Find shelter where you can
From Chiffon Thomas’s show “The Cavernous,’’ at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Conn., through March 17.
The museum says:
“Chiffon Thomas’s first solo museum exhibition will unveil a new body of work, including the artist’s first public sculpture. Thomas’s interdisciplinary practice, spanning embroidery, collage, sculpture, drawing, performance, and installation, examines the ruptures that exist where race, gender expression, and biography intersect. Thomas’s practice is informed by his background in education, percussion, and stop motion animation, as well as a childhood steeped in religion.’’
In Ridgefield’s rather spiffy downtown
— Photo by Doug Kerr
A physician’s memoir of a son’s and his own early-onset cancer
Sidney Farber, M.D. (1903-1973), of Children’s Hospital, Boston, with a patient. Dr. Farber, a pediatric pathologist, is regarded as the father of modern chemotherapy. The famed Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in Boston, is named for him and philanthropist Charles Dana. Some of Dr. George H. Beauregard’s book, Reservation for 9, occurs at Dana-Farber.
Numerous cell signaling pathways are disrupted in the development of cancer.
— Graphic by Roadnottaken
Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
I’ve been watching a physician/health-care executive friend, George H. Beauregard, prepare a book, yet to be published, titled Reservation for 9, that’s both a memoir and a medical saga, most of it set in Greater Boston.
The book tells how he and his son Patrick developed different advanced-stage early-onset cancers (early onset defined as cancers diagnosed in patients under 50), creating seismic changes in their lives, and those of their whole colorful nuclear family of six, that accompanied their illnesses. It’s a story about a complex family history, fear, grief and hope, along with the science and institutions of medicine, and provides much insight for others battling the disease.
There has been an alarming global increase in the incidence of cancer affecting younger adults. Patrick’s colorectal cancer was diagnosed when he was 29, and it killed him at 32, but not before he became an inspiring national spokesman for other victims. Dr. Beauregard, for his part, was diagnosed with bladder cancer at age 49 but is now apparently cured.
Patrick’s story continues to be cited in national news media, including recently in The Wall Street Journal.
Appearing as a guest on the Today Show on March 10, 2020, he said:
“In a situation like this, your mind can either liberate you or essentially incarcerate you...and you choose what to make of it.’’
“I don’t see the point in being negative in this. Negativity is only going to bring on more negativity. I choose to have a positive outlook and always have hope, and I don’t see why you would ever decide not to.”
Results from The Reproducibility Project: Cancer biology suggest most studies of the cancer research sector may not be replicable.
‘Getting back my humanity’
Carmichael Hall on the Rez Quad at Tufts
—Photo by Jellymuffin40
Tufts College circa 1854, on Walnut Hill, soon after its founding, in 1852.
Edited from a report by the New England Council, based on a Boston Globe story
“An initiative by Tufts University, has achieved remarkable success in recent years by allowing inmates to pursue and complete a college education. The Tufts University Prison Initiative at the Tisch College (TUPIT), at Tufts’s main campus, in Medford, Mass., established in 2016, fosters collaboration between Tufts faculty, students, and both incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals. This partnership aims to address challenges related to mass incarceration and racial justice. TUPIT also provides a unique opportunity for students who begin their studies while incarcerated to continue and complete their education on the Tufts campus after their release.
“TUPIT was created by Hilary Binda, a senior lecturer at Tufts, and now the program’s executive director. TUPIT also includes the Tufts Educational Reentry Network, MyTERN, an accredited one-year college and reentry program for people post-incarceration.
“One of the program’s graduates, 33-year-old Juan Pagan, said in his graduation speech, ‘Professors affirming that I am worthy and have something positive to offer society is the greatest gift I have ever received. I now know that I can be an asset to my family and community because [the program] helped me gain back that ineffable part of me that prison repressed — my humanity.’’
Success enough?
Skylands, now Martha Stewart’s summer place in Seal Harbor, Maine, was built for auto mogul Edsel Ford.
“Don't give up. Defend your ideas, but be flexible. Success seldom comes in exactly the form you imagine.”
“So the pie isn't perfect? Cut it into wedges. Stay in control, and never panic.’’
