Will hold us to spring
“Super Bloom (clay, glaze), by Kathy Butterly, in her show “Out of One, Many/Headscapes,’’ at the Portland (Maine) Museum of Art.
©Kathy Butterly. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo: Alan Wiener.
The museum says that the show is an exhibition of small ceramic works. “These delicate, small-scale pieces …belie their size in meaning and complexity. This exhibit pulls together art from two bodies of work — ‘Out of One, Many,’ which ‘showcases the anthropomorphic, playful, intricate and provocative side of Butterly, and ‘Headscapes,’ which displays 10 pieces made specifically for this show.’’
Chris Powell: Marijuana not really legal; highway fantasy
Anti-marijuana warning from 1935.
MANCHESTER, Conn.
News organizations and state government proclaimed last week that marijuana is now legal in Connecticut. But it's not really.
Pressed about the issue, the U.S. attorney's office for Connecticut quickly confirmed that while Connecticut and other states have repealed their criminal laws on marijuana, possession and sale of the drug remain violations of federal law. The marijuana business is going into the open in many states only because for some years now the federal government, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, has decided not to enforce the federal law.
As U.S. Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland has told Congress: "I do not think it the best use of the Justice Department's limited resources to pursue prosecutions of those who are complying with the laws in states that have legalized and are effectively regulating marijuana."
Of course there is always much discretion in law enforcement, like the patrol officer who issues an oral warning instead of a ticket to a speeding motorist.
But discretion in a particular case is nothing compared to a decision to suspend entirely the enforcement of a law. There is no authority for that, since the U.S. Constitution requires that the president, the head of the federal executive department, "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." The Constitution does not say that the president shall choose which laws to enforce.
That is totalitarianism -- the end of law.
Attorney General Garland's rationale for not enforcing federal marijuana law in states that are facilitating the marijuana business -- the Justice Department's "limited resources" -- is even weaker.
For to close the state-sanctioned marijuana business, the department would need only to make an arrest at a single marijuana retailer in each state that is sanctioning the business. The industry would fold up within hours. Indeed, it would not have sprung up at all without confidence in federal indifference.
This doesn't mean that marijuana should remain criminalized. While it can be addictive and cause harm, it is mild as illegal drugs go and can have medical uses. Decades of criminalization probably have caused more problems than they have prevented. The bigger problem now is respect for law.
States should be simply repealing their criminal laws on marijuana, leaving enforcement to the federal government. States should not be facilitating sale of the drug, which is essentially nullification of federal law -- just what Connecticut and some other states have been doing with illegal immigration, obstructing federal immigration agents and giving state identification documents to illegal immigrants to facilitate their lawbreaking.
Meanwhile Congress should take marijuana out of federal criminal law and strengthen pursuit of more dangerous drugs, especially fentanyl.
The present circumstances with marijuana -- legal and illegal at the same time in the same place -- invite contempt for law and government.
The Connecticut River and Hartford in the early 19th Century.
I-84 and the Bulkeley Bridge in Hartford.
— Photo by Pepper
According to the Connecticut Mirror, the idea of U.S. Rep. John B. Larson, (D-1st District) to relocate the Hartford area's highways and put miles of them in tunnels at the cost of maybe $17 billion and decades of construction work is starting to be taken seriously by state transportation officials.
It shouldn't be. For while it might be nice for the Hartford bank of the Connecticut River to be covered with parks and condominiums instead of highways, getting around the Hartford area is easy enough and is getting easier as rush-hour commuting for office work is replaced by telecommuting.
Meanwhile Connecticut's public health system has big gaps; its cities remain sunk in generational poverty; its electricity, railroad and sanitation systems are creaky; its schools are failing; and its government employee retirement system is underfunded -- all amid high inflation caused by too much government spending.
None of those things will be visible from an interstate highway tunnel but they will still be there. First things first.
Chris Powell (CPowell@JournalInquirer.com) is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester.
Boston’s best known aid to hallucination
Painting by J.S. Dykes, shown in exhibition of his paintings and prints in his Boston gallery through Feb. 17.
Judith Graham: What elderly people should know about taking Paxlovid for COVID
Paxlovid blister pack
— Photo by Kches16414
“There’s lots of evidence that Paxlovid can reduce the risk of catastrophic events that can follow infection with COVID in older individuals.’’
— Dr. Harlan Krumholz, a professor of medicine at Yale University
A new coronavirus variant is circulating, the most transmissible one yet. Hospitalizations of infected patients are rising. And older adults represent nearly 90% of U.S. deaths from COVID-19 in recent months, the largest portion since the start of the pandemic.
What does that mean for people 65 and older catching COVID for the first time or those experiencing a repeat infection?
The message from infectious-disease experts and geriatricians is clear: Seek treatment with antiviral therapy, which remains effective against new COVID variants.
The therapy of first choice, experts said, is Paxlovid, an antiviral treatment for people with mild to moderate COVID at high risk of becoming seriously ill from the virus. All adults 65 and up fall in that category. If people can’t tolerate the medication — potential complications with other drugs need to be carefully evaluated by a medical provider — two alternatives are available.
“There’s lots of evidence that Paxlovid can reduce the risk of catastrophic events that can follow infection with COVID in older individuals,” said Dr. Harlan Krumholz, a professor of medicine at Yale University.
