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Breakthrough Swedish Artist

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 24, 2018| 9 Comments »

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Art: Hilma af Klint

While in New York for Thanksgiving we went to the Guggenheim to see an exhibit of art by the pathbreaking Swedish painter Hilma af Klint.

Wikipedia has a good entry on her. It reads in part, “Hilma af Klint (October 26, 1862 – October 21, 1944) was a Swedish artist and mystic whose paintings were amongst the first abstract art. A considerable body of her abstract work predates the first purely abstract compositions by Kandinsky. She belonged to a group called ‘The Five,’ a circle of women who shared her belief in the importance of trying to make contact with the so-called ‘High Masters’ – often by way of séances. Her paintings, which sometimes resemble diagrams, were a visual representation of complex spiritual ideas. …

“Through her work with the group The Five Hilma af Klint created experimental automatic drawing as early as 1896, leading her towards an inventive geometric visual language capable of conceptualizing invisible forces both of the inner and outer worlds. As she got more familiar with this form of expression, Hilma af Klint was assigned by the High Masters to create the paintings for the ‘Temple’ – however she never understood what this ‘Temple’ referred to. Hilma af Klint felt she was being directed by a force that would literally guide her hand. …

“In 1906, after 20 years of artistic works, and at the age of 44, Hilma af Klint painted her first series of abstract paintings. …

“Quite apart from their diagrammatic purpose the paintings have a freshness and a modern aesthetic of tentative line and hastily captured image: a segmented circle, a helix bisected and divided into a spectrum of lightly painted colors. … The paintings often depict symmetrical dualities: … up and down, in and out, earthly and esoteric, male and female, good and evil. …

“Hilma af Klint never dared to show her abstract work to her contemporaries. Her major work, the one dedicated to the Temple, had been questioned and rejected by Rudolf Steiner. Hilma af Klint drew the conclusion that her time was not yet ready to understand them. More than 1200 paintings and drawings were carefully stored away in her atelier, waiting for the future.” More at Wikipedia and also at the Guggenheim. You have until April 23 to see the show.

I include pictures of the unusual museum and of its famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright.

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Giant, Multigenerational Block Party

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 23, 2018| 2 Comments »

 

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New York is the no. 1 Thanksgiving destination — four years in a row now. Crowds of all ages were ebullient despite the coldest Thanksgiving weather in 117 years. I really hadn’t taken in what a humongous block party the city would be.

I managed to get a few photos of Macy’s Parade participants getting ready and a Brunhilde dressing up just because. But it was impossible to get near enough to the actual parade to see the bands or anything not floating way high up. Folks in the know brought ladders. Next time, maybe.

The police, first responders, and other security experts seemed to anticipate every eventuality and the parade went smoothly. Besides huge sanitation trucks blocking streets, there were trash cans and mailboxes locked to prevent dangerous deposits. That’s what we’ve come to, Dears. Let’s just be grateful that human ingenuity continues to find ways to let us carry on.

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There’s Always Something to Be Thankful For

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 22, 2018| 11 Comments »

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Wishing all good things to you and yours. We are in New York to have Thanksgiving with my sister and brother-in-law and Suzanne’s family. Among the things I’m thankful for this year are a few odd “even though/nevertheless” items. Even though the world is very troubled, nevertheless I’m grateful for all instances of kindness and goodness I see. Even though my sister has a bad cancer, nevertheless I’m grateful that she’s doing very well under treatment.

Someone wrote on twitter last week that many extended families are too divided to eat turkey together this year. But we owe it to ourselves and the world to focus on the things we have in common. There’s nothing new about having to avoid politics and religion in big family gatherings. We know how to do that. There are many more things we have in common with others if we’re determined to find those things.

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Aggressive Turkeys Turned into Art

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 21, 2018| 2 Comments »

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Art: Caroline Barnes
An artist from Brookline, Massachusetts, has been having fun with residents’ reactions to aggressive wild turkeys. Check out her new feminist-themed poster on Facebook.

Without doubt, wild turkeys can be obnoxious. But they are also sort of amusing, as are people’s reactions to them. Turkeys have no idea that they are obnoxious, and they have an impressive, if clueless, self-confidence.

