Maine: ‘Almost hallucinatory’
Blue Hill, Maine, from Parker Point.
“I think of those first five years in Maine as the time when this happened to me…. I was suddenly seeing, feeling, and listening as a child sees, feels, and listens.’’
– E.B. White (1899-1985), American writer
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“Should fate unkind
send us to roam,
The scent of the fragrant pines,
the tang of the salty sea
Will call us home.’’
— From “State of Maine,’’ the state’s official song
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“The beauty of Maine is such that you can’t really see it clearly while you live there. But now that I’ve moved away, with each return it all becomes almost hallucinatory: the dark blue water, the rocky coast with occasional flashes of white sand, the jasper stone beaches along the coast, the fire and fir forests somehow vivid in their stillness.”
— Alexander Chee ( born 1967) novelist
Chris Powell: With the right pressure would some pols support cannibalism?
A cannibal feast on Tanna, Vanuatu, circa 1885–1889
Painting by Charles E. Gordon Frazer (1863-1899)
MANCHESTER, Conn.,
For many years the case for raising the pay of Connecticut state legislators has been solid in principle.
Their base annual salary is $28,000. Representatives get another $4,500 and senators $5,500 annually for expenses they don't have to document. There is a mileage allowance. Legislators may get a few thousand dollars more if they are appointed to "leadership" positions, and, predictably enough, while most leadership positions are only nominal, they are so numerous that many legislators get one.
But the average legislator is being paid only $35,000 per year and legislators have gotten no raise since 2001, even as inflation is high.
While legislative sessions seldom last more than six months, those sessions often run from morning to late at night. Quite apart from their work at the Capitol, legislators typically are on duty most of the year dealing with constituents and interest groups. Many legislators attend civic events when they're not on the telephone hearing pleas for help, favors, or patronage.
As a result, being a state legislator is not a practical option for most people, as it offers part-time pay for what is often more than full-time work even as it requires most to hold other jobs to support themselves and their families.
In the old days the Hartford insurance companies and major law firms would give legislative leaders jobs with highly flexible schedules, even "no-show" jobs, though that practice diminished as the conflict of interest was recognized. But still, if legislators are not wealthy or financially comfortable in retirement, they need second jobs with flexible hours. For most, legislative office really is public service, no matter how well or poorly they perform.
So as a practical matter service in the General Assembly is not really open to everyone. Lawyers, financial company employees, and retirees are disproportionately represented in it. Factory workers, truckers, nurses and barbers aren't.
Theoretically, higher and effectively full-time legislative salaries would be more democratic and draw more capable and qualified people to the General Assembly. Legislators often offer such reflections upon their retirement.
But few legislators planning to seek re-election take that position, at least not in public, since they assume that voters would hold it against them and could not be persuaded by any argument in favor of raises.
Indeed, many voters probably would not even understand that the state Constitution prevents legislators from voting to raise their own salaries -- that legislators can't get a raise unless voters re-elect them to it.
But legislative pay raises aren't the only issue that fails to be addressed because of a lack of political courage. State government seldom addresses any issue with courage.
For many years state government has been mainly an exercise in distributing money to the loudest and most numerous bleaters, even as Connecticut's biggest problems -- generational poverty, educational failure, racial segregation, housing prices, criminal justice and such -- have not been alleviated, government's only response to them being to do and spend more on what doesn't work, as long as what doesn't work employs people who will support the regime at election time.
A legislator who merely acknowledged that state government's expensive policies toward those enduring problems don't work might be more courageous than all his colleagues.
Of course , Connecticut isn't peculiar in this respect, just maybe worse because its prosperity has insulated it somewhat from failure. A century ago the writer H.L. Mencken saw the tendency everywhere in government.
“Laws," Mencken wrote, "are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion. They are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner. The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle -- a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology, or cannibalism.”
That's why better pay for state legislators might not change anything. For legislators don't elect themselves. Their constituents usually elect and re-elect them without ever noticing their policy failures. To get a better public life you need to get a better public.
Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester.
Compressed loves and hates
The Blackinton section of North Adams, Mass., in 1889.
In Natural Bridge State Park, a Massachusetts state park in North Adams. Named for its natural bridge of white marble, unique in North America, the park also offers woodland walks with views of a dam made of white marble, and a picturesque old marble quarry.
