'Honesty equates to exaggeration'
"Seek Higher Ground," by Tracy Spadafora, in the show “Exaggerated: Not How I Remember It,’’ at Fountain Street Fine Art, Boston, July 31-Aug. 25.
The gallery says:
“The show of painting, photography, and mixed media highlights the unique abilities of artists to interpret and tell stories. Through visual imagery, specific details of a story are either recalled or forgotten, brought to light or buried, minimized or exaggerated. These portrayals tell us not only their importance within a story, but also what is significant to the individual doing the telling.
”Artists have the ability to translate what they know through the language of art-making; what is remembered takes root in the act of creation. The duty of artists is to use their toolsets to reflect a distinct place, person, emotion, or story—muting some information while intentionally favoring aspects which become embedded as truths. In this, honesty equates to exaggeration. ‘‘
Bygone vacation days
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
During a couple of days in Vermont last week, it was nice to drive around a place where people signal before making a turn, where they don’t throw trash out their car windows and where there seem to be convivial diner restaurants in every burg, focused on breakfast of course. The friends I was visiting have a place on Lake Morey, in Fairlee, with the range of vacation houses on the lake like a Smithsonian Museum of architectural styles going back to Victorian days, when trains to nearby big towns, connected to horse-drawn transport taking summer visitors to villages and lakes, started to make such relatively remote places accessible to people made newly affluent by the Industrial Revolution burgeoning to the south of the Green Mountain State.
One of the summer houses was an exemplar of “Mid-Century Modern” interior and exterior architecture, sort of ski-lodgey and a tad musty and with such ‘50s reminders as blond furniture and orange formica countertops. Sadly, I didn’t see any copies of The Saturday Evening Post and Life Magazine lying around. I’m told that many Millennials like Mid-Century Modern, unlike most Baby Boomers, who grew up with it.
In the lake there were other reminders of bygone vacation days, such as the sailing canoe we tried out, recalling a Boy Scout Handbook from the Twenties.
I noticed there and around Providence more fireflies than I’ve seen in long time. Might that mean a tad less pesticide spraying?
xxx
Driving to and from Vermont via New Hampshire, with its highway toll collectors, I thought that it will be a little sad when E-ZPass readers make all those jobs disappear. Considering that they’re dealing with the bad air from idling motors and occasional difficult (and sometimes worse), drivers, most toll collectors are remarkably pleasant – and helpful in providing directions and even addressing driver health and other emergencies, including helping police to apprehend crooks on the road. Maybe some states will add new rest stops where this sort of human help can be provided to replace the services of suprisingly cheery toll collectors.
— Photo by MLaurenti
But hold the shoes
"Are you saying yes to the dress?’’ (dolls, tulle, ribbon, thread), by Jemison Faust, in her show “Walk the Line,’’ at Atelier Newport (R.I.) through Aug. 4.
Chris Powell: Journalism and politics are often the same thing
Winston Churchill, long-time journalist
War, Prussian Gen. Carl von Clausewitz wrote, “is politics by other means’. So is journalism. Quinnipiac University journalism professor Ben Bogardus lamented this in an essay published the other day by the Connecticut Mirror, "Stop the Newsroom-to-Government Revolving Door":
https://ctmirror.org/category/ct-viewpoints/stop-the-newsroom-to-government-revolving-door/
But the revolving door can't be stopped, since politics and journalism are both constitutional rights. Besides, their interchangeability is as old as American history.
Bogardus's lament was provoked by the recent appointment of Max Reiss, political reporter for WVIT-TV30 in West Hartford, as Connecticut Gov. Lamont's communications director. Many journalists in Connecticut, Bogardus notes, have transferred between journalism and politics over the years.
"Moves like this," Bogardus writes, "hurt the image of an unbiased press and confirm the suspicion of many on the right that mainstream journalists are left-leaning and inject liberal biases into their reporting."
But most journalists today are left-leaning, and the image of an unbiased press has been false since the invention of movable type. For American newspapers originated as frankly political organs and many great figures in history were both journalists and politicians.
* * *
Alexander Hamilton, Gen. George Washington's top aide during the Revolution, founded The New York Post, was a member of Congress under the Articles of Confederation, a member of the New York state legislature, and then Washington's Treasury secretary.
The New York Times was founded by Henry J. Raymond with legal advertising placed in the newspaper as political patronage by Raymond's friends in the New York legislature. Raymond became a congressman and Republican national chairman.
Abraham Lincoln wrote editorials for the Illinois State Journal, a Republican paper, while his rival in the 1858 U.S. Senate and 1860 presidential elections, Stephen A. Douglas, wrote them for the Illinois State Register, a Democratic paper.
Horace Greeley gained such renown as editor of the New York Tribune that the Democratic Party nominated him for president in 1872.
William Jennings Bryan was editor of the Omaha World-Herald before getting elected to Congress and being nominated three times for president by the Democrats.
Warren G. Harding was editor and publisher of the Marion (Ohio) Star before his election to the U.S. Senate and the presidency as a Republican.
William Randolph Hearst, founder of the Hearst newspaper chain, was elected to Congress and ran unsuccessfully for governor of New York and mayor of New York City.
Here in Connecticut Gideon Welles was founding editor of The Hartford Times and Hartford Evening Press and a Democratic state representative from Glastonbury before becoming a Republican and Lincoln's secretary of the Navy. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and former U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, both Democrats, worked as newspaper reporters before going into politics.
The man who saved Western Civilization itself, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was a journalist for most of his time in Parliament.
* * *
As the American press consolidated and began to think that more money could be made with less partisanship, it moderated its politics. But that politics didn't disappear; it just became more subtle.
"Reporters," Bogardus writes, "need to realize that, by choosing to enter the profession, they're giving up the ability to be political." Nonsense -- for the selection and placement of every news story are political acts, if only in the broadest sense, since news isn't arithmetic but a human judgment of what reporters and editors consider worth reporting. While Bogardus argues that journalists should be "unbiased," nobody in journalism is, since everyone brings his life experience and political inclinations to his work. The best journalists can do is to try to be fair and report all sides of an issue.