With wild turkeys causing a long-lasting uproar in urban Brookline, Massachusetts, a local artist was inspired to poke fun at neighbors’ alarm.

Reporter Steve Annear (who invariably gets the best assignments) has the story.

“They often strike fear into the hearts of those who come across them: feathered foes known to attack people’s cars, chase down residents, and linger in the streets.

“But the turkeys that inhabit Brookline have also become part of the fabric of the community over the years. And for artist and illustrator Caroline Barnes, their presence around town is inspirational — despite the many complaints people may have.

” ‘You either love them or hate them,’ said Barnes, who admits that she falls within the ‘love’ category. ‘I am one of those people that if I see them, I have to stop and have a chat.

‘People will stop and say hello to dogs, and talk to dogs in a dog voice. I talk to the turkeys in a turkey voice.’

“For more than a year, Barnes has been using the turkeys she runs into around town as her muse, creating colorful works of art based on her interactions.

“The works are reminiscent of travel posters from the 1920s and 1930s. Some show angry-looking turkeys breathing fire, flying above the words ‘terror!’ and ‘attack!’ while others paint the birds more whimsically, walking alongside chicks, wearing fancy apparel, or even riding a bicycle.

“ ‘Sometimes we take these birds too seriously,’ she said.

“Barnes, a Brookline resident for nearly two decades, was inspired to start using the turkeys as the focus of her work based on their aesthetic and the way they’ve become a topic of conversation with residents.

“ ‘Plenty of people fear them, distrust them, hate them. But does this stop the turkeys from living their turkascious lives? Heck, no,’ reads a description about Barnes’s artwork on her website, BrooklineTurkeys.com. …

“ ‘They’re terrible. Every year they’re worse,’ one Brookline resident told the Associated Press. ‘I really do think that they’re a menace to the town.’ … But Barnes has nothing but love for the birds, even after being attacked herself. (A mother hen once swooped down on her head, she said.)

“ ‘I find them utterly fascinating,’ Barnes said. ‘Visually, they’re gracefully geometric and beautifully colored. Spiritually — if you can say that, given their little walnut-sized heads — they’re determined. I like that.’ ” Hmm. I guess you could say, “They persist.”

Lots more posters at the Boston Globe, here. Check out the artist’s latest — “Hens of Brookline Rise Up” — on Facebook, here, and on Instagram.

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He Won a Bookstore in a Raffle

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 20, 2018| 2 Comments »

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Photo: Dave Parkinson / The Tivyside Advertiser
Retiring owner of Bookends bookshop in Cardigan, Paul Morris, left, with new owner Ceisjan van Heerden.

Here’s another great story about people who love bookstores enough to try running one. This version is not about taking on the gig for one day, as the New York Times book critic did in this post, or doing it for a vacation week, as I reported here. It’s about completely taking over.

Alison Flood has the story at the Guardian. “The UK’s newest independent bookseller is gearing up to open his doors [November 5, 2018] – after winning a bookshop in a raffle.

“The unusual prize was dreamed up by Paul Morris, who opened Bookends in Cardigan [Wales] four years ago. The shop is profitable and would have made an estimated £30,000 in a sale, but Morris said he wanted to give someone else the chance to realise their dream of running a bookshop. Over the last three months, anyone who spent more than £20 was eligible to be entered into a raffle to win it.

“The name of the winner, Ceisjan Van Heerden, who is from the Netherlands, was drawn out of a hat containing 59 others at a ceremony last week, as Abba’s ‘The Winner Takes It All’ played to a crowd. …

“ ‘I thought about selling it, but I thought instead, let’s give someone an opportunity in life which they might not otherwise have had. The principle was to make sure the shop continues in good hands,’ he said. “[Ceisjan] is a regular customer and I’m really pleased it was him – he wants to run it.’ …

“Van Heerden told the Tivyside Advertiser that he was ‘so shocked’ when he heard he had won. ‘I love books and read a lot and just happened to be in the shop when a TV crew was making a film about Paul’s decision to raffle it off and I bought a ticket,’ said Van Heerden.

