Deal with the emptiness
“You keep entering empty cities.
Birds fly out of open doors.
Please: appear in every window;
whisper to the leafless trees.’’
— From “Lonesome Is a Curious Word,’’ by Lesley Dauer, a New England-educated poet now living in California
JFK speech on N.E. economic problems in 1954; region’s industries very different now!
At the now long-gone Fore River Shipyard, in Quincy, Mass., about the time of this Kennedy speech
Text of remarks by Sen. John F. Kennedy on “The Economic Problems of New England’’ June 3, 1954, in the U.S. Senate
Mr. President: Since my discussion before the Senate exactly one year ago of the economic problems of New England and their alleviation, considerable progress has been made in meeting those problems, including the organization of the twelve New England Senators in response to the call of the senior Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Saltonstall) and myself. These 12 Senators, regardless of party, have been working faithfully on behalf of New England's needs.
But more effective action by the Executive Branch is necessary. The disappointing failures to meet many of New England's economic needs, too easily overlooked in our drive for psychological confidence, cannot be justified by recent trends. In these twelve months since my Senate speeches, unemployment in New England – which is above the national average – has increased by more than 125%* until insured unemployment has reached approximately 180,000. Manufacturing** has declined in all six New England states for a total loss of 133,000 jobs, highlighted by the 48,000 job decline in the textile industry which is now approximately 60% of its February 1951 strength. Our leather, shoe, rubber, apparel, and other non-durable goods industries have also declined; as have the more publicized machinery, metal and other durable goods industries. New England's steel fabricating mills operated in the first quarter of 1954 at 62% of capacity, 30% less than a year ago. Reports from The New England Council and the Boston Federal Reserve Bank indicate that declining defense orders will increase the difficulties of New England's electronic, aircraft, shipbuilding, and equipment manufacturers.
The battle against recession is now more nationwide in scope than it was one year ago, and it involves many legislative issues to be discussed subsequently on this floor, including taxation, credit and interest, public works, housing, farm income, and world trade, in addition to the items which I shall mention; but permit me to outline those steps which the administration should take promptly in order to help restore prosperity in New England and other similarly situated areas, and in order to complement the effectiveness of the New England members of Congress.
1. Restore bid-matching to Defense Manpower Policy No. 4, the program for channeling defense contracts to labor surplus areas. This program, both widely hailed and condemned when announced six months ago, has had only a negligible effect because of its elimination of the bid-matching features under which New England labor surplus areas had previously obtained $14 million in defense contracts. During the new policy's first full quarter of operation***, not a single contract went to a New England surplus labor area as a result of this preference, and only two "distressed areas" in the rest of the country received contracts totaling only $163,159. Moreover, only two of New England's labor surplus areas received any defense contracts at all in the first quarter; and New England's share of all defense contracts declined instead of increasing.
2. Expand the application of the administration's new policy of tax amortization certificates of necessity for industries in labor surplus areas. The delay in initiating this policy, the restrictions placed upon it, and the fact that it provided only an extra percentage for that declining number of industries already eligible for emergency amortization, have made this program of little value; and as of April 15, only two certificates under this policy had been awarded to one New England community, covering a capital investment of only $250,843. Only ten such certificates were awarded throughout the entire country. During this same period under the regular tax amortization program, the number and value of certificates of necessity awarded to all firms in all New England states continued to lag behind New England's proportionate share and defense contribution.
3. Revitalize and broaden the authority of the Small Business Administration. The establishment of this agency to strengthen the economy by aiding small business was of particular interest in New England, which has a higher proportion of small business than any other region in the United States, and where the rate of business failures is higher this year than last. But as a result of legislative ceilings and administrative delays, the Small Business Administration as of May 13 had approved in its 7½ months of operation only six loans, for a total of only $204,000 in all six New England states. Indeed, as of April 30, SBA had disbursed less than $1.2 million on thirty-seven loans throughout the nation (as compared with administrative expenses on March 30 totaling nearly $2.4 million).
4. Eliminate discrimination and confusion in New England transportation rates. I have previously pointed out examples of such discrimination and confusion in rail, truck, and ocean shipping rates, and this subject is now under review by the New England Senators Conference. ICC decisions during the past twelve months have intensified this situation. Division 2 of the Commission recently denied to New England, and its railroads and ports, the opportunity to enjoy rates on iron ore shipped by rail to the interior steel-producing areas, comparable to the rates enjoyed by the Ports of Philadelphia and Baltimore. In January, a Commission decision denied adequate service in inter-coastal shipping between the Port of Boston and the West Coast. Other recent ICC decisions affecting shipments of New England goods by truck have continued this discrimination.
5. Plug tax loopholes which contribute to improper industrial migration. The House Ways and Means Committee, in its deliberation on the tax revision bill, originally decided to plug one of the most flagrant of such loopholes by removing the immunity from "industrial development" bonds issued by states and municipalities in order to build tax-free factories as a lure to industry; but, the Committee reversed this decision and instead voted to deny the use of rentals on such factories as business deductions. The Senate Finance Committee has now voted to eliminate even this substitute, which is ineffective whenever such factories are given or cheaply sold to the migrant industry. I am hopeful that the Senate Committee or the Senate, with the administration's backing, will reinstate at least this modified version before the bill is finally passed, and eliminate this unjustifiable abuse of public credit.
