Plan B for the stadium

The economic Bird of Paradise;

That giant Construction Crane,

Seeks tragi-comic sacrifice

With compliant taxpayer drain.

Skeffington wants a deal sunny,

An investor’s modest desire.

By using other people’s money,

A financial homerun is sure-fire!

Best yet from our “Partner” to be:

Pay no taxes and get the land free!

And those drains; public funded the price.

Should public funds pay for them twice?

The best government money can buy;

Withhold campaign funds as leverage.

It’s pie-a-la-mode-in-the-sky,

The public’s not up for your beverage.

The boon of your plan’s a charade!

Prove us wrong; drink your own Kool-Aid!

Here’s Plan “B” for you to deploy,

In case one has to save face.

Buy the land surrounding McCoy,

And “Kraft” your own “PAWSOX PLACE.”

                -- Allan Klepper

Fred Brown: News folks shouldn't be the news

A gyrocopter lands on the Capitol lawn, and it turns out the Tampa Bay Times knew about the stunt well in advance but waited until the last minute to tell authorities. Rolling Stone retracts a long article about a gang rape on the University of Virginia campus after its primary source is shown to be unreliable.

Trusted newscasters Brian Williams and Bill O’Reilly are called out for exaggerating, though the consequences for each differ markedly.

And that’s just the most notorious of the recent journalistic misbehavior. There is no shortage of bad examples.

Journalists should be reporting news, not making news. But all too often, journalists have been the focus of news stories that raise serious ethical questions.

Monday, April 27, marks the start of what the Society of Professional Journalists has designated Ethics Week, when SPJ puts particular emphasis on the importance of responsible reporting. Ethics Week began in 2003, and today it's as important as ever – maybe more important, given recent events – especially in a media environment where there are an unfortunate number of unreliable sources.

This year’s Ethics Week comes a few months after SPJ completed more than a year of effort revising its Code of Ethics. It's a voluntary code, advisory and not enforceable, but for decades, it has been the go-to standard for news organizations.

Many news media outlets have their own codes of ethics; a lot of them use the SPJ code as the starting point. Employers’ codes are more detailed, and there’s a price to pay if they aren’t followed. Journalists can lose their jobs for violating the company standards, and some have.

Those employers’ codes tend to go into great detail about what constitutes a conflict of interest. For many people, in journalism and out, that’s the major part of ethical behavior – avoiding conflicts of interest. But for responsible journalists, ethics goes well beyond that.

Ethical journalism is rooted in accurate reporting and responsible behavior.

Those have been guiding principles throughout the 88-year history of the SPJ code, and remained the touchstones when the code was updated. It had been 16 years since the code was last revised. Some of the language was outdated, especially provisions that mentioned specific technologies and processes.

Some critics wanted the code to be more specific and instructive; some felt transparency should be stressed over independence.

Ultimately, the revision committee decided that basic principles don’t change when the technology changes. The four major principles remain the same: Seek truth, minimize harm, act independently and be accountable.

The committee made the final provision “Be Accountable and Transparent.” Transparency is good, we felt, but not a substitute for being aware of one’s biases and wary of outside influences.

The committee is in the process of adding explanations and examples as links to the online code (accessible at spj.org) – elements that can change as journalistic practices evolve.

In the end, the revisions committee made the code itself as broad as possible, to focus on abiding principles and avoid ever-changing technologies, in the hope that such a “constitutional” approach would survive for decades.

The importance of those abiding principles is illustrated by recent media misbehavior.

The Tampa Bay Times stressed storytelling and didn't pay enough attention to minimizing the possible harm that could come from a stunt played out on the Capitol grounds.

Rolling Stone worried too much about minimizing harm and let protecting its source get in the way of truthful, accurate reporting.

Brian Williams and Bill O'Reilly represent opposite approaches to the principle of accountability. NBC suspended Williams for his off-camera embellishments; Fox instead criticized the media that were criticizing O’Reilly.

All this might lead one to accept the tired old joke that journalism ethics is an oxymoron. It isn’t. But it is a constant challenge.

One week a year isn’t enough, but at least it’s an opportunity to focus on the axiom that serious media need to be reliable and responsible, 52 weeks a year. Journalists need to be constantly aware that their job is to report the news – accurately, compassionately, independently and responsibly – and to stay out of the headlines.