“He officially takes over the shop on 5 November and said he is planning to run it with a friend from Iceland, who is now moving to west Wales. Although the pair have been friends online for nine years, they have yet to meet face to face. ‘It might sound strange, but we are sure we can make it work. It is just an amazing opportunity,’ he said.” What could possibly go wrong?

More here.

 

 

 

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Local Garden Gets BBC Spotlight

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 19, 2018| 2 Comments »

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Photos: Lowell Sun/Rick Sobey
Gardener Thomas Sarantakis harvests a watermelon at Mill City Grows’ Rotary Club Community Garden in Lowell, Massachusetts. The garden was recently highlighted in a podcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Many of us are fascinated by news from distant parts of the world. At Suzanne‘s Mom’s Blog, as you know, stories of far-away events and customs get featured quite a lot.

Today in a twist, I’m highlighting something the London-based British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) wrote about near-to-me Lowell, Massachusetts.

Rick Sobey at the Lowell Sun wrote a story about the story in late August.

“The community garden is blossoming in Back Central. Giant kale as tall as the 5-foot, 8-inch gardener, in addition to monster zucchini and an enormous pumpkin.

” ‘Wow, they’re, like, Jurassic,’ Alexis Pancrazi says of the kale at Mill City Grows’ Rotary Club Community Garden.

“Pancrazi speaks to gardeners, immigrants and others to learn about the community gardens’ impact across the city. She recently released her findings in a 27-minute podcast segment as part of BBC World Service’s ‘Neighbourhood’ series. The title of the radio segment broadcast last week was ‘How a Garden Grows.’

” ‘We’ve been working with her for over a year on that piece, so we were really excited it finally aired,’ said Lydia Sisson, co-director of Mill City Grows. … ‘We hope this will bring more attention to the power that community gardens have.’

“The segment shines a light on Mill City Grows’ first community garden, the Rotary Club garden founded in 2012. … The segment discusses how community gardens across the country are blossoming in the place of empty lots and blight.

“In Lowell, the community gardens are helping improve urban access to fresh produce, Pancrazi says.

” ‘It’s so much more than just the food,’ says Mill City Grows Co-Director Francey Slater. ‘It’s the sense of belonging to a community. It’s the people that you meet. That sense of ownership you develop — transforming a piece of your neighborhood that had been blighted and ugly and vacant and dilapidated, into something that’s really rich and lush and welcoming. … There’s something so celebratory about that.’ …

“The series is a collaboration between the BBC World Service and the Sundance Institute. It’s available for streaming here.”

More from the Lowell Sun here.

Hat tip: Meredith on Facebook.

Flowers at the Mill City Grows’ Rotary Club Community Garden in Lowell.

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Ancient Coins Found in Theater Basement

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 18, 2018| 4 Comments »

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Photo: Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities
A trove of ancient gold coins hidden in a soapstone jar was recently unearthed in Como, Italy.

When you were a kid, you believed in the possibility of finding buried treasure. I, for one, believed so thoroughly, I could be easily taken in. My neighbor Kenneth Jukes was a great one for tall tales, and I remember distinctly being persuaded by him that some charcoal refuse in a stream was actually gold. I took it to my parents who were annoyingly skeptical. My grandmother said to my father, “But what if it is … ?” Kenneth looked sheepish.

Nevertheless, people do find gold in unexpected places. Kids may know things grownups have forgotten.

As Amanda Jackson and Gianluca Mezzofiore report at CNN, “Archaeologists are studying a valuable trove of old Roman coins found on the site of a former theater in northern Italy. The coins, at least 300 of them, date back to the late Roman imperial era and were found in a soapstone jar unearthed in the basement of the Cressoni Theater in Como, north of Milan.

” ‘We do not yet know in detail the historical and cultural significance of the find,’ said Culture Minister Alberto Bonisoli in a press release. ‘But that area is proving to be a real treasure for our archeology. A discovery that fills me with pride.’

“Whoever placed the jar in that place ‘buried it in such a way that in case of danger they could go and retrieve it,’ said Maria Grazia Facchinetti, a numismatist. … ‘They were stacked in rolls similar to those seen in the bank today. … They don’t go beyond 474 AD.’ …

“The ministry did not place a value on the coins. But reports in the Italian media suggest they could be worth millions of dollars.

