Whitcomb: Outboards Over Oysters; Ocean Plastics Lab; Inflation Then and Now; Belarussian/Russian

Sunday, November 14, 2021

“Hanging on, oaks rattle maroon clusters

against winter. But these, resinous in flues,

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blamed for a history  of cellar holes,

snap in the cold and fall

to shapes like dragons asleep….’’

-- From “Pitch Pines,’’ by Brendan Galvin (born 1938), a distinguished poet who lives in Truro, on outer Cape Cod, where there are still a lot of pitch pines

 

 

“Friendship is not possible between two women one of whom is very well dressed.’’

-- Laurie Colwin (1944-1994), American writer particularly well known for her portrayals of New York society

 

 

“Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities’’ {which we’ll buy for Christmas}

-- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

 

 

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And so it goes…. The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council is expected to nix a request by Perry Raso, the owner of the famed Matunuck Oyster Bar, to expand his aquaculture operation on Potter Pond by three acres to increase his production of oysters and introduce scallop farming, too. He now farms seven acres – 2 percent of Potter Pond. Increasing his state lease by three acres, in the pond’s Segar Cove, would boost it to a gigantic 3 percent!

 

The CRMC has a policy that no more than 5 percent of a coastal salt pond could be devoted to aquaculture.

 

Mr. Raso is stymied by well-heeled opponents with high-priced lawyers, with the majority of those who sent written objections (summer and weekend people) from out of state.

 

Their main complaint seems to be that this expansion would unduly limit their recreational activities, such as water skiing, tubing and kayaking, most of which take place for only about three months a year.  Aquaculture is year-round.

 

The water-skiing lobby seems to be the most vehement. While oyster and scallop farming are good for the environment – the shellfish filter the water, reducing its murkiness – water skiing adds to air and water pollution caused by outboard and inboard engines, makes a lot of noise and disturbs fish and other wildlife.

 

All too often, it seems, the nonscientists/gubernatorial appointees on the CRMC succumb to pressure from those who have the fanciest lawyers rather than follow the advice of its scientifically trained staff, who in this case have supported Mr. Raso’s application, whose approval would be good for the local economy and the environment of Potter Pond.

 

Of course, the usual assortment of affluent NIMBYs say they’re all in favor of aquaculture, wind turbines and other spreading operations for the common environmental good, just not near them.

 

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My paternal grandparents lived in retirement on West Falmouth (Mass.) Harbor, on Cape Cod. Most of the houses were summer places, with only a few year-round people, such as my grandparents. (Part of my grandmother’s family, originally Quakers, had been living in the area since the 1660s.)

 

People would come from all over the area to dig for clams and oysters. Before a terrible oil spill in Buzzards Bay in 1969, it was one of the Cape’s richest sources of shellfish. We used to dig up cherrystone clams by the dozens and then impatiently open up some to drizzle with lemon and eat them standing on my grandparents’ little stone dock.

 

There were few complaints about the many clamdiggers descending on the harbor. It was just considered a normal part of living on the water.

 

Downtown Providence Food Court

This sounds like a fine idea. The Capital Center Commission is considering a proposal by Marsella Development Corp. to build a one-story food court in the area between the old Union Station, where the Rhode Island Foundation hangs out, and Memorial Boulevard. It would draw many people downtown, offsetting some of the damage done by the pandemic. Shades of Boston’s Quincy Market. Would it sell Matunuck oysters?

 

Let’s hope that the structure, if it’s built, is of some architectural distinction. Paging Friedrich St. Florian and Christopher McMahan?

 

 

The Plastics Peril

The state is giving the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth a $739,936 grant to help develop a new research and development facility in New Bedford called the Plastics Biodegradation Laboratory. The project is getting an additional $450,000 from private industry, including advanced-materials companies such as PrimaLoft, and will get other, matching grants, too.

 

This is part of New England’s budding “Blue Economy’’.

 

UMass says:

 

“The lab … will study biodegradable and ocean-safe plastics. {It} will enable efficient testing of plastic biodegradation, helping address the significant waste caused by traditional plastics used in textiles, packaging, and other products that accumulate in the ocean and other water resources.’’

