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Sunday, August 06, 2023

Robert Whitcomb, Columnist

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Robert Whitcomb, Columnist

“All these years I have remembered a nightWhen islands ran black into a sea of silk,A bay and an open roadstead set to a shimmer like cool, white silkUnder an August moon.’’

From “Grievance,’’ by Boston-based poet Amy Lowell (1874-1925)

See:

“What follows the time of developers

No human voice can tell.

But the silent offshore islands know,

And they handle their mysteries well.’’

-- From “The Offshore Islands,’’ by Ruth Moore (1903-1989), Maine writer

“What is {individual} freedom? It consists in two things: to know each his own limitations and accept them - that is the same thing as to know oneself, and accept oneself as one is, without fear, or envy, or distaste; and to recognize and accept the conditions under which one lives, also without fear or envy, or distaste. When you do this, you shall be free.’’

-- Ann Bridge (1889-1974), English writer

Monocultures are bad for the environment, especially as man-fueled global warming stresses much life. The more diversity, the more potential for some species to survive. But much of American suburbia and exurbia is “landscaped” with a remarkably limited range of tree and other plant species. That’s in part because of the limited choices provided by landscapers and tree nurseries, the obsession with perfect (via manmade chemicals) lawns and a few kinds of ornamental shrubs and so on, and because consumers only know about heavily advertised species. But some of those plants won’t survive in many places as the planet continues to heat up.

So mix up your plants.

Trees, of course, are particularly important because they suck up a relatively large share of the excess carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere.

Hit this link:

Whatever, let’s enjoy the late-summer songs of katydids and crickets as we reflect, maybe sadly, on how much earlier night is falling and that the back-to-school ads are appearing in what’s left of the newspapers.

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Michael Fousert, Unsplash

Federal and state highway officials need the authority to direct drivers to electric-vehicle-charging stations with signs. This information could be added to roadside signs (before exits) that point to gas stations, food and lodging, or be on separate signs. They’d encourage more people to buy electric cars. Many potential EV buyers shy away from them because of fear that they won’t be able to recharge on longish trips. (Bathroom signs would be nice, too.)

There are already quite a few charging stations in allegedly environmentally conscious southern New England, but they can be hard to find. It sure would be handy if most highway rest stops had them.

Many highway signs include corporate logos of gasoline companies, such as Mobil and Gulf. Signage rule changes would let them include the logos of such electric-charging station operators as Electrify America and EVgo and Tesla (only for its cars). Since not every EV can be charged at every kind of EV charging station, this specificity is important as we try to get people out of their climate-warming, foreign-dictator-boosting gasoline-powered vehicles. We tend to forget that signs are an important part of transportation infrastructure.

But will NIMBY’s block so much potential solar- and wind-power infrastructure that we don’t have enough electricity in the New England grid to charge all these additional vehicles without large continuing use of fossil fuel to generate electricity?

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I recently discovered, on the East Side of Providence, a short, curving and sloping road bordered by a variety of gorgeous mature trees and beautiful modest-size houses with different facings. I’d guess that they were built in the 1920s, an admirable period for house design, at least around here. To stroll down this road only takes several minutes, but it’s an elixir. I won’t give the name of the road lest it draw crowds.

They Enjoy Swimming in His Sewer

Listening to sleazy Donald Trump lawyer (but I repeat myself) John Lauro defends his client with nonstop lies last week reminded me yet again of the late writer Mary McCarthy’s famous remark about the serial liar, writer and Stalinist Lillian Hellman:

“But I said once in some interview that every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’”

Small Trump donors are helping to pay Mr. Lauro’s big fees.

The bottomless corruption of Donald Trump has been known since the start of his fraud-filled business career more than a half-century ago. He’s a creature from a mobster-like family, and should have been jailed years ago.

Those millions who continue to support him – in the face of decades of damning evidence right up to the present – should be ashamed. They have done great and perhaps permanent damage to America. People can honorably disagree about policies (though some policies may reflect corruption) but there can be little honor in those who back this thug, whose only interests are power, money and being adored by the followers he riles up with his lies and threats. And what kind of example are Trumpists setting for their children in worshipping this emperor of a sewer?

But then, many of his followers would like to be just like him. And yet we so want to believe that most Americans are decent people….Well, some are.

Of course, like all autocrats and would-be autocrats, Trump has been an expert in using voters’ hatred, economic and social resentments, fears and ignorance to gain and retain their worship. Consider dictators from Hitler through to Trump hero Putin. Their playbooks are often similar.

Then there are the very rich amoral folks who have backed people like Trump because of their own greed. It reminds me of the German businessmen, such as the Krupps, who backed Hitler (those big government military contracts to prepare for Nazi invasions!) and even people like the private-equity mogul Stephen Schwarzman, who through the 2020 election was a big financial backer of Trump. Mr. Schwarzman gained much from the Trump regime’s tax and regulatory favoritism toward billionaires.