“The historic Cressoni Theater opened in 1807 before transitioning into a cinema and eventually closing in 1997. The site is not far from the Novum Comum forum area, where other important Roman artifacts were discovered, according to the ministry.”

More at CNN.

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The Language of Retirement Studied

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 17, 2018| 5 Comments »

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Retirement means different things to different people. Some people can hardly wait to start traveling or playing golf more. I was always afraid of it — afraid that I would be bored, afraid that I would stop learning, afraid that without the structure of a work schedule I wouldn’t be able to remember what day it was.

In the event, it hasn’t been too bad.

Recognizing the variety of attitudes people have about retirement, the American Association of Retired People (AARP) commissioned a study for use by financial planners (varied attitudes do affect financial planning). I got a kick out of the recommendation about tempering people’s belief in a future consisting of walks on the beach and endless golf. After all, one really changes as time marches on. And I’m particularly aware of that today as my lack of attention entering an on-ramp was a bit responsible for getting my car rear-ended.

Chaiwoo Lee, Ph.D., and Joseph F. Coughlin, Ph.D., have now published “Describing Life After Career: Demographic Differences in the Language and Imagery of Retirement” at the Journal of Financial Planning. I removed references to prior research, but you can find all that here.

“This empirical study was conducted to understand people’s perspectives toward retirement and to describe how views differ between people of various characteristics.

  • “Verbal and visual representations regarding life after completion of a career were collected online from 990 adults in the U.S. to uncover underlying ideas and map key concepts.
  • “A small number of words and features were reported in descriptions of retirement, indicating both an ambiguity and limitation in relating their current selves to possible future states.
  • “Perceptions of retirement were generally positive, and a sense of optimism was evident across different segments.
  • “Some demographic differences were found in thoughts on life after career. For example, people making less than $25,000 a year used fewer positive words and more negative words [editorial comment: No kidding!]; younger adults’ images were more likely to address financial well-being; and older adults and those with higher incomes provided more images related to travel.
  • “Using the results of this analysis, financial planners can better address clients’ emotional needs, rather than solely focusing on rational financial planning. …

“The ambiguity and limited vocabulary associated with retirement might be explained [in part by the fact that] participants were asked to think about an intangible future state, their answers may have been bounded to a small, abstract, and coherent set of words. The observation that younger respondents used more vague and abstract words, while older respondents used more specific words, further supports this explanation.

“The finding can also be explained with portrayals of retirement in public media. Ekerdt and Clark observed that the majority of retirement advertisements did not depict visual images, and the small portion that did focused on leisure and freedom. Such limitation in consumers’ exposure to related concepts may have impacted the results, where ‘relax’ and ‘travel’ were among the most frequent.

“People were generally optimistic about life after completion of career. Most of the words were positive, and images showing life after career were generally more positive compared to images representing today. A possible explanation can come from the positivity bias, or the Pollyanna Hypothesis, which describes that people universally tend to use positive words more frequently and diversely than negative words. It is also aligned with past research that found people to be more optimistic about the distant future compared to the imminent future.

“The majority of such positive words and images addressed emotional values, suggesting a higher emphasis on pursuing emotional fulfillment in retirement. This may be due to related media that mostly convey positive contents around leisure, freedom, personal pursuit, and financial security.

“Results showed some differences in how different segments view life after career. For example, older participants, suburban and rural residents, married people, and men provided more words addressing physical values compared to their counterparts. … The positivity gap between the present and the future were greater among younger participants. However, while images from the younger participants showed wealth, family, and accomplishments with a positive lens, their descriptions lacked in how they plan to reach the ideal future state. [No kidding!]

“These findings have practical implications for the evolving roles of financial planners as curators, educators, and co-creators of retirement. The limited vocabulary and imagery imply that clients may not have a clear, or realistic, vision of retirement. Results suggest that planners may have a new role as curators of possible lifestyles for clients to consider and plan for.

“Respondents reflected inordinately high positivity about their future retired selves. Financial planners may not want to dissuade clients of looking optimistically, but they may find an important role as educators in tempering popular images of beach walks and green fairways with candid discussions of possible futures that may be costly and less positive.” Ha, ha, that’s for sure!