6. Request legislative and administrative action to correct substandard wage competition. It is my hope that the President will reexamine his decision not to seek an increase in the minimum wage or to extend its coverage at this time; that his administration will ask Congress to modify or repeal the Fulbright Amendment to the Walsh-Healey Act which has stymied effective application of adequate nationwide minima on defense contracts; and that the Department of Justice will act more vigorously in pending litigation under the Fulbright Amendment which has delayed the adoption of realistic wage standards for the textile industry. I am particularly hopeful that this year's budget for Labor's Wage and Hour Enforcement Division will rectify last year's error, when this budget was cut 27% below the previous appropriation, thus making it possible to inspect only one out of twenty-two establishments covered by the law, requiring the complete elimination of eight southern regional offices, and making possible the review of wages in Puerto Rico only once in every seven years for each industry.
7. Initiate a program to revive the shipbuilding industry. Such a program, much discussed but not as yet forthcoming, is of particular interest in New England and other areas dependent upon this vital industry. An essential part of such a program would be to make more effective those defense manpower policies applicable to the shipbuilding industry, inasmuch as the third Forrestal-type aircraft carrier was awarded to a shipyard with increasing employment and substantial naval projects, instead of the Fore River shipyard at Quincy, Massachusetts, where employment had already dropped by more than 25%, and where seven out of its ten shipbuilding ways will be idle by this fall.
8. Support the Saltonstall-Kennedy Bill to aid research and market development in the fishing industry. The active opposition by the Department of Agriculture with the approval of the Bureau of the Budget to this measure, which seeks only to allocate to our fishing industry its fair share of tariff receipts, has handicapped its passage without restrictive amendments. I am hopeful that the administration will reverse this position, and support this bill which is of great importance to New England's hundred million dollar fishing industry.
9. Seek more effective social insurance against the ills of unemployment and forced retirement. In order to maintain community purchasing power and individual living standards, New England requires improvements in the existing Social Security Program, which improvements are only partly contained in the recommendations of the President, particularly with respect to our disabled citizens. It is especially important to strengthen our unemployment compensation program by extending coverage, providing federal reinsurance for states with low reserves and by establishing through congressional action – not, as the President asked in vain, through individual state action – minimum standards for unemployment insurance benefits and their duration. As a first step, the administration should withdraw its support, even though it is substantially modified, of the House-passed Reed Bill which would undermine the basic strength of our jobless insurance program. The bill introduced today by myself and several other Senators would far more adequately meet the needs of New England and the nation.
10. Accord equal treatment to New England and all other areas in federal programs, including those for resource development. Last year, the original budget request for the New England-New York Inter-Agency Survey of Water Resources was set at $1,200,000 in order that that survey might be completed by the end of fiscal 1954, inasmuch as its original termination was fiscal 1952. The revised budget, however, when finally enacted into law, cut this figure exactly in half, thus delaying completion by at least another year. This stepchild treatment of New England by a Federal Government which has provided direct grants for the establishment of power facilities in other areas already enjoying cheaper power rates, should be reversed by the present administration, for the recommendations of the Budget Bureau and Army Engineers are generally conclusive on such items. New England's share of the Army Civil Functions Appropriation Bill is less than that received by some two dozen individual states, practically all of whom contribute less in tax revenues than Massachusetts alone; and therefore the request for adequate funds with which to survey our potential resource development is not excessive.
It is my hope, Mr. President, that the administration will take prompt action on the 10-point program which I have outlined above, and that we in Congress – with the assistance of the twelve New England Senators who have indicated their active concern for these problems – will be able to follow through on legislation to restore economic strength and expand employment in New England and all other parts of the country.
* As measured by the average weekly insured unemployment under state programs, May 1953-May 1954.
** March 1953 to March 1954, latest available Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys.
*** Defense Department release based upon contracts of $25,000 value or more, $10,000 for Navy.
What I want after the pandemic
— Photo by Bernard Gagnon
Jersey Street at the main entrance to Fenway Park. It was formerly called Yawkey Way, after the Red Sox owner from 1933 to 1976, Tom Yawkey. But because of complaints about Yawkey’s racism in the management of the Sox, the City of Boston changed it back to its original name, Jersey Street, in 2018.
“Forget the frank, the hot dog —
Give me the Fenway sausage.
Landsdowne or Yawkey,
Just give me the street, the crowds, the carts.’’
— From “Sausage,’’ by Raymond Foss (born 1960). Trained as a lawyer, he’s now mostly a poet. He lives in Barrington, N.H.
Barrington is now a bedroom community with farms and lots of woodland.
Back in the early 19th Century its primary industry was iron-ore smelting. The Isinglass River, together with its tributaries, provided water power for grist and saw mills for many decades.
Locke's Falls on the Isinglass River in Barrington
The colorful and complex life of a great physician and art patron
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
fWe’re also lucky that New England is so welcoming to the arts, with Rhode Island and Boston the centers. You get a good sense of this reading the new autobiography in the form of a graphic novel called Chazan!: Unfiltered about the Ocean State’s leading patron of living local artists, Joseph Chazan, M.D.