Maintaining that journalists aren't political is only public relations, not ethics as journalists like to pretend.
Journalism, Bogardus argues, "needs to be seen as trustworthy and nonpartisan." But these days the public itself is increasingly untrustworthy and partisan since many people want to read and hear only what they already believe, and many news organizations are obliging. Nobody watches MSNBC for praise of President Trump or Fox News for criticism of him. Nobody reads The Hartford Courant for criticism of political correctness or the Waterbury Republican-American for praise of it.
While Bogardus wants journalism to be trusted, journalism is not a monolith but innumerable daily acts, so it is not to be trusted any more than anything else human is to be. Evaluating journalism is the work of citizenship, requiring attention to an array of sources of information where no one ever has the last word.
Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Conn.,
Retirement home
“Daisy’’ ( acrylic, chalk, charcoal on paper), by Cameron Boyce, in the show “Pinky Promise,’’ at Kingston Gallery, Boston, staring Aug. 16.
Todd McLeish: Balloons easily kill marine birds
From ecoRi News (ecori.org)
After a helium-filled balloon is released, it’s soon out of sight and quickly out of mind. But a new study out of Australia provides additional evidence that we should pay much more attention to balloons, because they can have devastating consequences to marine life.
A team of researchers from the University of Tasmania found that balloons are more deadly when ingested by seabirds than any other kind of plastic debris. An examination of 1,733 dead seabirds found that 32 percent had ingested plastic debris, and while soft plastics such as balloons accounted for only 5 percent of the items ingested, they were responsible for 42 percent of the seabird deaths.
Fragments of balloons composed just 2 percent of all ingested plastic, yet the birds that ingested balloon pieces were 32 times more likely to die than if the bird had ingested a hard plastic like a LEGO brick or lollipop stick.
The researchers said balloons are especially lethal because they can be easily swallowed and squeeze into a bird’s stomach cavity.
“A hard piece of plastic has to be the absolute wrong shape and size to block a region in the birds’ gut, whereas soft rubber items can contort to get stuck,” said Lauren Roman, the leader author of the study, in an interview with an Australian news outlet.
Roman believes that seabirds are attracted to balloons at the surface because their fragments may resemble squid, which the birds commonly eat. Most of the birds she studied were shearwaters and petrels, some of which appear in the offshore waters of southern New England in the summer.
The study was published in March in the journal Scientific Reports.
Citing the potential harm to marine life, the Rhode Island town of New Shoreham (Block Island) banned the sale of balloons earlier this year. Many other communities around the country are also taking steps to reduce the release of balloons because of their deadly impact on wildlife. Clemson University in Georgia ended its tradition of releasing 10,000 balloons before every home football game, for instance, and a campaign in Virginia aims to discourage the release of balloons during wedding celebrations.
Even The Balloon Council, which represents the balloon industry, advocates for the responsible handling of balloons, including never releasing them into the air.
But the release of balloons is still a significant problem with far-reaching implications, according to local wildlife rehabilitators and birdwatchers.
Geoff Dennis, a bird photographer and resident of Little Compton, walks his dog on several local beaches daily and collects the trash he sees. One day in late May he collected 282 balloons on the beaches he frequents. He said many more were washing ashore as he arrived. Less than two weeks later, he collected another 99 at the same beaches.
At a Fourth of July outdoor concert in Westerly, one birdwatcher in attendance counted 87 balloons released, most of which probably drifted over the ocean and landed in the water.
“I see them everywhere on the coast, and the beaches are especially bad,” said Jan St. Jean of Charlestown, an avid birder who spends much of her time year-round looking for birds along the coast. “I just think balloons are such a needless thing to purchase.”
And it’s not just the balloons themselves that are dangerous to birds and other wildlife. The strings attached to the balloons are a significant entanglement threat that have been responsible for many animal deaths.
Birdwatcher Becca Thornton of Carolina, R.I., wrote on Facebook this month that she rescued a great blue heron that was entangled in balloon string last year. “It was completely wrapped around his legs and couldn’t move or open his legs at all,” she wrote. “If I didn't see him, jump in the water and cut the string, he wouldn't be back visiting me this year.”
Several other local birders and wildlife rehabilitators also noted the related concern of birds becoming entangled in fishing line, which appears to be an ubiquitous problem along the Rhode Island coast as well.
A bill to ban the release of helium balloons in Rhode Island, sponsored by Rep. Susan Donovan, D-Bristol, this past session, would have imposed a $500 fine on violators. The bill was held for further study by the House Judiciary Committee.
“The problem is that no one away from the coast sees the balloon problem, only the plastic bag problem,” Dennis said. “And we know where that bill ended up despite how obvious that problem is.”
Todd McLeish, an ecoRI News contributor, runs a wildlife blog.
The Rhody rankings game
Eadweard Muybridge photo sequence.
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
God knows, Rhode Island should and can do various things (which I have suggested here over the years) to improve its economy, but I’m always leery of rankings, such as the right-leaning CNBC and the far-right Wall Street Journal editorial page, ranking the tiny state the worst in the nation for business. Some of that was based on lagging data and in changes in how some data were weighted. I don’t trust U.S. News and World Report rankings for similar reasons. That Rhode Island is so minuscule makes comparing it with other states particularly problematic.
All such rankings are based, in varying degrees, on comparing apples and oranges. And they usually ignore such important but difficult to quantify things as convenience and location. A major reason that my wife and I continue to live in Rhode Island is how close most of what you need for daily life is within the state and its nearness to Boston and New York. None of this is to say that the Ocean State must not do much, much better.
A little referenced number: Rhode Island’s per-capita income was 17th in the nation last year. Not too bad for an old mill-town state, but it’s next to #1 Massachusetts and #2 Connecticut….
