Whitcomb: Ceaseless Saga of the Great Salt Pond; Entrepreneurial in Epidemic; Names in Nature
Robert Whitcomb, Columnist
Whitcomb: Ceaseless Saga of the Great Salt Pond; Entrepreneurial in Epidemic; Names in Nature
“She looks out from a bed the size of a dinghy…
the woods behind her house receive the snow
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTwith a faint ticking of flakes striking needles
and dry leaves –a sound you would not believe
unless you’ve held your breath and heard it.’’
-- From “Snow,’’ by Elizabeth Tibbetts, a nurse and a Maine poet
“If from infancy you treat children as gods, they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.’’
-- P.D. James (1920-2014), English detective novelist famous for her acute knowledge of human behavior and motivation and her sense of place.
Meanwhile, The Boston Guardian reports, as part of its Valentine’s Day coverage, that this is mating time for coyotes, which have become increasingly common even in the middle of cities, including Boston, as long as there are parks, cemeteries or other such places for their dens. (Full disclosure: I’m the unpaid president of that free weekly newspaper, Boston’s biggest.)
Speaking of salt: Some people, especially those who aren’t paying for it, are spreading too much of it around – far more than is needed to prevent accidents – doing considerable damage to pavements, vegetation and animal life.
I’ve been amused by the rush of more than 60 people to try to be the next Rhode Island lieutenant governor. And why wouldn’t they want the job?! There’s little obligatory work involved, the pay and benefits are pretty good and it can offer a springboard to higher office. In any event, the state Senate must approve now-Lt. Gov./soon-to-be-Gov. Dan McKee’s nominee for his current job. That Mr. McKee is 69 may also be a factor in the rush.
This reminds me yet again that it makes far more sense for same-party candidates for governor and lieutenant governor to run for election as a ticket, instead of separately – the current inefficient system. That way, when the governor left before his/her term is up, as Gov. Gina Raimondo is expected to do soon to become U.S. commerce secretary, the lieutenant governor could step into the top post more smoothly than now.
That Governor Raimondo and Mr. McKee, though both Democrats, often haven’t communicated, and indeed differ on some policies, has thrown some sand in the gears of government. Ms. Raimondo has, however, recently praised the lieutenant governor’s hard work in the transition, telling The Providence Journal that he’s been doing “a great job’’ in a power transition that COVID-19 has made much more difficult than it would have been. But Governor Raimondo’s staff could be more helpful as Mr. McKee prepares to take over at such a difficult time.
The Rhode Island Constitution needs to be amended so that the governor and the lieutenant governor run as a duo who share the same general philosophy and policies, providing some continuity when the governor leaves before his/her term is up. Presumably the voters who elected the ticket would want that.
By the way, it’s intriguing that TV meteorologist T.J. Del Santo is among those applying to Mr. McKee for the lieutenant governor gig. With Rhode Island’s sometimes wacky weather and the challenges of global warming (sea-level rise, etc.), might it be useful to have a state general officer who knows something about the science involved in those things?
Or not. Shouldn’t the next lieutenant governor be someone who could ably run state government if Mr. McKee himself leaves the scene? In other words, someone with extensive management experience?
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While it’s better than it was a few years ago, the Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles can sometimes still be very exasperating to deal with. After the immediate COVID crisis fades, Mr. McKee should take a run at improving that agency.
One look at an aerial photo of Block Island’s Champlin’s Marina, on ecologically fragile Great Salt Pond, shows that it’s already too big. And now, through a highly dubious mediated settlement that’s an (illegal?) end run around an earlier denial of the project, the business could build 170 feet further into the pond (which serves as a harbor). Champlin’s campaign to take over more of the Great Salt Pond sometimes seems to have gone on for centuries but it’s only been since 2003!
While affluent folks from the region might love having more places to tie up on the island, adding more boats would inevitably increase pollution in the Great Salt Pond.
Retired Rhode Island Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank Williams brokered this deal in secret negotiations involving the state Coastal Resources Management Council and Champlin’s. State Atty. Gen. Peter Neronha is rightly looking into this suspicious agreement.
Lemonade From Lemons?
The pandemic, by swiftly eliminating the jobs of millions, by accelerating automation, which will kill more jobs, and by leading even many with seemingly secure positions to reappraise their careers and other parts of their lives, has led to an increase in startups.