Joe Chazan, who is now 85, is a physician, scientist and very successful businessman (kidney-dialysis services) and has been a big figure around here for a long time. His often humorous, larger-than-life personality has energized civic culture.
Besides the exciting (funny, sad, educational and a lot in-between) story of Dr. Chazan’s life from its very modest beginnings, the book serves as a panoramic view of the local art scene, showing the work of many artists, some well known, some not. With art work by Erminio Pinque, script/story work by Lenny Schwartz, story work by Bradley Starr and help from others, the book entertains even those who may have known nothing about Dr. Chazan’s decades of supporting local artists, including, for example, helping to start AS220, the downtown Providence arts center. (Full disclosure: My wife, a painter, is one of the many artists listed in the book.)
All too often, rich people chase status by only buying the work of famous artists. But Joe Chazan seeks out little known but promising artists and helps some of them become well known. He knows that there are plenty of hidden treasures around here.
Hit this link for more information about the book, including how to buy it.
Clothing vs. figures
“Sisters With Pearls“ (acrylic), by Catherine Adams Burton, in the show “This is Us: Regional Portraiture Today,” at Springfield (Mass. Museums
The museum says that there is “ample paradox in Burton’s work, between the pageantry of the women’s clothing and the hard-cut outlines of their figures; between blended color and crisp definition of form. ‘Sisters with Pearls’ transcends regionalism, achieving the universal recognition of shared experience."
Right: Catherine Adams Burton, Sisters with Pearls, 2019, acrylic.
Chris Powell: Lamont cheerleading belies damage to Conn. economy; Yellen made a killing out of office
MANCHESTER, Conn.
Few may begrudge Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont the cheerfulness of his "state of the state" address upon the opening of the General Assembly last week. As he noted, since last March Connecticut has produced much heroism in confronting the virus epidemic. That heroism includes the governor's own.
For nobody runs for governor to preside over the destruction of the state's economy amid mass sickness and death. The epidemic has been overwhelming, and even Lincoln acknowledged being overwhelmed in office. "I claim not to have controlled events," the president wrote, "but confess plainly that events have controlled me." They have controlled the governor too.
But the governor's pep talk conflicted a bit too much with reality. He boasted that the attractiveness of Connecticut is so great that many people have been moving here in recent months. Of course some people have relocated here from New York City and thereabouts, but just days before the governor spoke, the Census Bureau and a moving company reported a net exodus from Connecticut for the year just ended. For many years the state has been losing population relative to the rest of the country.
Responding to the governor's address, Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, and the Senate's Democratic majority leader, Bob Duff, of Norwalk, avoided cheerleading. The epidemic, the senators said in a joint statement, "has impacted everyone in our state, caused untold loss, and fundamentally changed daily life. The 2021 legislative session will be like no other and our focus will be to protect the public's health and help people recover economically, physically, and mentally."
The agenda of the legislature's Democratic majorities, enlarged by the November election, likely will include raising taxes. Last week government employee unions rallied at the state Capitol in support of taxing the rich more to reduce pressure to economize with government employees.
The governor's address said nothing about raising taxes, and he lately has opposed raising taxes except when they can be hidden in wholesale gasoline prices. But the governor spoke favorably about legalizing marijuana and sports and Internet gambling, which would be heavily taxed. Legal marijuana and more gambling, the governor noted in justification, are happening throughout the country. But these things are less signs of human progress than of the financial desperation of state government as it lacks the courage necessary to control costs.
Amid his cheerleading the governor could manage only a single reference to the thousands of state residents who for months have been lining up for free food. Meanwhile business closings and bankruptcies have been increasing.
Maybe the new national administration will send the states trillions more dollars in remediation, but there are serious risks in that, since the dollar's international value is already falling sharply and some experts are musing about hyperinflation, which will harm the working class most even as property owners profit from it. Restoring the economy is likely to take a long time.
xxx
THE NEW OLD BOSS: Anyone hoping for a big change in the federal government's economic and market regulation policies should take a close look at President-elect Biden's nomination of former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen for U.S. Treasury secretary.
The nomination has raised concerns because it seems like a merger between the Treasury Department and the central bank, whose independence of the frankly political side of the government long has been touted as a principle of central banking.
But it turns out that in the three years since Yellen resigned from the Fed she has been paid at least $7 million in speaking fees by the big banks and investment houses that the Fed and Treasury regulate and occasionally rescue financially. Yellen probably received more than $7 million, since it appears that she has not yet fully reported her income from banking and investment interests.
Rejoicing in what seems to be their party's capture of a narrow majority in the U.S. Senate, some Democratic congressmen are promising to enact another cash bonus to every citizen of as much as $2,000. But with Yellen at Treasury, will the big banks and investment houses already have assured themselves of far more than that?
Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester.
New camera might save Right Whales
Right Whale with her calf
From ecoRI News (ecori.org)
The beginning of the calving season for North Atlantic Right Whales, one of the rarest marine mammals, is looking promising with four newborn calves observed in December. But the outlook for the species, whose global population is estimated at only 360 individuals, remains grim. Between fishing-gear entanglements and collisions with ships, more whales have died in recent years than were born.