Granite State's grand hotels
“Viewing the Mountains from the Mount Washington Hotel, White Mountains, New Hampshire’’ (print), in the show “The Grand Hotels of the White Mountains,’’ through Sept. 12.
The show explores the history of New Hampshire's grand mountain resort hotels, paying particular attention to the four that still exist out of the thirty that were in business when the industry was at its height around the turn of the last century. The exhibit uses paintings, photographs, artifacts and first-hand accounts from those who stayed as guests and those who worked in these European-style establishments, which hosted up to 200 guests each with elegant rooms, fine dining and numerous recreational activities.
William Morgan: From the inspirational Williams to a deadening waiting room
Amidst bathos and banality while you wait…and wait.
— Photo by William Morgan
There are not many grimmer places than the contemporary medical office waiting room. And, as we get older, it seems we have to devote more of our lives to wasting time in such dreary, soul-deadening spaces. Carpets with busy patterns (to hide the dirt?), low ceilings with acoustical tiles, furniture (invariably in pale shades of rose or violet, sometimes stained), and dog-eared copies (several months old) of Sports Illustrated. The coup de grâce is often a television, too loud and tuned to medical info-mercials or a talk show with miserable human specimens who are in much worse shape than whatever it was that is sent us to the doctor.
We entered this particular foretaste of purgatory not to be healed, but to make an appointment. Feeling my life ebbing away, especially after the practice's telephone service informed me that I was Number 17 in the queue, my wife and I drove to the awful faux-concrete (yes, that plastic stucco-looking surface that looks nibbled at the edges) medical building on North Main Street in Providence. This is one of those rental office spaces that has been fixed up and repainted so many times, you can only pray that the mold and rodent droppings have been sealed in.
Our dermatologist at 345 North Main, blessedly, does not have a television, and we were not there long enough to start screaming. But amidst the only-slightly-better-than-cheap-motel wall art, an old photograph caught my eye.
The image shows a house I had never heard of, much less ever seen. But its demolition was a real loss. Underneath the 18th-century expansion, is clearly a rare 17th-century Rhode Island stone ender (note the large chimney to the right).
Less than a handful of these early cottages survive, so it is particularly painful to contemplate its destruction. The caption beneath the image makes it all seem more depressing:
“Our Abbott Street parking lot, with North Main Street visible at the left:
“Roger Williams {1603-1683, the theologian, writer and founder of Rhode Island} often visited here and led prayer meetings where our parking is now.’’
Providence-based writer and architectural historian William Morgan is the author of The Cape Cod Cottage. His Snowbound: Dwelling in Winter will be published next year by Princeton Architectural Press.
Jim Hightower: America's insulin migrants to Canada
Downtown Sherbrooke, Quebec, close to the U.S. border and a city that draws many Americans, mostly from the Northeast, seeking much cheaper insulin and other medications than they can get in the U.S.
Via OtherWords.org
While Donald Trump fans the embers of xenophobia in our country by demonizing caravans of desperate Central Americans headed north, there are other northern-bound caravans he doesn’t mention.
These are U.S. citizens crossing our northern border into Canada, seeking relief from the profiteering cartels that run our country’s predatory health system. These people are among the millions of Americans who’ve literally been sickened by the price gouging of pharmaceutical giants.
For example, The Washington Post reports that from 2012 to 2016, drug makers have nearly doubled the U.S. price of life-saving insulin. It’s a massive highway robbery that Trump and Co. ignore, even though it creates a financial strain so severe that many patients try cheating death by skipping some dosages — an always dangerous gamble.
Outraged and desperate, many diabetics and their families are taking matters into their own hands by making cross-border drug runs into towns just north of the U.S.-Canadian line. They’re drawn there by Canada’s single-payer healthcare system, which protects consumers from price-gouging.
As The Post reported, one small group of Minnesotans recently caravanned from their home into an Ontario border town where they could buy a supply of insulin for about $1,200 — versus the $12,000 they would’ve been charged in the United States.
Good for them, but why should anyone in our incomparably rich nation have to make border raids to get essential health care? As the organizer of this Minnesota caravan put it: “When you have a bad healthcare system, it makes good people feel like outlaws. It’s demeaning. It’s demoralizing. It’s unjust.”
We the people must rise up, organize, and mobilize to make health care profiteering unacceptable, illegal — and indeed, un-American.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer and public speaker.
Nuanced patriotism
“Showstopper’’ (collage and resin on panel), by Rob Mars, in “Summer Group’’ show at Lanoue Gallery, Boston, through July 28.
Farming oysters growing in New England
From Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary,'' in GoLocal24.com
Oyster aquaculture has been expanding at a good clip in New England in the past couple of decades, often in the face of nimbyism, much of it by affluent owners of shoreline summer places. But oyster farming is good for the coastal environment (shellfish filter the water) and this high-end food is good for the region’s economy, too – especially, of course, the restaurant sector. Thus it was pleasant to read that the U.S. Agriculture Dept. and the Rhode Island Dept. of Environmental Management are working together to restore oyster beds in the state in a program called the Rhode Island Oyster Restoration Initiative. The Feds are making $500,000 available in grants to Rhode Island oyster farmers this year to boost their business.
To read more about this program, please hit this link.
Llewellyn King: Those cries of 'racist' stultify needed debate
An early use of the word "racism" by Richard Henry Pratt in 1902: "Association of races and classes is necessary to destroy racism and classism.
I, a serial supporter of minority causes, am fed up with the race card. Calling someone a racist is sliming’s cheap shot. It is a banal accusation that cannot be justified and cannot be defended against. It implies the moral deficiency of those who are accused of it.
I am not abandoning my abhorrence of people held down, held back or shuffled through a justice mill because they are of a different race or ethnicity.
Believe me, I have seen it. I have seen a bartender in Baltimore refusing to serve a black man but telling him he could take a bottle home. I have worked at a newspaper where it was debated whether a black editor could manage white editors. I have covered courts where young black offenders are marched through trials that are no more than sentencing mills; where hire-by-the trial lawyers plead away young minority people who do not know what is happening to them besides that they are going to jail. I have seen segregated water fountains, park benches and restrooms.