“The main biodegradability lab will be housed at UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science & Technology (SMAST) campus in New Bedford, a newly expanded state-of-the-art facility with classrooms, labs, and offices for faculty, staff, and students.’’

 

I hope that many more researchers around here are working on this! Plastic pollution, especially in the ocean, is an intensifying ecological nightmare. And maybe the Whaling City will soon get more such ocean-related research labs.

 

To read more:

 

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An article in The Atlantic discusses the severe ecological effects of the catastrophic whale-killing by humans over hundreds of years and how to reverse some of those effects. Spoiler alert: The key is putting iron in the water.

 

To read the piece, please hit this link:

 

Readying a Rail Renaissance

The $1.1 trillion infrastructure bill should provide enough money to finally get Taunton, Fall River, and New Bedford their rail connection to Boston. It may even provide enough funds to close Amtrak’s crazy one-mile gap between South and North Stations.

 

This would take many thousands of cars off the roads.

 

Densely populated southern New England needs a thicker passenger-rail network. For that matter, decades ago it had that much denser system, before the railroad companies got out of the business.

 

Biotech Bonanza and Discontents

There’s been some neighborhood opposition to the biotech boom in Greater Boston, but the lure of money from these operations should more than offset that opposition. The complaints are mostly that biotech labs require big buildings with what can be noisy air filtration and other systems, along with many employees.  Oh, dear, some NIMBYs complain, parking will get tighter! A pesky problem from prosperity.

 

Some of these structures will be retrofitted office buildings. Many companies are requiring far fewer office workers these days – a trend vastly accelerated by COVID-19. Real-estate companies see biotech as a savior in filling up these expensive buildings as much of finance and other sectors stick to mostly remote work.

 

The biotech boom could also be a savior to such local service businesses as shops and restaurants. That’s because, unlike a lot of white-collar operations, labs require a full complement of people to work together in-person full time. So they’ll be there to patronize local businesses. And the lab workers’ hours are often long, meaning that many will be customers for restaurants, etc., in the evenings, too.

 

So Rhode Island in general and Providence in particular (in the Route 195 Redevelopment District) need to keep pushing to get those biotech jobs, some of which may come from Boston-based companies seeking cheaper space. Brown University will be the most important partner in this. Some old mill buildings may be adaptable for this industry. And maybe someone will come up with better mufflers for the labs’ HVAC and filtration systems.

 

 

‘Whip Inflation’ Then and Now

Back in the ‘70s, when I worked for The Wall Street Journal, Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford came under fire for high inflation (higher than now). Poor Jerry Ford even brought out special “WIN” buttons (Whip Inflation Now), urging the public to help out through patriotic buying and saving discipline. Jimmy Carter was also denounced for rising prices, and so was George H.W. Bush 30 years ago, the last time inflation was as high as it has been recently.

 

In fact, they were unfairly blamed.  Broad national and international forces, such as supply-chain dislocations, parts and commodity shortages, and consumer-demand surges, cause inflation, and presidents can do little about them. (Note that few people besides business owners are complaining about the higher wages that are accompanying the current round of inflation.)

 

Eventually, the inflation will slow as the consumer buying mania that has accompanied the unexpectedly robust and fast stimulus-fueled recovery from the pandemic-caused recession cools off,  companies work out supply-chain issues,  the ongoing technological revolution (automation, etc.) cuts costs and the Federal Reserve Board raises interest rates. (It was severe tightening of monetary policy (which caused a deep recession) and a sharp decline in the world price of oil that halted roaring inflation in the early ‘80s.) Meanwhile, of course, Joe Biden will get blamed for everything, as were his predecessors. You could, of course, blame him, Trump, and Congress for economic-stimulus programs that have fueled consumer demand, but they were responding to the severe threat of a long and deep recession.

