From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
The three northern New England states – Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine – have had low rates of cases and deaths in the pandemic, especially Vermont. That’s partly because of their mostly rural and exurban character. But it’s also because of good state governance, strong civic sensibility and the stability of communities.
Creative Destruction 101
When seeing the decline of, say, the newspaper business, I think of the disappearance, or at least decline, of businesses my family were in after the Civil War: A great-grandfather’s company made ladies’ riding gloves; another was a partner in a company that shipped guano from South America to make fertilizer (!); other ancestors were in the Midwest iron ore and steel business; some built large wooden boats; one was a partner in a big department store selling stuff to the new rich of Minnesota, and some grew up on farms as recently as the late 19th Century. The economy marches on.