“The village viewed from the top of the hill to the westward, at sunset, has a peculiarly happy and peaceful look; it lies on a level, surrounded by hills, and seems as if it lay in the hollow of a large hand….It is amusing to see all the distributed property, the aristocracy and commonality, the various and conflicting interests of the town, the loves and hates, compressed into a space which the eye takes in as completely as the arrangement of a tea-table.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), on North Adams, Mass., in The American Notebooks (1838). North Adams, in The Berkshires, would become a thriving factory town. Manufacturing started to leave decades ago, and North Adams is now an arts center, particularly because of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
Art auction benefits Ukrainian relief efforts
Creative Connections Gift Shop and Gallery, in Ashburnham, Mass., and Russian artist Alexey Naumovich Neyman are hosting a silent auction coinciding with the exhibit "The Habitual Light of Memory" running through April 30. All proceeds from the purchase of art from the exhibit will be donated to the International Rescue Committee's Ukrainian relief efforts.
At the top of Mount Watatic, in Ashburnham, a 1,832-foot-high monadnock just south of the Massachusetts–New Hampshire border, at the southern end of the Wapack Range. The 22-mile Wapack Trail and the 92-mile Midstate Trail both cross the mountain.
Celebrating in the ‘sugar bush’
Molten syrup poured on clean white snow to create a kind of soft maple candy.
“Then ‘sugaring off’ was a gala time, with parties in the ‘sugar bush,’ where dippers of syrup were poured into the snow to harden for the guests….Sweet, sour pickles were often served to whip up jaded appetites. They ate sugar between the buttered layers of pancakes four tiers thick; and songs were sung and jokes were cracked and even the most dour old farmer became genial at the thought that the long cold mountain winter was over and spring would soon be there.’’
-- Ernest Pole on the maple-syrup harvest after in 1938 hurricane (which blew down many, many trees) in his book The Great White Hills of New Hampshire (1946)
A "sugar shack" where sap is boiling.
Pouring the sap.
Chuck Collins: Cracking down on Russian oligarchs should include closing U.S. tax havens
Placing "dirty" money in a service company, where it is layered with legitimate income and then integrated into the flow of money, is a common form of money laundering.
Via OtherWords.org
BOSTON
As part of the sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, the United States and its European partners are cracking down on Russian oligarchs. They’re freezing assets and tracking the yachts, private jets and luxury real estate holdings of these Russian billionaires.
“I say to the Russian oligarchs and the corrupt leaders who bilked billions of dollars off this violent regime: no more,” Biden said in his State of the Union address. “We are coming for your ill-begotten gains.”
Targeting Russia’s elites, who have stolen trillions from their own people, is an important strategy to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin, who himself may be among the wealthiest people on the planet.
But the U.S. faces a major obstacle in this effort: Our own country has become a major destination tax haven for criminal and oligarch wealth from around the world — and not just Russians.
While European Union countries have been increasing transparency and cracking down on kleptocratic capital, the United States is a laggard. As the Pandora Papers disclosed last year, the U.S. has become a weak link in the fight against global corruption.
Delaware, the state President Biden represented in the Senate for 36 years, is the premiere venue for anonymous limited-liability companies that don’t have to disclose who their real beneficial owners are, even to law enforcement. And South Dakota is the home for billionaires creating dynasty trusts, where they can park wealth outside the reach of tax authorities for generations.
Even U.S. charities, as my colleague Helen Flannery wrote recently, have received billions from Russian oligarchs, helping to sanitize their reputations.
Global wealth continues to flood into the United States, especially in luxury real estate. In February, the New York Post did an expose on the luxury real estate holdings of Russian oligarchs in the Big Apple. But oligarchs hide their wealth in real estate all over the country, as well as art, cryptocurrency, and jewelry.
This vast wealth-hiding apparatus would not exist without an enormous enabling class of lawyers, accountants and wealth managers. These “wealth defense industry” professionals are the agents of inequality, the facilitators of the wealth disappearing act. This class of professionals uses their considerable political clout to block reforms.
The first step in fixing the hidden wealth system is ownership transparency — requiring the disclosure of beneficial ownership in real estate, trusts, and companies and corporations. Cities such as Los Angeles are exploring municipal-level disclosure of real estate ownership so they can know who’s buying their neighborhoods.
But we should also shine a spotlight on the wealth defense industry. Days after the release of the Pandora Papers, U.S. lawmakers introduced the ENABLERS Act, which would require such attorneys, wealth managers, real estate professionals, and art dealers to report suspicious activity. The attention on Russian oligarchs has revived interest in this legislation.
If the U.S. wants to clamp down on Russian oligarchs, the first step is to get our own house in order
Chuck Collins, based in Boston, directs the Program on Inequality at the Institute for Policy Studies. He’s the author of The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions.