A new technology on the horizon may help to reduce one of those threats, however. A smart-camera system invented by a team of scientists and engineers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts is being tested in local waters and could be deployed on vessels traversing the East Coast to reduce the threat of ships striking Right Whales.
“The idea is simple,” said WHOI assistant scientist Daniel Zitterbart, who is leading the project. “We took a commercial thermal imaging camera, highly stabilized for roll and pitch, and a computer algorithm that looks at images and tries to tease out what’s a whale compared to what’s a wave or a bird or whatever.
“The key part is, if you’re in a large vessel and you know there’s a whale 300 yards in front of you, it’s probably too late for you to turn away from it. Our aim is to push the detection range as far as we can, which makes things difficult on a rocking boat. But getting the range we need to make a difference for the animal is the objective.”
A prototype of the smart-camera system was tested last summer on a research vessel in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, in Massachusetts Bay, about midway between Gloucester and Provincetown, where humpback whales congregate to feed each year. A similar land-based installation was also deployed at a busy shipping channel in British Columbia traversed by endangered southern resident Killer Whales. The initial tests were promising.
“If you’re talking about very large vessels like tankers or cargo vessels, they may not be maneuverable enough for the detection ranges we get, but for cruise vessels, ferries, and fishing vessels that are more maneuverable, it definitely can make a difference,” Zitterbart said.
A little larger than a half-gallon milk carton, the camera system must be installed at least 15 feet above the water line to be effective. Within seconds, it can detect the presence of whales a mile or more away and alert the captain in time for the vessel to slow down or change course.
Unlike human observers or spotter planes, which are occasionally used in the United States and Canada to watch for Right Whales and alert nearby ships, the camera system can spot whales in daylight and darkness with little effort.
James Miller, an ocean-engineering professor at the University of Rhode Island, invented a forward-looking sonar device about 20 years ago that could be used to detect whales, reefs, and other obstacles to navigation beneath the water’s surface. He commercialized the product by founding FarSounder Inc., a Warwick,R.I.-based company with clients around the world. The company’s sonar devices can scan up to 1,000 meters in front of a ship moving at speeds of up to 25 knots to detect underwater obstacles.
“Dr. Zitterbart's technology for detecting whales at the sea surface can be an important part of the solution for reducing ship strikes, one of the leading causes of death for large whales,” Miller said.
Zitterbart said sonar is a better detection method for sensing static objects beneath the surface, but he believes his thermal camera system is more effective at detecting moving objects such as whales that may only be noticed for a few seconds. Both technologies can be hampered by challenging environmental conditions.
The recipient of the 2019 Young Investigator Award from the U.S. Office of Naval Research for his work on whale detection, Zitterbart previously developed a thermal imaging system for protecting whales and other marine mammals from underwater noise produced by air guns used in seismic surveys.
Assuming that his tests are successful this year, Zitterbart plans to deploy his camera system on a number of vessels without his development team aboard to ensure that remote troubleshooting can be conducted effectively. Eventually, he hopes to find a company interested in commercializing the technology.
“Thermal imaging systems are a powerful new tool in real-time whale detection,” he told Ocean Insights. “Used alone or in conjunction with acoustic monitoring, this technology could significantly reduce the risk of vessel strikes.”
Todd McLeish is a Rhode Island resident and nature writer .
'It all thrills me'
“Near The Cone Of Uncertainty” (oil, diptych), by Ed Chesnovitch, in his show “Man on the Marsh,’’ at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, in Dennis, Mass.
The show features the oil paintings of local artist Chesnovitch, who first visited Cape Cod nearly 30 years ago, when he was quickly struck by the landscape. Twelve years ago, he bought a cottage along Scorton Creek, in East Sandwich. It was a big change from his previous home, in Pennsylvania. He found it full of complexity and life, yet peaceful and meditative. "The late afternoon light of a cold October day pouring across the golden marsh grass, or the quiet hush of an early morning bathed in soothing pinks," he says, "It all thrills me." The museum says he walks for hours through the marsh, stopping from time to time to sketch. And he spends hours seeking to juxtapose and elevate colors and build up layers of paint to create depth, lushness and vibrancy.
The East Sandwich Friends (Quaker) Meeting House. Cape Cod has had a strong Quaker presence since the 1660’s.
Boardwalk over marshes in Sandwich
— Photo by Andrewrabbott
Loads of roads
Various Via Francigena signposts
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
Happy New Year! It’s good to see 2020 slink away.
The other week I accidentally came upon a TV series on PBS called The Road to Rome, about eight British personalities of varying faiths and nonfaiths, ages and physical conditions walking on the ancient Via Francigena pilgrimage route to the Eternal City. It’s part of a wider series on the network about religious pilgrimages.
(I’ve known a couple of people who completed (by foot -- a real pilgrimage) the famous El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain. Neither told me that they got a religious experience out of it, but they much enjoyed some of the life stories of their fellow pilgrims.)
The pilgrimage-to-Rome series is a colorful travelogue, most of it outdoors. It’s very engaging, sometimes funny and sometimes a little melancholic. It got me thinking that many of our lives are frequently interrupted pilgrimages to something, though we often don’t know to where, until, maybe, the end.