― Martha Stewart (born 1941), lifestyle mogui
Travel, time and place
Left ,“Interior V ‘‘ (photograph on aluminum), by Rebecca Skinner. Right, “W. 42nd St.’’ (oil on panel), by Chris Plunkett, in the group show “Travelling,’’ at Fountain Street Fine Art, Boston.
The gallery says:
“‘Travelling’ suggests a sojourn to a destination in some form or another, and the concept of ‘place’ is examined along multiple vectors by this group of artists. Rebecca Skinner’s interior/exterior photographs of abandoned places contain a textural richness revealing a morphological study not merely of paint, brick, and wood, but also the chronological layers of story. The vibrant cityscapes that fluidly leap from the brush of Chris Plunkett….{T}he intensity of his palette turns recognizable metropolitan scenes into urban spectacles out of fondly remembered dreams.’’
Weird wonderland
“Iris Spring” (acrylic and oil canvas), by Maine-based artist Emilie Stark-Menneg, in the show “New England Now,’’ at the Shelburne (Vt.) Museum, May 11 to Oct.
— Photo courtesy of artist
The museum says:
“From Nathaniel Hawthorne to Stephen King, the depths of the psyche and the surreal have long fascinated New England artists. Twelve multidisciplinary artists from the region tap into a rich tapestry of mediums and techniques to create their perceptions of the ethereal grounded in topics of mythology, environmentalism, the ideals of beauty, transformation, and gender and cultural identity.’’
The House of the Seven Gables, in Salem, Mass., whose oldest part dates to 1668. It inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to write his Gothic novel of the same name.
1875 illustration of Clifford Pyncheon in The House of the Seven Gables.
Mary Lhowe: The ‘lunchbox’ from offshore wind turbines
Text from ecoRI News article by Mary Lhowe
“Opponents of offshore wind offer different reasons for their position: fear of impacts on the marine ecology; fear of loss of income for fishers; fear of loss of tourism dollars and private property values due to the sight of the turbines on the horizon.
“The cloudy threat of wind projects off the New England coast comes with a golden — not silver — lining. That gold would arrive in the form of millions of dollars contractually promised to communities by developers in the form of mitigations, sometimes through a mechanism called host community or good neighbor agreements.
Even the towns and historic property owners who dread wind farms but yearn for funds to do worthy projects could be excused for reacting to mitigation deals in similar fashion to the character Gaz in the movie The Full Monty. Watching men audition for a new amateur dance troupe, Gaz observes the impressive talents of one particular auditioner, and mutters, “Gentlemen, the lunchbox has landed.”
To read the whole article, please hit this link.
Wherever you go, there you are
“Then I was back in it.
The War was on. Outside,
in Worcester, Massachusetts,
were night and slush and cold,
and it was still the fifth
of February, 1918.’’
— From “In the Waiting Room,’’ by Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
Be like a mushroom
“Symbiosis,’’ by Natick, Mass.-based Rebecca McGee Tuck, in Boston Sculptors Gallery’s “Confluence’’ group show Feb. 1-Feb. 25.
The gallery says:
“Rebecca McGee Tuck takes inspiration from fungi, nature's own recyclers, digesting organic matter and replenishing the soil. Her mushroom sculpture erupts in a raucous celebratory array of colorful materials, urging us to emulate the mushroom’s mutual partnership and adopt mushroom-like practices—reduce, reuse, repurpose, and recycle—to sustain a harmonious relationship with our planet.’’
The former town seal of Natick, depicting John Eliot preaching to the Indians, set over a book representing the first Algonquian Bible.
Chris Powell: Conn.’s foolish EV promotion program
Graphic by Mliu92
MANCHESTER, Conn.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont and leaders of the Democratic majority in the General Assembly are planning to call a special session of the legislature next week to enact the strict California standards for auto emissions that were declined by the General Assembly's Regulations Review Committee in November. Back then two Democratic legislators on the committee from working-class districts seemed to understand that the California standards, outlawing sale of new gasoline-powered cars as of 2035, would leave the working class much poorer than the elites who can afford to toy with electric vehicles.
The governor is said to be giving assurances to legislators, especially those from racial and ethnic minority groups, that the ban on new gas-powered cars could be postponed by new legislation if the performance of electric cars doesn't improve as much as is hoped and if the necessary huge expansion of the state's electricity grid and production doesn't proceed fast enough. The governor and other advocates of the California standards insist that mass conversion to electric cars is inevitable.
