Treasuring the Blackstone Valley
— Map by Karl Musser
From ecoRI News (except for map above
Members of some of the many nonprofits invested in the lower Blackstone River wish to respond to the article Hidden in Plain Sight: Neglect Along Lower Blackstone River and share a more optimistic view of the river and the incredible work that is ongoing. We’d like to clarify the record that partner organizations believe in coalition-building and are active, coordinated, and committed to making the Blackstone watershed a better place for us all to live, work, and play through our dedicated efforts around restoration, stewardship, and access of this Blackstone River. We recognize that our future depends on a healthy watershed – for recreation, tourism, economic development, and public safety.
There has been an incredible history of grassroots organizations in the Blackstone River Valley that have made great strides in cleaning and protecting the Blackstone River (just look up ZAP the Blackstone in 1972 – it wasn’t just a one-time effort; it still stands as the largest one-day clean up event in U.S. history, removing 10,000 tons of debris from the river), but due to low capacity from communities and organizations, those efforts were opportunistic instead of comprehensive. There was a need for a centralized group with sustained internal capacity to organize across the 475-square-mile watershed, encompassing a population of more than 1 million people along the river’s 48 miles – much like the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council, Mystic River Collaborative, and many others have done so successfully in other regions.
The Blackstone Watershed Collaborative began in 2021 to serve as an umbrella organization to encompass the 100+ diverse existing partners already committed to protecting the river, including nonprofits, state agencies, tribes, and others that have been working tirelessly for decades to improve the health of our region. Capacity building, convening through our monthly, open public meetings, and supporting shared priority projects remain a central role that the Collaborative provides from Worcester to Pawtucket. (Need help on something related to improving our shared watershed’s resilience? Let us know – we respond to nearly a hundred technical assistance requests each year.)
While we might be pretty new, we interact with over a thousand people each year through fun events, informative webinars, direct community support, and more. We also partner together across existing groups that have worked for half a century and learn together – including the Blackstone River Watershed Association, established in 1969; Blackstone River Watershed Council/Friends of the Blackstone (1990); Blackstone River Coalition (2007); and Blackstone Valley Tourism Council (1985). We know, there are a lot of groups and it can be confusing – that’s why we recently created a new page explaining each Blackstone group’s mission and what they do.
The article noted that it would have been helpful for the Collaborative to bring together partners and shape the National Heritage Corridor in the 1980’s – and it sure would have been, but it didn’t exist for another 40 years. However, we work closely with those organizers – including the subsequently formed Blackstone Heritage Corridor nonprofit – and are using our coordinating power to seek a Wild and Scenic Designation for the Blackstone River, which would similarly bring national attention and funding to the region to improve its natural and cultural resources. This is especially important when considering equitable access to those resources, which the Collaborative is working to improve, including through their paddling guide and free programming and Mish(Kittacuck)sepe Restored work to identify new or retrofitted access points.
The article states, “The Blackstone has a similar course [to the Woonasquatucket]; its southernmost cities, such as Pawtucket and Central Falls, mirror the demographics of Olneyville, while its northern watershed borders some of the most sparsely populated parts of southern New England.” However, the Blackstone has significant areas of environmental justice (EJ) populations, starting at its headwaters in Worcester, Mass. The 2020 Environmental Justice Populations Map shows EJ block groups including minority, income, and English isolation. It continues to run through pockets of EJ populations in Millbury, South Grafton, and Blackstone, Mass. In R.I., each community along the river includes some EJ populations. These communities across the watershed often lack capacity to work across jurisdictions – another role the Collaborative serves, to bring people together across boundaries.
Due to its steep nature, dropping approximately 438 feet in 48 miles, the Blackstone was a home of the Industrial Revolution – damming the river and using it for water power to run textile mills, using the river only for our own benefit, to the water’s detriment. According to the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park, there were around 40 dams built on the Blackstone River, 22 of which remain – nearly one every two river miles. These dams create a barrier to fish migration, trap legacy contaminants such as heavy metals, create warm impoundments, and increase flood risks to adjacent communities. The Collaborative is working with numerous partners to study the river’s dams and create a plan to improve natural hydrology as well as outline ways to enhance recreational access to the river through their Mish(Kittacuck)sepe Restored project. The project also will identify priority areas to improve free, equitable public access as well as priority dams whose removal could benefit the local ecosystem, economy, and community resilience.
As another part of that project, we’re working with Horsley Witten Group to create the first study of the flow of the river and canal to better understand opportunities for river improvements in both flood and drought conditions. The Collaborative has met with each of the communities along the river’s mainstem to incorporate local plans and goals into this effort and has also reviewed dozens of historic documents to build from past efforts around restoration and stewardship in the Blackstone Valley. In fact, the Collaborative has taken on several large-scale complex projects to improve conditions for all watershed residents, including working with Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission to create a 9-element Watershed Based Plan to document existing watershed conditions, create water quality goals, and make a plan for implementation of projects (our first public meeting is coming up in March; stay tuned).