Meanwhile, develop a plan for what you’ll do if you get the disease. Where will you seek care? What if you can’t get in quickly to see your doctor, a common problem? You need to act fast since Paxlovid must be started no later than five days after the onset of symptoms. Will you need to adjust your medication regimen to guard against potentially dangerous drug interactions?
“The time to be figuring all this out is before you get COVID,” said Dr. Allison Weinmann, an infectious-disease expert at Henry Ford Hospital, in Detroit.
Being prepared proved essential when I caught COVID in mid-December and went to urgent care for a prescription. Because I’m 67, with blood cancer and autoimmune illness, I’m at elevated risk of getting severely ill from the virus. But I take a blood thinner that can have life-threatening interactions with Paxlovid.
Fortunately, the urgent-care center could see my electronic medical record, and a physician’s note there said it was safe for me to stop the blood thinner and get the treatment. (I’d consulted with my oncologist in advance.) So, I walked away with a Paxlovid prescription, and within a day my headaches and chills had disappeared.
Just before getting COVID, I’d read an important study of nearly 45,000 patients 50 and older treated for the disease between January and July 2022 at Mass General Brigham, the large Massachusetts health system. Twenty-eight percent of the patients were prescribed Paxlovid, which had received an emergency use authorization for mild to moderate covid from the FDA in December 2021; 72% were not. All were outpatients.
Unlike in other studies, most of the patients in this one had been vaccinated. Still, Paxlovid conferred a notable advantage: Those who took it were 44% less likely to be hospitalized with severe COVID-related illnesses or die. Among those who’d gotten fewer than three vaccine doses, those risks were reduced by 81%.
A few months earlier, a study out of Israel had confirmed the efficacy of Paxlovid — the brand name for a combination of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir — in seniors infected with COVID’s omicron strain, which arose in late 2021. (The original study establishing Paxlovid’s effectiveness had been conducted while the delta strain was prevalent and included only unvaccinated patients.) In patients 65 and older, most of whom had been vaccinated or previously had covid, hospitalizations were reduced by 73% and deaths by 79%.
Still, several factors have obstructed Paxlovid’s use among older adults, including doctors’ concerns about drug interactions and patients’ concerns about possible “rebound” infections and side effects.
Dr. Christina Mangurian, vice dean for faculty and academic affairs at the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine, encountered several of these issues when both her parents caught covid in July, an episode she chronicled in a recent JAMA article.
First, her father, 84, was told in a virtual medical appointment by a doctor he didn’t know that he couldn’t take Paxlovid because he’s on a blood thinner — a decision later reversed by his primary care physician. Then, her mother, 78, was told, in a separate virtual appointment, to take an antibiotic, steroids, and over-the-counter medications instead of Paxlovid. Once again, her primary care doctor intervened and offered a prescription.
In both cases, Mangurian said, the doctors her parents first saw appeared to misunderstand who should get Paxlovid, and under what conditions. “This points to a major deficit in terms of how information about this therapy is being disseminated to front-line medical providers,” she told me in a phone conversation.
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, agrees. “Every day, I hear from people who are misinformed by their physicians or call-in nurse lines. Generally, they’re being told you can’t get Paxlovid until you’re seriously ill — which is just the opposite of what’s recommended. Why are we not doing more to educate the medical community?”
The potential for drug interactions with Paxlovid is a significant concern, especially in older patients with multiple medical conditions. More than 120 medications have been flagged for interactions, and each case needs to be evaluated, taking into account an individual’s conditions, as well as kidney and liver function.
The good news, experts say, is that most potential interactions can be managed, either by temporarily stopping a medication while taking Paxlovid or reducing the dose.
“It takes a little extra work, but there are resources and systems in place that can help practitioners figure out what they should do,” said Brian Isetts, a professor at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy.
In nursing homes, patients and families should ask to speak to consultant pharmacists if they’re told antiviral therapy isn’t recommended, Isetts suggested.
About 10% of patients can’t take Paxlovid because of potential drug interactions, according to Dr. Scott Dryden-Peterson, medical director of COVID outpatient therapy for Mass General Brigham. For them, Veklury (remdesivir), an antiviral infusion therapy delivered on three consecutive days, is a good option, although sometimes difficult to arrange. Also, Lagevrio (molnupiravir), another antiviral pill, can help shorten the duration of symptoms.
Many older adults fear that after taking Paxlovid they’ll get a rebound infection — a sudden resurgence of symptoms after the virus seems to have run its course. But in the vast majority of cases “rebound is very mild and symptoms — usually runny nose, nasal congestion, and sore throat — go away in a few days,” said Dr. Rajesh Gandhi, an infectious-disease physician and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Gandhi and other physicians I spoke with said the risk of not treating COVID in older adults is far greater than the risk of rebound illness.
Side effects from Paxlovid can include a metallic taste in the mouth, diarrhea, nausea and muscle aches, among others, but serious complications are uncommon. “Consistently, people are tolerating the drug really well,” said Dr. Caroline Harada, associate professor of geriatrics at the University of Alabama-Birmingham Heersink School of Medicine, “and feeling better very quickly.”
Judith Graham is a Kaiser Health News reporter.
The enemy in your mirror
“We have met the enemy, and he is us.’’
— “Pogo”
A line from one of cartoonist Walt Kelly’s (1913-1973) “Pogo” comic strips, modified from Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s remark in the War of 1812, “We have met the enemy {the British} and they are ours,” after the American victory in Battle of Lake Erie, on Sept. 10, 1813. Perry was a Rhode Islander.
