through it together and supporting each other through it is what makes it work.”
Asking for help makes some students feel nervous or embarrassed. One way to circumvent those feelings is to use simple role reversal. Instead of asking someone else for advice, students can imagine that one of their classmates came to them with the same issue. Students can then consider what they would advise their peer to do, or whom they would point them to for help. This role-playing can make students less anxious by approaching their own problem from a neutral perspective, make them feel more empowered, and help them generate potential solutions that they may not otherwise see.
4. Be accountable. Finally, students noted that success in online courses requires a lot of self-discipline and accountability. The physical and emotional distance between students and their professors can make it all the easier to skip assignments or not participate in class. They noted:
“It’s all about being on top of your work and holding yourself accountable. If you can handle online college classes, you can handle college.”
“Don’t put off projects and homework just because the deadline isn’t for a little while, you will forget and have to rush to finish it so just do it or start it (and do a good amount of the work) as soon as it is assigned.”
“Study just like you would if you were taking the class in a classroom. No matter where you are learning from, the same level of effort and focus is expected.”
It is challenging to maintain focus on learning online, while also working (or looking for work), raising children and dealing with life’s other responsibilities. One practice that may help students concentrate is to engage in 5-10 minutes of expressive writing before working on school. Ask students to privately jot down everything in their life that is worrying or stressing them out, and write specifically about how each one makes them feel. Rather than suppressing or ignoring their emotions, releasing them on paper lessens their impact and will allow students to better focus on learning or performing. They can even crumple up that piece of paper and toss it in a recycling bin, symbolically discarding those intrusive thoughts so they can get down to business.
Despite our general comfort level with technology, most of us are still unacquainted with experiencing most of our lives online, and things won’t be that much better as we continue remote learning into 2021. While students study algebra, or 20th Century European history or computer coding, remember that they’re still adapting to a whole new way of learning, and that’s not easy. So please pass along advice from our college experts to your students and their instructors so they may be better prepared for any eventual roadblock.
Ross E. O’Hara is director of behavioral science and education at Persistence Plus LLC, which is based in Boston.
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Salt water is contaminating wells in Rhode Island as sea level rises
From ecoRI News
Drinking water wells at homes along the Rhode Island coastline are being contaminated by an intrusion of salt water, and as sea levels rise and storm surge increases as a result of the changing climate, many more wells are likely to be at risk.
To address this situation, a team of University of Rhode Island researchers is conducting a series of geophysical tests to determine the extent of the problem.
“Salt water cannot be used for crop irrigation, it can’t be consumed by people, so this is a serious problem for people in communities that depend on freshwater groundwater,” said Soni Pradhanang, associate professor in the URI Department of Geosciences and the leader of the project. “We know there are many wells in close proximity to the coast that have saline water, and many others are vulnerable. Our goal is to document how far inland the salt water may travel and how long it stays saline.”
Salt water can find its way into well water in several ways, according to Pradhanang. It can flow into the well from above after running along the surface of the land, for instance, or it could be pushed into the aquifer from below. Sometimes it recedes on its own at the conclusion of a storm, while other times it remains a permanent problem.
Pradhanang and graduate student Jeeban Panthi are focusing their efforts along the edge of the salt ponds in Charlestown and South Kingstown, where the problem appears to be the most severe.
Since salt water is denser than fresh water, it typically settles below. So the scientists are using ground-penetrating radar and electrical resistivity tests — equipment loaned from the U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Department of Agriculture — to map the depth of the saltwater/freshwater interface.
“In coastal areas, there is always salt water beneath the fresh water in the aquifer, but the question is, how deep is the freshwater lens sitting on top of the salt water,” said Panthi, who also collaborates with URI professor Thomas Boving. “We want to know the dynamics of that interface.”
The URI researchers plan to drill two deep wells this month to study the geology of the area and the chemistry of the groundwater to verify the data collected in their geophysical tests.
The first tests were conducted in the summer of 2019, and a second series was completed this fall after being delayed by the pandemic. Final tests will be conducted this spring when groundwater levels should be at their peak.
“The groundwater level was at its lowest point in 10 years this summer because of the drought,” said Panthi, a native of Nepal who studied mountain hydrology before coming to URI. “That will be a good comparison against what we expect will be high levels in April and May.”
Panthi has collected well-water samples from nearly two dozen residences for analysis. One of the contaminated wells is a mile inland from Ninigret Pond, in Charlestown.