But if electric cars are inevitable because they will be so good that everyone will demand them, why must consumer choice be prohibited? Why must Connecticut commit to an expansion of its electricity grid that will cost billions of dollars when there is no plan for it and no idea of how it is to be financed?
The inadequacy of electric vehicles was powerfully demonstrated by the recent frigid weather across the country, with thousands of EVs stranded because batteries don't hold their charges in extreme cold and charging stations are not nearly as common as stations only selling gasoline. And would the people of Connecticut approve outlawing new gasoline-powered cars in another 11 years if they had to decide right now on how to pay the conversion costs? Of course not.
The California standards legislation is mainly a lot of politically correct posturing to lock Connecticut into a future that almost certainly will not turn out exactly as hoped. It is a "buy now, pay later" scheme whose cost is open-ended.
Repealing or postponing the California standards if things don't progress as hoped won't be so easy. By that time, various interest groups will have sprung up to profit from the new policy whether it's working or not and they may be influential enough to block any changes.
Hearst Connecticut newspapers reporter and columnist Dan Haar has noted the special tawdriness of the special session idea. The Democrats, Haar writes, want to enact the California standards before the legislature's regular session begins in February, while the public is not paying close attention and public hearings won't be required.
Before anything is put into law, the governor and other advocates of the California standards should offer a detailed plan and specify its costs and its method of financing, thereby allowing the public to make an informed decision while there is still a choice about paying.
Besides, Connecticut has far more compelling claims on public policy and public finance than whatever its gasoline-powered cars may be contributing to "climate change." Nothing Connecticut or even the whole country can do with auto emissions will come close to offsetting the carbon dioxide and pollutants that inevitably will be put into the atmosphere in coming decades by China, India, and the rest of the developing world.
State government has been prattling about equalizing, integrating, and improving public education at least since the state Supreme Court decision in Horton v. Meskill, in 1977, and 47 years and tens of billions of dollars in extra expense later nothing of substance has changed. Indeed, in recent years Connecticut's per-pupil costs have risen even as school enrollment and student performance have declined.
On top of that, homelessness and crime now are rising in the state amid other signs of social disintegration.
So why should anyone think that state government will succeed with a similarly grandiose project, conversion to electric cars, and that even if it was successful it would make any practical difference anyway?
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).
And healthily ignore reality
“Withstanding the cold {in New England} develops vigor for the relaxing days of spring and summer. Besides, in this matter as in many others, it is evident that nature abhors a quitter.”
― Arthur C. Crandall, in New England Joke Lore: The Tonic of Yankee Humor
‘As Covid morphed’
“Lavender Light,’’ by Phyllis Ewen, in her show “My Mind’s Eye,’’ at Kingston Gallery, Boston, March 1-March 31. She lives in Somerville and Wellfleet, Mass.
She says:
“As Covid-19 continued and morphed, my art turned inward. A new series of lithographs reflected my changing state of mind and is continuing as is the pandemic. These lithographs come from MRI images of a brain.’’
“Guglielmo Marconi built the first transatlantic radio transmitter station on a bluff in South Wellfleet in 1901–1902. The first radio telegraph transmission from the United States to England was sent from this station on Jan. 18, 1903, a ceremonial telegram from President Theodore Roosevelt to King Edward VII. Most of the transmitter site is gone, however, as three quarters of the land it originally encompassed has been eroded into the sea. The South Wellfleet station's first call sign was "CC" for Cape Cod.’’
— Edited version of a Wikipedia entry
Not for book dropoffs
Outside the 1972 addition to the headquarters building of the Boston Public Library.
The front of the grand headquarters/main branch of the Boston Public Library, on Copley Square, one of America’s most beautiful public places. Designed by Charles McKim, the building was opened in 1895 as “a palace for the people.’’
(The editor of New England Diary, Robert Whitcomb, is chairman of The Boston Guardian.)
“Unhoused Bostonians continue to congregate around the main branch of the city library, a trend that’s unlikely to abate even if city housing investments start to pay off.
“Use of the sidewalk on Boylston Street beside the Boston Public Library (BPL) as a gathering spot for Boston’s homeless has produced some friction with passersby, mostly stemming from occasionally hazardous litter and some uncomfortable interactions with other library patrons.