Walt Kelly, who grew up in Bridgeport, Conn., was marking the Earth Day, in 1971, with the message that man – because of his treatment of the Earth – is its enemy.
xxx
But in another Pogo chapter the character Porkypine says:
“Don’t take life so serious, son….it ain’t no how permanent.’’
The huge Deer Island sewage-treatment plant in Boston Harbor, created as a result of the environmental movement that started in the 60’s. It became fully operation in 2000. Boston Harbor had been notoriously polluted since the mid-19th Century.
— Photo by Doc Searls
‘From the furnace of a star’
Saint Joseph's Abbey, in Spencer Mass., a Trappist monastery.
— Photo by John Phelan
“The monastery is quiet. Seconal
drifts down upon it from the moon.
I can see the lights
of the city I came from,
can remember how a boy sets out
like something thrown from the furnace
of a star…. ‘‘
— From “The Monk’s Insomnia,’’ by Denis Johnson (1949-2017), an American poet. This came from the book Mountain Interval: Poems from the Frost Place, 1977-1986. The Frost Place, in Franconia, N.H., is a museum and poetry center dedicated to Robert Frost, who lived there with his family full time from 1915 to 1920, as he was becoming famous, and then summered there until 1940.
— Photo by Mfwills
‘Celebration and suspicion’
"Star Trail Dancer," by Scot J. Wittman, in his show, “Justice,’’ at Nesto Gallery at Milton Academy, Milton, Mass., through Feb. 11.
The gallery says that the multi-faceted exhibition seeks to achieve Wittman's goal, in his words, of "[shining] light on shifting human capability and its global impact," with "equal parts celebration and suspicion."
‘‘Justice’’ uses photography, digital artwork, NFTs, drawing, sculpture and painting to create a varied but deep exhibition.
The Suffolk Resolves House, in Milton, where American colonists tried to establish negotiations with the British Empire in 1774 to avert war. It was one of the meetings that laid the groundwork for the Declaration of Independence.
— Photo by Daderot
David Warsh: Deconstructing Hayek; does market get technology’s direction right?
John Singer Sargent's iconic World War I painting “Gassed”, showing blind casualties on a battlefield after a mustard gas attack. The same chemists’ work had resulted in creating highly useful fertilizers — and poison gas and very powerful explosives.
SOMERVILLE, Mass.
I was looking forward to the session on Hayek at the economic meetings in New Orleans last week. As a soldier of the revolution, I had learned a good deal from Hayek back in the day, when his occasional pieces sometimes appeared in Encounter magazine. (I knew Hayek had been the prime mover behind the founding of the classically liberal pro-markets Mont Pelerin Society in 1947; knew, too, that Encounter has been partly funded by the Central Intelligence Agency, in 1953, in an effort to counter Cold War ambivalence.
I understood that Hayek was one of a handful of economists who had been especially influential before John Maynard Keynes swept the table in the Thirties. Others included Irving Fisher, Joseph Schumpeter, A.C. Pigou, Edward Chamberlin, and Wesley Clair Mitchell. What revolution? We journalists were hoping to glimpse economics whole. The economists whom we read (and other social scientists, historians, and philosophers) seemed as blind men handling an elephant. Each described some part of the truth.
The session devoted to Bruce Caldwell’s new biography, Hayek: A Life: 1899-1950 (Chicago, 2022), didn’t disappoint. Presiding was Sandra Peart, of the University of Richmond, an expert on the still-born Virginia school of political economy of the Fifties (as opposed to the Chicago school of economics), with which Hayek was sometimes connected. Cass Sunstein, of the Harvard Law School; Hansjörg Klausinger, of Vienna University of Economics and Business; and Vernon Smith, of Chapman University, zoomed in. Steven N. Durlauf, of the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy (and editor if the Journal of Economic Literature); Emily Skarbek, of Brown University, were present discussants; as was, of course, Caldwell himself. The reader-friendly Hayek: A Life was itself the star of the show: a gracefully documented and thoroughly knowledgeable story of Vienna, New York, Berlin, London and Chicago, during those luminous years. I look forward to the second volume, 1950-1992.
Then I walked half a mile down New Orleans’ Canal Street to hear the American Economic Association Distinguished Lecture by Daron Acemoglu, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This was a very different world from that of Hayek.
For one thing, “Distorted Innovation: Does the Market Get the Direction of Technology Right?” wasn’t really a lecture at all. It was a technical paper, presenting a simple mode of directed technology, with which Acemoglu has been working for twenty-five years, followed by discussions of several examples of what Acemoglu described as instances in which technologies have become distorted by shifting incentives: energy, health and medical markets; agriculture; and modern automation technologies. The paper begins in jaunty fashion,
There is broad agreement that technical change has been a major engine of economic growth and prosperity during the last 250 years, However not all innovations are created equal and the direction of technology matters greatly as well.
What constitutes the “direction of technical change?” Acemoglu offered a striking example. Early 20th-century chemists in Germany, led by Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch, developed an industrial process for converting atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia. Synthetic fertilizers thereby rendered commercial, greatly improved agricultural yields around the world. But the same processes were employed in industrial production of potent explosives and poisonous gases which killed millions of soldiers and civilians during World War I. Which direction might an effective social planner have preferred?
One view, the one for which Hayek is famous, is that the market is the best judge of which technologies to develop. There may be insufficient incentives to innovate initially, but once the government provides the requisite research infrastructure and support, it should stand aside. What the market thinks right, meaning profitable, is right, in this view.