 

Something that would reduce inflation quickly would be for consumers to eschew buying so much Christmas stuff (most of it made abroad) from big-box stores and online and buy more locally sourced stuff from locally based brick-and-mortar retailers. We’re fortunate around here to still have many such stores selling things at reasonable prices. And that would cut down on front-porch thievery of stuff left by Amazon, etc.!

 

Belarus/Russia Weaponize Desperation

Belarus, ruled by gangster Alexander Lukashenko, is working with his boss, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin (Trump’s pal, or blackmailer) to attack the European Union by sending thousands of Third World refugees to crash Belarus’s border with Poland.  They’re also pushing up against Latvia and Lithuania, but the main pressure is against Poland.

 

This is in retaliation for European Union and other Western sanctions against Belarus for Lukashenko’s innumerable human rights violations, and it’s in effect an act of war. And of course, Putin’s still angry about sanctions against his gangster regime.

 

Belarus, with Moscow’s encouragement, is collaborating with human traffickers to fly migrants into Belarus to be sent to try to push into the E.U.  at the Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian borders. But Putin also may be using this mess to insert Russian agents, hidden in the throngs crashing the border, into the E.U. to cause trouble there.

 

Evil enough for you?

 

And now Lukashenko is threatening to block gas supplies to the E.U. (Yet another reminder that the sooner we’re off fossil fuels the better.)

 

Appeasement never works for long with bullies. So let’s hope that Putin’s suggestion that the E.U. pay Belarus to stop the flow is rejected. Lukashenko and his crew would steal the money anyway.

 

Rather, economic sanctions should be severely tightened against Lukashenko and Putin and more troops sent to protect the border, not just Polish troops, but in a sign of solidarity, troops from other E.U. nations, too. Lukashenko and Putin and their entourages have not been nearly as penalized as they should be.  The Russian dictator, by the way, is by some estimates the world’s richest man. Being a kleptocratic fascist dictator pays well!

 

Many close observers of Russia over the years agree with Bill Browder,  a former investment fund manager in Russia and a writer, who said a few years back: 

"After {Putin’s} years in power in Russia, and the amount of money that the country has made, and the amount of money that hasn't been spent on schools and roads and hospitals and so on, all that money is in property, Swiss bank accounts--shares, hedge funds, managed for Putin and his cronies.’’

The E.U. and U.S. should also immediately pressure as hard as possible Middle Eastern governments (of course all except Israel are deeply corrupt dictatorships) and airlines to stop collaborating in people smuggling to Belarus.

 

Sadly, three decades after the last Cold War ended, we’re in another one, with new weapons to worry about.  “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.’’

 

 

Wondering About a Wealth Tax?

The debate goes on about implementing a “wealth tax’’ on the current assets of billionaires, which won’t happen because, among other things: a) billionaires have so much clout in Congress b) it would be adding many more acres of administrative swamp to the Western world’s most complicated and understaffed tax system and c) it hasn’t worked well even in social-democratic Europe.

 

By the way, as a general rule, the more complicated the tax code, the better it is for the powerful, who have the means to game it.

 

Hit the link HERE for a good discussion of the wealth tax, including practical ways to decrease income inequality and the huge, inordinate and growing economic and political power of billionaires, much of which is multigenerational, as America moves deeper into a kind of plutocratic feudalism.

 

What would serve as a real “tax cut’’ for most everybody paying income taxes would be simplifying tax returns to avoid the hours and hours of preparation and hefty fees to professional tax preparers. Perhaps some sort of modified flat tax? But tax-code writing has become so opaque and corrupt that won’t happen any time soon.

 

I suppose estate taxes are the fairest.

 

 

CRT Not a Menace

No, “Critical Race Theory’’ isn’t being taught in public schools, and won’t be. It’s something you see discussed in colleges and law schools.

 

But warning that it’s coming to your kids’ schools is a good way to get elected to offices, as recent elections suggested.