Magical wetland
“Sunset on the Marshes” (on the Massachusetts North Shore) (1867) (oil on canvas), by Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904), at the Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Mass.
— Photography by Bob Packert
Llewellyn King: Helping America by helping Ukrainian refugees resettle in U.S. counties that could use more people
Wheat field in Idaho. Ukraine, like the U.S., is a very big wheat producer.
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
The Ukrainian diaspora is upon the world. Of the millions who are dispossessed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is wishful thinking that on some glorious day they will all go home. In reality, the world will have to accommodate them. They can’t all stay in Poland and Romania.
One by one, the countries of Europe falteringly are stepping up to their moral and humanitarian duty. Most countries say they will take some Ukrainian refugees.
The Biden administration, without clarity, has indicated that some refugees will be welcomed. What the administration is hoping is that these will be glommed onto existing Ukrainian communities in several cities.
This might be a mistake. The cities with large Ukrainian communities are New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Detroit, Cleveland and Indianapolis. In all these cities, housing is expensive and in very short supply; and there are many social problems for those at the bottom, where refugees traditionally find themselves.
Now comes an extraordinary proposal for refugee resettlement from an attorney, Christopher Smith, who practices in Macon, Ga. He is also the honorary consul there for Denmark, but he tells me his proposal is in no way a reflection of that office and is entirely his own as a private citizen.
Smith’s sweeping and enticing proposal is that refugees from Ukraine should be settled, with federal and state assistance and with the participation of local government, not in crowded cities but in American counties which have been losing population for decades. “Those include counties here in south Georgia,” Smith told me by telephone.
You may think, from anecdotal reporting, that there is a major move from cities to the country, spurred by COVID. But Smith tells me that movement is small and doesn’t reverse the decades-long trend of county depopulation.
My own observation of this COVID-induced trend is that it applies to such places as New York and Boston, where the outward movement has been to garden locales where virtual commuting can be accomplished, for example, people who have moved from Boston and New York to Rhode Island and Connecticut, and from Los Angeles to smaller outposts, or north to Washington and Oregon.
Smith said in a position paper: “There are 3,143 counties in the United States. From 2010 to 2020, approximately 1,660 (53 percent) of American counties lost population. Here in Georgia, 67 (42 percent) of 159 counties saw a reduction in population during that time span. Most but not all American counties that lost population during this 10-year period are located in rural areas.”
While counties tend to have a higher apartment and rental home vacancy rate and a lower cost of living than the national average, many of these communities have job shortages, Smith said.
“Logic would suggest that these communities would be an ideal location to host Ukrainian refugees,” he said.
The thing that struck me about Smith’s proposal is how thoroughly he has researched it. He hasn’t just sprouted an idea, he has worked out a plan and enshrined it in a draft act of Congress, which lays out the federal, state and county responsibilities and the issuance of work permits and residence certificates -- and, of course, the all-important issue of funding. He has sent it to his congressman, Austin Scott, a Republican.
Smith told me that it is worth noting that Scandinavians were encouraged to populate the Midwest -- as anyone who listened to Prairie Home Companion, on NPR knows.
I don’t know whether America’s wheat farmers need help, but certainly there will be pressure to grow more wheat. The chances that wheat will be sown in the middle of Russia’s war on Ukraine are unlikely. Ukraine is a huge wheat producer. Canada brought in Ukrainian immigrants in the 1890s to help boost wheat production. It was a great success.
It seems to me that Smith’s well-conceived proposal has merit and deserves attention. It has the prima facie merit of helping a part of America that needs help, and giving succor to the most desperate of people, those uprooted by war.
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com, and he’s based in Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.
--
Co-host and Producer
"White
New-museum magic
Samuel Slater
Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
All hail the Samuel Slater Experience, an interactive museum in Webster, Mass., that spotlights the work of Samuel Slater (1768-1835), the English immigrant whose work in setting up manufacturing mills was a major element in the launch of the American Industrial Revolution. It also displays much of the history of Webster, an important early mill town. Slater may be best known for Slater Mill, on the Blackstone River in Pawtucket, but he set up other mills, too, most notably in Webster, where he lived from 1812 and from which he ran his empire. (He also loved using child labor….)
It's a reminder of the tremendous dynamism and economic and technological creativity of New Englanders, right up to the present. This has helped keep the region one of the most prosperous places in the world.