Nevertheless, I thought it was interesting that people think about retirement so differently.

More here.

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How to Halt the Growth of a Desert

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 16, 2018| 7 Comments »

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Photo: Fadel Senna /AFP/Getty Images
The Sahara desert is seen creeping up on a palm field. Desertification can be reversed, but it starts with thinking big.

I’m always so impressed with people who think big about big problems. Here is a credible idea for keeping the Sahara desert from taking over more of Africa. Is it possible? Don’t know. But thank goodness for scientists who get fired up when they hear that something’s not possible!

Dan Charles has a report at National Public Radio (NPR) on how we could reverse desertification.

“The Sahara desert is expanding, and has been for at least a century. It’s a phenomenon that seems impossible to stop.

“But it hasn’t stopped at least one group of scientists from dreaming of a way to do it. And their proposed solution, a grand scheme that involves covering vast areas of desert with solar panels and windmills, just got published in the prestigious journal Science.

“Eugenia Kalnay, a prominent atmospheric scientist at the University of Maryland, has been thinking about this idea for a decade. …

“Her academic adviser at MIT, Jule Charney, was among the first to describe the vicious cycle that can lead to desertification. With drought, green vegetation disappears, and the light-colored dirt that remains reflects more of the sun. This cools the land surface, which in turn means that there’s less heat driving air upward into higher and cooler levels of the atmosphere – the process that normally produces precipitation. So there’s less rain, killing even more vegetation.

“Kalnay wondered if there might be a way to revive those atmospheric currents. ‘It occurred to me that the same [cycle] would go in the opposite way, so it would increase precipitation, and vegetation, and then more precipitation,’ she says.

“And then she thought of solar panels. They’re dark, so they don’t reflect the sun’s light. Could they heat up the surface and revive those rain-bringing air currents?

“Kalnay convinced one of her post-doc researchers to create a computer simulation of an otherworldly Sahara where 20 percent of the land is covered with solar panels. The computer model also turned the desert into a giant wind farm, covered with turbines. Kalnay thought they might also help boost those beneficial air currents.

“And the simulation turned out just the way she’d hoped. It showed rainfall increasing by enough to bring back vegetation. The model showed the biggest increases in rainfall along the southern edge of the Sahara, the area called the Sahel. …

“The super solar farm she imagines is huge, as big as the entire United States. And it would generate four times as much electricity as the entire planet consumes right now. Kalmay talks of novel high-capacity transmission lines delivering power to Europe and the rest of Africa. …

“She’s used to imagining the workings of the entire planet’s atmosphere. A few billion solar panels and windmills in the desert? No big deal.” More at NPR, here.

If you imagine it, it can happen. “The desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.” (Some translations say “crocus.” Check out variations on the quotation here. They all amount to the same thing: imagining “the impossible.”)

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“If you give someone a hand up …”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 15, 2018| 4 Comments »

Three cheers for cities that come up with creative ways to address homelessness! I’ve written about the practice of offering public-service work to people experiencing homelessness in New Mexico and Rhode Island. Now a city in Maine is testing the concept.

Brian MacQuarrie writes at the Boston Globe, “Seven men, stooped and sweating, tear fistfuls of crabgrass and milkweed from a tangle of overgrowth in a large public garden. It’s dirty work for $10.90 an hour, the minimum wage in Maine’s largest city, but there’s not a complaint to be heard.

“ ‘People are always coming by and telling us, “Thanks for helping — it’s looking good,” ’ says Jeff Vane, 49, standing knee-deep in urban brush. …

“Portland officials are inviting panhandlers to put away their signs and put on a pair of work gloves. They clean parks, beautify public gardens, and even place flags at the graves of veterans in exchange for a small paycheck and a possible path to better, lasting employment.

“ ‘It makes you feel good about yourself, makes you feel that you’ve still got it,’ Frank Mello, 49, says of the job. ‘It shows I’m not the homeless bum that people think I am.’

“Portland’s program, nearing the end of its second year, is not intended to erase panhandling, city officials say. Some men and women who ‘fly their signs’ at Portland intersections, most of them homeless and desperate for money, will never be persuaded to put them away.