Yes, I have seen it.
In South Africa during apartheid, I saw a policeman leading a prisoner with a wire tether around his neck, as you would walk a dog. In Zimbabwe, I saw then President Robert Mugabe become obsessed with demeaning and forcing out the white population.
I heard the language of apartheid on the West Bank, where there are struggles over land. I heard a Malaysian publisher say demeaning things about the Chinese. I know of the oppression of minorities from Vietnam to those of Korean descent who perforce live second-class lives in Japan.
I have seen how the Catholics were treated in Northern Ireland and how both sides killed each other randomly. It starts with insults and ends with bloodshed.
I have toured Auschwitz where racism was perfected into genocide and evil wrought its masterpiece.
Race-baiting, race oppression and race categorization are among the deep and pervasive threats to society and to a civil way of life.
But that does not justify the easy and destructive branding of almost anyone who disagrees with anyone else as a racist. That is cheap, shallow, damning and, as a negative, hard to disprove.
I have been there, too, and know the humiliation and impotence of being accused of something you cannot defend yourself against.
Years ago, I was going to be appointed to a vacancy on the board of the venerable National Press Club in Washington, when one board member received an anonymous phone call saying that I said racist things. I did not and I do not, but the board thought it better not to appoint me. It hurt then, decades ago, and it hurts now.
Who wants to say, “Some of my best friends are minorities” or signal their virtue to disprove the label “racist”? Like a wall poster, it is easy to put up and hard to take down.
It is time we took the race card, burned it and interred its ashes. The epithet “racist” -- which can be attached as easily as sticking on a Post-it -- is neither dialogue nor disputation. Worse, its careless use is turning people against people whose views they fundamentally support.
While it is in play, the race card can be produced from the political sleeve like a wild card to slime anyone who disagrees with its player.
I know House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has worked for decades for civil rights causes. Using the race card was woeful in its dishonesty.
By the same token, I believe President Donald T to be, in many things, a truly reprehensible man; a disgrace at many levels. But that is not a reason to use the race card. Calling someone a racist precludes bringing in the heavy artillery of facts to blow away real bigotry. In its way, it locks in prejudice.
The president standing toe to toe with four Democratic House novices of color -- the Squad -- shouting “racist” is not speech. It is a refuge for the verbally bankrupt. Sadly, by calling Trump a racist, the Squad fired the first fusillade.
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com. He’s based in Rhode Island and Washington.
Linda Gasparello
Co-host and Producer
"White House Chronicle" on PBS
Chris Powell: Giving more money to badly governed cities is a waste
The P.T. Barnum Museum, in Bridgeport, named after the 19th Century circus mogul, who lived in that city.
In recent weeks seven Connecticut news organizations have gotten together in what they have called the Cities Project, examining ways of reviving the state's struggling cities. Much of the reporting has been about raising revenue -- extracting more financial aid from state government; applying property taxes to colleges, hospitals and other nonprofits; allowing cities to impose a sales tax on restaurant meals; and so forth.
It's tedious. For giving cities a lot more money has been state government policy for more than 40 years, ever since the state Supreme Court's decision in the school financing case of Horton v. Meskill, in 1977.
State government now covers half of city government budgets. Last year this policy exploded into extravagant incoherence when the General Assembly more or less accidentally authorized state government to assume more than $500 million in Hartford's long-term bonded debt. This rewarded and reimbursed the city for spending $80 million, despite its insolvency, to build a baseball stadium with which it stole the minor-league team of another struggling city, New Britain.
Better journalism might explore why so little about urban policy in Connecticut has worked since the cities began declining in the 1960s. Despite spending ever more money from both their own tax bases and the state's, the cities are poorer and more dysfunctional, incompetent and corrupt than ever, and their demographics are so desperate that they are hardly capable of self-government, lacking enough of a politically engaged and independent middle class to fend off the government and welfare classes, whose own furious political engagement guarantees their incomes.
Better journalism might ask why welfare policy in Connecticut produces only generational dependence and social disintegration, not self-sufficiency. It might ask why Connecticut's education policy in the cities accomplishes mainly social promotion and ignorance. It might ask why government gives priority to the compensation of its own employees. It might ask why the middle class escaping from the cities and the middle class already living in the suburbs should want this chronic failure extended to them through regionalism.
Policy premises here need to be challenged by journalism, not coddled. For why should anyone think that another 40 years of throwing money at what has failed to restore the cities will work someday? And how do the big thinkers who have presided over this disaster get away with considering themselves enlightened instead of culpable?
The tragedy of Connecticut's cities is metaphorically conveyed by a 15-minute video made last September and highlighted the other day by Only in Bridgeport blogger Lennie Grimaldi. The video, made to promote a now-stalled redevelopment proposal for the city's downtown, shows the Greater Bridgeport Symphony Orchestra playing British composer Vaughn Williams' ethereal "The Lark Ascending" in the decrepit former Palace Theater.
The orchestra's performance is magnificent and the video gently contrasts it with the theater's moldy walls and crumbling ceilings, thereby hinting at the Bridgeport that once was and might be again. Amid the frequent shootings in the city, it is hard to imagine, but there it is: a tremendous symphony orchestra with Bridgeport in its name. Within living memory Bridgeport was the industrial capital of Connecticut, but today the factories are empty hulks like the theater.
Great talent and potential remain here but there is only an echo of civic virtue. Weep for it now that government in Connecticut makes sure to succeed only with its own salaries and pensions.
Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer in Manchester, Conn.
Pre-Coppertone
“Children on the Beach” (oil on canvas, 1873), by Winslow Homer, in the show “Homer at the Beach: A Marine Painter’s Journey,’’ at the Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Mass., Aug. 3-Dec 1.