One example seems particularly germane now as America tries to move away from our perilous reliance on global-warming fossil fuels sold by such vicious regimes as Russia and Saudi Arabia that we have funded far too long.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems, based in Cambridge and Dever, Mass., is making progress in developing a safe form of nuclear energy that could ultimately replace all gas, oil, and coal now used to generate electricity, as well as the controlled fission nuclear plants that present spent-fuel-storage challenges.
Hit these links:
Then, there’s Cambridge-based Moderna, developer of what might well be the best COVID-19 vaccine.
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In other happy news, the stunning new Sailing Museum, in Newport, will open in May, in time for the City by the Sea’s main tourist season. It’s hard to think of a better place than Newport for such a museum. It’s not only associated with major local and international sailing races, from America’s Cup on, but with the full range of small-scale recreational sailing.
But there’s more! Construction is supposed to begin this summer on the National Coast Guard Museum, on the waterfront in New London, home of the Coast Guard Academy.
Protection art at Hammond Castle, in Gloucester
Part of Sarah Dineen’s show “Protection: An Abstract Art Installation,’’ at Hammond Castle Museum, Gloucester, Mass., March 19-March 30.
The museum says she has “amassed an army of painted helmets, shields, tubes, and microphone-trees... Working in multiples to magnify the uncanny human and industrial presence of each form, she uses abstraction to suggest familiarity while leaving open to the viewer the possibilities of their own imagination." The pieces will be available to buy, with some of the proceeds to go to support the museum.
The castle, built in 1926-1929, was the home and laboratory of John Hays Hammond, Jr., an inventor and pioneer in the study of remote control who held over 400 patents. The building had modern and 15th-, 16th-, and 18th-century architectural elements and sits on a rocky cliff overlooking Gloucester Harbor.
The front of Hammond castle
— Photo by Dale E. Martin
Chelsie Vokes: What will colleges do if Supreme Court bans affirmative action involving race?
At elite Williams College, in Williamstown, Mass.
From The New England Journal of Higher Education, a service of The New England Board of Higher Education (nebhe.org)
When President Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson for the U.S. Supreme Court, it seemed like a major civil rights victory.
But that victory could feel like a bitter irony this fall, when the high court hears two cases that will likely obliterate affirmative action. If Jackson gets approved by the Senate, she will probably be making two divergent types of history in her first months on the court: being its first black female and hearing cases that could likely overturn 40 years of legal precedents involving race-conscious admissions.
The cases, one against Harvard and the other against the University of North Carolina, were both brought by Students for Fair Admissions (“SFFA”), an organization founded by conservative entrepreneur and long-time affirmative-action foe Ed Blum. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, as expected, colleges and universities would not only be barred from using race as a factor in admissions but also prohibited from knowing the race of applicants.
The decisions will likely force schools to completely revamp their admissions policies and rethink how to apply for education grants. Depending on the scope and content of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the decision could affect preferences for first-generation students and reverberate well beyond the realm of education, even jeopardizing grant programs for minority-owned businesses. These cases could also lead to further scrutiny of common practices such as legacy admissions.
In the University of North Carolina case, SFFA argues that whites and Asian American applicants were discriminated against because the university used race as a criterion for admissions. Previous Supreme Court cases had ruled that colleges could use race as one of several criteria for admissions, while prohibiting the use of racial quotas. But now, SFFA says those precedents are wrong and that using race as a criterion is illegal.
Harvard has a holistic process to determine admissions, that is, considering each candidate’s entire high school career and not looking at race as an explicit factor. However, SFFA argued that the subjective and vague nature of these holistic policies leaves room for implicit bias and consequently holds Asian American applicants to a far higher standard than white applicants. In support of its argument, the SFFA questioned why Harvard admits the same percentage of Black, Hispanic, white and Asian American students each year, even though application rates for each racial group differ significantly over time. SFFA says that Harvard must design a new race-blind admissions system.
The court hasn’t issued any opinions on affirmative action since June 2016, which was before Donald Trump was elected president and eventually secured three staunchly conservative appointments to the bench. Unless something unexpected occurs in the next year, it seems likely that the court will ban affirmative action.
The legal change could have huge implications for colleges and universities. If affirmative action is struck down, many colleges will need to overhaul their admissions practices. More than 100 public colleges currently use race as an admissions factor and 59 of the top 100 private colleges consider race as well, according to data from the College Board reported by Ballotpedia. Numerous other colleges that don’t consider race may need to determine whether their admissions policies disproportionally affect one race over others—a big undertaking that could require protracted and complicated analyses.