Fred Brown is a former president of the Society of Professional Journalists (1997-98) and co-vice chair on its ethics committee. He writes a column on ethics for Quill magazine and served on the committee that wrote the society’s 1996 code of ethics.

Mr. Brown officially retired from The Denver Post in early 2002, but continues to write a Sunday editorial page column for the newspaper. He also does analysis for Denver’s NBC television station, teaches communication ethics at the University of Denver, and is a principal in Hartman & Brown, LLP, a media training and consulting firm. He has won several awards for writing and community service, including a Sigma Delta Chi Award for editorial writing in 1988. He is an Honor Alumnus of Colorado State University, a member of the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame, and serves on the boards of directors of Colorado Public Radio, the Colorado Freedom of Information Council and the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation.

Maurits van Rooijen: A way out for struggling small colleges

Times are tough for institutions that do not have access to substantial endowment funds or benefit from a top-ranking position. Whether with a rural or metropolitan setting, a large number of colleges are discovering that there is a limit to raising tuition prices. Prospective students no longer automatically queue up. And once the “at risk” notice is up, the perceived deficiency becomes self-fulfilling.

The popular strategy of spending one's way out of a crisis by major investments in the campus or star professors has proven not to be the answer. It looks like the fate of many small colleges is closure, “merger” (meaning effectively being swallowed up by a stronger institution) or even—subject to regulatory complexities—acquisition. And that is not good news for the colleges, their staff, students, alumni, surrounding communities—nor for the higher education sector as a whole.

Small-sized colleges—many enrolling just a few-hundred up to a few-thousand students—really enrich the overall education ecosystem. They offer a perfect option for a certain category of student, have an important social-economic function locally, and mostly represent a high-quality provision with an outstanding student experience and often a valuable focus on personal development to match.

A mere survival of the fittest will result in a seriously impoverished sector. But one does not need to be a defeatist; there is an alternative.

The Pavlovian reaction to external pressures—such as ruthlessly cutting costs, increasing steeply marketing and fundraising budgets and/or bringing in new senior management—is unlikely to resolve the underlying issues.

My alternative option: Create what I call “co-operatives.”

I have argued the case for setting up "systems" of boutique universities, whereby institutions start sharing—and hence substantially reducing—costs for administrative and academic operations, while sharing the bigger investments such as in promotion, international marketing and online delivery. Such cooperatives are not only more cost-effective; they also gain strength by size when it comes to contract negotiations with third parties. Moreover, these consortia can make themselves much more visible in the crowded market, nationally and even internationally.

The idea of various colleges working in a cooperative manner also underpins my own organization Global University Systems, which brings together, at a global level, more than 10 institutions (from vocational colleges to leading business schools), each with a different target group of students or specific portfolio of activities or different physical locations. The group shares marketing, recruitment channels, academic expertise and real estate in major cities globally. This enables us to deliver courses internationally, help our university partners to tap into new markets and meet the demand of students globally via online and on campus courses. This cooperative structure can, in principle, be created anywhere. In fact, institutions united in a co-operative system would in many ways become more cost-effective and hence more attractive to invest in than a lone college struggling to survive.

There is a risk associated with creating co-operatives  that  needs to be carefully mitigated: the issue of organizational complexity. My suggestion is that it would be worth designing a cooperative structure for boutique universities, creating a system that could work for everyone, while explicitly making sure one avoids ineffective decision-making processes. When designing a cooperative, it is essential to create governance and management systems that focus on the need for efficient operations rather than safeguarding vested interests.

Some institutions, whether at governance or managerial level, will have problems understanding the difference between narrow and broad interests, but of course those colleges will not join, nor should they. They will continue their own battle and one can only wish them luck, though I am not necessarily optimistic about their chances. For the interest of the sector as a whole, I hope many institutions will prosper, possibly within the alternative of a co-operative framework.

One way of dealing with the governance and management issue is to create a separate legal entity for defined shared services and operations, possibly together with a third (investment) partner. This will help to keep some of the politics away from the business side of shared activities. But of course with some level of creativity one could develop some further options; I am not pretending this is the only way forward. In any case, as always, one should adjust a basic model to local circumstances.

Maurits van Rooijen is chief academic officer of Global University Systems, CEO and rector of the London School of Business and Finance, and acting rector of Hannover-based GISMA Business School. This originated  on the Web site of the New England Board of Higher Education.