“The BPL, city government and neighborhood groups have concentrated outreach efforts in the area, but it’s never gotten close to the level of obstruction and concern garnered at hotspots like Mass and Cass.’’
Back when it froze solid
Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
‘When I was a kid we used to skate for several weeks each winter on a little pond in the woods near our house on the Massachusetts South Shore. It froze remarkably solid, especially considering that from time to time some salt water would get into it from a nearby marsh behind a beach.
We’d skate around in phases of euphoria and then sit by a fire we built along the shore, sometimes cooking hot dogs and marshmallows,. It’s surprising that we never ignited the thick stands of very dry-looking high sedge nearby. The boys would from time to time play chaotic games of hockey, using boots as goal markers.
In one of these games I fell on my right elbow, and was rewarded with a compound fracture. That in turn necessitated a hospital stay over the Christmas holidays of 1963 and some rather exotic procedures, presided over by a Dr. Mayo (!), whose first name is long lost to me.
Ah, the joys of morphine!
To hold my arm in the proper position for maximum healing, I had a cast around my chest for several months, with my arm stuck out as if I was about to shake hands. I still vividly recall the discomfort of taking tests with my left hand. And the itch under the cast…
I didn’t join in pond hockey games after that, though I went skating on the pond a few times, but its charms had faded for me.
Back in 2020, I lunched with a neighbor from those times, since deceased, who told me that no one skates on that pond anymore. The weather doesn’t stay cold enough, long enough anymore, he said.
Llewellyn King: Jimmy Carter haunts natural-gas decisions
Constellation’s Everett (Mass.) LNG Facility is the longest-operating liquefied natural gas (LNG) import facility of its kind in the United States.
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
The ghost of Jimmy Carter may be stalking energy policy in the White House and the Department of Energy.
In the Carter years, the struggle was for nuclear power. Today it is for natural gas and America’s booming liquefied-natural-gas future.
Decisions Carter took during his presidency are still felt today. Carter believed that nuclear energy was the resource of last resort. Although he didn’t overtly oppose it, he did damn it with faint praise. Carter, along with the environmental movement of the time, advocated for coal.
The first secretary of energy, James Schlesinger, a close friend of mine, struggled to keep nuclear alive. But he had to accept the reprocessing ban and the cancellation of the fast-breeder reactor program with a demonstration reactor in Clinch River, Tenn. Breeder reactors are a way of burning nuclear waste.
More importantly, Carter (ironically?), a nuclear engineer, believed that the reprocessing of nuclear fuel — then an established expectation — would lead to global proliferation. He thought that if we put a stop to reprocessing at home, it would curtail proliferation abroad. Reprocessing saves up to 97 percent of the uranium that hasn’t been burned up the first time, but the downside is that it frees bomb-grade plutonium.
Rather than chastening the world, Carter essentially broke the world monopoly on nuclear energy enjoyed, outside of the Soviet bloc, by the United States. Going forward, we weren’t seen as a reliable supplier.
Now the Biden administration is weighing a move that will curtail the growth in natural-gas exports, costing untold wealth to America and weakening its position as a stable, global supplier of liquified natural gas. It is a commodity in great demand in Europe and Asia, and pits the United States against Russia as a supplier.
What it won’t do is curtail so much as 1 cubic foot of gas consumption anywhere outside of the United States.
The argument against gas is that it is a fossil fuel, and fossil fuels contribute to global warming. But gas is the most benign of the fossil fuels, and it beats burning coal or oil hands down. Also, technology is on the way to capture the carbon in natural gas at the point of use.
But some environmentalists — duplicating the folly of environmentalism in the Carter administration — are out to frustrate the production, transport and export of LNG in the belief that this will help save the environment.
The issue that the White House and the DOE are debating is whether the department should permit a large, proposed LNG export terminal in Louisiana at Calcasieu Pass, known as CP2, and 16 other applications for LNG export terminals.
The recent history of U.S. natural gas and LNG has been one of industrial and scientific success: a very American story of can-do.
At a press conference in 1977, the then-deputy secretary of energy, Jack O’Leary, declared natural gas to be a depleted resource. He told a reporter not to ask about it anymore because it wasn’t in play.