Consider the recent report of the office of the Massachusetts secretary of state, which registers publicly held corporations and limited-liability companies (LLCs); LLC’s are generally small businesses, mom and pop stores, etc. It says that almost 54,000 new businesses were formed in the state in 2020, up almost 3,000 from 2021, reports WBUR.
“The biggest surprise is among new LLCs, a status many small businesses opt for in order to protect their personal assets: 32,100 LLCs were formed in 2020, up from 28,600 the year before — an increase of more than 12 percent,’’ the NPR station reported.
MIT business Professor Scott Stern told the station:
"That shift towards LLC’s that you identified in the Massachusetts data very much reflects choices of individuals, who found themselves at a moment in life where [they could start] a new business, whether to pursue a passion, or perhaps to undertake some sort of broader [enterprise]. That has certainly been one of the bright spots in an otherwise challenging time."
Of course, many of these businesses won’t last long. But the very fact that they’re being created at such a good clip in difficult, inconvenient times evokes that powerful entrepreneurial energy that has always characterized America.
And necessity is the mother of invention….
To read/hear the WBUR piece, please hit this link:
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And look at the technical creativity that might save endangered Right Whales while helping to maintain the valuable lobster fishery.
This involves doing away with the lines that extend from buoys at the surface down to lobster traps at the bottom. Whales get entangled in these lines and drown, or they might starve to death because they can’t move around to feed. But a new and experimental “ropeless” technology uses acoustic devices that send signals to the bottom that trigger air tanks that inflate air bags that take traps (i.e., “lobster pots”) to the surface. A little Rube Goldbergerish, as we used to say.
Eventually, it is hoped, the acoustic system will also help locate with precision where and whose traps are set over a broad area, so as to avoid conflicts amongst lobstermen.
To read more, please hit this link:
Back Home
Millions have moved back to their hometowns because of the pandemic, many simply because they lost their jobs. Others mostly wanted to be closer to family and old friends in a time of crisis. And more and more white-collar employees can now work remotely. Once back, many returnees seem to have decided to put down roots again, which may decrease the anomie so associated with American life. This is good news for many small towns and cities.
COVID-19 is causing a slew of changes in large parts of American society and economy. And many will be permanent.
Policing the Evaders
The MBTA, whose commuter-rail system is heavily used by Rhode Islanders, is developing a new cashless fare-collection system for its buses and Green Line. The system will presumably be eventually expanded to encompass all of the T’s lines. In the current bus and Green line systems, passengers have to enter at the front door and pay in front of the driver.
The new arrangement will let passengers board at any door and tap on at card readers, with the idea that this will speed boarding and cut trip times.
But this will also presumably make it easier for people to board without paying, exacerbating the MBTA’s revenue ills.
So the T will have to hire new fare inspectors to spot check passengers to see if they’ve paid. But that would be money well spent. In the same way, the IRS should hire many more agents to discourage tax evasion, which has soared in the past couple of decades, especially among the affluent. Remember that the rest of us have to make up the money that they should be paying to help finance government.
Crack down on scofflaws wherever they are. We can’t afford them.
Naming Things in Nature
Walks in the country can be more fun if you know what you’re looking at, including a plant or animal’s official name. Consider Simmons Mill Pond Management Area, in Little Compton, where there are colorful handmade signs that describe the many species of animals and trees, including such locally unusual species as the Southern Flying Squirrel and various trees and shrubs (oak and holly have starring roles in the park), many of them gorgeous. The Simmons Mill Pond area has some species normally found well to the south of us. The relatively mild maritime climate of southeastern New England lets them prosper around here, as global warming is gradually bringing more species north.
(Thank you, Dr. Ed Iannuccilli, an expert in the arts of taking and describing walks, for reminding me of the pleasures of strolling in woodlands.)
When I was a kid living in a town that was a mix of rural and suburban, I knew the names of many more plants and animals than I can remember now, after having lived in cities for just about my entire adult life. We had numerous little colorfully illustrated books as guides. Both my parents knew a lot these names, especially my father, who was sort of an amateur naturalist.
Indeed, as the big company he worked for as an upper-middle-level manager was prepared to be sold, and he found himself out of a job, he applied to be director of a nature preserve on the North River, on Massachusetts’s South Shore. I’m sure it didn’t pay much but he probably would have loved it if offered. As it turned out, he was hired by an old “white shoe’’ Boston law firm as its business manager at a pretty good salary but this meant a continuation of years of long but unpleasant commuting into downtown Boston, and he died six years later.