Colleges believe that diversity is critical to the spread of ideas. But without any race-conscious admissions policies, it’s likely that there will be substantially fewer minorities on many campuses. Past affirmative action bans decreased Black student enrollment by as much as 25% and Hispanic student enrollment by nearly 20%, according to a 2012 study cited by the Civil Rights Project. These bans discourage minority applicants and don’t even result in better academically credentialed student bodies. The Civil Rights Project also reported that SAT math scores dropped by 25 points after such bans.
If the court bans affirmative action, though, colleges and universities can find other methods to create the diverse campuses they desire. Like private employers, who generally can’t consider race in hiring, they could work to expand their applicant pool and encourage minorities to apply. They might also develop increased financial aid and other support programs to boost access to education.
States looking for a race-neutral alternative may follow the lead of Texas, which guarantees public university admission to all students who graduated in the top 10% of their high school classes. However, it is still unclear whether this approach really increases diversity.
Colleges and universities will be able to find ways to preserve—and boost—diversity on their campuses. But they should not wait until the court issues what will likely be a landmark affirmative action decision in the spring of 2023. Colleges and universities will need to make sweeping changes to admissions policies. They need to start preparing now.
Chelsie Vokes is a labor, employment and higher education lawyer with Bowditch & Dewey LLP, in Boston.
Don Pesci: Self-nominating himself to be Lamont’s Machiavelli?
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), Florentine diplomat, writer and political theorist. He’s most famous as author of The Prince, a realist/cynical instruction guide for new princes and royals.
VERNON, Conn.
“If men were angels,” said James Madison, “no government would be necessary.’’
And if governors were angels, no political advisers such as John Droney, former Connecticut Democratic Party chairman and supporter of Gov. Ned Lamont, would be necessary
Droney along with other angels and academics, are now offering their expertise, which is considerable, to Governor Lamont, battered for the last couple of weeks for having been too opaque concerning the wicked Machiavellian way of professional politicians.
Somewhat like former President Trump, Lamont is not a professional politician; he is a millionaire who lives in toney Greenwich, along with other millionaires such as U.S. Sen. Dick Blumenthal. He makes lots of money – Greenwich is a rather high priced burg – but less than his enterprising wife, Annie Lamont.
Droney is caught spilling the political beans in a Hartford Courant piece titled “As Gov. Lamont faces questions on Annie Lamont’s investments and state contracts, critics say more transparency is needed.”
Here is Droney on the indispensability of Droney: “His [Lamont’s] crew is not the most sophisticated political operatives in the world. They didn’t have people who are very familiar with all the black arts of politics who would say, ‘You’ve got to do this, and you’ve got to do that.’ I don’t think that goes on in their minds.”
And: “He doesn’t have [former state Republican chairmen] Tom D’Amore and Dick Foley, and he doesn’t have John Droney. He’s got to get somebody who is really a politician as an informal adviser that says to him, ‘Don’t do this and don’t do that for political reasons’ while he’s running for office again.”
My deceased Italian mother whispered to me in a dream last night, “Sure sounds like Droney is angling for a job as the principal Machiavellian in the Lamont administration.”
I admonished her, “There is some truth in what Droney said though.” She nodded her assent, and my dream moved on.
Millionaire politicians could always make good use of campaign advisers. The services of millionaire Trump advisor Steve Bannon may be available at some point.
The general advice bearing down on Lamont like an onrushing freight train appears to be this: If only Lamont had been wiser in the black arts of politics or, failing that, if he had thought to hire someone such as Droney, intimately familiar with the black arts, he would not now be struggling with angelic academics, journalists and the political opposition. Somehow, such an advisor would have stood Lamont in good stead. He would have been transparent, against the best advice of his and Annie’s accountants -- more like likable Ned than the dastardly, redundantly rich Trump.
In other words, had Lamont been transparent, he would have gotten a pass rather than an ill-deserved back of the hand from Connecticut’s media which, to the misfortune of politicians dealing in black arts, appear to be committed to honest dealing in governmental affairs.
Underlying the desperate necessity for erring politicians to bring aboard their campaigns experts such as Droney – or, for that matter, the now unemployed brother of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo -- is the notion that destructive policies can be managed by honeyed tongues and political experts used to massaging the media. But occasionally, as was the case with former CNN twinkling star, Chris Cuomo, reality intervenes.
To provide just one example of a potential destructive downwind for Connecticut Democrats – consider the weather. “Everybody talks about the weather in New England, but nobody does anything about it,” quipped Mark Twain.