(By the way, the loud renovations that this Gilded Age-style materialistic exhibitionist has launched at his mansion in Newport is driving some of the neighbors bonkers, though his well-publicized donations to local nonprofits might dilute the anger.)

Now that Trump has been indicted yet again – this time for trying to overthrow the results of the 2020 election by fraud and violence -- we’ll see a further ramping up of this would-be dictator’s quasi-Hitlerian propaganda.

He needn’t worry that many of his followers will actually read the indictment.

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Former President Donald Trump PHOTO: White House

The fascist cancer of Trumpism might be the greatest demonstration of the decline of public and private morality and ethics in America over the past few decades, fueled by such demagogic media as Fox “News,” the decline of civics and history education, and of literacy in general, and the anomie produced by the erosion of family structures and civic groups that can help support community engagement.

Indeed, some of Trump’s appeal to his cultists may be a desire by lonely, anxious people for the warmth of tribe membership in a nation whose famous individualism has become pervasive anomie and even nihilism. It’s a society in which too many people spend their days and nights alone staring at screens – of computers by day and the likes of Fox at night – untethered to traditions of public ethics.

Anyway, we can only hope that, just maybe, this traitor, thief, nonstop liar and pervert, despite all the threats from him and his violence-loving cultists, might finally be brought to justice now that a federal grand jury has indicted him for his acts before, during and after Jan. 6, 2021. Jack Smith, the federal prosecutor of unimpeachable integrity, ability, and courage who put together the vast amount of evidence regarding Trump’s attempted coup, is a hero.

About Mr. Smith:

And Trump A.G. Bill Barr on “despicable” Trump:

A big question is whether and how the GOP can extricate itself from the control of its gangster-in-chief. If not, can a new, responsible right-of-center party replace it? Look to such rare islands of Republican courage and probity as Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, and a few others for lights in the darkness.

Wouldn’t it be nice if America had a principled major conservative party?

But for now, the dominant part of one of our two major parties has shown that it accepts the use of fraud and violence to try to gain and keep power, with the complicity of the economic special interests of which it is a vehicle. Scary, and not just for America.

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US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen PHOTO: US Treasury

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One big thing that would address the debt challenge would be to enact Connecticut Congressman John Larson’s bill to impose Social Security taxes on incomes above $400,000. Social Security taxes now stop when an income reaches $160,200. That means that the Social Security tax is very regressive – as a fraction of income it hits poorer people harder than rich ones.

As veteran Connecticut political columnist Chris Powell, an eloquent conservative (or maybe libertarian) notes, “There are other ways of achieving {long-term} solvency {of the Social Security System} such as by raising the retirement age and cutting benefits, but that would make life harder for the working poor. Indeed, as Larson notes, Social Security is the country’s main and most successful anti-poverty program and has lower administrative costs than other programs. So strengthening it makes sense.’’

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In America, when you call a healthcare provider to report an illness or injury, the provider, or more likely an assistant, is more likely than not to spend most of the conversation taking about insurance matters, not the details of your health problem.

Meanwhile, please look at this about our crazy healthcare “system”:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-08-02/what-health-insurance-companies-won-t-reveal-about-your-medical-bills

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MAP: File

Deals between China and other nations are apt to be good for China, but not so much for other countries.

Consider China’s huge Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which seeks to more tightly connect that nation with much of the rest of Asia as well as Europe via trillions of dollars of spending on roads, railroads and other shipping routes. Sounds benign, but in fact, it’s a way for the Chinese Communist dictatorship to extend its geopolitical and economic power.

Some nations that have joined the BRI are having second thoughts, now most notably Italy, the only European partner so far. Italy, having discovered that trade under BRI overwhelmingly favors China, now seeks a way to quit without angering Beijing too much. The Italian defense minister, Guido Crosetto, called Italy’s participation, which began in 2019, “atrocious.’’

Deals with dictatorships tend to end badly.

Think of the disastrous effects on many American workers of our own trade deals with China, based on wishful thinking that, among hopes, trade would encourage democratization and truly open markets in the Middle Kingdom. Didn’t happen. Those effects, especially on the lower middle class, had something to do with the rise of “populist” extremism that has culminated in Trumpism.

Robert Whitcomb is a veteran editor and writer. Among his jobs, he has served as the finance editor of the International Herald Tribune, in Paris; as a vice president and the editorial-page editor of The Providence Journal; as an editor and writer in New York for The Wall Street Journal, and as a writer for the Boston Herald Traveler (RIP). He has written newspaper and magazine essays and news stories for many years on a very wide range of topics for numerous publications, has edited several books and movie scripts and is the co-author of among other things, Cape Wind.