Deregulation and technology, much of it developed by the U.S. government in conjunction with visionary George Mitchell and his company, Mitchell Energy, upended that. The drilling of horizontal wells using 3D seismic data, a new drill bit, and better fracking with an improved fracking liquid, changed everything. Add to that a better turbine, developed from aircraft engines, and a new age of gas abundance arrived.
Now the United States is the largest exporter of LNG, and it has become an important tool in U.S. diplomacy. It was American LNG that was rushed to Europe to replace Russian gas after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In conversations with European gas companies, I am told they look to the United States for market stability and reliability.
Globally gas is a replacement fuel for coal, sometimes oil, and it is essential for warming homes in Europe. There is no alternative.
The idea of curbing LNG exports, advanced by the left wing of the Democratic Party and their environmental allies, won’t keep greenhouse gases from the environment. It will simply hand the market to other producers such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
To take up arms against yourself, Carter-like, is a flawed strategy.
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.
Phil Galewitz: What Granite State voters like and don’t
From Kaiser Family Foundation Health News
HANOVER, N.H.
Health care issues are important to Lana Leggett-Kealey, who works as a genetic genealogist. But on Tuesday, Jan. 23, as she walked out of her polling place at a local high school and into a frigid New England morning, she said she had something bigger on her mind when she cast her vote.
“I want to make sure we have someone competent in the White House,” she said. She wrote in President Joe Biden’s name on her ballot in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary.
The Affordable Care Act’s future is important to Robert Stanhope, a retired bill collector. He said he also wrote in Biden, whose administration has worked to reduce costs under the ACA.
But that wasn’t his motivation for his early-morning visit to the polls. “I’m here to keep Trump out of office,” Stanhope said.
Dave Avery, 61, of Merrimack, N.H., said health care wasn’t on his mind either. He sought to put the former president back in the White House. “Immigration and the economy are my issues,” he said. “We also need more money to stay in our country.”
Voters casting their first ballots in the 2024 presidential election cycle on Tuesday framed health care as a back-burner issue, capping years of political wrangling over Obamacare and a pandemic that strained the nation’s health system.
Donald Trump defeated former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the state’s GOP primary, Biden, who did not appear on the ballot due to disagreements over the primary schedule, won the Democratic contest owing in part to a vigorous write-in campaign.
In interviews with more than 50 voters this week in New Hampshire — a state where 95% of residents have health insurance, one of the highest rates in the country — most people said their vote was about Trump, like him or hate him. But health care concerns — about costs, access, and, especially among Democrats, abortion — weren’t far from many voters’ minds.
“I have two daughters and five sisters and a mom, so making sure women’s reproductive rights are protected is important to me,” said Rob Houseman, 60, a town official in Hanover. Worried that Republicans will try to “weaponize health care” instead of ensuring access, he said he voted for Biden.
DJ Annicchiarico, co-owner of United Shoe Repair in downtown Concord, is a registered Democrat who wasn’t planning to vote in the primary and is undecided about voting for Biden in the general election. His main concern is inflation, but he also faults Biden for not controlling health costs. “I don’t like Trump and I don’t like Biden either,” he says.
Many opposed to Trump cited concerns about his fitness to lead, while most Trump voters who spoke with KFF Health News said they supported him for two main reasons: They hoped he would reduce illegal immigration and lower inflation.
Democratic voters were more likely than Republicans to cite heath care as a key issue in the election.
“Oh my, yes,” said Ben Gilson, 90, a retired orthopedic surgeon. “Health care is my No. 1 issue.”
While he said he has excellent coverage and pays little in out-of-pocket costs, he worries many younger people struggle and wants to make sure Obamacare is retained. One of Trump’s earliest promises during his 2016 campaign was to repeal and replace the ACA — a vow he has recently revived in his latest attempt to win the White House.
Elaine Kozma, 73, of New London said health care issues are vitally important to her as a cancer survivor. She said she voted for Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, whom she thinks she can trust more than Trump.
In New London, Kate Turcotte, a professor at Colby-Sawyer College, said she voted for Biden to keep Trump out of office — and because she trusts Democrats more to improve health coverage and protect abortion rights.
