Vox clamantis in deserto
Llewellyn King: Internet companies and freedom of speech
Google headquarters, in Mountain View, Calif.
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
H.L. Mencken, journalist and essayist, wrote in 1940, “Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.”
Twenty years later, the same thought was reprised by A.J. Liebling, of The New Yorker.
Today, these thoughts can be revived to apply, on a scale inconceivable in 1940 or 1960, to Big Tech, and to the small number of men who control it.
These men -- Jack Dorsey, of Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg, of Facebook, and Sundar Pichai, of Alphabet Inc., and its subsidiary Google -- operate what, in another time, would be known as “common carriers.” Common carriers are, as the term implies, companies that distribute anything from news to parcels to gasoline. They are a means of distributing ideas, news, goods, and services.
Think of the old Western Union, the railroads, the pipeline companies or the telephone companies. Their business was carriage, and they were recognized and regulated in law as such: common carriers.
The controversial Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act recognizes the common carrier nature of Big Tech internet companies by exempting them from libel responsibility. It specifically stated that they shouldn’t be treated as publishers. Conservatives want 230 repealed, but that would only make the companies reluctant to carry anything controversial, hurting free speech.
I think that the possible repeal of 230 should be part of a large examination of the inadvertently acquired but vast power of the Internet-based social-media companies. It should be part of a large discussion embracing all the issues of free speech on social media which could include beefed-up libel statutes -- possibly some form of the equal-time rule which kept network owners from exploiting their power for political purposes in days when there were only three networks.
President Trump deserves censure, which he has gotten: He has been impeached for incitement to insurrection. I take second place to no one in my towering dislike of him, but I am shaken at the ability of Silicon Valley to censor a political figure, let alone a president.
That Silicon Valley should shut out the voice of the president isn’t the issue. It is that a common carrier can dictate the content, even if it is content from a rogue president.
This exercise of censor authority should alarm all free-speech advocates. It is power that exceeds anything ever seen in media.
The heads of Twitter, Facebook and Alphabet are more powerful by incalculable multiples than were Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst and Henry Luce, or is Rupert Murdoch. They can subtract any voice from any debate if they so choose. That is a bell that tolls for all. They have the power to silence any voice by closing an account.
When Edward R. Murrow talked about the awesome power of television, he was right for that time. But now technology has added a multiplier of atomic proportions via the Internet.
The internet-based social media giants didn’t seek power. They are, in that sense, blameless. They pursued technology, then money, and these led them to their awesome power. What they have done, though, is to use their wealth to buy startups which offer competition.
Big Tech has used its financial clout to maintain its de facto monopolies. Yet unlike the newspaper proprietors of old or Murdoch’s multimedia, international endeavors today, they didn’t pursue their dreams to get political power. They were carried along on the wave of new technologies.
It may not be wrong that Twitter, Facebook and others have shut down Trump’s account when they did, at a time of crisis, but what if these companies get politically activated in the future?
We already live in the age of the cancellation culture with its attempt to edit history. If that is extended to free speech on the Internet, even with good intentions, everything begins to wobble.
The tech giants are simply too big for comfort. They have already weakened the general media by scooping up most of the advertising dollars. Will the freedom of speech belong to those who own the algorithms?
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com. He’s based in Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.
Linda Gasparello
Co-host and Producer
"White House Chronicle" on PBS
Mobile: (202) 441-2703
Website: whchronicle.com
Thanks!1940, “Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.”
Twenty years later, the same thought was reprised by A.J. Liebling of The New Yorker.
Today, these thoughts can be revived to apply, on a scale inconceivable in 1940 or 1960, to Big Tech, and to the small number of men who control it.
These men -- Jack Dorsey of Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and Sundar Pichai of Alphabet Inc., and its subsidiary Google -- operate what, in another time, would be known as “common carriers.” Common carriers are, as the term implies, companies which distribute anything from news to parcels to gasoline. They are a means of distributing ideas, news, goods, and services.
Think of the old Western Union, the railroads, the pipeline companies, or the telephone companies. Their business was carriage, and they were recognized and regulated in law as such: common carriers.
The controversial Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act recognizes the common carrier nature of Big Tech internet companies by exempting them from libel responsibility. It specifically stated that they shouldn’t be treated as publishers. Conservatives want 230 repealed, but that would only make the companies reluctant to carry anything controversial, hurting free speech.