Ninigret Pond, in Charlestown, R.I.
“A homeowner had a deep well drilled for a new house and it ended up with extremely saline water,” Pradhanang said. “Deep wells close to the salt ponds or the coast are more likely to have saltwater intrusion than shallow wells, though shallow wells can also have problems if they become inundated with salt water.”
Another URI graduate student, Mamoon Ismail, is developing a model to simulate saltwater intrusion into drinking water wells based on the changing pattern of precipitation and the potential for extreme storms. They hope to be able to predict how far inland salt water will intrude following a Category 1 hurricane compared to a Category 2 storm, for instance.
This research is being funded by the Rhode Island office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
While there’s still snow
This long poem, by Whittier (1807-1892) a poet based in northeast Massachusetts, a Quaker and an abolitionist, once was required reading for kids.
Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
Providence-based architectural writer and historian William Morgan’s latest – and beautifully illustrated -- book, Snowbound: Dwelling in Winter (Princeton Architectural Press), looks at 20 houses in various cold parts of the world, including Europe, Asia and North and South America.
A New Hampshire house and a Connecticut house are featured in the book.
As the press release notes:
“From the ski slopes of Utah to the frigid tundra of northwestern Russia, Snowbound celebrates contemporary design in cold climates with a focus on sustainability. Tailor-made for architects, designers, snowbirds, and aspiring second-home owners, this tour of twenty dwellings is equal parts escapist photo essay and practical sourcebook, with immersive photography, architectural plans, and location, climate, and building-systems data.’’
That some of these houses were put up in preposterously harsh and remote places adds to the entertainment.
But global warming rears its head. Mr. Morgan writes:
“Candidates for Snowbound in Canada, Australia, and Vermont had to be eliminated as recent winters came with less-than-usual snowfall. In the middle of the winter in the Southern Hemisphere, there was insufficient snow in the Andes, more than a thousand miles south of Buenos Aires, to photograph a house as it would have looked only less than a decade ago.’’
But what about summers at these buildings?
Protected by the Second Amendment?
“Fingernail Extensions” (silver gelatin print), by Amy Arbus, at Mitchell-Giddings Fine Arts, Brattleboro, Vt.
See:
https://mitchellgiddingsfinearts.com/index.php
Julie Rovner: A GOP Senate likely to block many Biden health proposals
Former Vice President Joe Biden secured the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the White House on Saturday, major news organizations projected, after election officials in a handful of swing states spent days in round-the-clock counting of millions of mail-in ballots and early votes.
The Democrat’s victory came after the latest tallies showed him taking an insurmountable lead in Pennsylvania, a state that both Biden and President Trump had long identified as vital to their election efforts. Trump has signaled he will fight the election results in several states, filing a number of lawsuits and seeking recounts.
“America, I’m honored that you have chosen me to lead our great country,” Biden tweeted shortly after the news organizations called the race. “The work ahead of us will be hard, but I promise you this: I will be a President for all Americans — whether you voted for me or not.”
The Democratic celebration was tempered because it appeared the party would have a hard time taking back the Senate majority it lost in 2014. If that bears out, it will likely keep Biden and Democratic lawmakers from enacting many of the plans they campaigned on, including major changes in health care.
Party control of the Senate may not be determined until January — thanks to what preliminary returns suggest will be runoffs for both Senate seats in Georgia. No candidate for either seat reached the required 50% threshold.
Without a Democratic majority in the Senate, Biden will likely face strong Republican opposition to many of his top health agenda items — including lowering the eligibility age for Medicare to 60, expanding financial assistance for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, and creating a “public option” government health plan.
However, his administration would be a bulwark to defend the ACA against Republican attacks, although the Supreme Court case challenging the health law — which will be heard next week — presents a major wild card for its future.
Health care was a key element of Biden’s campaign, especially improving the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. He championed the use of face masks and blasted the Trump administration for shifting to states much of the responsibility for fighting the virus and helping hospitals. He was regularly mocked by the president for wearing a mask, working and campaigning from home, and not having an in-person Democratic convention.
Even before the latest vote tallies were released late Saturday morning, Biden had begun moving toward setting up his administration. On Thursday his transition team unveiled a website, BuildBackBetter.com, although it was only one page. And the former vice president held a meeting Thursday with health and economic advisers on the pandemic.