“But it’s an effort that passes legal muster. Both Portland and Worcester, Mass., for example, had banned panhandling with ordinances that were overturned by federal courts, which ruled that they infringed on free speech. …

“Panhandlers are pitched on the program as a way to leave the streets, connect with benefits such as housing vouchers and food stamps, and find work in the future through a day-labor agency that partners with the city. Participation is voluntary — workers can drop out of the Opportunity Crew program at any time. But so far, no one has been asked to leave for failing to do the job or follow the rules.

‘I’ve always kind of believed that if you give someone a hand up, and if they’re so inclined, that’s all they’re asking for,’ City Manager Jon Jennings said in an interview. ‘I just don’t see as many people panhandling now.’

“The Opportunity Crew has a budget of only $40,000 per year, but the benefits go far beyond dollars and cents, city officials said. Through [late August], 281 bags of trash had been collected this year and 121 syringes removed from public spaces, said Aaron Geyer, who supervises the program. A total of 936 hours had been logged by crews of 6 to 10 people who work Wednesdays and Thursdays from April until October

“ ‘They show up on time in the morning, and they’re ready to work,’ Geyer said.

“The cost of a crew is pegged at $1,300 per week, and business sponsors that help pay for the program are promoted on city signs at the cleanup sites. …

“So far, 17 men and women have found jobs after participating in the Portland program, which Jennings said he hopes to expand. …

“Frank Mello [gives] each of his teenage daughters $40 a week from his Opportunity Crew earnings. The children’s mother died three months ago from a heroin overdose, he said.

“ ‘Basically, I’m working for my children. They need me right now,’ Mello said in a gravelly voice, straightening up as sweat poured from his face. …

“ ‘We all know each other, you know,’ Mello said, smiling and nodding toward his fellow panhandlers. ‘Now, we want to work.’ ”

Read more at the Globe, here. A previous blog post on the concept is here.

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A Silly Experiment

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 14, 2018| 8 Comments »

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Photo: Amherst College
Amherst College holds the original of the only currently authenticated photograph of poet Emily Dickinson, a daguerreotype.

A follower of this blog is Romanian and has a blog with a feature I hadn’t seen before. When you click on an individual post, you get a drop-down menu on the right for choosing any language you want the post translated into. I have used English, of course, but I’ve also tried French and Esperanto.

This got me thinking about Google Translate, a terrific service but imperfect. And I thought, What if we played a game of Telephone with Google Translate? You remember Telephone, I’m sure. A group of people sit in a circle, and the first person whispers a phrase in the ear of the second, the second whispers it in the ear of the third, and so on. When you get to the end, the phrase is usually mangled in an interesting way. and everybody laughs about what they thought they heard. (I had fun playing Telephone with an ESL class last year. You can just imagine!)

For my experiment, I decided to use a bit of poetry by Emily Dickinson and translate it into different languages and back into English between languages. I stopped when I got a translation that was kooky enough for my taste.

Let me know if you can think of other ways to play the Google Translate game.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all

“Esperanza” es la cosa con plumas –
Que se posa en el alma
Y canta la melodía sin las palabras –
Y nunca se detiene – en absoluto (Spanish)

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul
And sing the melody without the words –
And it never stops – at all

“Hope” est la chose avec des plumes –
Qui se perche dans l’âme
Et chante la mélodie sans les mots –
Et ça ne s’arrête jamais – du tout (French)

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
Who perches in the soul
And sing the melody without the words –
And it never stops – at all

“Hopp” är saken med fjädrar –
Vem perches i själen
Och sjunga melodin utan orden –
Och det slutar aldrig – alls (Swedish)

“Jump” is the case with feathers –
Who perches in the soul
And sing the melody without words –
And it never ends – at all

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Immigrants Make Communities Safer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 13, 2018| 6 Comments »

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Mural in Little Village, a Chicago neighborhood with a strong Latino presence. Most research shows a correlation between immigrants moving into communities and an improvement in safety for all residents.

Despite lots of reliable data that immigrants tend to improve the safety of communities where they live, misperceptions persist. Naturally, anyone who is a dangerous criminal, whether a US citizen or immigrant, must always be dealt with, but people who come here just for a decent life are as likely as anyone else — maybe more likely — to try to make communities better.