Diametrically opposite, Acemoglu said, is the view that the politicians, planners and bureaucrats can decide on these matters as well as or even better than markets, and therefore they should set both the overall level of innovation and seek to influence its direction. This is welfare economics, a style of economic analysis pioneered after 1911 by A.C. Pigou, then the professor of economics at Cambridge University, and, for twenty-five years, perhaps the most influential economist in the world.
In his paper Acemoglu sought to describe an intermediate position, in which markets exist to experiment in order to determine which innovations are feasible, whereupon planners have a role in applying economic analysis to gauge otherwise unexamined side-effects of various sorts that may arise from a pursuing a particular path.
It was an unusual lecture, pitched to the level of a graduate seminar, and even before Acemoglu finished, individuals began drifting off to dinner engagements. The good news is that there is a book on its way. Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (Public Affairs),by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson will appear in May. Still better news is that it tackles head-on questions about automation, artificial intelligence, and income distribution that currently abound.
With three big books behind him — Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy; Why Nations Fail; and The Narrow Corridor, all with James Robinson, of the University of Chicago Harris School – behind him, Acemoglu is among the leading intellectuals of the present day. As heir to the leadership roles played by Paul Samuelson, Robert Solow, and Peter Diamond, he packs intuitional punch as well. Pay attention! Get ready for a battle royale.
The tectonic plates of scientific economics are shifting — large-scale processes are affecting the structure of the discipline. That revolution I mentioned at the beginning? The one in whose coverage we economic journalists are engaged? Its fundamental premise is that, while politics always plays a part in the background, economics makes progress over the years. In other words, Hayek takes a back seat to Acemoglu.
‘The Floating World’ in Worcester
“Old View of the Eight-plank Bridge in Mikawa Province (Mikawa no Yatsuhashi no kozu)”, about 1833-34, (woodblock print; ink and color on paper), by Katsushika Hokusai, in the John Chandler Bancroft Collection, at the Worcester Art Museum. Its part of the show, through March 5 ,called “The Floating World: Japanese Prints from the Bancroft Collection”.
The museum says:
“This winter, travel hundreds of years through one of the most culturally abundant periods in world history. ‘The Floating World’ illustrates the beauty of everyday life through 50 Japanese woodblock prints from the museum’s collection, 48 of which are displayed for the first time. The exhibition pulls directly from WAM’s Bancroft Collection of over 3,700 Japanese prints—the first collection of its kind in the United States.
“‘The Floating World’ focuses on ukiyo-e artworks, a diverse genre created throughout Japan’s Edo period (1603-1868). Translating as ‘pictures of the floating world,’ ukiyo-e prints often depict scenes of leisure and arts regularly enjoyed by the working class during an age of great economic growth. These prints tell stories in the form of intricate tableaus portraying courtesans, kabuki actors, sumo wrestlers, dwellings, and landscapes. Intricate and colorful, ukiyo-e prints center themes like resilience and pride, ideas we celebrate today.’’
Unhappy honeymooner
“Portrait of Mrs. {Jane} Cooley” (1937, oil on canvas), by “Balthus,’’ in the show of the same name at the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, Hartford. This was painted on Paris, where Mrs. Cooley was honeymooning with her husband, Paul Cooley. They were affluent Connecticut residents. The marriage ended in divorce.
The museum says:
“One of the most controversial artists of the 20th Century, Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski) is best known for his charged imagery of adolescent girls. While his portraits of adult sitters are lesser known today, they played a crucial role in the 1930s, when he painted many of his friends and patrons in his austere Parisian studio. “Portrait of Mrs. Cooley’’ is Balthus’ s first work depicting an American sitter. This painting marks a turning point in the artist’s career, reflective of growing interest in him on this side of the Atlantic. This portrait, on loan from a private collection, joins two paintings by Balthus from the Wadsworth collection and reveals the deeply passionate yet ambivalent relationship between Balthus and his audiences as modern art became fashionable in the United States.’’
Prince William: Why Boston was the place for this
Remarks by Britain’s Prince William in Boston on Dec. 2 on awarding $5 million in grants in the Earthshot Prize program to five people with ideas on saving the planet from global warming:
"There are two reasons why Boston was the obvious choice to be the home of The Earthshot Prize in its second year. Sixty years ago, President John F. Kennedy’s Moonshot speech laid down a challenge to American innovation and ingenuity. 'We choose to go to the moon,' he said, 'not because it is easy but because it is hard.' It was that Moonshot speech that inspired me to launch the Earthshot Prize with the aim of doing the same for climate change as President Kennedy did for the space race. And where better to hold this year’s awards ceremony than in President Kennedy’s hometown, in partnership with his daughter and the foundation {John F. Kennedy Library Foundation} that continues his legacy.’’
"Boston was also the obvious choice because your universities, research centers and vibrant start-up scene make you a global leader in science, innovation and boundless ambition."
‘Beauty and its opposites’
“Onward” (paper, thread, encaustic paint, oil stick on braced panel), by Portland, Maine-based artist Kimberly Curry.
From her artist statement:
“Using my home state of Maine as muse, as well as my travels around the world, I am inspired by the beauty in ordinary things.
“I have a style that ranges from structured seascapes of Maine that capture a point in time to following a concept in a loose abstract way. Among other things, I explore beauty and its opposites.’’