I think the possible repeal of 230 should be part of a large examination of the inadvertently acquired but vast power of the internet-based social media companies. It should be part of a large discussion embracing all the issues of free speech on social media which could include beefed-up libel statutes -- possibly some form of the equal-time rule which kept network owners from exploiting their power for political purposes in days when there were only three networks.
President Donald Trump deserves censure, which he has gotten: He has been impeached for incitement to insurrection. I take second place to no one in my towering dislike of him, but I am shaken at the ability of Silicon Valley to censor a political figure, let alone a president.
That Silicon Valley should shut out the voice of the president isn’t the issue. It is that a common carrier can dictate the content, even if it is content from a rogue president.
This exercise of censor authority should alarm all free-speech advocates. It is power that exceeds anything ever seen in media.
The heads of Twitter, Facebook and Alphabet are more powerful by incalculable multiples than were Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst and Henry Luce, or is Rupert Murdoch. They can subtract any voice from any debate if they so choose. That is a bell that tolls for all. They have the power to silence any voice by closing an account.
When Edward Murrow talked about the awesome power of television, he was right for that time. But now technology has added a multiplier of atomic proportions via the internet.
The internet-based social media giants didn’t seek power. They are, in that sense, blameless. They pursued technology, then money, and these led them to their awesome power. What they have done, though, is to use their wealth to buy startups which offer competition.
Big Tech has used its financial clout to maintain its de facto monopolies. Yet unlike the newspaper proprietors of old or Murdoch’s multimedia, international endeavors today, they didn’t pursue their dreams to get political power. They were carried along on the wave of new technologies.
It may not be wrong that Twitter, Facebook, and others have shut down Trump’s account when they did, at a time of crisis, but what if these companies get politically activated in the future?
We already live in the age of the cancellation culture with its attempt to edit history. If that is extended to free speech on the internet, even with good intentions, everything begins to wobble.
The tech giants are simply too big for comfort. They have already weakened the general media by scooping up most of the advertising dollars. Will the freedom of speech belong to those who own the algorithms?
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of “White House Chronicle” on PBS. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com.
Linda Gasparello
Co-host and Producer
"White House Chronicle" on PBS
Mobile: (202) 441-2703
Website: whchronicle.com
Thanks!
Coast painting
“Metal Scape Navy 1’ (encaustic painting), by Charyl Weissbach, in the show at The New Bedford Art Museum, Jan. 21-March 14. Her studio is in Boston’s SoWa arts district.
(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.
The blessings of January
The Mt. Hope Bridge, connecting the Rhode Island mainland with Aquidneck Island
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
It’s good that in January in these parts you see the underlying structures of many things, the skeletons of them, so to speak, with the leaves off the deciduous trees and other vegetation reduced, too. More architecture than painting. Another nice thing is that the colors of birds, e.g., cardinals, stand out more vividly against the brown, gray and white of January than they do in greener times.
Marshes in Sandwich, Mass.
— Photo by Andrewrabbott
I love the sere of coastal marshes at this time of year, especially at sunrise and sunset.
Of course, it’s also good to know that winter will end in a few weeks.
January always seemed to me a quiet time in which you can catch your breath, before obligations start piling up again later in the winter – tax returns, etc. It’s a good time to catch up on sleep.
We send out a lot of New Year’s cards well into this month. They arrive more reliably at their destinations than Christmas cards, especially this past holiday season, what with the pandemic and damage to the U.S. Postal Service by the Trump regime under its corrupt postmaster general, Louis DeJoy. (Being corrupt and slavishly, even criminally, loyal have often seemed to be the main requirements for high-level employment in this destructive regime.)
Driving to Newport on a bright winter’s day, with shimmering views from the bridges of the Ocean State’s archipelago, is exhilarating, as is sitting with an old friend at the all-weather patio of a mostly empty restaurant on the Newport waterfront with the light pouring in. But let’s hope that the eatery is crowded come spring.
'Foundation of all free government'
“To the Friends of Literature in the United States,’’ Webster's prospectus for his first dictionary of the English language, 1807–1808
“The foundation of all free government and all social order must be laid in families and in the discipline of youth. Young persons must not only be furnished with knowledge, but they must be accustomed to subordination and subjected to the authority and influence of good principles. It will avail little that youths are made to understand truth and correct principles, unless they are accustomed to submit to be governed by them.”