According to energy suppliers, it's going to be a cold, Biden Winter in New England. There may still be time to open pipelines closed by Biden in a fruitless attempt to convince car buyers they should go electric.
“Just in time for Winter, Eversource warns customers of a double-digit increase in natural gas prices. Heating and electricity costs also predicted to increase,” a Hartford paper tells us.
Republicans in Connecticut may take a campaign page from Democrats in 2022 and run against Biden, even as Democrats successfully ran against former President Donald Trump, though he was not on state election ballots.
"Cold" and "inflation" are sound campaign issues, American as apple pie and motherhood. “Natural gas pipeline constraints, global supply chain problems and even a shortage of fuel delivery truck drivers on local roads place New England’s power system at ‘heightened risk’ heading into the winter, the Holyoke, Mass.-based organization Eversource said."
A total of 469 seats in Congress (34 Senate seats and all 435 House seats) are up for election on Nov. 8, 2022, and the weather in New England, very much affected by Biden’s energy constrictions, cannot be adjusted by sweet talk, however honey-tongued the sweet talker may be. Reality will trump rhetoric, trip up the anti-realist, and stuff him down the rabbit hole every time.
Don Pesci is a Vernon-based columnist.
'We are always on the rise'
Examples of all MBTA services except for trolleybuses, including MBTA boat.
— Photo by Cran32
“We are Dorchester, Mattapan, Brighton and Allston
Roxbury, JP
Represent Boston
Orange line, Red line, Green line, Blue
Silver line
These are all parts of our commute
”Route 128 to Mass Pike at night
Might help me clear my mind
With the future in sight
”In this great place for me to grow and be embraced
By some hard-working people who won't compromise taste
“We're not LA
And we are not New York
We've got our own thing of the quite unusual sort
That's why I'm proud
I rep for my town
We are always on the rise
And you ain't keeping us down.’’
From the song “Boston Strong,’’ by hip-hop artist Jeffrey Haynes (born 1977), better known as Mr Tif. The song was written in 2013, after the Boston Marathon Bombing, on April 15 that year.
‘No propaganda value whatsover’
“Forget” (monotype and encaustic collage on panel), by Groton, Mass.-based artist Jeanne Borofsky
She writes in her Web site:
“Having grown up in the country I have always looked to nature to center myself – to restore balance to my mind and my world. I spend time in the woods or by the water letting the rhythms of the world become part of me. I create encaustic monotypes with patterns reminiscent of barks and leaves or water, and collage them onto panels, adding many bits of ephemera, both natural and not.
“My encaustic constructions (“castles”) usually start with encaustic monotypes. There is a monotype mounted to the panel, and I add origami boxes folded mostly from more encaustic monotypes. I spend a lot of my time folding, which is a kind of meditation, and then more time constructing and adding stamps, maps, bits of asemic writing and other ephemera to create my own world. I have often felt the way Alexander Calder felt when he said, ‘I want to make things that are fun to look at, that have no propaganda value whatsoever.’
“Stamps, maps and electronic bits are ever present in my work, nothing seems complete without one or the other. Creatures abound, and sometimes they are the main focus of my attention.
“I love the way beeswax creates both physical and visual depth and translucency to my work – adding to the mystery and magic I’m trying to understand and convey. Whatever I put into my art, it always includes the joy of creation, the love of art, and the happiness in my ability to create it.’’
Chapel at the Groton School, an elite Episcopalian boarding school.
John O. Harney: Some big changes at the top
The (Brutalist) Federal Reserve Bank of Boston tower, at the edge of the Boston financial district.
— Photo by Fox-orian
(New England Diary is catching up with this report, first published Feb. 15.)
From The New England Journal of Higher Education, a service of The New England Board of Higher Education (nebhe.org)
BOSTON
The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston named University of Michigan Provost Susan M. Collins to be the bank’s next president and CEO. An international macroeconomist, Collins will be the first Black woman to lead a regional bank in the 108-year history of the Fed system. In addition to being the University of Michigan’s provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, Collins is the Edward M. Gramlich Collegiate Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics. She holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She will succeed Eric Rosengren, who retired in September after 14 years leading the Boston Fed.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology President L. Rafael Reif announced he will leave the post he has held for the past decade at the end of 2022. A native of Venezuela, Reif began working at MIT as an electrical engineering professor in 1980, then served seven years as provost before being named president in 2012. Among other things, he presided over a $1 billion commitment to a new College of Computing to address the global opportunities and challenges presented by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and oversaw the revitalization of MIT’s physical campus and the neighboring Kendall Square in Cambridge, Mass. Reif said he will take a sabbatical, then return to MIT’s faculty in its Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Tufts University President Anthony Monaco told the campus that he will step down in the summer of 2023 after 12 years leading the university. A geneticist by training, Monaco ran a center for human genetics at Oxford University in the U.K. and, at Tufts, worked with the Broad Institute on COVID-19 testing programs that helped universities return to in-person learning. Among his accomplishments, Monaco oversaw the university’s 2016 acquisition of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston as well as the removal of the “Sackler” name from its medical school after the Sackler family and its company, Purdue Pharma, were found to be key players in the opioid crisis.