T.S. Eliot wrote in “Four Quartets: “Home is where one starts from. As we grow older/ The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated….’’
But “In my end is my beginning.’’
Everyone sees himself/herself as the center of their own universes in a narrative mostly invisible to others. And that narrative involves erratic internal and external movement. We are all “road stories”.
I’m not crazy about school reunions, in part because they are partly fund-raising events, and breathed a sigh of relief last spring when my 50th college reunion was cancelled because of you know what. It was provisionally postponed to next June, but who knows if that will happen? Still, such reunions have value as venues where you learn about the narratives/pilgrimages of others while helping you better understand your own. You discover things about classmates you never knew and hear life stories of classmates whom you might not have known at all while in school
And you’re reminded of the confusions of time, how it goes forward and then seems to circle back and speeds up and slows down.
Anyway, 2021 might well be better than 2020, though it could be worse. Will we experience time in 2021 much differently than we did in slow, locked-down 2020, with its boredom and claustrophobia tempered by flashes of anxiety and even unexpected pleasures? Will it become (relatively) broad, sunlit uplands or just clearings in the woo
'Loved most a blizzard'
“He loved winter more than the other seasons, loved a tender snowfall, loved the savage north wind and the blinding light off a frozen lake, loved most a blizzard, which he faced head-on like a bison. He would not admit these things, however, because in his superstition he believed that by revealing desires among sacred subjects, such as weather and seasons, you would likely receive the opposite of what you wanted.’’
-- Ernest Hebert (born 1941), in The Dogs of March (1979) . He is best known for the Darby Chronicles Series, a series of seven novels written between 1979 and 2014 about modern life in a fictional New Hampshire town as it changed from relative rural poverty to becoming more upscale, almost suburban. He was born in, and spent many years in and around, Keene, N.H. It’s a very pleasant small city in southwest New Hampshire.
Central Square, in Keene
The gift and trauma of tech
“Collaboration” (mixed media on paper), by Joe Taveras (Robojoebot), roboticist and artist, in his show “American Futurism,’’ at his Robojoebot Studio, in Boston’s SOWA arts district.
Artscope quotes him as saying that "I am inspired by everything I come into contact with as well as the predictions of future technologies that arise within my mind." The magazine continues: “Much of his artwork in American Futurism consists of fragmented figures made with dark lines, representing the global atmosphere of uncertainty and the detrimental effects of innovation without ethics. However, the brightness and colors present speak to positivity and the idea that the future can be better than the present.’’
Llewellyn King: Trump and his terrorists have desecrated our temple to democracy, where I had spent many happy hours
The East Front of the Capitol at dusk
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
Cry, the beloved building.
I have been lucky and have walked the halls of the Houses of Parliament in London, visited the Elysée Palace, in Paris, the Bundestag, in Berlin, and the Kremlin, in Moscow.
Still, it is the Capitol, the building on a hill in Washington, that fills me with awe, but it isn’t awesome or frightening, and doesn’t exalt in power.
The Capitol is at once romantic, imposing and egalitarian. Ever since I first set foot on Capitol Hill, the building has been for me, an immigrant, the elegant expression of everything that is best about America: open, accessible and shared.
Until terrorism changed things, anyone could walk into the Capitol without security checks. Taxis could draw up and let you out under the arches that designate the Senate or House entrances.
It hurt me in profound ways to see a mob, inspired by the rogue president and his lickspittle enablers, trash that hallowed place; try to lay waste to the temple of American tolerance, freedom, excellence and uniqueness; to treat it as an impediment to their coup, to their lies-fed catechism of overthrow.
To see any great building desecrated is painful, but to see it happen to the Capitol is to witness heresy against democracy, against Americanism, against our better angels and highest aspirations.
When the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris, was engulfed in flames, I realized that the building was a prayer: the elegant stone, wood and plaster embodiment of man’s search for God. By that measure, the Capitol is the embodiment of man’s search for fairer government.
As a reporter, the first thing you notice about the Capitol when you go there is how open it is once you have gotten through the metal detectors at the entrances. You walk the halls, ride the elevators and the little trains that run between the Capitol and the House and Senate office buildings, and eat in the cafeterias. The members have privileges, like their own entrances, reserved elevators and reserved train seats. But you can see legislators in the corridors and snack bars, conferring with aides, and often those who are there to get help or to lobby for a cause.
The work of government is at its most accessible to outsiders in the Capitol. Although there are tours, it is still best to roam the building alone, from the tunnels in the basement (where you end up when you take the elevator or stairs and go down too far) to the glory of the Rotunda. The tiled floors, paneling, frescoes, paintings and statuary are all art of the voice of the people, cobbled into a great building.
There are secret places in the Capitol, too. I once had lunch with Sen. Bennett Johnston (D.-La.), then chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, and The Wall Street Journal’s Paul Gigot in a dining room assigned just to the chairman of that committee — one that neither of us guests even suspected existed. The old Joint Committee on Atomic Energy had a near-secret set of offices accessible through a discreet elevator, unmarked and looking as though it might carry freight instead of nuclear secrets.