― Noah Webster. (1758-1843) an American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer, editor and prolific author. Webster's name has become synonymous with "dictionary" in the United States, especially the modern Merriam-Webster dictionary that was first published in 1828 as A Dictionary of the English Language. He was born in Hartford and died in New Haven. He’s an example of the New England enthusiasm for education that goes back to Puritan times.
A 1932 statue of Webster by Korczak Ziółkowski stands in front of the public library of West Hartford, Conn.
Title page of Webster's Dictionary of the English Language, c. 1830–1840
Get out your flood insurance
“Hireath 1 ‘‘ (ink, charcoal, and gouache on paper) by Vermont-based artist Susan Greer Emmerson, in her show “Unraveling,’’ at Kingston Gallery, Boston, March 3-28.
The gallery says:
“The home, as a physical and metaphorical space, seemingly exists as a constant. It is a place of return, respite, and stability even when the outside world is in chaotic flux. Emmerson (a former surgeon), however, sees the safety of home as an illusion. In her solo exhibition, paintings on paper of brightly colored houses are violently crushed together in torrential waves, evoking the physical destruction of man-made climate disasters. Other structures are in piles of debris, still retaining their original form, but gone from their foundation and neighborhoods. “
Says Emmerson, “This past year has changed the relationship many have with home. For some, it has been a site of confinement, of forced isolation and loneliness. It has been a place to grieve normalcy and human lives.” It has also been a space that has been stable one month and gone the next, either by destruction or mass evictions. Emmerson’s work evokes the Welsh word “hiraeth”, the profound homesickness and nostalgia for a home you cannot return to, or one that may never have existed.
View select high-resolution images here.
Image credit: Susan Greer Emmerson, Hireath 1 (2020) ink, charcoal, and gouache on paper, 22” x 30”, 2020, courtesy of the artist.
Grace Kelly: Book author touts easy, healing walks
Marjorie Hollman Turner
From ecoRI News (ecori.org)
Thirty years ago Marjorie Turner Hollman found her right side paralyzed after brain surgery. She was unable to drive in the seven years of recovery that followed and turned to writing and taking walks down her dead-end road for solace.
When she met her second husband, an avid outdoorsman, she slowly began to move beyond handicap-accessible walks to what she now calls “easy walks.”
“If I had not found myself on a hospital bed paralyzed after brain surgery, I wouldn’t be doing easy walks,” said Turner Hollman, who lives in Bellingham, Mass., which is just over the Rhode Island border near Cumberland. “I have healed to the extent that I am able to walk with support, meaning hiking poles, and I’m very selective of where I choose to walk. I’m not your Appalachian Mountain Club material.”
Over the years, Turner Hollman sought out more of these easy walks, which she defines as “walks that don’t have too many roots, don’t have too many rocks, are relatively level … with something of interest along the way.”
In essence, walks that children, people with mobility issues, and those new to the outdoors can enjoy. Anyone, really.
And as Turner Hollman started her easy walks, she began to chronicle them — and the natural world around her — first for her local newspaper and later on her blog. Then, the questions came pouring in.
“I started having people find my Web site and they kept asking the question, Where’s Joe’s Rock?’” Turner Hollman said. “Well, it’s in Wrentham [Mass.] on Route 121 right near the Cumberland line, and after about the 500th time somebody came to that article, I said, ‘Well I think there’s a need here.’”
Turner Hollman wrote her first book, Easy Walks in Massachusetts, in 2014 to provide a one-stop-shop resource for anyone else in the state looking for easy walks. But the process was far from easy, since a lot of the walks she enjoyed weren’t in any guidebooks.
“At the time, they didn’t have any guides for outdoor things here. We’re not the Cape, we’re not in the White Mountains, we don’t have that cache,” she said. “Today, a lot of town offices have put up maps of their conservation areas, but when I started writing these in 2013, there were next to none. I visited town halls and said, ‘Help me!’ or called and said, ‘Do you have properties that kind of fit this?’ I did a lot of legwork.”
Since then, she’s written another three “easy walks” books, one of which was done in conjunction with the Ten Mile River Watershed Council, an organization with offices in Rumford, R.I., and Attleboro, Mass. This two-state watershed contains one of her favorite easy walks, Hunts Mills, which has a man-made dam and waterfall and trails that loop through the woods.
