Whitcomb: Boston’s Bright Lights; War Spreads in Europe; Cool the Drug Commercials; The Coach
Robert Whitcomb, Columnist
Whitcomb: Boston’s Bright Lights; War Spreads in Europe; Cool the Drug Commercials; The Coach
“Now that the nights are chill
and the annuals spent,
I should have thought them gone,
in a torpor of blood
slipped to the nether world
before the sickle frost.’’
-- From “The Snakes of September, ‘’ by Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006), American poet
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There are lots of popular songs about September, some of them happy but more of them melancholy, such as this famous one from 1938:
“Democracy produces both heroes and villains, but it differs from a fascist state in that it does not produce a hero who is a villain.”
-- Margaret Halsey (1910-1997), American writer
“I am ill every time it blows hard, and nothing but my enthusiastic love for the profession keeps me one hour at sea.’’
-- Adm. Horatio Nelson (1758-1805), British naval hero, best known for the great victory he led at Trafalgar, but in which he was killed.
I suspect that Hasbro made the decision to bail out of Rhode Island and move to Boston’s Seaport District at least a year ago, whatever its stringing along of the Ocean State. Its C-suite wants to be in a more dynamic, prestigious, and international place.
I suppose that we should be relieved in some ways that the company is not moving that far away, and will continue to draw on some of the design skills of people with Rhode Island connections, such as folks with past or present connections with the Rhode Island School of Design. For that matter, northern Rhode Island is already a suburb of Boston, with the state’s southwestern corner increasingly a sort of soothing exurb of New York City.
I doubt very much that state and local officials could ever have come up with adequate bribes of public money and other incentives to keep the giant toy and entertainment outfit in the Ocean State. Hasbro honchos were gonna move. Period.
The company will face serious challenges in the move. Boston is considerably more expensive than Rhode Island, and the Seaport District is more and more vulnerable to flooding from rising sea levels because of man-made global warming. In any event, I suspect that some Hasbro employees will continue to live in northern Rhode Island because it’s cheaper than just a few miles north and has good commuter rail service to Boston’s South Station, which is close to the Seaport District.
By the way, the MBTA is commendably increasing the pressure on train freeloaders. It has deployed “fare engagement representatives” to catch people who haven’t paid their fares. First comes a warning citation and then a $50 fine for each offense. If a scofflaw gets three such citations within three years, each new violation will cost him or her $100. Honest patrons are tired of helping to subsidize these selfish scofflaws. Meanwhile, remember that taking the train is always cheaper than the full cost of driving.
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There’s a good article in Bloomberg News on the drawbacks of one-way streets, especially in cities. It uses Durham, N.C., as an example, noting:
“The likelihood of getting lost is not the only drawback of Durham’s one-way streets. They can also force drivers to go out of their way for several blocks, increasing total driving and downtown air pollution. Worse, the unidirectional street network endangers those walking or biking because fast-moving drivers are less likely to notice them. Some people who might have otherwise strolled or cycled may use a car instead (or skip the trip entirely).’’
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“I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.’’
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"I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new-age term that...it does a lot of damage.’’
-- Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, who was shot to death last Wednesday at one of his rallies.
I’m sure that America will become truly safe, and the National Rifle Association and its political allies will be gratified when all Americans over the age of five have at least one gun. All will be made members of the “well-regulated militia’’ cited in the beloved Second Amendment.
American political violence. Hit this link:
And where America ranks in homicides:
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I await with excitement the next 10 revisions of U.S. unemployment and inflation figures from 2020 to 2025.
The Wages of Appeasement
'’We are closer to war than at any time since World War II.’’
-- Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk
Russia is stepping up its increasingly fierce, if undeclared, war against Europe. It engages in sabotage, on sea and land, and relentless cyber warfare. The latest example of its approach is using drones to test NATO defenses and the alliance’s resolve, as seen in its brazen 19-drone incursion last week into Polish airspace. NATO fighter jets shot down at least some of the aircraft.
Reminder: A threat to Europe is a threat to America, including to its economy.
The central problems in confronting Russia’s hideous regime have been Europe’s military incapacity and America’s lack of will – or worse.
The Kremlin wants Russia to again dominate all of Eastern Europe, as the Soviet Union did back when Putin was a young KGB officer in the ’80s.
That Trump, who wants to be liked by dictators (he wants to be one himself) has long acted like a Russian asset, makes everything much, much worse. Trump’s recent appeasement orgy in Alaska with Putin, whom he both envies and fears, inevitably has only egged on the sadistic tyrant. The Kremlin knows how weak, insecure and indecisive the bombastic Orange Oligarch really is.
Trump keeps promising and promising and promising new sanctions against Russia after each outrage…..
It's all very sad. Consider the high hopes for expanded democracy and peace that those of us of a certain age had in 1989-1991 with the fall of the Soviet Empire. (I was skeptical myself.)_ But barbarism always comes back, and civilization, let alone democracy, too often surprises us with its fragility.
Unlikely to Promote Mideast Peace
I doubt that U.S. ally Israel’s whack-a-mole attack on Hamas people in Qatar will help its long-term security goals. It’s more likely to make Arab regimes, especially the Gulf States, that have been willing to consider closer security, economic and other ties with the Jewish State to back off, reducing chances for a comprehensive Mideast peace.