She has an expressive sense of humor and playfulness that sometimes will emerge in the work as well.
The Portland Museum of Art in the Arts District of Portland.
Bd2media -
The Porteous Building, a 1904 beaux arts-style building, houses the Maine College of Art & Design’s classrooms, libraries and galleries.
— Photo by Motionhero
Arctic antiseptic
Bass Harbor Light
“Go out,
And the winter
Will clean you….”
— From “Bass Harbor {Maine}—January,’’ by J.B. Goodenough
Chris Powell: PC won’t keep the lights on; legislators fear liquor store lobby
No time soon!
MANCHESTER, Conn.
What is likely to be done about Connecticut's high energy costs and particularly its exploding electricity rates?
Judging from an informational meeting held by Connecticut and Massachusetts officials the other day, nothing that is politically possible would make any difference.
Should Connecticut's two major electricity distributors, Eversource and United Illuminating, which buy electricity for people who can't be bothered to buy their own, purchase that "standard offer" electricity more frequently than the current six-month intervals?
The meeting did not reach a conclusion on that, and whatever the frequency of bulk purchasing, electricity prices still will be set by market forces reacting to supply and demand. When electricity demand rises, as it does in winter's cold and summer's heat, demand and scarcity increase prices.
Should the "standard offer" be eliminated and people be required to buy their own electricity directly from generating companies? It's easy and it would be good for people to have to shop for electricity just as they shop for groceries, an option that Connecticut residents have had for 20 years. But no one in authority proposed this, perhaps because it would diminish the ability of elected officials to blame the electric utilities for the inflation caused by elected officials themselves.
It was acknowledged at the meeting that increasing energy supplies to Connecticut could solve the price problem, as by running high-capacity power lines into southern New England from Quebec, which has an abundance of clean hydropower to export, and by running more natural gas pipelines across New York into Connecticut. But Maine, New Hampshire and New York have been objecting and stalling those projects, and no one in authority has proposed inducing Gov. Ned Lamont and Connecticut's congressional delegation to seek the federal government's intervention to increase supply.
Of course more electricity could be generated from oil, and more oil-based generation facilities could be built in the state. But the Biden administration and liberal Democrats in both the General Assembly and Congress want to destroy the domestic oil industry, believing that fossil fuels are ruining the planet. So no one in authority in Connecticut is proposing any electricity solution involving oil either.
Connecticut apparently will wait a few years, if not longer, for electricity to arrive from windmills yet to be installed on platforms in the sea south of the state, which themselves may be delayed by someone else's objection.
In the face of rising electricity prices, Connecticut's elected officials seem able to offer no more than increasing subsidies for electricity use by the poor, thereby transferring and camouflaging costs and worsening inflation by increasing the money supply without increasing the power supply.
For the time being, there is no way to get electricity prices down except through greater production and delivery of fossil fuel. That is, the only solution is politically incorrect, and few elected officials have the courage to tell their constituents that political correctness will not keep their lights and heat on and electricity bills down this winter.
Detail from “Corrupt Legislation” (1896), by Elihu Vedder.
With Connecticut's supermarkets launching a campaign to change state law so they can sell wine in addition to the beer they already sell, a recent poll of viewers of Hartford's WFSB-TV3 found a huge majority in favor. This was hardly surprising, since one-stop shopping would be so much more convenient and the only objection comes from those who want less competition and higher prices -- most liquor stores.
But the more the supermarkets press the issue, perhaps the more Connecticut residents will see that the public interest seldom determines state law. Instead the special interest does.
Amid the campaign by the supermarkets, state legislators will hear repeatedly from the liquor stores in their districts -- on average, eight in each state representative's district and 30 in each senator's. Their business model is what economics calls rent seeking -- that is, a permanent government subsidy at the expense of everyone else. Legislators will hear from few consumers.
Journalism might change this by vigorously questioning legislators about their subservience to the liquor lobby. But as journalism declines, all special interests will thrive.
Chris Powell (CPowell@JournalInquirer.com) is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester.
‘Ammo boxes into icons’
“Icon of the Archangel Michael,’’ by Sofia Atlantova, at the Museum of Russian Icons, Clinton, Mass., in the show “Artists for Ukraine: Transforming Ammo Boxes into Icons,’’ through Feb. 13 Painting on loan from Catherine Mannick.
The museum explains that the show presents three Ukrainian icons painted on the boards of ammunition boxes by Oleksandr Klymenko and Sofia Atlantova, a husband-wife artistic team from Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.
“The project ‘Buy an Icon—Save a Life’ was developed in response to the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine, when Klymenko encountered empty wooden ammunition boxes from combat zones and noted their resemblance to icon boards (doski). By repurposing the panels, the project strives, in the artist’s words, ‘to transform death (symbolized by ammo boxes) into life (traditionally symbolized by icons in Ukrainian culture). The goal, this victory of life over death, happens not only on the figurative and symbolic level but also in reality through these icons on ammo boxes.’
“Exhibitions of the ammo box icons have been staged throughout Europe and North America to raise awareness of the ongoing war in Ukraine. In addition, sales have provided substantial funds to support the Pirogov First Volunteer Mobile Hospital, the largest nongovernmental undertaking to provide medical assistance to the Donbas region. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 strengthened the resolve of Atlantova and Klymenko to continue painting icons on boards taken back from the frontlines. To date, the project has raised more than $300,000.’’