But mostly the work of the Congress, which is carried on in the Capitol and its adjacent office buildings, is surprisingly open, accessible and, in that, democratic.
My fervent hope is that freedom, which has been somewhat eroded over the years with new layers of security, isn’t further eroded after the Jan. 6 assault.
Looking forward, maybe the horror of government by the Great Lie will be held at bay. While we will never see an end to politicians’ fibs, we can hope that politicians will be called out for them, won’t have them respected as an alternative truth, which is the ignominious and extraordinary achievement of the Trump administration.
Trump laid the fire before the election, declaring there would be fraud, perhaps certain that he would lose. He lit it on Jan. 6.
The mob that stormed the Capitol isn’t to blame. The blame rests with those who have assaulted the truth over the past four years.
Blame Trump and castigate his enablers, from the talking heads of television to members of Congress like Republican senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio. They don’t deserve to sit under the Capitol dome. That is for those who care about America. It is a noble mantle.
On Twitter: @llewellynking2
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. He’s based in Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.
'His name is Freedom'
An artist's rendering of the long-gone Boston Music Hall, where Emerson first read "Boston Hymn" on Jan. 1, 1863, in the midst of the Civil War
The word of the Lord by night
To the watching Pilgrims came,
As they sat by the seaside,
And filled their hearts with flame.
God said, I am tired of kings,
I suffer them no more;
Up to my ear the morning brings
The outrage of the poor.
Think ye I made this ball
A field of havoc and war,
Where tyrants great and tyrants small
Might harry the weak and poor?
My angel —his name is Freedom —
Choose him to be your king;
He shall cut pathways east and west,
And fend you with his wing.
Lo! I uncover the land
Which I hid of old time in the West,
As the sculptor uncovers the statue
When he has wrought his best;
I show Columbia, of the rocks
Which dip their foot in the seas,
And soar to the air-borne flocks
Of clouds, and the boreal fleece.
I will divide my goods;
Call in the wretch and slave:
None shall rule but the humble,
And none but Toil shall have.
I will have never a noble,
No lineage counted great;
Fishers and choppers and ploughmen
Shall constitute a state.
Go, cut down trees in the forest,
And trim the straightest boughs;
Cut down trees in the forest,
And build me a wooden house.
Call the people together,
The young men and the sires,
The digger in the harvest field,
Hireling, and him that hires;
And here in a pine state-house
They shall choose men to rule
In every needful faculty,
In church, and state, and school.
Lo, now! if these poor men
Can govern the land and sea,
And make just laws below the sun,
As planets faithful be.
And ye shall succor men;
'T is nobleness to serve;
Help them who cannot help again:
Beware from right to swerve.
I break your bonds and masterships,
And I unchain the slave:
Free be his heart and hand henceforth
As wind and wandering wave.
I cause from every creature
His proper good to flow:
As much as he is and doeth,
So much he shall bestow.
But, laying hands on another
To coin his labor and sweat,
He goes in pawn to his victim
For eternal years in debt.
To-day unbind the captive,
So only are ye unbound;
Lift up a people from the dust,
Trump of their rescue, sound!
Pay ransom to the owner,
And fill the bag to the brim.
Who is the owner? The slave is owner,
And ever was. Pay him.
North! give him beauty for rags,
And honor, South! for his shame;
Nevada! coin thy golden crags
With Freedom's image and name.
Up! and the dusky race
That sat in darkness long —
Be swift their feet as antelopes,
And as behemoth strong.
Come, East and West and North,
By races, as snow-flakes,
And carry my purpose forth,
Which neither halts nor shakes.
My will fulfilled shall be,
For, in daylight or in dark,
My thunderbolt has eyes to see
His way home to the mark.
— “Boston Hymn,’’ by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Plymouth Rock reversals
Malcolm X guards his family in an iconic Ebony magazine photo.
“We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us.’’
— Malcolm X (1925-1965), American Muslim cleric and human-rights figure during the Civil Rights Movement. He lived in Boston’s predominately African-American Roxbury neighborhood from the age of 14 to 21.
He is best known for his time spent as a vocal spokesman for the Nation of Islam. But members of that group assassinated him after a period in which he challenged bad behavior by its leadership.
Legendary urbane composer and lyricist Cole Porter (1891-1964) during his 1930s heyday. He was educated at Worcester Academy, Yale and briefly at Harvard Law School.
The above reminds us of the great 1934 Porter song “Anything Goes,’’ which starts off with saying that if the “Puritans’’ tried to land now, “stead of landing on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock would land on them.’’
— From “Anything Goes” (1934), by Cole Porter
Little old Plymouth Rock, where the Pilgrims probably did not land but it remains a major tourist site
Habitat and home
“Abandoned Habitat,’’ by Susan Erickson, in the group show “Habitat,’’ at 6 Bridges Gallery, Maynard, Mass., through Feb. 6.
The gallery says that “many of the artists are local, but some come from beyond New England to offer their perspective. Some artists looked to nature for inspiration, such as Ms. Erickson and C.J. Lori, while others focused on indoor environments, such as Kristin Petrillo and Kirti Patel. Often, the artists took the theme of ‘Habitat’ to mean their own, or the place that they most wish to inhabit. For this reason, ‘Habitat’ contains a host of unique works of art detailing many different locales and environments, all of which speak to the idea not just of habitat, but of home.’’