Near Pawtucket, where this article focuses, the Collaborative leads a Fish Passage Community Advisory Committee (CAC) to help migratory fish return to the Blackstone River for the first time in over 200 years – a goal that has been identified in local, regional, and federal plans for decades. We’re working alongside numerous partners including the Narragansett Indian Tribe, the Hassananmisco Nipmuc Band, the National Park Service, Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM), the City of Pawtucket, the Blackstone Watershed Council, Save The Bay, The Nature Conservancy, and many others. Building from our partners’ work over the past 30 years, the group has established plans and applied for more than $20 million in funding to create the first fish passage project on the main stem of the Blackstone River at Slater Mill and Main Street in Pawtucket.
Just upstream on the border of Central Falls, the CAC is working to explore alternatives to get fish through or around Elizabeth Webbing Dam. From there, the owners of Central Falls Dam, which is next in line and would be legally required under their federal energy license to construct passage for fish. Our goal is to allow these fish to access their ancestral breeding grounds at Valley Falls Marsh for the first time in centuries – supporting local tourism, ecology, recreational fishing, and indigenous connection.
To encourage community engagement and ensure transparency and collaboration are central to the project, the Collaborative has hosted a postcard writing campaign as well as three “fish parades.” We invite you to learn more and join us at our next fish parade with the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council on Saturday, May 16, where you’ll be able to kayak or join the Explorer riverboat to experience those spawning grounds yourself and hear more about this project. There’s nothing like seeing a river from the water to truly understand and appreciate it, which is why we work with partners to host a source-to-sea paddle each September to keep eyes on this invaluable resource we all share and identify ways to improve it – including a free public paddle starting from Pawtucket’s Festival Pier, ending in a free public celebration at Narragansett Brewing.
The Blackstone River is not an “inconvenient backyard.” It’s a beautiful recreational and ecological treasure that we need to all recognize and embrace in order to turn this river’s decades of abuse into a future of stewardship. For millennia, this river was a clean home to fish and wildlife and the original stewards of this river, including the Narragansett, Aquinnah, Wampanoag, and Nipmic tribes, who saw the river as a relative to be cared for, to be thankful for, and to honor for its incredible offerings. The Collaborative’s goal is to transparently work together through its numerous partners across the watershed to build a groundswell of support, love, and understanding of this often overlooked waterway and recognize its beauty. We hope you’ll join us in seeing the Blackstone River not as an inconvenience, but as an opportunity, and explore how you can steward and care for this dear relative that we all depend on.
This article was signed by the staff and board members of the Blackstone Watershed Collaborative and Blackstone River Watershed Council/Friends of the Blackstone.
What does it really mean?
“The Victorious Allies” (1918) (oil on canvas), by N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945), in the show “For Which It Stands,’’ at the Fairfield (Conn.) Art Museum, through July 25
The museum says:
“Commemorating the 250th Anniversary of the U.S., this major loan exhibition explores key moments in our country’s history through artworks depicting the American flag, from WWI to the present day. Artworks on view will challenge viewers to consider who the American flag truly represents and whether justice is available to all.’’
Spring cloth
“Calico Garden” (cotton, 48 1/2x 381/2in), by Florence Peto, in the show “Varied and Alive: Rarely Seen Treasures From the Collection,’’ at the Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Vt., May 9 - Oct. 25.
—-Photo by Andy Duback.
Dan Kennedy: What Wash. Post-eviscerating Bezos could learn from The Boston Globe and four other papers
“Newspaper Readers” (1840), by Vienna painter Josef Danhauser.
From The Conversation, except for image above
Dan Kennedy is a professor of journalism at Northeastern University.
He is the co-leader of the “What Works: The Future of Local News” project at Northeastern University. He is a member of the editorial advisory board of CommonWealth Beacon, a digital news outlet that covers state politics and public policy in Massachusetts. Kennedy is also on the board of the Local Journalism Project, the nonprofit arm of The Provincetown Independent, which is organized as a for-profit public benefit corporation.
BOSTON
The Washington Post’s evisceration at the hands of its billionaire owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, didn’t have to happen.
Following months of speculation, the Post cut at least 300 of its 800 journalists on Feb. 4, 2026, drastically reducing its international, local and sports coverage and eliminating its photo department and stand-alone book review section. The downsizing followed several decisions by Bezos that drove away hundreds of thousands of subscribers, from killing the Post’s endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris just before the 2024 election to announcing that the editorial pages would henceforth be dedicated to “personal liberties and free markets.”