Tim Faulkner: Big weekend in N.E. for dirty fuel
Renewal-energy use in New England last weekend
From ecoRI News (ecori.org)
This past weekend was one of the most energy-intensive in New England history, relying on dirty backup power plants that run on oil and coal to keep up with demand.
According to preliminary data from grid operator ISO New England, July 20 and July 21 were the fourth- and fifth-most energy intensive weekend days on record. On Saturday, electricity demand reached 23,852 megawatts. Sunday peaked at 23,786 megawatts. The highest for any day was set Aug. 2, 2006, a Wednesday, when the energy load reached 28,130 megawatts.
“New England's power system was able to withstand the heat and humidity over the course of this weekend's heat wave and operated under normal conditions,” ISO New England spokeswoman Ellen Foley said.
But on both weekend days coal and oil generated as much as 8 percent of the electricity. New England has three coal-fired power plants: the 440-megawatt Merrimack Station in Bow, N.H.; two 47-megawatt generators at the Schiller Station, in Portsmouth, N.H.; and the 384-megawatt Bridgeport Harbor Generating Station, in Bridgeport, Conn.
While renewables held steady at about 5 percent of the energy mix, about 80 percent of that power came from burning high-polluting wood and trash.
High-polluting trash/wood-fired power plants accounted for most of the renewable energy used on July 20. (ISO New England)
Ratepayers have options to reduce the energy load during high-demand days. The Shave the Peak program run by the Green Energy Consumers Alliance uses text alerts and emails to deliver energy-saving actions during the hottest hours each summer. The goal is to limit the need for energy from high-polluting power plants, which sit idle most of the year.
Typically, New England’s remaining oil and coal power plants run for a few hours each during summer heat waves to meet the spike in electricity demand.
Tips include delaying use of large energy-intensive appliances, such as laundry dryers and electric stoves, until cooler times of day, when air conditioners are turned down and electricity demand falls.
Battery-storage incentive
Homeowners interested in adding backup battery power to their solar panels have a few days to take advantage of an incentive from National Grid.
The ConnectedSolutions program reduces the peak energy load by paying the owner of home battery-storage systems for its stored electricity during periods of high energy demand.
In Rhode Island, National Grid will pay $400 per kilowatt “performed” for electricity it draws from home storage systems during summer energy spikes. The Massachusetts program pays $225 per kilowatt performed during summer heat events and $50 per kilowatt in winter. In both states, the five-year contract promises to draw electricity from no more that 75 events annually.
The deadline to submit an application for both Rhode Island and Massachusetts has been extended to Aug. 1. The battery systems can be installed to new or existing home solar arrays.
Although the battery system is connected to the electric grid it can still provide a backup electricity supply to the residence during a power outage.
According to an article in Bloomberg, a customer with a single Tesla Powerwall battery system could earn up to $1,000 annually from the program. Other eligible battery systems are offered by Pika Energy, Sonnen, and Sunrun. These vendors manage each customer’s storage system using information from National Grid. The battery companies also issue payments to the homeowners.
National Grid hopes to sign up 50 customers in Rhode Island and 230 in Massachusetts.
The estimated cost for a new battery system before tax breaks and incentives is about $8,000. The estimated payback period is about five years.
National Grid benefits by having renewable power to draw from while reducing its need to invest in infrastructure to address spikes in electricity use.
“Calling on batteries to discharge during peak times reduces the loads on the grid when it is most important,” said Ted Kresse, spokesman for National Grid. “It also helps to decrease distribution, transmission, and generation costs. In the future, we hope to also use batteries to help support even more growth of renewable and distributed energy generation.”
Battery-storage systems paired with solar arrays are expected to gain popularity as prices for solar equipment and battery prices drop. There is also a 30 percent federal tax credit for the cost of solar and battery systems.
Tim Faulkner is an ecoRI News journalist.
Will they get a cut rate on billboard ads?
From The New England Council (newenglanddiary.com)
Polar Beverages’ CEO Ralph Crowley Jr. will become part owner of the Pawtucket Red Sox as the team prepares for a 2021 move to Worcester. Polar Beverages has been operating in Worcester since 1882.
The PawSox announced Crowley’s ownership at the ceremonial groundbreaking of the new Polar Park stadium. The ballpark has been designed to seat over 10,000 visitors and is expected to host various year-round events. In addition to minor league baseball games, the City of Worcester plans to take advantage of the new facility for road races, collegiate/high school sporting events, concerts, firework displays, and more. The stadium has become the center of a public-private redevelopment project of Worcester’s Canal District.
Worcester’s City Manager Edward Augustus Jr. saw the groundbreaking of the park to be “a special moment in Worcester’s history — a line of demarcation separating Worcester before Polar Park and Worcester after Polar Park.”
Philip K. Howard: Answers to Washington gridlock are hiding in plain site
The cornucopia of policy ideas presented by Democratic presidential hopefuls is remarkable mainly in what’s been omitted: the need to overhaul Washington so that it can deliver public services effectively. A huge opportunity awaits any political leader with the nerve to seize it.
A recent survey by political scientist Paul Light found that about 60% of Americans support “very major reform” of Washington. That’s what voters had hoped for when Barack Obama promised “change we can believe in.” When that didn’t work out, 8 million Obama voters turned around and voted for a rich braggadocio who promised to “drain the swamp.”
But Trump’s bluster hasn’t translated into any coherent plan to fix Washington. His executive orders mainly undo Obama’s executive orders, such as removing restrictions on coal-burning power plants. That’s probably not the swamp-draining that most voters hoped for.
Instead of tapping into the broad centrist demand for overhaul, Democrats are rushing to the left. They’re competing with promises of more public freebies (Medicare for all, college debt forgiveness, universal basic income) and with angry sermons about victimization. But voters know that the public fisc is already gushing red ink (the annual deficit is about $10,000 per family), and identity politics is toxic to centrists who believe in self-reliance.