“It’s stunning and incredibly accessible,” Turner Hollman said. “You can even just sit in your car and watch the falls … it’s this hidden away little spot. It’s just a gem.”
In her most recent book, Finding Easy Walks Wherever You Are, Turner Hollman takes the principles of seeking out and enjoying easy walks to a broader level, providing tips and perspectives that anyone can use to seek out a special place to walk anywhere.
“There are plenty of places, but people don’t know how to find them because a lot of the time they’re off the beaten track,” she said. “I encourage people to consider places like, for example, your local cemetery to visit respectfully, understanding its first purpose is not a walking place … but they’re wonderful places to walk and often have paved roadways through them.
“So that’s a lot of what I talk about in finding easy walks wherever you are. It’s providing ideas that people maybe don’t think about.”
The book is also a culmination of Turner Hollman’s personal experience and belief that anyone, regardless of ability, can go on a walk.
“What I’ve learned in sharing Easy Walks is that many people can enjoy these outings, regardless of ability,” she wrote in a blog post from 2015. “Rather than my disability creating a barrier, I’ve found that working with, in spite of, and because of my disability has enriched my life, and the lives of many others. … These days I’m even more determined to search out and point others to places they can enjoy together.”
Grace Kelly is a journalist with ecoRI News.
Mitchell Zimmerman: Of the Nazis and Trump's Fascist mob
Nazis during the Beer Hall Putsch
Trump’s fascist mobs, inspired by nonstop lies, invade the Capitol
From OtherWords.org
In 1923, Hitler and the Nazis stormed a beer hall in Munich, Germany, whence they planned to overthrow German democracy. The putsch failed ignominiously, and Hitler was briefly jailed.
That, of course, was not the end of Adolf Hitler. America needs to remember that history if we want to preserve our democracy from the right-wing forces rallied by Donald Trump today.
As Congress gathered to formalize Trump’s election defeat, he and his extremist followers launched their own beer hall putsch. “We will not take it anymore,” Trump told them. “You’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength.”
With these words, Trump unleashed the frenzied horde.
They breached the barriers around the Capitol and fought their way in, brutally killing a police officer and assaulting many others. They broke into offices, smashed windows, looted, and forced Congress to cease its operations. Outside, they built a gallows.
Many rioters carried weapons and some had plastic handcuffs. Their obvious goal: to take hostages and force Congress to award Trump a second term. A total (so far) of five deaths.
Trump is responsible, but not him alone. The mob he sent had accomplices: a second mob of Republican officials who laid the groundwork by enabling Trump’s lies.
The second mob includes the eight Republican senators and 139 House Republicans who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s election, as well as the 17 Republican attorneys general who supported a bogus lawsuit to throw out the election.
Finally, it includes the Republican office holders who refused to tell their voters the truth: Trump lost. There was no “steal,” as 60 court rulings — including many by Trump-appointed judges — unanimously concluded.
These Republican politicians knew this, but they still insisted that Trump be installed as president, confirming their opposition to elections and hostility to constitutional democracy.
The second mob misled Republican voters so well that 45 percent of them actually support the criminal attack on the Capitol. Those tens of millions of people represent a potential mass base for fascism.
So, what should we do?
First, Trump should be impeached, removed, and charged with inciting a riot and other crimes. And criminal charges are obviously in order for the terrorist violence committed by the first mob. Experts also suggest expelling members of the second mob from Congress or boycotting them from public life.
Accountability is vital. But the Democrats who will now control Congress and the White House must also double down on efforts to restore and strengthen American democracy.
They should act swiftly to limit the power of money in politics, restore the Voting Rights Act, and eliminate needless obstacles to voting. And Washington, D.C., should be admitted as a state, so its citizens have full voting rights and powers.
Finally, the Democratic Party must fight to enact bold programs to deal with the massive problems Americans face — from climate change to the pandemic to the declining living standards of working Americans.
Half-hearted steps will only leave ordinary Americans feeling that that government does not work, priming the pump for more right-wing radicalization. But a full-throated campaign for real, understandable change — even against Republican obstruction — can help voters understand that democracy can work for them when it isn’t hijacked by the super-rich and their servants.