But though those moves inflicted considerable damage, the paper had been floundering ever since Donald Trump’s first presidential term, when Bezos proudly added the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” to its nameplate and the paper achieved both growth and profitability.
While its principal rival, The New York Times, successfully pivoted by rolling out ancillary products such as games, a cooking app and a consumer guide, the Post lost momentum – and was then pushed off a cliff as Bezos, in my view, started placing a higher value on peace with Trump than on making sure that democracy didn’t die in darkness.
I’m a journalism professor and the author of three books about the future of news. I tracked Bezos’ stewardship of the Post during better times in my 2018 book,The Return of the Moguls: How Jeff Bezos and John Henry Are Remaking Newspapers for the Twenty-First Century. And I’ve been watching in horror over the past several years as he’s dismantled much of what he built.
The Times, as the nation’s leading newspaper, is unique, and the extent to which other publishers can learn from its example is limited. But if Bezos ever decides he wants to take journalism seriously again, then he might take a look at a handful of large regional papers that have charted a route to sustainability against the strong headwinds that continue to buffet the news business.
5 good examples
Perhaps the most important difference between these papers and the Post – and the hundreds of other shrinking media outlets owned by corporate chains and hedge funds – is that they are rooted in the communities they cover. Whether owned by wealthy people or run by nonprofits, they place service to their city and region above extracting the last smidgen of revenue they can squeeze out.
Although I could add a few to this list, I am mentioning five large regional newspapers as examples of how it’s possible to succeed despite the long-term decline in the economics of journalism.
These papers have an array of ownership models.
The Boston Globe and The Minnesota Star Tribune, both for-profits, were bought in recent years by the billionaire owners of sports teams.
The Seattle Times, another for-profit, has belonged to the same family since 1896.
The Philadelphia Inquirer was acquired by a billionaire and donated to a nonprofit foundation in 2016, making it a leading example of a hybrid for-profit and nonprofit model.
The Salt Lake Tribune, which a billionaire bought from the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, was converted to a pure nonprofit – the first such paper to undergo such a transition.
Also known as major metropolitan dailies, these papers are all smaller than they were during the heyday of the 1970s and ’80s. Although the for-profit papers are privately owned and do not publish financial results, I’ve learned through years of reporting that the generous profit margins that once characterized newspapers have all but disappeared. Still, these papers have maintained substantial staffs and are their regions’ leading, though not sole, news providers.
The front page of The Washington Post on Aug. 6, 2013, announced that Jeff Bezos had agreed to buy the newspaper from the Graham family. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Common themes
It’s hard to identify specific reasons why these papers have succeeded, but a few themes emerge.
The Boston Globe and The Minnesota Star Tribune, for instance, have both expanded into other geographic areas. The Globe has moved into Rhode Island and New Hampshire – with more to come in 2026.
Similarly, the Strib, as The Minnesota Star Tribune is known, now covers news across Minnesota, well beyond its base in the Twin Cities.
The Globe has also balanced experimentation with attention to the basics.
Not long after John and Linda Henry bought The Globe from The New York Times, in 2013, they started a separate digital publication called Crux, which covered the Catholic Church. It failed to attract advertisers, and the Globe spun it off; Crux continues under different ownership.
Meanwhile, another Globe-owned startup, Stat, which covers health and medicine, grew into a successful venture during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As for the basics, The Globe charges a premium for its journalism – as much as $36 a month for a digital-only subscription. And though paid digital circulation has stalled over the past year at about 260,000, that’s considerably more than most papers in its weight class.
The Star Tribune, owned by sports mogul Glen Taylor, unveiled a new, paywall-free breaking-news blog in the midst of the sometimes deadly immigration enforcement actions in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The paper also offers unlimited gift links, so that paid subscribers can share stories with others, as well as a family subscription plan. And it has a nonprofit fund to which donors can make tax-deductible contributions to support the paper’s journalism.
By the way, the idea of setting up a separate nonprofit arm was pioneered by The Seattle Times, although it has become increasingly common.
The Seattle Times recently handed off management of the paper to Ryan Blethen, who represents the fifth generation of his family to serve as publisher. In contrast to formerly family-owned papers such as the Courier Journal of Louisville, Kentucky, and The Des Moines Register, whose large families forced their sale two generations ago, The Seattle Times has actually become more independent: In 2024, the Times bought out Chatham Asset Management, a private equity firm that had controlled 49.5% of the paper.
Chatham also owns the McClatchy chain of newspapers, which includes well-known dailies such as the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star and The Sacramento Bee.
In addition to the for-profit model, two other ownership structures have shown promise.