The Clinton Town Hall was built in 1909. Designed by Peabody and Stearns, it replaced the previous Town Hall, built in 1871-1872, destroyed by fire in 1907. Even fairly small New England towns often built impressive town halls in the late 19th and early 20th centuries out of civic pride.
Llewellyn King: My adventures with classified documents
In 1983, Sen. Barry Goldwater (R.-Ariz.) reprimanding CIA Director William J. Casey for Secret information showing up in The New York Times, but then saying it was over-classified to begin with.
It is easy to start hyperventilating over classified documents. It isn’t the classification but what is in the documents that counts. Much marked classified is rubbish.
I have been around the classification follies for years. In 1970, I did what might be called a study, but it was just a freelance article on the use of hovercraft by the military. I was paid $250 to write it.
In those days, there was no easy way to copy a document. The standard was to put several sheets of paper in a typewriter with carbon sheets between them.
Like any other journalist, I started by going to the best library I had access to — in this case, The Washington Post library. I read what was available, largely newspaper clipping, and wrote the article.
Arctic, a consulting company, paid me to write it, and I forgot about it. A couple of years later, I wanted the article — probably to use to get other work — and I asked Arctic for it. They said it had been delivered to the Pentagon long since, and I had better ask the commissioning Department of Defense office.
I did that and was told that I couldn’t have the article, nor could I even look at it because it had been “classified” and I didn’t have clearance.
It had gone, like so much else, into the dark underworld of the classified from whence few pieces of paper ever return.
When James Schlesinger became chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, in 1971, one of the first things he did was to revamp the classification of documents. He told me that the AEC was classifying far more than was necessary and, as a result, the system wasn’t safer but more vulnerable.
His argument was that for classification to work, the people managing classified material had to have confidence that it was truly deserving of secrecy. He directed the declassification of the trivial and increased the security surrounding what was vital.
Schlesinger was succeeded as chairman by Dixy Lee Ray. At the time, I covered the nuclear industry and Ray became a social friend as well as a subject.
Once Ray and I went to dinner at the historic Red Fox Inn in Middleburg, Va. After a swell meal, we walked to her limousine in the parking lot behind the inn. She had something in her briefcase that she wished me to have.
But Ray always had her two dogs with her. One was a huge gray wolfhound and the other was a smaller gray dog, which looked like the wolfhound but was half the size.
The dogs were in the front seat of the car and a high wind was blowing. Ray opened one back door and I opened the other. Then she opened her briefcase and was rifling through the contents — some of which were marked as classified with a telltale, red X — when the big wolfhound jumped onto the back seat. He knocked over the briefcase and the wind blew documents all over the parking lot.
It was a security crisis. Not that Soviet agents were dining at The Red Fox Inn that night, but if any document marked as secret was found and handed to the police, a major scandal would have resulted.
For the best part of an hour, Ray, myself and her driver scoured the parking lot, the grassy areas and the bushes for documents.
In the early morning, I drove back to the inn to make sure we had made a clean sweep. State secrets in the parking lot of a pub make for hot headlines and end careers.
In the age of computers, classified documents — and who knows if they should be marked as such — are much less likely to be put into paper folders.
Once the Congressional Joint Committee, which oversaw the Atomic Energy Commission, held a hearing in its secure hearing room in the U.S. Capitol, where all the documents before the members and the witnesses were marked “eyes only.” The hearing had to be canceled because no one could say anything.
Also, once at one of the major nuclear-weapons laboratories, I deduced what a machine I was told was used for conducting “scientific experiments” really was. The director assured the technician showing it, “Don’t worry, King is too stupid to know what it is.” He was right and another state secret was saved.
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.
Federal container for storing classified documents.
JFK on challenges to the New England economy in 1956
The corner of Blackstone Street and Hanover Street, Boston, in 1956.
—- From Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection
Remarks by U.S. Sen. John F. Kennedy on Oct. 19, 1956
I would like to talk to you at this time about our own economic situation here at home, in this state and in this region – about some of the progress we have made and some of the problems we face. I realize that there are still some in New England who refuse to recognize that a United States Senator, or the Federal Government, has any responsibility in this area. Certainly it is true that no Federal program could ever solve all the problems of the New England economy without action on the state and local level – and particularly without assistance from private organizations, industry and individuals. No bill which you may request Senator {Leverett} Saltonstall {R.-Mass.} or myself to introduce will ever replace community leadership and community spirit as the essential ingredients for maintaining or rebuilding our economic prosperity. No set of Federal subsidies or controls can ever replace responsible attitudes by labor and management, improved educational and scientific achievements, and, above all else, the faith in New England which must be shared and practiced by New Englanders themselves.
However, the proper role of the Federal Government cannot be denied – not in the expenditure of large Federal grants, in the establishment of new bureaucracies, or in special advantages for our area which are contrary to the national interest or discriminate against the needs of other areas – but in obtaining attention on a national level to problems, industries, and communities that are essential to the well-being of the entire country. In many ways, as I have told the Senate on several occasions, the problems of New England are national problems – and we can no longer attempt to solve those problems on a local level only, pouring our tax funds into the economic development of other regions without receiving from the Congress fair consideration of our own needs.
