Whitcomb: E.U. Gets More Unified; COVID Futures; More Bike Stuff; U.S. Democracy in Death Spiral

Monday, June 01, 2020

Robert Whitcomb, Columnist

 

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Robert Whitcomb, columnist

“June at last! No month of the year conjures such pleasant anticipations.’’

-- From New England Weather Book, by David Ludlum and the editors of Blair & Ketchum’s Country Journal

 

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Tomorrow, June 1, is the start of meteorological (as opposed to astronomical) summer and of hurricane season (two Atlantic tropical storms already this year).

 

“We’re so alone, we hardly know ourselves,

to whom our hands belong.

Each day stings. And so we’re shy

with strangers, their disappearing faces.’’

-- From “The Playground,’’ by Lesley Dauer

 

 “Analysts have long talked about the end of the American-led system and the arrival of an Asian century. This is now happening before our eyes.’’

-- European Union foreign-affairs chief Josep Borrell

 

 

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Yellow Vest march in Paris PHOTO: GoLocal

While corruption, xenophobia, arrogance, wishful thinking and incompetence continue to rapidly erode American leadership of the nations and principles (human rights, democracy, modified market economies, basically honest and competent civil services, etc.) that we collectively call “The West,’’ there’s still some good news for it.

 

It comes in the form of a proposal by European Union leaders for a $825 billion COVID-19 rescue plan that would give E.U. funds to poorer member states and otherwise deepen European integration to make The Continent stronger to ward off aggression from the likes of Russia and radical Islam and boost its economic competitiveness with what may soon be the dominant superpower – China.  Crucially, under the plan, the E.U. could raise money on its own, separately from its 27 member states, as the federal government does in America. (That $825 billion is supposed to be paid back but everyone knows it almost certainly won’t be.)

 

The E.U., whatever its sometimes frustrating regulatory apparatus, famously lied about by Boris Johnson, is more or less a democracy, as its members are supposed to be (though Poland and Hungary have been becoming semi-fascist dictatorships in recent years). The E.U. reports to the democratically elected European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, comprising the elected leaders of the member states and a presidency that rotates among them.

 

The key persons in this latest project are German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, who are now the leaders of the West.

 

If democracy and human rights are to regain traction in the world, we’ll have to increasingly look toward Europe for leadership.
 

 

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Image: CDC

Dunno!

Will the pandemic come back stronger than ever in the fall? Are public-health authorities prepared to address the long-term implications of a failure to develop a vaccine with broad efficacy?  We may have to live or die with COVID-19 for years. (No vaccine has been developed for some virulent viruses, such as AIDS and Ebola, despite years of effort.)  And if a COVID-19 vaccine is developed, how broadly and fast can it be made and distributed? And what about the Trump-loving anti-vaxxers? Are those irritating public temperature checks vacuous security theater?

 

Will there be a “V-shaped” economic recovery this summer because of the Feds’ massive relief programs – enough to get Trump re-elected (with the help of voter suppression, out-and-out vote fraud and Putin), followed by a return to recession next winter as the debt crisis explodes and trade wars, which reduce economic growth, intensify? Will this East Coast hurricane season be as bad as some experts predict or is that just hype? But let’s enjoy the summer as best we can while recognizing that, as always, we’re swimming in uncertainty about pretty much everything as we await the next black swans.

                                                                                         

How nice after these past few months, just to sit outside.  And we look forward to smelling fried clams.

 

 

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Logan Haz Mat

Back to uncertainty:

How many indoor restaurants can survive at a mandated 50 percent of previous customer capacity? I’m guessing not many. This summer will provide a big test, especially in such resort towns as Newport.

 

With airline traffic likely to stay low for months, though it will be increasing as pandemic controls expire, what happens to such mid-size airports as T.F. Green? Will there be further consolidation in big hubs? Will Boston’s Logan International Airport take away some of Green’s business, in part because lighter car traffic to Logan will make travelers less daunted by the prospect of driving there?

 

Probably inevitable but sad news: The Providence Performing Arts Center won’t reopen until 2021, a big loss of morale-boosting entertainment and a hefty hit to businesses in downtown Providence. Multiply this sort of thing in towns and cities across the land and it becomes difficult to believe we’ll have a V-shaped recovery.

 

More broadly,  many, perhaps most, businesses will come out of the recession with permanently smaller staffs and with wage cuts (except for people at the top),  whatever you might like to believe from what happens in the alternate reality called Wall Street,  which is being propped up by the Federal Reserve with cheap money, in the antithesis of free-market capitalism.

 

 

Easier to Fix Now

The upside of disaster. The COVID-19-caused lack of traffic has let road and utility work,  such as replacing century-old gas lines in Providence’s Federal Hill neighborhood, be done much faster than anyone could have anticipated a few months ago. This is a reminder that fixing America’s decrepit infrastructure in a sort of WPA-style program would not only employ some of the people who have lost their jobs in our open-ended economic crisis; it would also make us more competitive over the long haul.

 

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Scooter in Providence PHOTO: GoLocal

Bucking the Bike Bathos Redux

How to bring back rental-bike-and-scooter companies to Providence, firms that have left because of thefts and vandalism?