In a brief television statement Friday night, Biden reiterated his commitment to fight the pandemic, which he said “is getting more worrisome across the country.”
“We want everyone to know on day one we are going to put our plan to control this virus into action. We can’t save any of the lives that have been lost, but we can save a lot of lives in the months ahead,” Biden said.
The electoral outcome is not the one Democrats were hoping for — or, to some extent, expecting, based on preelection polling. Andy Slavitt, who ran the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services during the Obama administration, noted that frustration in a tweet Wednesday. “A large disappointment is that many hoped for a significant repudiation of Trump & his indifference to human life, human suffering, his corruption, and goal of getting rid of the ACA. No matter the final total it will be hard to make that claim,” Slavitt said.
Still up in the air is how willing a Republican-led Senate will be to provide further relief to individuals, businesses and states hit hard by the pandemic, and whether they will participate in previously bipartisan efforts to curtail “surprise” out-of-network medical bills and get a handle on prescription drug prices.
Julie Rovner is a Kaiser Health News reporter
Julie Rovner: jrovner@kff.org, @jrovner
'In praise and dissent'
The Old South Meeting House steeple.
The church’s interior.
“We, the people—the tourists
and townies—one nation under
this vaulted roof, exalted voices
speaking poetry out loud,
in praise and dissent.
We draw breath from brick. Ignite the fire in us.’’
From “Old South Meeting House,’’ by January Gill O’Neil. The church was built in 1729 and then rebuilt after the Great Boston Fire of 1972. The church was the organizing point for the Boston Tea Party, in 1773.
If you’re not partly a coward you’re not brave
— Photo by Makemake
The Mark Twain House, now a museum, in Hartford, Conn., where he lived in 1874-1891. He then lived abroad and in New York City before spending his last years in Redding, Conn., in the grand house below, which burned down in 1923.
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear-not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a loose misapplication of the word. Consider the flea! - -Incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage. Whether you are asleep or awake he will attack you, caring nothing for the fact that in bulk and strength you are to him as are the massed armies of the earth to a sucking child; he lives both day and night and all days and nights in the very lap of peril and the immediate presence of death, and yet is no more afraid than is the man who walks the streets of a city that was threatened by an earthquake ten centuries before. When we speak of Clive, Nelson, and Putnam as men who ‘didn't know what fear was,’ we ought always to add the flea-and put him at the head of the procession.”
— Mark Twain, in Pudd’nhead Wilson (1893)
Fine folding
Work by Peter Monaghan in his show “Peter Monaghan: Fold,’’ at Heather Gaudio Fine Art, New Canaan, Conn., Nov. 21-Jan. 9. He uses his folds as sculptures to evoke emotion and energy through color. Not surprisingly, he’s a former graphic designer.
The Moreno Clock, on Elm Street in New Canaan.
— Photo by Jasonacurry
1836 view by John Warner Barber
Get a grip
— Photo by W. Carter
Much have I spoken of the faded leaf;
Long have I listened to the wailing wind,
And watched it ploughing through the heavy clouds,
For autumn charms my melancholy mind.
When autumn comes, the poets sing a dirge:
The year must perish; all the flowers are dead;
The sheaves are gathered; and the mottled quail
Runs in the stubble, but the lark has fled!
Still, autumn ushers in the Christmas cheer,
The holly-berries and the ivy-tree:
They weave a chaplet for the Old Year’s bier,
These waiting mourners do not sing for me!
I find sweet peace in depths of autumn woods,
Where grow the ragged ferns and roughened moss;
The naked, silent trees have taught me this,—
The loss of beauty is not always loss!
— “November,’’ by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard (1823-1902), a native of Mattapoisett, Mass.
Chris Powell: Weakening police immunity needs review
Poster against "detested" Police at the town of Aberystwyth, Wales, in April 1850.
MANCHESTER, Conn
Sailing against a heavy political wind, Republican candidates for the Connecticut General Assembly were heartened by the vigorous endorsements they got from police unions for the Nov. 3 election. The police this year broke away from the government employee union apparatus in the Democratic Party.
The endorsements encouraged Republicans not because police officers are so numerous but because the public fears increasing disorder and crime amid the virus epidemic and political hatefulness and violence, and the police are the public's main defense.