The Biden administration tapped David Cash, dean of the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at UMass Boston and former commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, to be the regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in New England.
John O. Harney is executive editor of The England Journal of Higher Education.
So throw them out
Grindel Point Lighthouse, in Islesboro, in Waldo County, Maine.
“Mrs. O’Finnicky flounces her dust
ruffles, her mind bent on spring. All winter
she has endured the turgid company
of tchotchkes and assorted bric-a-brac.’’
From “Spring Cleaning,’’ by John Canaday, American poet, teacher and science-history expert. He now lives in Brooks, Maine, a tiny town in Waldo, Maine.
Amazon to pay for tuitions at UConn and other schools
Aerial view of UConn’s flagship campus, in Storrs
— Photo by Global Jet
Edited from a report by the New England Council (newenglandcouncil.com)
BOSTON
“Amazon announced that it will now offer fully funded tuition to local hourly Amazon workers who attend the University of Connecticut {and Capital Community College, in Hartford} as well as some other colleges around America. This effort is a part of Amazon’s Career Choice program, in which the company partners with dozens of higher education institutions to help ‘upskill’ Amazon workers through the funding of their college tuitions.
“Ruth Kustoff, director of continuing and professional education at UConn, said that the university is ‘excited to be part of the Amazon Career Choice network,’ and is ‘looking forward to providing higher-education opportunities to Amazon employees through our Storrs and regional campuses.’ With Amazon’s investment of $1.2 billion into education projects, the company aims to assist 300,000 employees in obtaining new degrees and certifications by 2025.’’
Capital Community College, in downtown Hartford.
….what hit them
“They Never Even Knew’’ (acrylic and Sharpie on canvas), by Massachusetts-based artist (and robotics engineer) Blake Brasher, in his show “Experiencing Something,” through March 27, at Bromfield Gallery, Boston. The show is of mixed-media paintings on canvas or Yupo that act as abstract mind-scapes.
Sarah Barney: Are U.S. drug companies staying in Russia so greedy they’re complicit with Putin’s mass murder?
Maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, destroyed by Russian invaders on March 9.
U.S. drug companies that keep doing business in Russia are “being misguided at best, cynical in the medium case, and outright deplorably misleading and deceptive.’’
— Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management
Even as the war in Ukraine has prompted an exodus of international companies — from fast-food chains and oil producers to luxury retailers — from Russia, U.S. and global drug companies said they would continue manufacturing and selling their products there.
Airlines, automakers, banks, and technology giants — at least 320 companies by one count — are among the businesses curtailing operations or making high-profile exits from Russia as its invasion of Ukraine intensifies. McDonald’s, Starbucks and Coca-Cola announced a pause in sales this week.
But drugmakers, medical device manufacturers, and health care companies, which are exempted from U.S. and European sanctions, said Russians need access to medicines and medical equipment and contend that international humanitarian law requires they keep supply chains open.
“As a health care company, we have an important purpose, which is why at this time we continue to serve people in all countries in which we operate who depend on us for essential products, some life-sustaining,” said Scott Stoffel, divisional vice president for Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories, which manufactures and sells medicines in Russia for oncology, women’s health, pancreatic insufficiency, and liver health.
Johnson & Johnson — which has corporate offices in Moscow, Novosibirsk, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg — said in a statement, “We remain committed to providing essential health products to those in need in Ukraine, Russia, and the region, in compliance with current sanctions and while adapting to the rapidly changing situation on the ground.”
The reluctance of drugmakers to pause operations in Russia is being met with a growing chorus of criticism.
Pharmaceutical companies that say they must continue to manufacture drugs in Russia for humanitarian reasons are “being misguided at best, cynical in the medium case, and outright deplorably misleading and deceptive,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management who is tracking which companies have curtailed operations in Russia. He noted that banks and technology companies also provide essential services.