 

For one thing, JUMP, Lime and other “micro-mobility” companies must do what they failed to do before – properly staff their services for oversight, which they have tried to do on the cheap. For another, all these vehicles should be locked in racks between use, and in very open and visible places, so that the police are more likely to monitor them. And surveillance cameras should be installed wherever possible. And as I’ve written before, there should be more serious punishments for stealing and vandalizing these vehicles.

 

Finally, enforce the traffic laws for bike and scooter users for a change!! Stop riders from going the wrong way on one-way streets, running stop signs and red lights, and keep them in their lanes. Will it take a couple of these wild riders getting slammed by a car or truck, and maybe killed, to get the city’s attention and start enforcing the law?

 

Meanwhile, Providence, like many other towns and cities, has closed off blocks of streets to most vehicular traffic in response to the pandemic, turning them into walkways, which I guess many people like, especially now that warm weather is here and after months of COVID claustrophobia. But how is it working out for deliveries, especially now that Amazon is everywhere? How do people living along these closed-off streets (though they can come and go) like it? And will these closures cause traffic jams as more people start driving around on our mostly narrow streets as the pandemic controls are gradually lifted?

 

 

COVID-19 Infects Plans for Huge Boston Project

For an example of how the pandemic might affect development projects in big cities around America, consider that a once-looking-certain $1 billion project to develop the former Flower Exchange in Boston’s South End has been put on hold as developers and the city try to figure out the implications for the project, financially and physically, of the pandemic. Maybe ironically the project would be centered on a four-building biotech complex. It would also include a one-acre park and 30,000 square feet of community space. Maybe set aside space for an open-air face mask market?

 

 

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President Donald Trump PHOTO: GoLocal

Democracy’s Last Stand?

“Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservative  {sic} voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen.”

 

-- One of Trump’s innumerable Tweets last week – does he ever work? -- as he moves further in numerous ways to try to impose a dictatorship. An irony, of course, is that social media, and especially propaganda on Facebook, helped put himself into office! Another irony (?) Trump is an extreme narcissistic, kleptocratic neo-fascist, not a “conservative.’’ As for his Cabinet and other staff, they’re in it for the thrill of proximity to power and the prospect that that proximity will sooner or later pay off in big bucks. Pure amoralists.

 

If Trump is re-elected – and he will do anything to retain power, in part to avoid being indicted – that may spell the end of America’s already deeply decayed democracy. But then, many Americans no longer seem to care.

 

 

Antitrust Back From the Dead

For whatever its reasons, I applaud reported plans by the Trump administration to go after the rapacious monopoly Google for its obvious monopolistic power and activities. I’d hope that the Trump Justice Department would go after Facebook, too, but that outfit, run by the brilliant, endlessly avaricious, quietly ruthless moral midget Mark Zuckerberg, has been very good to Trump.

 

 

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Governor Gina Raimondo PHOTO: GoLocal

An Unlikely Vice President Raimondo

Conservative columnist George Will, who fled the Republican Party because of its ever-deepening corruption and because it’s not conservative, has touted Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo to be Joe Biden’s vice-presidential running mate. But I see little chance of that, as able as she is.  After all, she’s from the same wider region as Biden and is white, at a time when the Dems need the votes of people of color more than ever. For another – and this is very unfair, but so is life in general – she’s too short. But she may well be offered a Cabinet job if Biden is able to win in spite of what will be a vicious GOP campaign against him.


Meanwhile, from time to time Biden (77) makes another gaffe and Trump (74 in June and continuing to lie about everything) and his enforcers use it to claim that the former vice president is demented. Well, I have no firm idea how clear-headed Biden is now, but I can say that even back in the ‘70s, when I reported on him in Delaware, the affable man was famous for verbal gaffes, some of them unsuccessful attempts at jokes.

 

Whatever, given his age, baggage and continuing quirks, his selection of a running mate with administrative and policy competence, self-discipline, and relentless campaign energy will be of vast importance to the country in our current political and economic crises. Experience as a prosecutor, like that of California Sen. Kamala Harris, would also be helpful in running against a lawless regime.  Another veep possibility, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, is also a former prosecutor, but is white.
 

Let’s remember there’s a pretty good chance that a President Biden would die in office. Ditto the fat and old Trump.

 

 

Scenic Threat

There are big and tall trees behind our house on the south side – the direction of the strongest winds around here in hurricanes. They’re gorgeous! But should a couple of them be taken down, or cut way back? It’s a war between aesthetics and safety.

 

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Sometimes nature seems to go too slow (February, November!) and sometimes too fast, as now as the breeze blows away the petals of flowering trees.

 

 

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Americans love their lawns, including in New England, where the natural vegetation is temperate-zone woods, not grass. (The mania for lawns came from England in the 19th Century.) As I strolled on the sidewalk in the afternoon of the beautiful day that was last Wednesday, I spotted a tiny round circular temporary fence around a newly seeded patch in the grass strip between the street and sidewalk that couldn’t have been more than about eight inches wide.