It is not my intention today to prophesy doom and depression. I do not share the exaggerated views of those pessimists who have been talking about the decline of New England for the past thirty years. We are still, in terms of per- capita income and standard of living, one of the more prosperous areas of the country. Our financial institutions have a higher proportion of assets, our workers a higher take-home pay and our families more savings accounts, life insurance, telephones and television sets than their counterparts in any similar area on earth. We have many assets no other region can match – an energetic climate and an intelligent citizenry – world famous educational institutions and industrial research laboratories –- the nation's best record of harmonious industrial relations – and excellent access to capital investment, skilled manpower, new plant sites, and markets.
In addition, we have that all-important factor of unity – the twelve Senators from the New England region meet regularly to further their joint consideration and action on the common needs of our area; our delegations in the House of Representatives, and our Governors in their own six-state conference, provide similar cooperation. In short, New England is not a backward region, an undeveloped area or in the throes of a depression – and we have every reason to be optimistic and little reason to complain.
But at the same time, if we are to continue to move ahead, if we are to take a realistic inventory of our assets and liabilities, we must speak very frankly with respect to the real problems which threaten our prosperity, which have damaged the economic welfare of many of our citizens, and which require action on the Federal level. New England is the oldest regional civilization and economy in the United States – and we must be aware of the ills and problems of old age. We must prevent the dreaded diseases of economic arteriosclerosis and senescence from weakening our cities and industries – and we must attack them promptly and effectively whenever and wherever they occur.
These problems are aggravated by our lack of industrial raw materials – we have no oil, no coal, no huge resource of water power. Our fuel costs are high – and so are our freight and other transportation costs. What resources we do have, such as fisheries and forests, are being depleted. Along with all of the advantages of economic maturity – industrialization, leadership, and the other advantages already mentioned – we witness also the handicaps of old age: the development of markets, industries, and the center of population in other parts of the country – a failure to keep pace with other regions in terms of long-range economic growth, population, and per capita income – and a dependence in too many communities and industries upon the outmoded methods, machinery, and management of the past. The outlook, I repeat, does not call for a gloomy attitude of despair and helplessness – but it does call for action.
The New England Economy Today
Permit me to translate this general statement of our position into the specific facts that confront us today. Our great hope in recent years has been the development of new industries attracted to our state – a new diversification of our economy which it has needed for so many years – a new strength which was gained regretfully only by the loss of our so-called soft goods (such as textiles and leather) which made pools of manpower and plants available. These new industries have increased per capita income in Massachusetts, offset unemployment, and maintained a degree of economic stability we could not otherwise have expected. The dynamic, rapidly growing electronics industry, for example, has been responsible for 20% of the new manufacturing jobs in this region since 1939 and last year spent over $50 million in Massachusetts alone on new plants and equipment.
I have never supported the view that Massachusetts should favor new industry over the old – that we should forget about such old friends as textiles and regard their decline as a blessing. For new industries do not always employ the same people or move into the same locality. The encouraging statistics they present for the state as a whole are likely to conceal individual suffering in Lawrence, Lowell, Fall River, New Bedford, Gardner, Worcester, and most recently in Springfield, Pittsfield, and the western part of the state. Our efforts, in short, must be directed at retaining the old as well as attracting the new. I am happy to say that there is every indication that the movement of our industry to the South and west has passed its peak.
But many economists have been bothered by the question as to what would happen here in Massachusetts when a nationwide economic re-adjustment affected these new durable goods industries. I am very much afraid that their fears are being borne out today. New England lost nearly one hundred thousand manufacturing jobs last year. To be sure, a large part of this decline is due to our still seriously harassed textile industry, which lost more than 23,000 jobs. But employment declined by more than 51,000 workers in our New England durable goods industries – including electrical machinery, metal industries, and other types of machine shops. These are ominous trends which we must make every effort to reverse.
There is every indication that the United States faces an economic recession and that it will be felt more deeply here in Massachusetts than in some other parts of the country. Last year the average work week in this state fell below 40 hours a week. The average weekly earnings of our industrial workers actually declined. We lost some 43,000 manufacturing jobs, nearly half of them in durable goods industries.
Federal Action To Date
With this brief review of our economic situation in mind, recognizing the bright spots as well as the dark, I would like to turn again to the role of the Federal Government concerning these matters and the responsibilities which those of us whom you send to Washington must assume. Much of the progress which I have reported has stemmed directly or indirectly from action on the Federal level – and many of the problems which I have cited still require attention by Congress or the Administration.
To review for a moment our progress thus far, permit me to express my gratification at our achievements to date and my gratitude for the cooperation of our Senior Senator, our House delegation and the other members of our New England delegation – for that cooperation and teamwork, without resort to partisanship, have been largely responsible for those achievements. A new minimum wage and a reinvigoration of the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act have helped reduce drastically the wage differentials between New England industries and their Southern competitors. A voluntary quota on Japanese cotton textile exports, a new increase in the tariff on woolen textiles and a greater recognition of New England's higher quality product in the Geneva tariff negotiations have, I am convinced, prevented our traditionally largest industry from going completely down the drain. Meanwhile, we have safeguarded the cost to our mills of raw wool through the new Wool Act, new restrictions on speculation, and the prevention of higher tariff duties.
In our commercial fisheries, the achievements already made possible by the Saltonstall-Kennedy Fishing Research and Market Development Bill, tariff recognition of our new Fish Sticks industry, and a $10 million loan fund have all helped keep a struggling industry on its feet. Our shipbuilders have finally received more contracts and a new Congressional program; our watchmakers received at least a part of the tariff protection they needed; our electric companies received permission and help to build the new Yankee Atomic Power plant; and a new steel mill for New England, a new port pier for Boston, new air service, a new attack on gypsy moths, and new compacts on flood control and higher education have all been among our projects in Washington in recent years. And of both direct and indirect benefit to our region's economy is the record share of Federal funds for hurricane and flood control protection we have finally secured.