In 2016, H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest donated The Philadelphia Inquirer, which he and a partner had bought just two years earlier, to a nonprofit that was renamed the Lenfest Institute following his death, in 2018.
The Inquirer itself is a for-profit public benefit corporation, a designation that eases the standard corporate requirement that it maximize earnings, while the nonprofit helps support journalism at the Inquirer and other news organizations.
The paper has thrived under the new arrangement, with the publisher, Elizabeth Hughes, writing recently that the model could be used to revive the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, on the opposite end of Pennsylvania.
The Post-Gazette’s owners, citing mounting losses, have announced that the paper will shut down in May.
And though The Salt Lake Tribune is the first – and, still, the only – metro daily to embrace a pure nonprofit model, it stands as an intriguing idea that could be emulated elsewhere.
Billionaire owner Paul Huntsman converted the paper to a nonprofit in 2019 after buying it from Alden three years earlier. Executive editor Lauren Gustus said recently that the Tribune is expanding both the size of its news staff and its coverage area, and it’s dropping its paywall in favor of voluntary payments. That’s similar to how nonprofit public radio and television stations support themselves.
A poster boy for decline
The past two decades have not been kind to the newspaper business. More than 3,500 U.S. papers have closed in that period, according to the most recent State of Local News report from Northwestern University’s Medill School. By eviscerating The Washington Post, the very institution he had previously done so much to build up, Jeff Bezos has transformed himself into the poster boy for that decline.
Yet here and there, in communities across the country, newspapers are reinventing themselves.
There are no easy fixes. But perseverance, innovation and a relentless focus on serving the public are the keys to success, regardless of ownership structure or geography. Bezos could learn from these models.
Crash in the dark
“Night Skiing” (acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas), by Julia Blake, at Portland (Maine) Art Gallery.
Boston: Where a parking space can cost more than a condo
The North Terminal Garage, at 600 Commercial Street, in Boston’s North End. Built in 1925, it’s one of the few such surviving parking facilities from that era in the United States.
Slightly edited from article in The Boston Guardian.
Photo is from elsewhere.
(Robert Whitcomb, editor of New England Diary, is chairman of The Guardian.)
By Brandon Hill
Last year, a wave of headlines drew attention to the rising cost of permanent parking in Downtown Boston when a parking space at the Brimmer Street Garage was listed for $750,000. That price, the high end of luxury parking spaces, drew attention as an outlier, but what once felt extreme for parking pricing has increasingly become normalized.
Rene Rodriguez, senior vice president at the Cabot & Company real- estate firm and the agent who eventually sold the Brimmer Street spot for $600,000, says set a record at that garage.
Just hours before being interviewed for this story, Rodriguez closed on an off-market parking sale at 74 Commonwealth Avenue for $425,000. He said he’s been working in the market for 28 years and recent years have seen the market for deeded spaces in areas like Back Bay, Beacon Hill and the South End steadily tighten.
That recent sale, he said, reflects how many high-end parking deals now happen quietly without ever being publicly listed.
“The way those spaces normally work is the attendants in the garage keep a list of people who are interested in purchasing parking there, and when a seller says that they want to sell their space, they call the next person on the list,” Rodriguez said. “They’re not necessarily priced to market, and they’re not exposed to market forces.’’
It’s difficult to determine what might be considered a “market rate” for permanent parking for those in the market to buy. Two years ago, The Boston Guardian reported the sale of permanent spaces downtown ranging from $150,000 to $500,000 and that range remains broadly true, while it becomes more common for sales to creep up to and over that top end.
“Wilkes Passage Condominiums, in the South End, has a garage attached and you’re allowed to sell the spaces separate from the condominiums upstairs. However, they can only be sold to South End residents,” Rodriguez said. “Just seven or eight years ago, those spaces were trading for $50,000 to $80,000, and now the minimum purchase price is $150,000. It’s easy to sell, but those prices have gone up considerably.”
Many deeded spaces are sold with the purchase of a condo, so they can be hard to value, but Rodriguez said that’s often a deal-breaker on the sale of the property.
“In Beacon Hill, most of the houses do not have parking. You’re starting to find townhouses there priced from $10 million to $50 million and up, and at that point, people demand parking,” Rodriguez said. “It’s convenient, but at that point it’s also an investment because you could be sitting on a $15 million house and they’re going to pass it over because it doesn’t have parking.”
Still, he cautioned that these spaces are not easy investments. “You can’t finance them. You need to find cash buyers for them,” he said. “It has to have its own plot plan, a separate tax bill to be able to sell it.”
While the city had not returned a request for comment as of the date of this publication, Rodriguez said that city policies like the Downtown Parking Freeze have little to no effect on the sale prices of permanent parking spaces.