“Russians are put in a tragic position of unearned suffering. If we continue to make life palatable for them, then we are continuing to support the regime,” Sonnenfeld said. “These drug companies will be seen as complicit with the most vicious operation on the planet. Instead of protecting life, they are going to be seen as destroying life. The goal here is to show that Putin is not in control of all sectors of the economy.”
U.S. pharmaceutical and medical companies have operated in Russia for decades, and many ramped up operations after Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014, navigating the fraught relationship between the U.S. and Russia amid sanctions. In 2010, Vladimir Putin, then Russian prime minister, announced an ambitious national plan for the Russian pharmaceutical industry that would be a pillar in his efforts to reestablish his country as an influential superpower and wean the country off Western pharmaceutical imports. Under the plan, called “Pharma-2020” and “Pharma-2030,” the government required Western pharmaceutical companies eager to sell to Russia’s growing middle class to locate production inside the country.
Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, and Abbott are among the drugmakers that manufacture pharmaceutical drugs at facilities in St. Petersburg and elsewhere in the country and typically sell those drugs as branded generics or under Russian brands.
Pfizer’s CEO, Albert Bourla, said on CBS that the giant drugmaker is not going to make further investments in Russia, but that it will not cut ties with Russia, as multinational companies in other industries are doing.
Pharmaceutical manufacturing plants in Kaluga, a major manufacturing center for Volkswagen and Volvo southwest of Moscow, have been funded through a partnership between Rusnano, a state-owned venture that promotes the development of high-tech enterprises, and U.S. venture capital firms.
Russia also has sought to position itself as an attractive research market, offering an inexpensive and lax regulatory environment for clinical drug trials. Last year, Pfizer conducted in Russia clinical trials of Paxlovid, its experimental antiviral pill to treat covid-19. Before the invasion began in late February, 3,072 trials were underway in Russia and 503 were underway in Ukraine, according to BioWorld, a reporting hub focused on drug development that features data from Cortellis.
AstraZeneca is the top sponsor of clinical trials in Russia, with 49 trials, followed by a subsidiary of Merck, with 48 trials.
So far, drugmakers’ response to the Ukraine invasion has largely centered on public pledges to donate essential medicines and vaccines to Ukrainian patients and refugees. They’ve also made general comments about the need to keep open the supply of medicines flowing within Russia.
Abbott has pledged $2 million to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine, and Pfizer, based in New York, said it has supplied $1 million in humanitarian grants. Swiss drug maker Novartis said it was expanding humanitarian efforts in Ukraine and working to “ensure the continued supply of our medicines in Ukraine.”
But no major pharmaceutical or medical device maker has announced plans to shutter manufacturing plants or halt sales inside Russia.
In an open letter, hundreds of leaders of mainly smaller biotechnology companies have called on industry members to cease business activities in Russia, including “investment in Russian companies and new investment within the borders of Russia,” and to halt trade and collaboration with Russian companies, except for supplying food and medicines. How many of the signatories have business operations in Russia was unclear.
Ulrich Neumann, director for market access at Janssen, a Johnson & Johnson company, was among those who signed the letter, but whether he was speaking for the company was unclear. In its own statement posted on social media, the company said it’s “committed to providing access to our essential medical products in the countries where we operate, in compliance with current international sanctions.”
GlaxoSmithKline, headquartered in the United Kingdom, said in a statement that it’s stopping all advertising in Russia and will not enter into contracts that “directly support the Russian administration or military.” But the company said that as a “supplier of needed medicines, vaccines and everyday health products, we have a responsibility to do all we can to make them available. For this reason, we will continue to supply our products to the people of Russia, while we can.”
Nell Minow, vice chair of ValueEdge Advisors, an investment consulting firm, noted that drug companies have been treated differently than other industries during previous global conflicts. For example, some corporate ethicists advised against pharmaceutical companies’ total divestment from South Africa’s apartheid regime to ensure essential medicines flowed to the country.
“There is a difference between a hamburger and a pill,” Minow said. Companies should strongly condemn Russia’s actions, she said, but unless the U.S. enters directly into a war with Russia, companies that make essential medicines and health care products should continue to operate. Before U.S. involvement in World War II, she added, there were “some American companies that did business with Germany until the last minute.”
Sarah Varney is a Kaiser Health News reporter; KHN senior correspondent Arthur Allen contributed to this article.
'Spectral New England'
H. P. Lovecraft, the Providence-based horror (and horrible) writer as an 18th-Century gentleman, by Virgil Finlay
To see “Spectral New England,’’ please hit this think.