The assault on the Capitol has uncovered the true nature of right-wing Republican politics in America: a thinly veiled war on constitutional democracy and majority rule. The way to prevent the next authoritarian coup attempt is to build a robust democracy that demonstrates it is responsive to the needs and interests of real people.
A slap on the wrist for the coup plotters and a swift return to the status quo isn’t enough, as the beer hall putsch should have taught us. We need a real commitment to reverse the erosion of our democracy.
Mitchell Zimmerman is a lawyer, social activism and author of the thriller Mississippi Reckoning.
Don't burn it for electricity!
In Beartown State Forest, in The Berkshires
The Sandwich Range, in the White Mountain National Forest
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
I like to sit by a crackling log fire as much as the next person. Indeed, we recently bought a backyard fire pit as a way to expand our winter living space in these times of pandemic claustrophobia. Even a lot of people burning logs in fire pits or fireplaces produce relatively minor pollution. It’s a compact, sensual, aesthetic experience.
Of course, with most fireplaces, having a fire loses your house more warmth than it gains, as it draws heat from the house up the chimney. Still, it’s very pleasant, if you can sit close enough to it.
In any event, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration is wrong to let wood-burning electric-power plants that now don’t meet state environmental standards get subsidies from rate payers. Yes, New England has lots of wood, but burning it in large quantities to generate electricity would mean much higher carbon emissions in the region, worsening global warning. Cutting down a lot more trees would obviously reduce forests’ ability to absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen, as well as harm wildlife and increase erosion by water.
Such clean-energy sources as solar, wind and geothermal are becoming cheaper and more efficient by the year. They’re the way to go. Burning wood to generate electricity is a terrible idea.
By the way, I remember that back in the days before Jiffy Pop and microwave stoves, how much fun it was to pop corn by putting the seeds in a screened frame over the fire and constantly shaking and flipping it. It took close attention but the popcorn you got seemed tastier than what you get now, or maybe that’s just misleading nostalgia. Of course, we soaked the product in butter and sprinkled on lots of salt: a slow-motion heart-disease developer.
xxx
Another sign that Massachusetts will continue to be a very rich state: Despite the pandemic and the national recession, it caused state tax revenues rose 8.8 percent in December from the year-earlier, pre-COVID month!
Lonely in the universe
Tideline in North Truro
Photo by Hqfrancis
….this is just one sea
on one beach on one
planet in one
solar system in one
galaxy. After that
the scale increases, so
this not the last word,
and nothing else is talking back.
It’s a lonely situation.’’
— From The Sea Grinds Things Up,’’ by Alan Dugan (1923-2003), a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. He lived in Truro, on Outer Cape Cod. The town, as with Provincetown, just to the north, has long drawn artists of various kinds, along with other exotic tribes, such as New York City psychoanalysts.
Rae Ellen Bichell: Live free and die in your county if you wish, but not in my hospital
Adam Baker, chief operating officer of The Old Mine, a cidery and restaurant that has a taproom called the Handlebar Factory, stands at the empty taproom on a December afternoon. The taproom is in Boulder County, where indoor dining is not allowed. The restaurant, just a short walk away, is in Weld County, where officials have said they “will not enforce a rule demanding restaurants close their indoor dining areas.” The company decided to follow the more restrictive guidelines of Boulder County, regardless of the restaurant’s location.
— Photo by Rae Ellen Bichell, Kaiser Health News
ERIE, Colo.
Whenever Larry Kelderman looks up from the car he’s fixing and peers across the street, he’s looking across a border. His town of 28,000 straddles two counties, separated by County Line Road.
Kelderman’s auto-repair business is in Boulder County, whose officials are sticklers for public health and have topped the county website with instructions on how to report COVID violations. Kelderman lives in Weld County, where officials refuse to enforce public health rules.
Weld County’s test positivity rate is twice that of its neighbor, but Kelderman is pretty clear which side he backs.
“Which is worse, the person gets the virus and survives and they still have a business, or they don’t get the virus and they lose their livelihood?” he said.
Boulder boasts one of the most highly educated populations in the nation; Weld boasts about its sugar beets, cattle and thousands of oil and gas wells. Summer in Boulder County means concerts featuring former members of the Grateful Dead; in Weld County, it’s rodeo time. Boulder voted for Biden, Weld for Trump. Per capita income in Boulder is nearly 50% higher than in Weld.