She said she also worries Trump will try to cut health care for the most vulnerable. “Health care should be a right, not a privilege,” she said.
Elaine Kozma of New London says she voted for Haley as a protest vote against Trump. Kozma is a cancer survivor who says Medicare coverage has been good for her. Health is an issue for her, but she mainly wants to make sure Trump does not get back into office.
Art Sullivan of Hooksett says immigration is his main issue in the primary and that he’s voting for Trump. He says he worries immigrants coming into the U.S. without authorization will affect his children through higher taxes. He says he is happy with his Medicare plan, which covers his bills.
Trump voters frequently cited as a top concern. Republicans have accused Biden of allowing record numbers of immigrants to cross into the U.S. from Mexico.
In Merrimack, Mary Clancy, 69, said she was satisfied with her Medicare coverage and was voting for Trump mainly to secure the southern border.
Kathy Franqui, 54, of Merrimack, said the border and immigration were her main reasons for voting for Trump. But she also said Trump would reduce health costs.
Tim Beauchene, 48, of Hanover, who is a cook at Dartmouth College, said he’s concerned about the rise of prices for medical care, along with other goods and services. His vote for Trump “was more about the economy,” he said. “Prices are so high in the grocery store and for gas.” Prices for regular unleaded in New Hampshire averaged $3.03 a gallon on Tuesday, according to the AAA auto club.
At a coffee shop in Warner, Susan Hencke, 62, said she pays $1,100 a month for health insurance. But she said health care was not among the factors determining how she would vote.
She said having a president who will protect civil rights matters most to her. She was undecided about whom to support.
Both she and her husband, who declined to give his name, said they were concerned about abortion restrictions Trump may impose.
Kathy Franqui of Merrimack voted for Trump because she thinks he will help reduce health costs as well as improve border security.
Sitting outside the coffee shop in the freezing weather was Art Sullivan, 75, of Hooksett, who said immigration was his overriding issue in the election — and why he was voting for Trump.
Asked if he had been personally affected by immigration, he said he was worried his children would have to shoulder the financial burden of people coming into the U.S. without authorization.
“The border is a disgrace,” said Sullivan, who said he’s a registered independent voter and sells swimming pools.
Asked if health care was something he thought about when comparing candidates, he said he had a Medicare Advantage plan that covers his bills and provides access to care.
DJ Annicchiarico, co-owner of United Shoe Repair in downtown Concord, said he is a registered Democrat. But while he prefers Biden on health issues, he is not yet persuaded to vote for him in November.
His main concern is inflation. He said the ACA, which he described as a step in the right direction, had helped lower his insurance premiums but hadn’t controlled health care prices. “Something needs to be done to rein in inflation,” he said.
Annicchiarico said he wants to see health care prices regulated by the federal government and worries Trump would try to repeal the ACA. He noted access is still an issue and said getting a dermatology appointment for his daughter meant waiting eight months.
Ben Gilson of Hanover voted for Biden. “Oh my, yes,” he said when asked if health care was an issue this year in deciding for whom to vote. The retired orthopedic surgeon says he has excellent health coverage but is worried about many people without it. Gilson also worries about GOP efforts to repeal the ACA.
Aalianna Marietta, 21, a college student, said health care was important to her, particularly abortion rights, so she would be voting for Biden. “I am 100% pro-choice, and I cannot see myself voting for someone who is racist and a misogynist,” she said of Trump.
Deb Shope, 57, out walking her dog in Lebanon, said health care is a top issue for her because she works as a clinical social worker and sees how important good health coverage can be. She said she was voting for Biden because she liked how he has tried to help people get coverage and address their mental health care needs.
Shope said it’s hard to look beyond how Trump acts as a person. Asked if she is worried about him getting reelected, she said people shouldn’t worry about things out of their control.
Phil Galewitz is Kaiser Family Foundation Health News reporter
Transcendentally trendy
19th Century mill buildings in Haydenville, Mass.
‘— Photo by Magicpiano
“I live right here in the heart of New England...and I have to say that things are very good here. Just yesterday I walked down Main Street. The soap store, the candle store, the balloon store were all full of customers. The sticker store,, too…Brisk business at the Juice Bar, with a new item featured: fresh wheatgrass juice.’’