It’s almost as if Trump himself had scripted Democratic positions. He has a feral genius for ridiculing weakness. Trump may not have a vision for dealing with most of America’s challenges, but he likely won’t need one. He knows that Americans hate Washington, and he’s a virtuoso at playing that tune.
Instead of promising the moon, why don’t Democrats promise to clean house? Public opinion is aligned for a historic transformation of Washington. A vision for a simpler, more practical government could appeal not only to centrists but also to Republican voters who know in their hearts that real leadership is impossible without a positive governing vision and moral authority.
Almost any sensible reconfiguration of Washington would dramatically advance the stated goals of both parties:
• Rebooting legacy bureaucracies could marshal the needed resources for climate change and wage stagnation. Runaway bureaucracy is staggeringly expensive. About 30% of the healthcare dollar is spent on administration, or about $1 million per physician. Schools in more than 20 states now have more non-instructional personnel than teachers.
• Republicans want to cut red tape and get government off our backs. A simpler, goals-oriented regulatory framework would eliminate 1,000-page rulebooks for schools, hospitals and employers. Instead of Big Brother breathing down our necks, Washington would become a distant trustee, protecting against miscreants who cross the line, not micromanaging daily life in America.
The sticking point to overhauling Washington is not American voters, but Washington itself. Washington is organized to preserve the status quo. Political leaders are entrapped by their alliances to interest groups. Gosh, we can’t get rid of 1930s programs such as farm subsidies ($16 billion), or inflated wages on infrastructure (about 20% higher than market), or lower taxes for investment professionals ($14 billion), because those interest groups help Washington pols get reelected.
Fig leaves can’t disguise the self-interest of these legacy programs. When Democrats talk about “due process” for teachers and civil servants, voters know this means zero accountability. When they wave the sword of individual rights, voters start holding on to their wallets. Indeed, much of Trump’s voter appeal is his refusal to kowtow to the politics of victimization and correctness.
Republicans aren’t much better. When they talk about stimulating the economy with lower taxes, they usually mean lining the pockets of their supporters by increasing the deficit, not reducing the public waste they deplore. When Republicans talk about deregulation, they don’t usually mean cutting red tape, but cutting regulatory oversight altogether—usually to benefit an industry, not the public. Their anti-regulatory overreach helps explain why the last four Republican administrations have been so ineffective at reining in big government—and, in fact, presided over bureaucratic growth.
Governing shouldn’t be this hard. It doesn’t take a genius to remove mindless red tape from schools and hospitals. No Ph.D. is required to phase out obsolete subsidies and reset priorities. Nor does it take a mind reader to discern what most voters want. Americans want government to be practical. And they want to be practical in their own lives and communities.
Being practical requires that officials and citizens are free to make choices. Then other people need to be free to hold them accountable. None of these choices are available today, because law has supplanted human responsibility. Practicality is illegal in Washington bureaucracy. That’s why, for example, it takes upwards of a decade to get a permit for vital infrastructure projects.
Nothing can get fixed in Washington until responsible humans can make new choices. That’s why the only path to a functioning democracy is to reboot Washington. Officials and citizens alike must be liberated to take responsibility. Instead of being shackled to 1,000-page rulebooks, we must be free to make choices that we think are sensible.
Rebooting Washington is a simple idea, as obvious to most voters as it is radical to most political insiders. The virtues are not hard to explain: It would both reset priorities and revive human agency as the activating mechanism for public choices. Public debate would focus on success and failure, not abstract theories. Electing new leaders would make a difference.
American voters know the system is broken. But it won’t be fixed by making voters choose between a liberal or conservative fork in the road. What Washington needs most is practicality, not ideology. The leader who articulates a principled vision for practical government could seize the day and lead a historic overhaul to restore common sense and dignity to all levels of public responsibility.
Philip K. Howard, chairman of Common Good, is a New York-based lawyer, civic leader, legal and regulatory reformer, author and photographer. His latest book is Try Common Sense: Replacing the Failed Ideologies of Right and Left. This piece first ran in Forbes magazine. Hit this link. Or this link.
Student political engagement in New England and beyond
Student demonstration against Tufts University’s fossil-fuel investments
From The New England Journal of Higher Education (NEJHE), a service of The New England Board of Higher Education (nebhe.org)
Nancy Thomas is director of the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education at Tufts University’s Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life.
In the following Q&A, NEJHE Executive Editor John O. Harney asks Thomas about her insights on higher education, citizen engagement and elections. (A Q&A along the same lines has been conducted with the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. Watch this space for more on higher education and citizen participation in this critical time for American democracy.)
Harney: What did the 2016 and 2018 elections tell us about the state of youth engagement in American democracy?
Thomas: Only 45% of undergraduate students voted in the 2016 presidential election, compared with about 61% of the general population. People on both sides of the political aisle had strong reactions to the election of Donald Trump as president, making 2016 a wake-up call. That, coupled with some intriguing, diverse candidates and growing issue activism, is a formula for youth engagement. We do not have our numbers for 2018—they will be available in September—but all signs point to a big jump in college student voting. Overall, Americans turned out at record high numbers in 2018.
Harney: How else besides voting do you measure young people’s civic citizenship? Are there other appropriate measures of activism and political involvement?
Thomas: Measuring student civic engagement is tough. In her 2012 review of civic measures in higher education, Ashley Finley at the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) concluded that although students participate in a continuum of civic learning practices, we need more evidence of their impact on student development, learning and success.
One problem is a lack of consensus over what counts as engagement. Knowledge about democracy? Intercultural competencies and other skills? Volunteering? Activism off campus? Following an issue on social media? Joining a group with a civic purpose? To measure engagement, many campuses conduct head counts of how many people took certain courses or volunteered or joined a club engaging in issue activism or attended a forum, etc.
Usually, civic engagement and development are measured by self-reported responses to surveys about behavior and attitudes. The CIRP senior survey asks whether students have worked on political campaigns or local problem-solving efforts. And the National Survey of Student Engagement,also a student survey, asks about voting, contributing to the welfare of the local community, and developing cultural understanding and a personal code of ethics.