Sense of powerlessness leads to political insanity in America
Rioters in the Capitol on Jan. 6
The most compelling political statements today are those that focus on mutual respect and factual truth — such as this statement<https://simplifygov.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9df171ae6d6b7a01570236616&id=74cae9b3ca&e=f8aee0dd0d by Republican Mayor David Holt, of Oklahoma City, just two days before the mob attacked the Capitol, or the victory statement https://simplifygov.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9df171ae6d6b7a01570236616&id=e43c382fe9&e=f8aee0dd0d>t<https://simplifygov.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9df171ae6d6b7a01570236616&id=e4f09d32e3&e=f8aee0dd0d by Georgia Democratic Sen.-elect Raphael Warnock.
But why does such a large group of Americans feel so alienated that they abandon basic civilized values? One of the main reasons, I think, is a sense of powerlessness. They're stretched thin, due to economic forces beyond their control. They don't think that their views matter, or that they can make a difference in, say, their schools or communities. They can't even be themselves. Spontaneity, which philosopher Hannah Arendt considered "the most elementary manifestation of human freedom," is fraught with legal peril: "Can I prove what I'm about to say or do is legally correct?"
The cure requires reviving human responsibility at all levels of authority. People need to feel free to roll up their sleeves and get things done. They need to feel free to be themselves in daily interactions, accountable for their overall character and competence. A functioning democracy requires officials to take responsibility for results, not mindless compliance. In an essay published this week by Yale Law Journal, "From Progressivism to Paralysis’’ https://simplifygov.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9df171ae6d6b7a01570236616&id=9b9303c0e3&e=f8aee0dd0d>," I describe how good government slowly evolved into a framework that disempowers everyone, even the president, from acting sensibly.
The sluggish rollout of COVID-19 vaccines is only the latest manifestation of a micromanagement governing philosophy that suffocates leadership as well as disempowering citizens.
It's time to reboot the system, not to deregulate but re-regulate in a way that revives the American can-do spirit at all levels of society. This requires a new movement. If you agree, please contact phoward@commongood.org.
Philip K. Howard, a New York-based lawyer, civic and cultural leader, legal and regulatory reformer and photographer, is founder and chairman of Common Good (commongood.org). He’s the author of The Death of Common Sense, The Collapse of the Common Good, Life Without Lawyers, The Rule of Nobody and Try Common Sense.
Presidential pardon power should be tightly restricted
Giving and receiving a pardon?
I think that one can make a case that a presidential self-pardon would violate the oath of office and the obligation to take care that laws be faithfully executed. Also, a pardon must be received. Can someone both give and receive in the same action, other than the thrower of a boomerang?
I’d love to see a constitutional amendment that would forbid presidential pardons, amnesty or commutations of sentences to anyone elected to federal office, or appointed as an officer of the United States— civil or military -- subject to Senate confirmation.
That would restore the idea that the pardon power was for common criminals as an act of clemency, or to rebels as a strategic approach to get them to lay down arms (Alexander Hamilton’s thought), but not to treasonous military officers.
Otherwise, a pardon power used within an administration is an open invitation to make the top officials above the law, and to offer opportunities to the president that should be closed off.
Richard Pious, a political scientist, is Adolph and Effie Ochs Professor Emeritus at Barnard College (part of Columbia University) and at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University. He is the author of Why Presidents Fail (2008) and The Constitution Under Siege (2010)
Big upcoming show at New Bedford Art Museum is all wet
Timed-Ticket Reception: 3/13/2021, 12 – 2 PM
Featuring: Willa Vennema, Stephanie Roberts-Camello, Pamela Dorris DeJong, Lola Baltzell, Nancy Whitcomb, Lia Rothstein, Deborah Peeples, Kay Hartung, Marina Thompson, Angel Dean, Lelia Stokes Weinstein, Ruth Sack, Sarah Springer, Charyl Weissbach and Camille Davidson
Fluid States: New England Wax/New England Waters highlights encaustic artworks inspired by New England’s historic and awe-inspiring coasts. Themed around the fluidity seen in both wax and water, Fluid States explores New England’s ecological richness and fragility. Protecting our water and the life that depends on it is an urgent necessity. In this exhibition, the artists address this urgency as they work to express water’s sheer beauty through innovative approaches to an ancient medium.
New England Wax (N.E.W.), founded in 2006 by Kim Bernard, is a professional organization of artists living and working in the six New England states. Since its inception, N.E.W. has sought to provide opportunities to exhibit, share technical information and aesthetic ideas, and build a network of like-minded artists working in the ancient medium of encaustic. The mission of N.E.W. is to promote excellence in fine art made with encaustic, educate the general public and collectors, raise awareness of the medium, and challenge its members to grow as artists.
Don Pesci: In Connecticut, the politically royal Ritters, the House and an always looming outhouse
“The Genius of Connecticut,’’ in the state Capitol, by sculptor Randolph Rogers (work done in 1877–78), is a plaster version of the bronze statue (destroyed) originally mounted on top of the Capitol dome.