 

At Your Service

I love America’s traditional innovativeness and economic dynamism, though with increasing corporate consolidation unto outright monopolies they have been fading. As someone who’s always worked in the private sector, in small businesses (including as a partner/investor) and large, I find it’s exciting to see the quick response to new opportunities. We sure see that now at the neighborhood level, as entrepreneurs try to meet consumers’ desires for services that are particularly sought in the pandemic, such as errand runs, making more space available in houses and apartments by removing stuff and setting up outdoor furniture and, of course, sanitizing space. And then there are the face-mask makers. Madras anyone? It’s summer!

 

 

Millennial Melancholy

As I have written, the Millennials have really taken it in the ear. Read this piece from last summer about how the next recession, would slam this cohort again, even as they were trying to make up for what they lost in the Great Recession (the one before this). And now….

 

Hit this link:

 

 

Looking Out for Number 1 in Greenwich

There was a terrific article recently in The New Yorker magazine about how rich Republicans in Greenwich, Conn., once known for their moderate, modest, honest, civic-minded “Eisenhower Republican” ways, signed on as Trump supporters. For a simple, amoral reason: He promised to make these already rich people richer by cutting their taxes and slashing regulations and did so. And Trump and “Moscow Mitch” McConnell plan to offer them even more goodies.  In short, it’s all about appeals to pure selfishness, which work very well with this crowd: Vast sums have been flooding into Trump’s campaign coffers from Greenwich plutocrats.

 

The author, Evan Osnos, who used to live in Greenwich himself, also noted the increasing separation of these people from their communities. Look at how so many of them in places like Greenwich have installed very high, menacing walls around their estates, replacing the low stone walls and picket fences that were common around mogul/CEO estates back before the rise of Baby Boomer mega-greed and wealth exhibitionism starting in the ‘80s. I  lived in Connecticut in the ‘60s and have noticed the change in Greenwich and other affluent Fairfield County towns since then.

 

Of course, pretty much all of us lookout for Number 1 but some take that to extremes.

 

To read the piece, please hit this link:

 

 

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Beware of political corruption regarding reporting of COVID-19 data in states run by governors who are Trump allies, states such as Georgia and Florida. They’re suppressing numbers. Consider, for example, that Florida Department of Health data manager Rebekah Jones was fired after complaining that data  that showed that cases were higher than were being publicized were being suppressed. The Sunshine State’s governor, Ron DeSantis, is a noted sycophant of Trump, as are most GOP governors in the old Slave States that are the core of Trump’s support. They’re terrified of displeasing Trump’s MAGA rally/Fox “News’’ base.

 

National public-health officials acknowledge that the national death count from the pandemic is much higher than the “official’’ 100,000, as reported by Johns Hopkins University, reached last Wednesday because it fails to include the many people dying at home, severe limits on testing and other factors.

 

Trump made it clear from the start of the pandemic that he wanted reported case numbers kept as low as possible.

 

 

Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte

If you could just keep all those Trumpians sealed in the convention hall in Charlotte for the entire run of the cult’s national convention in August, who cares if they refuse to wear masks and that social distancing would be impossible? It would be their choice, and, hey, who can like these intrusive rules? But, of course, the cultists would also be wandering the streets, infecting many innocent people. North Carolina might be better off, even with the loss of conventioneers’ spending, if the capo dei capi decides to send the convention to Georgia or Florida.

 

 

Another Coming of Age book

“A Stolen Past,’’ by John Knowles, is a 1983 novel as told by a former Yale undergraduate,  about his friendship with and mentorship in college by a famous writer (based on Thornton Wilder, who died in 1975) and a family of Russian nobility/aristocracy living in a somewhat decayed but grand house on the Hudson north of New York City years after fleeing their motherland after the Bolshevik Revolution. The mysterious theft of a huge diamond plays a major role in this very atmospheric (including the weather itself) narrative. Like much of Knowles’s best work, it focuses on how unexpected and complicated experiences, inspiring and disillusioning, form maladjusted young characters’ sense of themselves and their relationship with others.


Knowles’s first book, “A Separate Peace,’’ published in 1960, has stayed his most famous and is considered a classic. I didn’t read it until many years after that, although I was quite familiar with its setting, a New England all-boys boarding school. It has always surprised me that a book with such characters and, in a way, exotic setting, and what seems to be a gay subtext, has been so enduringly popular.

 

The Russians in the book reminded me a little of Vanya Vosoff, a Russian émigré or exile (he had been an officer in Czar Nicholas II’s army) who married a previously married WASP lady whose family owned a company in the shoe industry. The Vosoffs, with her grandson, lived next door to us in a Massachusetts town in the ‘50s and into the ‘60s.

 

Mr. Vosoff’s English was somewhat eccentric and incomplete but I remember him telling me about some of the plants and animals of the countryside of his motherland. He always seemed to be doing projects in the yard but otherwise didn’t seem to have a job. I wish I had been old enough to ask him about Russia under the old regime, the revolution and the horrifying civil war that followed it. It wasn’t all that many decades before then that those cataclysmic events took place.

 

There’s sometimes a lot of history next door.

 

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