Another approach is to administer pre- and post-experience questionnaires or require students to write reflective essays about their experiences. Some institutions survey alumni and correlate alumni engagement with learning experiences, if they have kept that record.
To my knowledge there is no objective, quantitative measure of civic engagement, much less political engagement, other than our voting study.
Harney: What are the key issues for college students?
Thomas: College students care about the same issues that most Americans care about—economic stability and jobs, health and access to healthcare, and education quality and access, particularly student debt and college affordability. They also care deeply about civil rights, discrimination and injustice, encompassing a range of concerns: immigration and the treatment of refugees at the border, DACA and, for those not threatened by the possibility of deportation, the treatment of their DACA peers; mass incarceration; criminal justice reform, racial discrimination and profiling; and hate speech and rise of hate groups and crimes. They also care about climate change and gun violence. I should note that, much like any group in the U.S., college students represent nearly all perspectives you can imagine. Right now, these are the issues that appear to be driving them.
Harney: Do they pay as much attention to local and state policy as to national and global?
Thomas: Some do, but it may be specific to the region or state. Or the institution. Around 50% of college students attend local community colleges, and nearly 85% attend college in-state. Local and state politics directly affect them, their families and communities.
It also depends on who is running for office. In Kansas and Iowa in 2018, for example, students turned out to impact the governor’s races. In the 7th Congressional District of Massachusetts, which is home to several universities, young people turned out to elect Ayanna Pressley.
Our office spent a lot of time on the phone during the 2018 midterms, and that was one trend that stood out to us—there was a great deal of feedback from administrators on campuses that students were engaging in local races more than in the past. We heard stories of local interest that often dovetailed with what was happening at the national level: local judicial elections (in the wake of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings), state representative races (amid a number of stories about state legislatures and state power structures), along with students jumping into races themselves, looking to create change.
In 2018, several students ran for local office. A sophomore at Spelman College ran for the local school board and narrowly lost. Rigel Robinson chose to run for local city councilrather than go to grad school right after graduating from UC Berkeley. He won.
That said, students are like all Americans—they care about the presidential election more. In 2014, only 13% of 18- to 24-year-old college and university students voted. That low number reflects national malaise. It also reflects the unique barriers to voting facing first-time voters and student attending institutions away from home. In midterms, students are less motivated to overcome barriers to voting.
Harney: Do they show any particular interest in where candidates stand on “higher education issues” such as academic freedom?
Thomas: They care about student debt and college affordability as significant higher education issues. I don’t think students would frame the issue as being about “academic freedom,” but they do care about speech and expression on campus and efforts by individuals and groups from off campus who come to campus to espouse discriminatory and hateful ideas. Our research on highly politically engaged campuses revealed nuanced attitudes to free expression on campus. Students want it and support it, but not if it crosses a line. The prevailing view is that students want their learning environments to be inclusive and welcoming regardless of race, ethnicity, immigrant status, sex, LGBTQ status and religion. They do not want groups or individuals with hateful ideas to have a platform on campus. Recently, the Knight Foundation published a report that confirmed this but also noted stark differences among different groups. Only four in 10 college women would protect speech over inclusion, compared with seven in 10 men. I have pushed backagainst this zero-sum-game approach of pitting speech against inclusion. The dominant narrative seems to be that speech, even hate speech, is always protected, at least at a public institution. I disagree.
Harney: How do the New England states treat voting rights for the many college students who live out-of-state?
Thomas: For most people, deciding where to vote is easy: They vote in the district in which they live. Students who attend and reside at a college away from home or out of state, however, may also vote near campus. Sounds easy enough, but it isn’t. Some states, for example, require not only evidence of residency but of permanence or intent to remain in the area. But what does that mean? A person has been living in the area for a month? A day? These kinds of standards are difficult to apply to most residents, and as a result, they tend to be applied to college students only.
Going into effect, ironically, right before the Fourth of July 2019, New Hampshire passed a law requiring students to obtain New Hampshire driver’s licenses or register their cars in state in order to register to vote near campus. The law is being challenged by the ACLU, the League of Women Voters and groups of students. Some legislators have also introduced a new bill that would create an exception for students, members of the military, and others living in the state temporarily. I doubt the law will hold up legally, but as of right now, students will need to go to a lot of trouble to vote locally.
The other New England states are not trying to suppress student voting, but there are many laws that could change to make voting easier, such as allowing for same-day voter registration and voting, early voting and longer time periods within which to register.
Harney: Are there any relevant correlations between measures of citizenship and enrollment in specific courses or majors?
Thomas: Yes! Education and library science majors vote at the highest rates; STEM and business majors are among the lowest. Gender might explain these differences to some extent. Women vote at higher rates than men, and fields that are dominated by women are likely to have higher voting rates. But that’s not the entire story. Education students study the historic and essential relationship between education and a strong democracy. The U.S. supports a public education system so that its citizens will be informed and prepared to participate in democracy. Both education and library sciences have a clear public purpose. This doesn’t mean that STEM and business fields do not have a public purpose. They do. But I am not sure the curriculum is designed to teach the public relevance of that field.
Harney: Are college students and faculty as “liberal” as “conservative” commentators make them out to be?
Thomas: Studies of college professors demonstrate that, overall, faculties lean liberal. In some fields like economics, they lean conservative, but overall, the professoriate is progressive. But that does not lead to “liberal indoctrination,” contrary to media reports or unique and inflammatory stories tracked by self-appointed watchdogs. Students do not arrive at college without opinions, nor are they easily manipulated. There is no evidence that students move left politically in college. Indeed, according to a recent study, college exposes students to new viewpoints and teaches them how to think, not what to think.