VERNON, Conn.
In politics, power is golden. Indeed, power, not riches, is the coin of the political realm. In Connecticut, the Ritters, a power family, are the closest we have come to political royalty.
Hartford Courant journalist Chris Keating lays out the political lineage of the Ritter clan in a piece titled “Hartford’s Ritter Family extends influence.”
“The Ritters,” Keating notes in the lead to his story, “a Hartford family whose public service spans more than five decades, have arrived at a level of political prominence and influence unseen in recent Connecticut political history.
“The family has sent four members — a grandfather, two sons, and a grandson — to the state Capitol as Democratic representatives in the state legislature. Ritter family members now control powerful positions in the General Assembly, state Supreme Court and among special-interest lobbyists.”
Matt Ritter, the incoming Democratic House speaker, started herding progressive cats when the General Assembly session convened on Jan. 6 and will continue until it adjourns, in June. Ritter replaces state employee union factotum Joe Arsimowicz, who, along with two leading Republicans, Sen. Len Fasano and Rep. Themis Klarides, left the General Assembly at the last session’s end.
Ritter and his counterpart in the state Senate, President Pro Tem Martin Looney, may, if he wishes, rule the roost without Republican support in the House or Senate. This was former Gov. Dannel Malloy’s preference, but Malloy’s heavy hand took a toll on his popularity. And when he threw in the gubernatorial towel at the end of his second term and accepted a position as chancellor of the University of Maine System, Malloy’s popularity was a burning wreck.
Democratic numbers in the General Assembly – a majority of 98-63 in the House and 24-12 in the Senate following the 2020 elections -- now allow the party to run roughshod over Republican sensibilities. Democrats, it had not been noticed by media savants in Connecticut, triumphed over Republicans by means of a magician’s trick; they ran against President Trump, who was not on the ballot in 2018 and who in 2020 was responsible for none of the shutdown regulations imposed by the Democratic governor and the Democratic-run legislature.
However, the sticking point in Connecticut are the progressive cats and, difficult as it may be to accept, some journalists in Connecticut’s left-of-center media afflicted with an institutional memory who may not be willing to accept without modest resistance the continuing deterioration of the state’s economy in the post-Coronavirus era.
Ritter himself, a man of the House, may not be willing to sell his family’s long service on behalf of Connecticut for a mess of progressive-union pottage – which means that he may be more willing than Arsimowicz or Looney, a thoroughgoing progressive, to make common cause with Republicans on matters that promote the prosperity of his state and the honor of the General Assembly.
In days gone by, when Ritter’s grandfather, George Ritter, was serving on the Hartford City Council, thereafter “spending 12 years at the legislature starting in 1969,” as The Courant puts it, such solicitude for the honor and prosperity of the state was brashly called patriotic. And the state patriotism that burned in the heart of the grandfather may, as sometimes happens, still light the darkness enshrouding the grandson.
Why should raw politics, the pursuit of power for power’s sake, always be the victor in political battles? Honor in politics -- a genuine love and solicitude for the state of Connecticut as such -- is more than half the battle that must daily be fought. It is the whole battle, always and everywhere; for politics without honor, a foresight that sees beyond battles of the moment, is tyranny writ large or small.
The honor of the House demands that the House should convene as usual and, as usual, do the public’s business. The legislature, House and Senate together, a co-equal branch of government along with the chief executive and the judiciary, represents the voice of the people, and that voice should be heard loudly above the clamor of partisan divisions. The General Assembly must not operate longer as a Coronavirus victim, metaphorically afraid of its own shadow. The welfare of Connecticut depends upon the courage and patriotism of members of the state legislature, and this body cannot function properly as an agency that rents its constitutional prerogatives to governors or committee chairmen or union representatives.
Likewise, the judiciary is not, nor was meant to be, the servant of the governor; it is the servant of the law, and cannot perform its proper function hiding behind Coronavirus flower pots.
To be a representative body, the House over which Ritter will preside must first be, and Ritter's first and most difficult duty will be to restore the republican (small “r”) character of the House. Lincoln said rightly “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” But an outhouse -- simply an instrument of power politics -- pretending to be a House should not be permitted to stand at all.
Don Pesci is Vernon-based columnist.
‘Grand and numb’
“Self-portrait’’ (with hourglass and skull) by Johann Zoffany, circa 1776
“Now morning
snow falls like sand in an hourglass
close-up. History is pain in movement,
Burkhardt said. It was his face in the dream.
My feet touch the cold floor. I move into a day
that opens like any other in history, grand and numb.’’
From “Cold Wars Inside,’’ by Margaret Gibson (born 1944), Connecticut’s current poet laureate. She teaches at the University of Connecticut and lives in Preston, Conn.
Congregational church in Preston, in a rural/exurban part of eastern Connecticut
Owaneco, son of the Mohegan sachem Uncas, gave a confirmatory deed for the land of what became Preston in 1687. In October of that same year, the town was incorporated as Preston, named for the English city of Preston, Lancashire, England, whence came some of the white settlers.
Early trades in the area included shoe making, metal smithing and brickmaking.