Under rules dating back to the 1970s and administered by the Air Pollution Control Commission, the freeze caps the number of off-street commercial parking spaces in the downtown area at 35,556, with 4,188 spaces available, as of July 17, 2025, that developers or property owners can allocate for new or expanded parking facilities. This reflects only a slight change from the 4,869 spaces available when The Boston Guardian reported this story in 2024.
Residential parking remains exempt from the commercial space cap, but anyone planning new shared or public commercial spaces downtown must navigate the permit process and the limited supply of “freeze bank spaces.”
“Freeze bank spaces" refer to a specific inventory of off-street parking spots held by a regulatory body—such as the City of Boston Air Pollution Control Commission— not currently in use but that can be allocated to developers or property owners for new or expanded parking projects.
Commuter caravan
“Homeward Bound” (photo), by Carol Wontkowski, in the group show “A Delicate Balance,’’ at Galatea Fine Art, Boston, through March 1.
‘Discover in stone’
Cutting through granite in Waterbury,Vt., in the late Fifties as part of the construction of Interstate Route 91.
“When highway-makers cut through a granite hill, scoring
deep trench-sides with vertical drillings, they leave behind
glittering sculptures, monuments to the granite state
of nature, emblems of permanence
that we worship in daily disease, and discover in stone.’’
— From “Granite and Grass,’’ by Donald Hall (1928-2018), of Wilmot,N.H., poet and essayist. He served as U.S. poet laureate.
Here’s the whole poem:
https://folklife-media.si.edu/docs/festival/program-book-articles/FESTBK1999_12.pdf
Disaster reconfigured
“The Raft of the Medusa,’’ by Dogwood Messer, at Concord (Mass.) Art, in the group show “Homages,’’ April 2-May 10.
The gallery says:
“‘Homages’ brings together artists whose work honors the ‘masterworks’ and historical movements that preceded them, or use the act of tribute to elevate the humble and everyday into something worthy of praise.’’
“The Raft of the Medusa” (painted 1818-1819), by French artist Théodore Géricault (1791-1824)
Chris Powell: Bribing Conn. voters won’t lessen poverty
Demonstration in Washington, D.C.
- Photo by Djembayz
MANCHESTER, Conn.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont's address this week welcoming the General Assembly back to work was reminiscent of the old lament about election years -- that people in a democracy are easily bribed with their own money.
Such a bribe was the highlight of the governor's remarks -- his proposal to issue “tax rebates," $200 for single people, $400 for married couples. Meanwhile people around the state, most of them associated with the governor's own party, are clamoring for state government to appropriate more money for social needs state government still neglects.
Many of those needs are more compelling than the needs or wants of many of the people who will receive those “tax rebates." But who will be candid about the incongruity?
That is, the “tax rebates" are needed most to help re-elect the regime so that it can hold power for another four years in the name of addressing all those unmet social needs, though those needs seem only to increase as more is spent in the name of alleviating them. Seldom are any problems actually solved.
The governor's address inadvertently acknowledged that poverty has been worsening in Connecticut during his administration.
Once upon a time in Connecticut most parents could feed their children before sending them to school. Indeed, once upon a time most children in Connecticut had two parents. Now many children in Connecticut -- most children in the cities -- have only one parent, if that, and many arrive at school unfed and distracted by hunger. It's a big problem. So the governor would have all public schools provide free breakfasts.
Not long ago most working people in Connecticut had jobs requiring a skill level, and their compensation included adequate employer-sponsored medical insurance. Not anymore. Today many young people in Connecticut graduate from high school largely uneducated and qualified only for menial work. As a result more adults are working in minimum-wage jobs once considered entry-level. So the governor wants state government to offer a “public option" program of medical insurance for people who don't qualify for Medicaid, insurance for the destitute.
The governor said he will appoint a special commission to study the funding of elementary and high school education. It would have been better to study why poverty is worsening. For everyone in state and local government already knows that funding lower education is always a tug of war between state taxes and municipal property taxes, with most of the money ending up with members of teacher unions, who control most municipal spending by virtue of the binding arbitration of their contracts.
Nearly every legislative session tinkers with school funding formulas without ever improving student performance. Formula tinkering is just the illusion of concern and action, since student performance is not a matter of per-pupil spending at all, but almost entirely a matter of per-pupil parenting, which can't be discussed though it is at the center of the poverty problem.
The governor noted that Connecticut's high housing prices are impoverishing people who don't own their housing. But he seems to expect far more housing construction than is likely to result from the state's new law restricting municipal zoning. With 169 cities and towns in charge of housing development, there will be little urgency and accountability. What's needed is a state housing development agency to acquire and take control of the sort of vacant or underused city and inner-suburb properties the governor cited in his address, and to contract for middle-income housing to be built on them urgently.