In our research on highly politically engaged campuses, we found that professors want students to think critically about their own perspectives, not just the perspectives of those with whom they disagree. They assign students projects in which the students must advocate for a position not aligned with their own. They teach using the Socratic method or discussion-based teaching to draw out multiple perspectives on an issue. They get students to work in groups reflecting diverse ideologies and lived experiences. If they do not hear a more conservative perspective expressed, they will introduce it. Do they sometimes take a stand on a political issue, like climate change or civil rights? Yes, but that’s the job. The job is not to be apolitical. Professors can’t cross the line into partisanship by telling students which candidate or party to support. But they can, and should, teach students to think critically about and even take a stand on political problems and solution.
Harney: What are ways to encourage “blue state” students to have an effect on “red-state” politics and vice versa?
Thomas: For better or worse, political polarization is a strong motivator for activism and voting. Young voters believe that they can make a difference and that government can solve public problems. I am confident that energy will continue through 2020.
I worry, however, that other forces like gerrymandering, money in politics, and the way politicians now cater to their “base” rather than all their constituents, will reinforce distrust in our political system. Many Americans believe that their vote doesn’t count or that their elected representatives do not represent them or their views. This leads them to ask, “why bother?”
Unfortunately, they may be right. In June 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court once again rejected efforts to stop partisan gerrymandering, leaving the drawing of districts to state legislators. Many state legislatures (both red and blue) gerrymander their districts to ensure dominance of their party. It is unlikely that politicians will voluntarily give up that power.
What’s the solution? One way to fix this problem is to get people to force their legislators to appoint nonpartisan redistricting commissions. In most states west of the Mississippi, residents can force a change to laws or state constitutions through ballots or referenda. Massachusetts is the only New England state that allows citizen-initiated statutes and amendments to the state constitutions. In 2018, voters in Michigan, Missouri, Colorado, Utah and Ohio passed initiatives to end partisan gerrymandering.
Young people can do the same on issues such as money in politics and extremism in policymaking. Educators should teach about these issues. Remember the old civics courses that taught “how a bill becomes a law?” Let’s resurrect that in college through experiential learning.
Harney: What role does social media play in shaping engagement and votes?
Thomas: Social media plays a significant role in shaping participation by young people. It’s how they get their news and information, find groups and people who care about their issues, and communicate with their peers. At its best, political engagement is a collective, and even social, act. Social media facilitates that.
The downside to social media, however, is misinformation and fake news. Manipulation through social media is a frightening truth. Colleges and universities should teach all students how to distinguish facts and fiction and to identify reliable news sources.
Harney: What do you think of an idea broached in NEJHE about ranking colleges based on the percentage of their students who vote?
Thomas: Some voter competitions compare basic voting rates; others compare election-to-election improvement. I have mixed feelings about using voting rates to compare one institution to another.
On one hand, voter competitions generate enthusiasm. They can be fun, and our research suggests that activities around elections should be spirited and celebratory. Again, engagement, including voting, is a social act. Students vote if their friends vote. Competitions can draw diverse groups to an activity, not unlike sporting events.
On the other hand, voting rates need to be critically examined. We know who the more likely voters are and what predicts voting: gender (women vote at higher rates), age (older people vote at higher rates), race (white, and some years, black Americans vote at higher rates), and affluence (wealthy people vote at higher rates). External factors also affect voting: Is it a battleground state or is student voting suppressed? Competitions will be won by institutions that admit older, affluent white women in states with same-day registration and voting.
The better approach is to calculate expected voting rates for a campus and then compare their actual with the expected, and then recognize campuses that overperform. We’re working on that, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. Student populations and voting conditions change every election. We’ll keep watching this.
We published a set of recommendations for colleges and universities interested in fostering student learning for and participation in democracy, actions that we believe will positively impact voting rates. I’d prefer to see a system that recognizes colleges and universities for how well they educate students about their responsibilities in a participatory democracy. Voting would be a factor, but it would not be the only factor.
Harney: How will New England’s increased political representation of women and people of color affect real policy?
Underrepresentation has been a serious problem in this country for a long time. According to the Reflective Democracy Campaign, white men make up 30% of the U.S. population and 62% of elected officials, while women of color make up 20% of the population and only 4% of elected officials. Practices like gerrymandering, special-interest money, how campaigns get funded, the power of incumbents and so forth allow leaders of political parties to serve as gatekeepers to perpetuate underrepresentation. While we saw historic shifts in 2018, we have a long way to go.
We have a partisan divide in this country that cannot be ignored. Fully 71% of Republican elected officials are white men, compared with 44% of Democrats. Only 3% of Republican leaders are people of color, compared with 28% of Democratic leaders. The historic shifts in 2018 reflect shifts in the Democratic party, not the Republican party.
Today, many politicians do not even pretend to represent people other than “their base” of die-hard supporters. They do not need to. The party in power sets their positions on issues and remains unmoved because they face no consequences for ignoring dissenters or opinion polls. It’s a maddening situation.
So, in answer to your question, increased political representation of women and people of color should affect policy, but the systems need to change to ensure that will happen.
Harney: How can colleges and universities work together to bolster democracy?
We need an industry-wide effort to increase education for the democracy we want, not the one we have. Regardless of their discipline, students need to learn the basics of our Constitutional democracy—how the government is structured, how elections work, how decisions are made and separation of power, and not just rights but responsibilities of people who a fortunate enough to live in a democracy.
I am deeply concerned by a 2019 publication by the Baker Center at Georgetown University that reports that nearly one-third of young Americans feel that living under non-democratic forms of government (e.g., military state or autocratic regime) would be equally acceptable to living in a democracy. That suggests to me a need for an educational response at the K-12 and higher education level.
But it also points to the need for systemic reform. Colleges and universities not only need to teach what a strong democracy looks like and why students have a responsibility to work for democracy’s health and future, but also need to enable student activism on electoral reform. They need to teach students how to run for office or how to effectuate policy change through laws and ballot initiatives. Students need to get involved in changing systems that underrepresent and disempower most groups of Americans. As I mentioned earlier, young people care deeply about equal opportunity and equity, along with other issue advocacy. The academy’s opportunity is now. It’s time to seize it.