— Richard Todd (1940-2019), in “Notes from the Transcendental Valley,’’ in the February 1987 issue of New England Monthly, a defunct magazine based in Haydenville, Mass., (a village in Williamsburg), in the Connecticut River Valley, from 1984 to 1990. Mr. Todd was an editor at The Atlantic.
1887 map
Two in Concord
“Self-Portrait” (oil on canvas), by Alet Zielhuis, and “Westcott 3” (acrylic with pencil on paper), by Lizzie Abelson, in their joint show at Concord Art, Concord, Mass., through Feb. 11.
— Image courtesy Concord Art
The gallery says:
“Abelson, a New England native, has followed a path that led her from magazine illustration to her current work depicting liminal spaces that are isolating, foreign yet intimately familiar with muted colors and stark lines. Zielhuis, who grew up in the Netherlands, returned to art later in life and explores life drawing, using what she learned from her time at the Museum of Fine Art and MassArt. ‘‘
Chuck Collins: 'Baby Bonds' can help reduce America's intense concentration of wealth
The old Boston Stock Exchange building. The exchange opened in 1834 and closed in 2007, when it was absorbed by NASDAQ.
Via OtherWords.org
BOSTON
The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans hold about 93 percent of all household stock-market wealth in this country, Axios reported recently — a record high.
The Institute for Policy Studies analyzed Fed data and found that the lion’s share of these gains went to the richest 1 percent alone. This elite group owns 54 percent of public equity markets, up from 40 percent in 2002.
The bottom half of the country? They own just 1 percent.
There’s been a lot of chatter about the “democratization” of the public stock market. The Fed estimates that 58 percent of U.S. households have some money in the stock market, mostly through retirement funds such as IRAs and mutual funds.
But that hype is missing a key trend: Nearly all that wealth controlled by the wealthiest 10 percent of us. As Gillian Tett observed in the Financial Times, “If nothing else, these rising concentrations merit far more public debate, since they challenge America’s self-image of its political economy and financial democracy.”
How do we boost the wealth ownership of the bottom half of households? One bold solution is to establish children’s savings accounts, also known as “Baby Bonds.”
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley have introduced the American Opportunity Act, a federal Baby Bond bill. Under this proposal, children would be provided with a $1,000 savings account at birth, with annual contributions up to $2,000, depending on family income.
At the age of 18, the proceeds of these accounts would become available to recipients for educational expenses, purchasing a home, or making investments that provide for long-term returns. For example, those funds could be invested in mutual funds and retirement funds to increase the nest eggs for non-wealthy individuals.
A number of states, such as Connecticut, and a few cities, such as Washington, D.C., are already creating baby bond programs. Others have introduced legislation to create them.
Connecticut has a far-reaching program aimed at reducing the state’s racial wealth divide and boosting the wealth of all low-income households. Starting in July 2023, Connecticut began depositing $3,200 into a trust in the name of each new baby born into a household eligible for Medicaid. The program is known by the acronym HUSKY after the popular state college mascot.
Recipients will be able to redeem that capital between the ages of 18 and 30 if they remain Connecticut residents. The “HUSKY Bonds’’ are projected to grow to between $10,000 and $24,000 in value, depending on when they are withdrawn. The funds will be tax-exempt to the beneficiaries and available for investments such as higher education or job training, homeownership and small business start-ups.
Other states that have either introduced Baby Bond legislation or are seriously considering it include California, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, Nevada, Washington, Wisconsin and Vermont.
Innovative programs such as these can help bust up the dangerous concentration of wealth at the top of our country’s economic ladder. In an age of unprecedented inequality in this country, it’s an idea whose time has come.
Chuck Collins, based in Boston, directs the Program on Inequality and co-edits Inequality.org at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Seeking the security of home
“Voiceless #1’’ (Indiana limestone), in “Passage’’ show, by Nora Valdez, at the Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, Mass., through September, 2025.
The museum says:
“A new installation on the museum grounds, ‘Passage,’ includes four pieces depicting crucial moments in a journey.
“Originally from Argentina, Valdez trained in both Italy and Spain before settling in Boston. Her sculptures represent the nature of change, life of the individual, and the forces that wear upon the human soul. Her immigrant-themed work describes the challenge of those caught within unfamiliar systems who seek the security of home.’’