Instead the other day the governor proposed to apply rent control to apartments owned by out-of-state landlords, a demagogic form of expropriation that will inhibit housing creation.
As most legislative sessions do, the new one will produce a lot more spending, which will be euphemized, as the governor did in his address, as ‘‘investment," a presumption that government spending is always productive. It isn't. After all, as the Lamont administration's most recent scandal has shown, state government lately has “invested" hundreds of thousands of dollars in Hartford Sen. Douglas McCrory's girlfriend.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).
Heat pumps help
Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
What a boon the rapidly spreading use of heat pumps is for heating and cooling in places like New England. As expensive as our being at the end of natural-gas pipelines now is, heat pumps, solar, wind, and geothermal systems offer hope for the region gaining energy independence within the next couple of decades.
Meanwhile, under a $180 million deal with utilities, the administration of Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healy, who is running for re-election, Bay Staters will pay around 10 percent less for natural gas and electricity in February and March. Then they’ll make up for that in the warmer months to follow. Sounds reasonable. But imagine how much cheaper and more reliable energy would be if all the state’s energy came from such local sources as solar, wind, geothermal and so on. It is technologically possible.
For success, ignore the facts
Henry Adams at work.
“Practical politics consists in ignoring facts, but education and politics are two different and often contradictory things.’’
— Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918), American historian and memoirist and scion of the famous Massachusetts Adams family. His book The Education of Henry Adams is considered one of the greatest nonfiction works of the 20th Century.
Yes, it does end
“The Passing of Winter’’ (1923), by Paul Bernard King (1867-1947), at the Westerly (R.I.) Museum of American Impressionism.
He was a prominent American Impressionist painter and illustrator known for rural landscapes and maritime subjects.
‘Lingers into uneasiness’
“what could have flickered (on the cusp of a verge of reality)”, by Kal Hart (installation view), at Unbound Visual Arts, in the Brighton section of Boston, through Feb. 15.
— Image courtesy of Unbound Visual Arts
The gallery explains:
This interactive exhibition is a “collection of seemingly innocuous objects that evoke curiosity; one that lingers into uneasiness. Visitors are encouraged to indulge their curiosity and offer their ‘input’ by interacting with objects in the exhibition.’’
Llewellyn King: The energy sector and government are inconstant lovers
U.S. energy consumption in 2023.
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
Politics and science are always falling in love, but they seldom live happily ever after. Quick to embrace, messy to separate is the pattern.
Nowhere has this been clearer than with energy, where projects are dependent on some form of government approval, endorsement, funding and sometimes direct involvement — for example, when the Army Corps of Engineers designs a hydroelectric project or the government’s commitment to take nuclear waste.
The late Financial Times science editor, David Fishlock, with whom I collaborated for many years, advised me to be wary of government falling in love with science, because of the catastrophe that ensues when government falls out of love with it.
Consider the love affair between successive U.S. presidential administrations, from Dwight Eisenhower to Gerald Ford, and nuclear power. The administration of Jimmy Carter was cold to nuclear — a cooling that lasted long after he left office.
Carter, a nuclear engineer himself, delivered the lethal kiss when he described nuclear as the choice of last resort. He favored coal and conservation as the best energy policy, and created the U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corp. to exploit coal. Carter envisioned a time when coal would answer most energy needs: coal in the form of synthetic gas, liquid fuel for transportation, and plenty of coal-fired electricity.
Options were few.
I had worked with the Atomic Energy Commission’s Gorman Smith — who later became executive director of the U.S. Energy Association — on a study for President Richard Nixon on the crisis after the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973, and we found the energy cupboard bare. At that time, only nuclear and coal were options. Natural gas was believed to be a resource of the past — the first deputy energy secretary, Jack O’Leary, described it as “a depleted resource.”
Wind and solar were in the dream stage, although the national laboratories were doing yeoman’s work on them.
What wasn’t known was the extent to which technology would upend the energy ecosystem and take it from dearth to abundance.
While Ronald Reagan’s heart was with nuclear, his energy secretary, John Herrington, spooked the debate with his constant leaking to The New York Times about the problems with nuclear waste, and particularly with the large nuclear reservation in Hanford, Wash., where defense waste is stored, dating back to the early days of the Cold War.
Reagan significantly advanced natural gas by deregulating the market and easing the restrictions imposed on it.
Deregulation primed the pump for the explosion that was to come with the perfection of an old technology, fracking, and other technological breakthroughs, particularly horizontal drilling and 3D seismic imaging in gas and oil exploration. A final tech boost to gas was the surge in deployment of aeroderivative turbines — jet engines on the ground — in the late 1980s. They burn gas far more efficiently than placing it directly under boilers, a so-called thermal gas system.