Even their COVID outbreaks are different: In Boulder County, the virus swirls around the University of Colorado. In Weld County, some of the worst outbreaks have swept through meatpacking plants.
The town of Erie, Colorado, straddles two counties with opposite views on how to approach COVID-19. (Rae Ellen Bichell/KHN)
It’s not the first time County Line Road has been a fault line.
“I’ve been in politics seven years and there’s always been a conflict between the two counties,” said Jennifer Carroll, mayor of Erie, once a coal mining town and now billed as a good place to raise a family, about 30 minutes north of Denver.
Shortly before the coronavirus hit Colorado, Erie’s board of trustees extended a moratorium on new oil and gas operations in the town. Weld County was not pleased.
“They got really angry at us for doing that, because oil and gas is their thing,” Carroll said.
Most of the town’s businesses are on the Weld side. To avoid public health whiplash, Carroll and other town leaders have asked residents to comply with the more restrictive stance of the Boulder side.
The feud got ugly in a dispute over hospital beds. At one point, the state said Weld County had only three intensive care beds, while Weld County claimed it had 43.
“It made my job harder, because people were doubting what I was saying,” said Carroll. “Nobody trusted anyone because they were hearing conflicting information.”
Weld’s number, it turned out, included not just the beds in its two hospitals, but also those in 10 other hospitals across the county line, including in the city of Longmont.
Longmont sits primarily in Boulder County but spills into Weld, where its suburbs taper into fields pockmarked with prairie dog holes. Its residents say they can tell snow is coming when the winds deliver a pungent smell of livestock from next door. Longmont Mayor Brian Bagley worried that Weld’s behavior would deliver more than a stench: It might also deliver patients requiring precious resources.
“They were basically encouraging their citizens to violate the emergency health orders … with this cowboy-esque, you know, ‘Yippee-ki-yay, freedom, Constitution forever, damn the consequences,’” said Bagley. “Their statement is, ‘Our hospitals are full, but don’t worry, we’re just going to use yours.’”
So, “for 48 hours, I trolled Weld County,” he said. Bagley asked the city council to consider an ordinance that could have restricted Weld County residents’ ability to receive care at Longmont hospitals. Bagley, who retracted his proposal the next day, said he knew it was never going to come to fruition — after all, it was probably illegal — but he wanted to prove a point.
“They’re going to be irresponsible? Fine. Let me propose a question,” he said. “If there is only one ICU bed left and there are two grandparents there — one from Weld, one from Boulder — and they both need that bed, who should get it?”
Weld County commissioners volleyed back, calling Bagley a “simple mayor.” They wrote that the answer to the pandemic was “not to continually punish working-class families or the individuals who bag your groceries, wait on you in restaurants, deliver food to your home while you watch Netflix and chill.”
“I know we’re all trying to get along, but people are starting to do stupid and mean things and so I’ll be stupid and mean back,” Bagley said during a Dec. 8 council meeting.
In another Longmont City Council meeting, Bagley (who suspects the commissioners don’t know what “Netflix and chill” typically means) often referred to Weld simply as “our neighbors to the East,” declining to name his foe. The council shrugged off his statement about withholding medical treatment but demanded that Weld County step up to fight the pandemic.
“We would not deny medical care to anybody. It’s illegal and it’s immoral,” said council member Polly Christensen. “But it is wrong for people to expect us to bear the burden of what they’ve been irresponsible enough to let loose.”
“They’re the reason why I can’t be in the classroom in front of my kids,” said council member and teacher Susie Hidalgo-Fahring, whose school district straddles the counties. “I’m done with that. Everybody needs to be a good neighbor.”
County Line Road is not just a street cutting through Erie, Colorado. It represents a fault line between local governments with very different views on the pandemic. (Rae Ellen Bichell/KHN)
Josh Kelderman works with his father, Larry, at the family’s auto repair business, Integrity Products, on the Boulder County side of Erie, Colorado. Weld County is just across the street. (Rae Ellen Bichell/KHN)
The council decided Dec. 15 to send a letter to Weld County’s commissioners encouraging them to enforce state restrictions and to make a public statement about the benefits of wearing masks and practicing physical distancing. They’ve also backed a law allowing Democratic Gov. Jared Polis to withhold relief money from counties that don’t comply with restrictions.