 

Wikipedia has a surprisingly good summary of what it is. (Most people who denounce it don’t bother to find out what it is):

 

It’s a “framework of analysis and an academic movement of civil-rights scholars and activists who seek to examine the intersection of race and law in the United States and to challenge mainstream American liberal approaches to racial justice. CRT examines social, cultural, and legal issues primarily as they relate to race and racism in the United States. A tenet of CRT is that racism and disparate racial outcomes are the result of complex, changing, and often subtle social and institutional dynamics, rather than explicit and intentional prejudices of individuals.’’

 

But “wokeism’’ can get out of control, including in the public schools.

 

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I’ve always been mystified by the  architectural aesthetic that makes the garage door the most prominent feature of the fronts of so many single-family houses.

 

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Mannie Lewis, of The Boston Guardian, reports that brothels were common for decades in that city’s South End. Well, as Calvin Coolidge noted, “the business of America is business,’’ but this industry was becoming  a neighborhood problem in the ‘40s as customers often mistakenly knocked on the doors of houses that weren’t housing brothels,  irritating the presumably respectable people inside.

 

So residents came to an agreement with the brothel operators for the latter to paint their first-floor lintels red so there would be no confusion.

 

How inspiring to have such good neighbors.

 

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The first frost of the season looked like powdered sugar on the still-green grass.

 

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The Providence Art Club’s annual  “Little Pictures Show,’’ now underway, with over 600 works for sale, seems to have become the New England art community’s biggest seasonal extravaganza.

 

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If you live in and around Providence and want to know where the screaming of a gasoline-powered leaf blower is coming from, it’s a  good bet that a company called City & Estate Gardener is causing the racket. The company seems to have a particular affection for these torture devices.

 

 

Fraudulent ‘Originalism’

Thoughts on the judicial “originalism” praised by the Republican members of the U.S. Supreme Court from Bill Blum, a  retired California judge and lawyer:

 

“The new theory is little more than an intellectual shell game in which contemporary {right-wing} political preferences are shuffled around and made to appear part of the Constitution's original meaning.’’

 

“Originalism has led the court to enter a legal fantasy world in which the answers to contemporary questions about such matters as voting rights and gerrymandering, union organizing, the death penalty, search and seizure, gun control, abortion and campaign finance are to be found solely in the meaning that the Constitution had for the Founding Fathers in the late 18th Century….

 

“{T}he doctrine asserted that the most important terms and provisions that appear in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, such as ‘freedom,’ ‘liberty,’ due process’ and ‘cruel and unusual punishments,’ should be understood {by mind-reading?} as the ‘original intent’ of the Founding Fathers, rather than as broad concepts that acquire depth, content and more complete meaning over time in response to changing social conditions.’’

 

To read his entire piece, please hit this link:

 

 

Grinding Out Novels

“He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach –that it makes no sense.’’

From American Pastoral (1997)

 

Blake Bailey’s Philip Roth: The Biography is a marvel of research and engaging writing. I won’t get into literary criticism here except to say that one of Roth’s late novels, the reflective Everyman, is my favorite of the dozen or so Roth novels (out of his 30-plus books) I’ve read. I found the trilogy of American Pastoral, I Married a Communist and The Human Stain very memorable, too. They’re brilliant narratives about what are particularly American psychological, social and political conflicts, especially about identity. (No, I haven’t yet read his outrageous dark comedy Portnoy’s Complaint, though I’ve heard many allusions to one of literature’s most famous livers.)

 

Bailey’s book reminds us of how much more central literary fiction used to be in American culture. Novelists such as Roth, Norman Mailer, John Updike and so on were major public figures, whose faces (and personal scandals) were known to millions. Not so much now in our increasingly “virtual” world.

 

It was also good to read about how much intense discipline and solitude goes into literary achievement. While Roth had a busy and  (too) complicated sex/romantic life, had many friends (including estranged ones) and could be very sociable, much of his waking hours were by himself at his typewriter. He was immensely disciplined, amidst the chaos around him, when it came to writing. He sought out artists’ retreats such as Yaddo, in Saratoga, N.Y., where he could avoid as many distractions as possible, and spent much time as a semi-recluse at work in his house in the Connecticut countryside after he became famous.

 

Writing novels, even bad ones, is mostly hard, lonely work.

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