The Joe Biden administration was committed to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, primarily carbon. It shifted dramatically away from coal and gas and embraced renewables. That administration’s embrace was part of a worldwide transition to renewables, sometimes with aggressive encouragement through loans and tax breaks.
Now with Donald Trump, we have an administration that worships gas, venerates coal, and has come down heavily against wind, especially offshore turbines, even as the world — including China and Europe — has embraced them. It has also criticized solar power, but with less vehemence than its criticism of wind generation.
Nuclear is a favorite now with Democrats and Republicans. However, the Trump administration continues to hamper wind energy, going so far as to cancel offshore leases, while trying to resuscitate the coal industry.
Politics is at work, orchestrating what the administration hopes will be the end of wind and solar.
It also puts them at odds with the big tech companies, which are desperately seeking more green power for their data centers.
Another victim of the administration’s energy policy is hydrogen, a darling of the environmental movement.
The utilities have been here before and have developed a quiet skill in appearing to go along even while they plan — which they do in 25-year cycles — against the four-year political horizon. They have chosen not to challenge the administration’s position with a collective voice.
At present, the administration’s official line is that there is no global warming. The president has called it a hoax and a con. However, utilities are struggling with extremes of winter cold and summer heat that they haven’t historically experienced.
Keep quiet and keep the lights on is the undeclared utility strategy.
On X: @llewellynking2
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS, and an international energy-sector consultant.
Renuka Rayasam: What to do if you lose medical coverage because of Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’
From Kaiser Family Foundation Health News (except for image above)
“If my patient tells me, ‘Doc, I’m gonna have to pay for this out-of-pocket,’ I’m gonna make a different risk calculus.’’
— Ateev Mehrotra, physician and researcher at Brown University, in Providence.
Health policy changes in Washington will ripple through the country, resulting in millions of Americans losing their Medicaid or Affordable Care Act coverage. But there are still ways to find care.
Over the next decade, the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act is expected to slash nearly $1 trillion in spending from Medicaid, the state-federal program for people with low incomes and disabilities. The implementation of new work rules will cause some beneficiaries to lose their Medicaid coverage.
Millions of Americans are facing enormous increases in their out-of-pocket costs for ACA coverage. So far, 1.2 million fewer people have signed up for Obamacare plans compared with last year, and health policy analysts estimate more will lose coverage as they fail to pay their premiums.
Health costs are a top concern for Americans. Two-thirds of the public say they are somewhat or very worried about affording health care, more than express the same worries about utilities, food, housing, or gas, according to a January poll from KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.
“All of this pain just doesn’t have to be there,” said Cheryl Fish-Parcham, director of private coverage at the health consumer group Families USA.
Doctors and health policy researchers say health coverage, of any kind, is the best protection against major medical debt.
Caitlin Donovan, a senior director at the Patient Advocate Foundation, recommends exhausting every available option for health coverage before going uninsured.
Even a high-deductible plan can protect patients from medical bankruptcy “if the absolute worst-case scenario happens,” she said.
Here are five ways that the uninsured can find affordable care.
1. Don’t be afraid to talk with your doctor about money.
Patients can be hesitant to tell their doctors they’re uninsured or be wary of expressing concern about being able to afford care.
But some hospitals, physicians, and other providers offer cheaper cash pay options, said Cynthia Cox, a senior vice president and the director of the Program on the ACA at KFF.
Often prices are negotiable. “Always ask,” she said.
Health-care providers can make adjustments if they know patients are worried about money, said Ateev Mehrotra, a doctor and researcher at Brown University.
“If my patient tells me, ‘Doc, I’m gonna have to pay for this out-of-pocket,’ I’m gonna make a different risk calculus,” Mehrotra said.
That doesn’t mean a patient won’t get the care they need, he said. A doctor, for instance, might order an ultrasound instead of an MRI, which is more expensive.
2. Search for providers that specifically work with uninsured patients.
If your usual provider won’t budge on prices, then search for providers that cater to patients without insurance.
Federally qualified health centers, or FQHCs, and other community clinics offer routine and non-emergency care, such as treatment for flu or infection, for low-income residents and the uninsured. Community health centers charge based on a sliding scale and see 52 million patients annually in some of the country’s most underserved areas, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers.
The Trump administration has made funding cuts that might lead some of the country’s approximately 1,500 FQHCs to close or cut services. But the administration still maintains a site to find a local center.
Planned Parenthood also accepts uninsured patients. Its centers test for sexually transmitted diseases, provide birth control options, and offer postpartum and gender-affirming care and other services.
And the National Association of Free & Charitable Clinics also offers a tool to help people find free or low-cost care.