Weld County Commissioner Scott James said his county doesn’t have the authority to enforce public health orders any more than a citizen has the authority to give a speeding ticket.
“If you want me as an elected official to assume authority that I don’t have and arbitrarily exert it over you, I dare you to look that up in the dictionary,” said James, who is a rancher turned country radio host. “It’s called tyranny.”
James doesn’t deny that COVID-19 is ravaging his community. “We’re on fire, and we need to put that fire out,” he said. But he believes that individuals will make the right decisions to protect others, and demands the right of his constituents to use the hospital nearest them.
“To look at Weld County like it has walls around it is shortsighted and not the way our health care system is designed to work,” James said. “To use a crudity, because I am, after all, just a ranch kid turned radio guy, there’s no ‘non-peeing’ section in the pool. Everybody’s gonna get a little on ’em. And that’s what’s going on right now with COVID.”
The dispute is not just liberal and conservative politics clashing. Bagley, the Longmont mayor, grew up in Weld County and “was a Republican up until Trump,” he said. But it is an example of how the virus is tapping into long-standing Western strife.
“There’s decades of reasons for resentment at people from a distance — usually from a metropolis and from a state or federal governmental office — telling rural people what to do,” said Patty Limerick, faculty director at the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and previously state historian.
In the ’90s, she toured several states performing a mock divorce trial between the rural and urban West. She played Urbana Asphalt West, married to Sandy Greenhills West. Their child, Suburbia, was indulged and clueless and had a habit of drinking everyone else’s water. A rural health care shortage was one of many fuels of their marital strife.
Limerick and her colleagues are reviving the play now and adding COVID references. This time around, she said, it’ll be a last-ditch marriage counseling session for high school classes and communities to adopt and perform. It likely won’t have a scripted ending; she’s leaving that up to each community.
Rae Ellen Bichell is a Kaiser Health News reporter.
Rae Ellen Bichell: rbichell@kff.org, @raelnb
Our water wonders
At The New Bedford Art Museum, Jan. 21-March 14
(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.
All democracies commit suicide
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
— John Adams (1735-1826), one of the most important American Founding Fathers and the second president
John Adams’s birthplace, at the Adams National Historical Park, in Quincy, Mass.
Urban uplift
Downtown Providence in 1844
Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
Providence officials, aided by professional planners, are trying to envisage how to improve the city’s downtown by stitching it together more tightly after car-dependent, suburban impulses have tended to fragment it.
Manuel Cordero, co-founder of the nonprofit DownCity Design, said “The idea is to create spaces that are welcoming and vibrant, and to address some of the longstanding issues, such as lighting and accessibility, to create a better set of interconnected spaces for our downtown.’’
Of course, every city needs to try to implement the best design ideas to adjust to changing demographics, technology, architecture, engineering and economics. But that might be even trickier than usual now because of the uncertainties of COVID-19. How might the pandemic permanently change how we live in, work in and visit cities?
To read ecoRI News’s report on this, please hit this link
The new Amtrak train hall in the Pennsylvania Station complex.
— Photo by Jim.henderson
One very good piece of urban news, especially for those of us in the Northeast Corridor: A new, natural-light-filled train hall opened Friday in New York’s Penn Station complex. It has 92-foot-high ceilings and glass skylights and recalls the glorious masterpiece that was the Beaux-Arts Pennsylvania Station, opened in 1910 and torn down in ‘60’s. It was replaced by the hideous cavelike, dank, dark and overcrowded Penn Station that we all hate – the busiest train station in America.
The new hall is in the James A. Farley Post Office building, across Eighth Avenue from the main Penn Station, which is under Madison Square Garden.
The facility will only serve Amtrak and Long Island Railroad passengers, at least initially. Subway and other riders/victims must continue to use the old station. But more changes are planned in the passenger-rail complex – by far America’s busiest – in coming years.
What a nice way for New York City, which suffered much from the COVID catastrophe in 2020, to start the new year. And maybe it will inspire the political will to fix a lot more of America’s decayed transportation infrastructure. Big things can still be done, even in mostly gridlocked America, with strong and brave leadership.