The attack could well undermine Qatar’s alliance with the U.S., including the future there of a big U.S. military base. It may even undermine the Trump Organization’s investments in Qatar, which have included a resort deal and a Qatari bailout of a New York skyscraper owned by the (corrupt) family of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. There may be other Trump-related investments there that have been kept hidden.
I was in natural-gas-rich Qatar a few years ago at meetings of a nonprofit project I was working for. It’s mostly a depressing sand-and-gravel pile but with a glittering steel and glass city, Doha. Most of the population aren’t citizens, but rather “guest workers’’ from South Asia, Africa, and a few from Turkey and the Balkans. These people have often been treated as indentured servants.
Its very rich sheiks and big expense-accounted foreign businesspeople mostly hang out in its luxurious high-rise hotels. I vividly remember one at the top of which was stylish bar where sheiks were knocking back the booze, some accompanied by very blonde, er, “escorts’’. I was told later they were most likely Ukrainian. Of course, Muslims aren’t supposed to drink.
To say the least, it gets very hot in Qatar – and humid. I went for a walk and then turned back after a few minutes. It was 121 F.
The most interesting part of the trip was our group’s tour of Al-Jazeera, the international news service based in Doha. Except sometimes for its coverage of the Mideast, it does some fine journalism. But one trip to Qatar sufficed for me.
Those Irresponsible TV Drug Ads
As the old line goes, even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day.
Apparently, with the encouragement of the oft-crazed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (a former long-term heroin addict), Trump has commendably directed his regime to try to sharply restrict commercials for prescription drugs on TV. Given that people connected with pharmaceutical companies are big campaign donors, and that TV networks -- cable and broadcast -- derive vast revenues from drug ads, it will be particularly interesting to see how much this could be enforced, especially since First Amendment issues will be raised.
Advertising data firm MediaRadar reports that U.S. drug companies spent $10.8 billion in 2024 on direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising. One big beneficiary is Fox “News,’’ which often acts as a Trump regime propaganda subsidiary.
The U.S. apparently remains the only country besides New Zealand to allow direct advertising of pharmaceuticals to consumers.
Before a 1997 policy change, few prescription drug ads appeared on TV or were heard on the radio. (I can remember when, back in the 1960s, about the only places you’d see such ads would be in publications, such as Medical Economics, pitched mostly to such professionals as physicians and hospital administrators.)
Some of these commercials, many directed to elderly people, are rife with exaggerated claims. They promote expensive, protected-by-patent medications that may not work any better than out-of-patent meds, which are always cheaper, and thus are one reason that Medicare faces such financial challenges. (Raise taxes!) And possible side effects are sometimes swept under the rug. TV viewers fall for the relentless marketing and pressure their doctors to prescribe the stuff.
Some of these ads express great creativity in telling viewers about obscure diseases and other medical conditions that may or may not be serious and for which drug companies allegedly have wondrous cures or at least treatments.
Federalism’s Safety Net
Blue States, whose leaders believe in science, are collaborating to try to offset the Trump regime’s anti-vax, anti-history moves, which are suffused with a bizarre nihilism. Northeast states are banding together, as are California, Oregon, Washington State and Hawaii, to develop their own science-based vaccine recommendations. Good for them.
Meanwhile, in such former slave states as Florida, run by cynical right-wing obscurants, the argument is that mandating vaccines for schoolchildren violates parental freedom. Well, yes. But giving them the right to make it easier for their children and others to contract, and maybe die from, preventable diseases threatens others’ freedom from disease.
Blue States are urgently engaged in a sort of quiet semi-secession from a country whose federal government is primarily run by Red States paying obeisance to Trump’s fascist cult. It bears noting that seven of the 10 states most dependent on the federal government are Red States. So Blue States, as has been noted, are involuntarily subsidizing the unraveling of democracy.
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Beware the pandemic of unsolicited calls in which scammers posing as Google representatives try to pressure business owners to pay fees for listing optimization, verification, or to prevent account suspension. Could the employees of the Federal Trade Commission who haven’t yet been laid off by DOGE help stop this?
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As we approach maximum leaf-blower-air-and-noise-pollution season in a few weeks, wouldn’t it be kindly if those hiring “landscaping” companies offered to provide their immediate neighbors with ear protectors? After all, if they can afford yard crews, they can afford to mitigate their neighbors’ pain.
Many millions of people have vivid memories of their school sports in the fall. My strongest are of pounding up Connecticut hills while a boarding school cross-country runner as the weather changed from hot late summer, to crisp autumn with its florid foliage, to eerie Indian summer, to snow flurries. The harder the run, the more the metallic taste in my mouth.
Watching us near the finish line was our enigmatic coach (and my Latin teacher) John Small, arms crossed and with an intense gaze. A (probably traumatized) combat veteran of the Battle of the Bulge and a bachelor, he was big-chested, mostly bald, had brilliant blue eyes and could look scary, though he was a man of great sensitivity, a brilliant psychologist when it came to strategizing for a race and an ingenious trainer. His runners revered him, and long after they left school looked to him for advice, even while much of Mr. Small’s life remained a mystery to them. He sometimes still pops up in my dreams.