Most community clinics don’t offer specialty care, but they can usually refer patients who need more intensive services to providers willing to work with uninsured patients.
And academic medical centers tend to have more charity care programs that help uninsured patients lower their bills.
“If you’re uninsured or even underinsured, you might be able to qualify for a significant discount on the cost of your care,” Cox said.
Still, be wary of heading to the emergency room, which is the most expensive place to get care. While ERs are federally required to stabilize all patients regardless of their ability to pay, they can still leave you with a big bill — and often do.
3. Call your local health departments.
Health services vary widely from county to county, but many offer free vaccinations, family planning services, and testing for sexually transmitted infections, as well as for flu, covid, and tuberculosis.
Some county health departments also offer more advanced care, such as dental services and mental health or substance abuse programs. And some states have consumer assistance programs that can guide residents in finding care, Fish-Parcham said.
In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program makes free or low-cost breast and cervical cancer screenings available to low-income women in all states and territories. And some states cover screenings for other types of cancer as well.
4. It’s easier to shop around for drugs than doctors.
Don’t just fill your prescription at the closest pharmacy. Instead, research generic drug options and look around for the best price on brand names.
A handful of sites such as GoodRx and WellRx offer comparison shopping tools and information on other ways to get drug discounts.
And some retailers offer low-cost access to common prescription drugs — at prices cheaper than you would find if you had insurance. Walmart, for instance, sells 90-day prescriptions of dozens of generic versions of drugs for $10. As do Target, Costco, and a new site called the Cost Plus Drug Company.
Many drugmakers also offer patient assistance programs, coupons, and rebates on some medications. Check their websites for details on how to apply.
States also offer drug assistance programs. The steps to qualify and types of drugs vary, but this tool has a list of programs and how they work.
Joining a clinical trial is another way to access treatment. The National Institutes of Health and its National Cancer Institute have lists, but patients must first meet the criteria. Clinical trials aren’t necessarily free, even with insurance, Donovan said, so be sure to ask about any associated costs.
5. Your diagnosis might lead you to specialized resources.
Patients with a specific diagnosis might have additional options for specialty treatment.
For example, someone with breast cancer should check with the American Cancer Society and the nonprofit Susan G. Komen organization, Cox said.
The Patient Advocate Foundation hosts a list of vetted foundations that can help offset the cost of medical bills and provide other resources such as transportation and lodging, Donovan said. Just type in basic information such as age, location, and diagnosis to see what is available.
Disease-specific foundations such as those for lupus or irritable bowel syndrome can also steer patients to free or low-cost resources or cover some costs of care, Donovan said.
“Everything is out there,” she said.
As you research affordable care options, don’t be tricked by plans that look like health insurance but don’t offer guaranteed protection against big bills.
Some short-term plans and health care sharing ministries might seem like good deals, but read the fine print. Some red flags to look for: too-good-to-be-true monthly payments; no coverage for preexisting conditions; morality clauses such as those prohibiting the use of alcohol or drugs; or a lack of coverage for benefits such as mental health counseling that are required in ACA plans.
Renuka Rayasam is a KFF correspondent.
KFF Health News correspondent Sam Whitehead contributed to this report.
Beloved elm tree turned into sculptures
William Penn and Indians with treaty under a large elm in 1683, as shown in a painting by Benjamin West.
Excerpted (but not image above) from article in ecoRI News.
PROVIDENCE — Eiden Spilker’s adventure turning a 100-year-old elm tree into art was “sort of happenstance,” he said, or perhaps a series of happenstances.
Spilker, who graduated from Brown University in 2024, is a technical specialist and maker-in-residence at the Brown Design Workshop, where students and members of the community have access to sewing machines to 3D printers.
The artist had studied architecture and visual art at Brown and worked at the Design Workshop as a monitor when he was a student.
“I basically stayed on to sort of build out the woodworking area and be a resource for community members if they have questions about projects, to do more specialized workshops,” Spilker said.
While Spilker was studying at Brown and setting himself up for his first post-grad job, an elm tree with a gigantic canopy, a fixture on the university’s Main Green, was dying.
Estimated to be between 80 and 120 years old, the elm had escaped Dutch elm disease, the illness that had hit Brown and Providence’s other historic trees almost a decade earlier, and was instead falling victim to things greater than itself: time and humankind.
Air cover
At the Thorne/Sagendorph Art Gallery, Keene, N.H. opening Feb. 5
Boston & Maine Railroad freight yard in Keene, in 1916.
For Minn. street demonstrations; pay extra for gas mask
“Armor for Field and Tilt, of Count Franz von Teuffenbach (1516–1578) (steel, brass, lampblack, restored leather), in The John Woodman Higgins Armory Collection, at the Worcester Art Museum.