Since some of the recent disorder and crime arises from protests against both the real and imagined use of excessive force by police against racial minorities, some people suspect that the Republican eagerness for police endorsements is anti-minority. After all, the unions are mad at Democratic legislators and Gov. Ned Lamont for enacting the recent police-reform legislation that was advocated by minority legislators. The new law purports to diminish the "qualified immunity" officers enjoy against personal lawsuits for their conduct on the job.
Police unions do have a lot to answer for. Like all government employee unions, they strive for more than due process of law for their members. They strive to defeat accountability altogether, as with the current state police union contract, which supersedes Connecticut's freedom-of-information law by forbidding disclosure of misconduct complaints that have been dismissed by police management. Of course without disclosure of all complaints, management itself cannot be evaluated and cover-ups can always prevail.
But critics of the police have a lot to answer for as well, like their silly calls to "defund" police precisely when disorder is worsening, as if any mistake or misconduct in police work eliminates the need for all police work.
Connecticut's new police law has several excellent provisions, like its requirement for regular recertification of state troopers and its nullification of the state police contract's secrecy clause. But the law's provision on immunity is questionable because its meaning and likely effect are not clear.
The Democratic legislators from minority groups who advocated the provision called it revolutionary. But white Democratic legislators supporting the provision insisted that it wouldn't change much at all.
It's no wonder police officers are resentful, and everyone should be concerned that once again the General Assembly didn't know what it was doing except rushing to oblige the special-interest politics of the moment -- just as the legislature did with the now-infamous law requiring Eversource Energy to buy the expensive electricity of the Millstone nuclear power station, causing a spike in electric rates.
There is misconduct in all occupations. It is most important to expose and stop it in police work. But police officers are far more sinned against than sinning. If it condemns all for the mistakes or misconduct of a few, society will only imperil itself.
While the "qualified immunity" provision is demoralizing officers, it won't take effect until July next year. It should be reconsidered authoritatively as soon as the legislature reconvenes.
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COLLEGE SOLUTION: Students and teachers in the Connecticut State Universities and Colleges system are complaining about spending cuts to reduce the system's huge deficit. Some say there is too much administration, but eliminating all administration won't close the deficit, which has been caused largely by declining enrollment. With personal contact sharply curtailed during the virus epidemic, college on the internet is not much fun.
Fortunately there is a solution. Connecticut could handle higher education just as it handles lower education -- with social promotion. Everyone in high school can graduate just by showing up, without having to learn anything, and while most students never master high school work, everyone gets a diploma and is happy. So why not give bachelor's degrees to every high school graduate who wants one -- waiting, of course, for a few years to elapse so the degrees look more real?
Some specialized courses still could be offered for students who really want to learn something in college, but most students probably would settle for the degree alone. The savings would be enormous, and education's main objective would continue to be achieved: mere credentialism.
Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Conn.
Latest wrap-up of region's COVID-19 response
The front entrance of MGH, in Boston
Here is the most recent wrap-up the region’s COVID-19 developments from The New England Council (newenglandcouncil.com):
“Harvard Medical School Researchers Publish COVID-19 Rehabilitation Study – Researchers at Harvard Medical School have published a study detailing rehabilitation plans crafted for patients in Boston and New York-based hospitals. The team has treated over 100 patients and points to continued studies to address persistent COVID-19 symptoms. Read more here.
“Mass General Releases Guidance on Weaning Patients Off Ventilators – Clinicians at Massachusetts General Hospital have released an article with an accompanying video to demonstrate effective ways to wean patients with serious COVID-19 infections off of ventilators. The materials offer step-by-step instructions and were published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Read more here.
“Health Leads Releases Joint Statement on Ensuring Racial Equity in the Creation and Distribution of a COVID-19 Vaccine – Health Leads has released a statement, in conjunction with a number of other organizations and individuals, emphasizing the importance of supporting underserved communities in recovering from COVID-19. The statement includes strategies for ensuring equity in vaccine distribution. Read more here.’’
Mellow day on Cape Ann
“Head of Goose Cove, Annisquam” (oil on canvas, circa 1910), by George L. Noyes (1864-1954), at the Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester.
They’re happy they’re wild
Wild turkeys gather to discuss Indian Summer at Swan Point Cemetery, in Providence. No shooting allowed.
— NED photo
Hear some of the resilient folks in the oyster-aquaculture biz on the Maine Coast
Oysters growing in baskets.
— Photo by Saoysters
Listen to these podcasts with the plucky and ingenious oyster farmers on the Pine Tree State’s storied coast. Just hit this link.