The Yale architectural historian Vincent Scully (1920-2017) famously bemoaned the destruction of the 1910 Pennsylvania Station: “Through Pennsylvania Station one entered the city like a god. Perhaps it was really too much. One scuttles in now like a rat.”
Safer than in person
“I learned how to cover race riots by telephone. They didn't pay me enough at my first newspaper job to venture onto the grounds of South Boston High School when bricks were being thrown. Instead, I would telephone the headmaster and ask him to relay to me the number of broken chairs in the cafeteria each day.’’
— Gwen Ifill (1955-2016), best known for her work as a PBS journalist, on her reporting of the Boston school-desegregation crisis for the old Boston Herald American in the late ‘70s. She graduated from Springfield Central High School and Simmons College, in Boston.
Better have that rash looked at
Encaustic painting from Martin Kline’s show “Allover,’’ at Heather Gaudio Fine Art, New Canaan, Conn., Jan. 23-March 6.
The gallery says:
“Throughout the course of his career, Kline has examined systems of historicism and presentation, his focused and disciplined approach creating bodies of works in series, each with their distinctive visual language. Among his many investigations, Kline has looked to notions of authenticity, sincerity and originality, and, as he states, there comes a point when an artist ‘cannot escape Jackson Pollock’ For this exhibition, Kline presents his newest group of paintings entitled “Allover,’ inspired by the drip technique he used in “Dream of Pollock’’ (for Kirk Varnedoe) back in 2007.
The multi-colored “Allover’’ series consists of, for the most part, strictly monochromatic abstractions. Created in a looser, automatist fashion, these paintings have a more fluid sensibility, with random thread-like rivulets of pigment networked in and out of broader, purposeful bands of color. Unlike previous series, these paintings lack compositional focal points, nor do they possess narrative characteristics seen in his Hammocks assemblages. The viewer’s eye is free to wander all over and engage with the painted surface indiscriminately.
”While Kline may be revisiting the spontaneous technique for which Pollock became famous, the approach to painting with the panel positioned horizontally has been very much decidedly his own from early on. Kline has mostly worked on his surfaces laid horizontally, typically on a tabletop—his signature additive approach to painting requiring the pull of gravity to fasten the pigments in situ while drying. For the most part, Kline’s hand has had a direct touch through the use of a paintbrush on the paper, panel or canvas. In the Allover paintings, Kline is still working horizontally but he has severed the traditional anatomical connection, distancing himself from the surface even more by placing the panels on the floor. This increased space relinquishes control for the drips and pours to act more randomly and allow for elements of surprise to occur. Most of the panels in this series lack confining frames and the sides are free of splashed pigments that reveal the process. The resulting suggestion is that the drips and thicker gestures of color travel beyond the picture plane. It is as if the viewer is getting a snapshot, a window into elements that exist outside the painting’s boundaries.’’
Squeeze out some more
Looking toward Calais, Maine, across the St. Croix River from St. Stephen, New Brunswick
“In Maine, there is a deeply ingrained sense that you can always get a little more use out of something.’’
— Tim Sample (born 1951), in Maine Oddities, Curiosities and Roadside Attractions, longtime New England regional humorist
He lives in Calais, Maine, far Downeast.
On June 16, 1809, Plantation Number 5 PS was incorporated as Calais, named after Calais, France, in honor of French help during the American Revolution. The St. Croix River provided the mill town with water power for sawmills, clapboard and shingle mills, two planing mills, a saw factory, two axe factories and four grain mills! There were foundries, machine shops, granite works, shoe factories and a tannery. Other businesses produced bricks, bedsteads, brooms, carriages and plaster. Not bad for a community that now has only about 3,100 people! There’s still a lot of fishing in the area but most of the other industry is long gone.
Calais and the neighboring Canadian town of St. Stephen have long been remarkably friendly. Consider that during the War of 1812, the British military provided St. Stephen with a lot of gunpowder for protection against the enemy Americans across the St. Croix River in Calais, but St. Stephen's town elders gave the gunpowder to Calais for its Fourth of July celebrations.
Calais hosted the first railroad built in Maine, the Calais Railroad, incorporated by the state legislature on February 17, 1832 and built to transport lumber from a mill on the St. Croix River.
Main Street in Calais in 1913 — more prosperous than now
1908 postcard. Note the lumber being transported.
—
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.