This is but a partial listing – all of you whose votes, support and cooperation helped make it all possible may take pride in this record - but this is no time to rest our oars. For weak spots and danger signs remain – our program of needs has not yet been completed – and complacency now could undermine all our earlier gains.
A Program for Federal Action
Many of our current problems are largely state, local, or private in nature – such as the fiscal predicament and tax rates of our municipalities, the adequacy of our rail and other transportation, and the rate of plant investment and modernization. Other problems we face are difficult to solve with a strictly New England approach – such as the aircraft and general defense cutbacks, the twin evils of tight money and inflation, and general weaknesses in our national credit-inflated economy.
But I would respectfully suggest to you at this time ten areas of Federal action on which we in New England might concentrate in this session of Congress – ten items I might review for you now in only the briefest fashion.
First, the economy of our entire state and region would receive a shot in the arm if we could eliminate the rail freight rate differentials that discriminate against Port of Boston traffic in favor of South Atlantic Ocean cargoes. After an initial setback in an earlier case involving only iron ore, we have succeeded in reopening the entire question in hearings now being conducted before the ICC. Success will bring new business to our port and railroads, new jobs and purchasing power for our state – and above all an end to an outmoded, inequitable handicap to our area's growth, a handicap that was originally imposed as a balance to our natural advantage in ocean freight rates and which continues now years after that advantage has been taken from us.
Secondly, our hopes for the future are closely tied to the development of low cost, competitive atomic power, bringing new energy to our industries, new industries to our state and new benefits to our people. Already we are seeking additional private nuclear projects, a large share of those planned for the entire nation – and our leadership in research and development in this field will someday cut our electric bills, our dependence on fossil fuels and our current disadvantage in competing with low-cost power regions of the South, Northwest, and elsewhere.
Third, the nature of our business community, more dependent upon small business than any other region, makes essential to our well-being a revision of Federal small business policies – particularly its tax structure and credit programs. Tight money, high interest and credit restriction policies have hit the smaller businessman much harder than they have his larger competitor, who has access to other sources of capital for modernization and expansion. A more selective credit policy which permits expansion of certain segments of the economy and with greater credit available from the Small Business Administration, is needed. Present tax laws also unnecessarily discriminate against small businessmen by not permitting the accumulation of earnings which normally would be plowed back into their businesses – also giving an unfair advantage to larger producers who have greater access to equity capital markets. We shall try again to secure passage of the Internal Revenue Code Amendment which recognizes the different needs and status of small business without any loss of net revenue.
Fourth, we must prevent any undue restriction on a maximum flow of oil imports into New England. Our businessmen and home-owners are dependent in large measure upon oil from Venezuela and other nations. We cannot afford to pay further price increases, to be restricted to domestic oil, or to convert to coal. Yet those are the ultimate objectives of those now pushing for further limitations on these imports – and the Administration's present program to restrict crude oil imports bears our most careful and constant attention.
Fifth and Sixth on our agenda are two related needs of our still vital textile industry – import protection and cheaper raw cotton. The new restrictions on woolen and on Japanese cotton textile imports which I previously mentioned must be watched, maintained and strengthened – and additional measures sought as needed. We must particularly concern ourselves with imports produced with our own surplus cotton sold abroad at cut-rate prices, under a farm program that at the same time artificially increases its cost to our own mills. Fortunately both cotton farmers and processors are now nearing agreement on a solution comparable to that earlier provided for wool –and I am hopeful that this issue will receive major attention in this Congress.
Seventh, we must continue to provide appropriate action on certain needs of our fishing industry which that industry cannot be expected to meet on its own – including the financing of vessel construction, loans to processing plants and the promulgation of vessel and individual insurance. We cannot imagine New England without its fishing fleet, its bustling fish piers and markets, its traditions of the sea – but they will require action, not veneration, in view of their current problems of price and import competition.
Eighth and Ninth, finally, involve problems of unemployment – a program of realistic aid to our labor surplus areas; and nation-wide standards of unemployment benefits, to eliminate any tax disadvantages suffered by a high-standard state like Massachusetts that acts on these problems with a social conscience and a heart. We are all too familiar in this state with the problems of communities suffering from a chronic labor surplus – the one-industry towns, the former textile towns, and others – but we have as yet failed to get effective action by either Congress or the Administration to help those communities, their businessmen and their workers help themselves to a better future.
There are no magic solutions in this list – no quick and easy answers – no way to avoid the hard burdens which our state and local governments, and all our citizens, must bear. But there, at any rate, is a program for action on the Federal level: action to meet the economic problems that confront us, action to secure a better life for every Massachusetts businessman, worker and his family. I know the members of this organization will join with me in seeking such action, to do more for Massachusetts, to build a better state and nation, and to enable ourselves and our children to look forward to the future with confidence and with hope.
Very low key
“Discourse” (oil on panel), by Boston-based Armenian-American artist Masha Keryan, at the Copley Society of Art, Boston.
He takes the long view
“Giraffe” (colored pencil), by Jacquelyn Glum, at the Attleboro (Mass.) Arts Museum.
La Salette Shrine is an Attleboro tourist destination best known for its holiday light displays.
— Photo by Kenneth C. Zirkel