Shooting at ‘Captive Animals’
His bill probably won’t go anywhere, but I like Rhode Island state Rep. Scott Slater’s idea to ban hunting in confined “preserves’’. I fail to see the real sportsmanship in shooting what Mr. Slater calls “captive animals’’ trapped in fenced-off areas.
One-Stop Coronavirus Shots Coming?
Most intriguing recent news story: Scientists are working on a vaccine that would work against a very wide variety of Coronaviruses – including COVID-19 and the common cold! Hit this link to learn more:
My Motown Years
The death of The Supremes’ Mary Wilson brought back ‘60s memories of the smoky basement of my college fraternity house, where I cemented many friendships, some of which are now being revived via the ambiguous charms of Zoom.
But rather than details of our conversations in that bar- (half keg on Wednesday nights and full keg on Saturday nights)-and-ping-pong-table- equipped cave, the sounds I most remember are those of Motown on our juke box. This was the favored music of the fraternity’s leadership. I had heard little Motown before arriving; the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Mamas & the Papas were the leaders in my Connecticut high school.
Maybe that so many of my fraternity brothers came from big cities (as opposed to the suburbanites that dominated my high school) explains the love of this “Black music”. I got a bit tired of it over three years, but it sure got into my bones and to hear it takes me back to relatively happy days (for me) more than half a century ago.
Surrender or We’ll Kill You
“The president knows who he's talking to when he tweets or when he makes statements, He knows who he's talking to. He knows what he wants them to do.”
--Ret. Gen. John Kelly, former Trump chief of staff after the Trumpers’ Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, which he blamed on Trump, of all people.
“Well, who ya gonna believe me or your own eyes?’’
-- Chico Marx in the 1933 Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup
David Schoen, one of the lawyers defending Donald Trump in the Senate impeachment trial, tried to engage in a kind of extortion, in his lie-filled screed last Tuesday. He said that convicting his mobster/wanna-be tyrant client could bring about a civil war.
This creep screamed that “the so-called trial will tear the country in half, leaving tens of millions of Americans feeling left out of the nation’s agenda, as dictated by one political party that now holds the power in the White House and in our national legislature.’’ And it could “disenfranchise 74-million-plus American voters.’’ (There wouldn’t have been anywhere near that number of votes except for the relentless and brazen lies of the neo-fascist Trump propaganda machine. In any event, Joe Biden got about 7 million more votes than the inciter-in-chief.)
“This trial will tear this country apart, perhaps like we’ve only seen once before in our history,’’ warned Schoen, seeking to rile up the Trump cultists even more than they usually are riled up.
Oh, please! All these Trump backers got to vote in the most heavily monitored and validated national election in U.S. history. They weren’t “disenfranchised’’. But yes, some citizens were disenfranchised -- by Republican-run states’ suppression of voting by members of minority groups, who are generally more likely to vote for Democrats.
Schoen seemed to hold out the threat that the many gun nuts in the Trump base would take action if the Senate convicted Trump for his crimes. His screed was astonishingly irresponsible, even for a well-paid lackey.
In any case, I can assure you that most Republican senators would vote to convict Trump if there were a secret ballot. There won’t be, so these cowardly cynics, who would like their jobs for life, will vote to acquit so the cultists don’t “primary’’ them. Primary elections, especially GOP ones, tend to draw a higher percentage of extremist voters than general elections. Of course, several senators – most notably Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley – are co-conspirators with Trump in what happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
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A Washington Post analysis that that nearly 60 percent of the people facing charges in the Capitol riot showed such signs of prior money troubles as bankruptcies, eviction notices or foreclosures, bad debts, or unpaid taxes over the past two decades. One gets the sense that a lot of these people were living far beyond their means to maintain certain “lifestyles’’ touted by advertising.
Just the sort of troubled people who would be ripe for Trump’s grievance politics. I have run into quite a few people like this myself; most are male; virtually all are white. They’re angry because they feel that they’ve lost socio-economic and racial status.
Would another big economic-relief program calm them down?
Corporate (Mis)Communications
James S. Kunen’s Diary of a Company Man: Losing a Job, Finding a Life is one of the most entertaining tales of the baloney slicer known as corporate communications I’ve read. I’ve done my share of corporate communications as an employee – press releases, speeches, etc. – at various places and came to almost enjoy seeing how PR-conscious companies spin, sometimes elegantly, a web of evasions, hyperbole, euphemisms and outright lies to maintain a certain image.