Chiraag Bains, a senior fellow at Harvard Law School’s Criminal Justice Policy Program, talks about the issue at the Marshall Project.

“A trove of empirical research contradicts the notion that immigrants are [a] violent criminal horde. … In fact, studies consistently show that they commit significantly less crime than native-born Americans, and although the data are difficult to untangle, this appears to be true of both authorized and unauthorized immigrants. Even more, new findings suggest that immigrants may actually cause crime to decline in the areas where they live.

“In a study published recently in the Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, researchers analyzed Census Bureau and Federal Bureau of Investigation crime data across 200 metropolitan areas in every census year from 1970 to 2010….

“The researchers found a reduction of almost five violent crimes per 100,000 residents for every 1 percent increase in the foreign-born population. Analyses of city- and neighborhood-level data in ‘gateway’ cities such as New York, Chicago, Miami and El Paso have similarly found that violent crime rates — homicide rates in particular — are not higher, but actually lower in areas with more immigrants. This might help explain how violent crime dropped 48 percent over the same period that our undocumented population grew from 3.5 million to 11.2 million.

“One example of this effect in action is the Canarsie section of Brooklyn. Researchers with the Americas Society and Council of the Americas found that as white residents fled the neighborhood during the 1990s, the threat of depopulation and disinvestment was countered by an influx of immigrants, mostly from the Caribbean. Today, Canarsie has below-city average rates of poverty and housing vacancy, and its crime rate dropped from just above the city average in 1990 to 44 percent below the city average in 2010.

“There are logical reasons immigrants would be less likely to commit crimes. They may represent those among their countrymen with the most motivation and the greatest ability to seek a better life abroad. They may also have the most to lose, especially if they entered illegally or have family back home counting on their income.

“There are also explanations for why immigrants help bring down violent crime — apart from the fact that they commit less of it. New immigrants often repopulate hard-hit neighborhoods and increase the labor market opportunities of native-born workers. They also tend to create and strengthen social institutions in their neighborhoods, leading in turn to communities that are more stable and safer. This is the explanation scholars find most likely.”

More here.

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Art Ramble in Town Forest 2018

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 12, 2018| 14 Comments »

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I finally got to this year’s Art Ramble in Concord’s Hapgood Wright Town Forest — site-specific creations from the Umbrella artists planted among fallen logs and leaves.

There were quite a few other visitors on the cold, sunny day. One couple shared a laugh about their madly yapping dog, who had been spooked by the recumbent figure of Thoreau in the woods. Another couple discussed with me the best way to avoid a shadow on the chicken-and-egg-sculpture. And a friendly woman who was a United Church of Christ minister and artist herself joined me for half the walk. We helped each other spot pieces that blended in so much with the surroundings that at first, when you saw a descriptive sign but no art, you would think the work had already been removed.

I particularly liked the tiny people — one hermit in contemplation under a root, others peeking out of the bark or cavorting on a dead log.

A man with a top hat and frog face was standing next to the pond — a Slavic water spirit and trickster that I am happy to know about.

My favorite this year was the spirit emerging from the earth at the base of a tree. At first I thought, Caliban, but then looked at his gentle face.

My report on the 2016 Art Ramble is here, and the one on the 2017 Art Ramble is here.

If you live in Massachusetts or are visiting Walden Pond, which is nearby, the Art Ramble is up until Nov. 30 this year. It will make you feel like creating some art yourself — especially with leaves and sticks and mud.

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Waiting in Wartime

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 11, 2018| 4 Comments »

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For Veterans Day, I want to give a thought to the people who wait, the families left behind, the people who love the service member and who try to stay upbeat and keep their worry from showing.

There’s a song that captures what the person left behind feels when alone and not obliged to put up a brave front. It’s called “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

Let’s start with what Wikipedia has to say about the song’s history.

” ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ is a popular song, with music by Sammy Fain and lyrics by Irving Kahal. Published in 1938, it was inserted into the Broadway musical Right This Way, which closed after fifteen performances. …

“The musical theme has emotional power, and was much loved during World War II, when it became an anthem for those serving overseas (both British and American soldiers). The lyrics begin, in Bert Ambrose’s and Vera Lynn’s recorded versions, with a preamble:

Cathedral bells were tolling and our hearts sang on
Was it the spell of Paris or the April dawn?
Who knows if we shall meet again?
But when the morning chimes ring sweet again

I’ll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day through
In that small cafe
The park across the way
The children’s carousel
The chestnut trees
The wishing well
I’ll be seeing you
In every lovely summer’s day
In everything that’s light and gay
I’ll always think of you that way
I’ll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
But I’ll be seeing you
I’ll be seeing you

 

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Site Your Solar Array on Developed Land

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 10, 2018| 4 Comments »

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Large-scale solar “farms” are becoming the norm across the country. It’s best to put them on places that are already treeless. We need trees to absorb carbon and give us oxygen.

There’s an organization I follow on twitter, @ecorinews, that has made me more cautious about the renewable energy I advocate. I love that people are using more solar energy, but it should not be at the expense of trees, which are also important in controlling climate change. There are plenty of buildings and already empty spaces where panels could go.

Still, it’s heartening to see communities embracing sustainable energy, and I liked a story from Vermont about strange bedfellows getting the message and working together on solar — on a landfill.

Matt Hongoltz-Hetling wrote about the collaboration at the Valley News in September.

“As Vermont’s ever-shifting energy landscape continues to shake up the renewable energy sector, a community solar array coming online this month will showcase a new twist on existing financial models.

“ ‘This is a hybrid,’ said Dori Wolfe, whose company, Wolfe Energy in Strafford, has purchased two shares — at a cost of $2,784 each — of the 185-kilowatt array, which is sited beside a closed landfill site just off Route 113 in Post Mills.

“Community solar arrays — those which serve multiple customers, some of whom might not have solar-friendly homes — are nothing new in Vermont. …

“The nearly finished ‘Thetford-Strafford Community Solar’ array is designed to generate 230,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity during its first year, enough to power about 35 average Vermont homes.

“But it differs from projects in neighboring towns because it will be the first solar farm to serve a mix of customer sectors — the array is a partnership between residential customers, a commercial farm, and the town of Thetford itself. …

“Wolfe said that, among the 25 member-owner shareholders, the commercial entity — Dave Chapman’s Thetford-based Long Wind Farm — acts as the anchor, and purchased enough of the roughly 185 shares on offer to create a critical mass that allowed area residents to buy into the entity, ‘Thetford Strafford Community Solar LLC.’

“The shareholders (who live in Thetford, Strafford and Norwich) expect to recoup their investment and then some through reduced electric bills — about 85 percent of the electricity produced at the site will be sold to Green Mountain Power through the state’s net-metering program, which guarantees customers a minimum rate for feeding solar energy back into the grid.

“The remaining 15 percent of the power will be sold to the town of Thetford at 90 percent of the normal utility rate, which Wolfe said will exert downward pressure on the property tax rate. …

“Wolfe said she hopes that the Post Mills project will lead to a second phase in which more solar is installed on top of the adjacent landfill.

“Though having more solar options is expected to help more Vermonters access renewable energy, a report released earlier this summer by the Energy Action Network suggests that more regulatory action will be needed to get the state on pace for its ambitious goal of achieving 90 percent renewable energy by 2050.

“The state has made progress — in 2017, Vermont energy use was 20 percent renewable, up from 12 percent in 2010. But it is significantly off pace. … In 2017, the rate of newly added capacity was down 30 percent as compared to 2016, and new wind generation has seen an even steeper decline, according to the report.

“There are several reasons for the slowdown. … A new, 30 percent federal tariff on solar panels produced overseas [has] affected pricing, leaving solar projects looking for new ways to make the numbers work.” More.

If you are interested, click here to see what Rhode Island is doing to encourage siting of solar arrays on developed lands, like the landfill used in the Vermont story.

Does your community have a policy to spare forests from being taken down for the otherwise worthy purpose?

Photo: Tim Faulkner/ecoRI News
The Office of Administration, featuring the solar array below, is one of three Rhode Island government buildings to join the Lead by Example initiative.

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