Inside and out

"Mother in Her Apartment at Night'' and "Wind and Waves'' by Suzanne Hodes, in the Hess Gallery, at Pine Minor College, Chestnut Hill, Mass.

Llewellyn King: God save our Queen

  She is the best-known woman in the world, and she has been since 1952, when Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, at age 25, became Queen Elizabeth II. Although she has a huge list of titles, she is to most people simply the Queen. And she has been the only British monarch in most people’s lives: She has always seemingly been there.

Once Queen Elizabeth was young and quite pretty; now she is old and quite beloved. She works very hard, whether it is presiding over meetings with prime ministers – she has dealt with 12 of them, starting with Winston Churchill -- or applying herself to an endless schedule of charity events. She has visited 116 countries. I have always wondered at her incredible tolerance -- no, call it endurance -- at watching cultural events in faraway lands: How many children’s choirs, folk dancers or synchronized gymnasts can a human being watch? In the case of the queen, the number seems to have been infinite.

When she came to the throne, she set off a surge of hope in Britain and the Commonwealth. Popular mythology, as I remember, held that a new Queen Elizabeth would bring a revival of fortune for Britain -- the second Elizabethan period would be as great as the first Queen Elizabeth's reign, from 1558 to 1603.

After World War II, Britain was adjusting to a new order in most things, including the social changes introduced by the Labor Party government immediately after the war, such as national health insurance, and the recognition that Britain was no longer be the preeminent world power, ruling a quarter of the world. The empire was shrinking, and Britain felt exhausted and lessened.

But the new, young Queen signaled hope, and the royal family shot to a position of public adulation. I remember covering the wedding of the queen’s sister, Princess Margaret, to the photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones in 1960, when Britain went was in a kind of royal hysteria. That began to fade as the decade wore on, and that marriage began to creak and eventually dissolve.

As royal scandals multiplied and Britain became a trendsetter in fashion and the arts, Princess Diana, during and after her marriage to Prince Charles, stole much of the Queen’s thunder.

The Queen said her worst year was 1992, which she famously called an “annus horribilis” -- because of her children's domestic issues --  in a Nov. 24 speech at Guildhall to mark the 40^th anniversary of her accession. Newspapers wondered whether the monarchy was finished and whether it would either give way to a republican Britain or to one where the constitutional monarch was of little importance, as in the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain.

But Queen Elizabeth persevered and, she just turned 89, is more loved than ever. She is slightly old-fashioned, even as Buckingham Palace is anxious to remind us she uses e-mail and tweets.

She is a fabulous piece of English bric-a-brac in her omnipresent hat and gloves. Though perfectly dressed in her way, she is not a fashion idol. She was a fine horsewoman. She attends cultural events, but seems only to have a passion for horses and dogs. Critics have faulted her for how limited she is in some ways. It may be that at this point, she is as much an anachronism as the monarchy, and there is strength in that.

No longer do comedians make fun of her piping voice and her ability to ride out gaffes,  such as the time in Canada when she read the wrong speech, having forgotten which city she was visiting. The British might have come to love her for her famously dysfunctional family -- even Charles, her quirky son and heir to the throne. Scandals have touched all of her family, excepting herself and her husband, Prince Philip, although one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting told me that he was busy in that circle when he was young.

When she does die, Britain will enter into the most extraordinary period of mourning, followed a year or so later by a coronation. The change will be enormously expensive, from them Queen's burial to the coronation of the King. Tens of thousands of items stamped with ER (Elizabeth Regina) or the Queen's face, including mail boxes, stamps and the 20-pound note, will have to be changed.

Happily and gloriously, after 62 years as Queen, Elizabeth is, physically as well as emotionally, part of British life. She is also, in a way, the world's Queen.

Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of “White House Chronicle” on PBS. His e-mail is lking@kingpublishing.com.

Looking for beauty in a scary world

 

"Wondering About Flow'' (acrylic), by KAREN RAND ANDERSON, in the "Reaching for Beauty'' show at the Coastal Living Gallery, in North Kingstown, R.I., through April 28.

Editor's note: We are reposting this to correct the title.

Frank Carini: Dog-poop pollution in the Westport River

WESTPORT, Mass.

Unlike many New England rivers, the one that shares a name with this popular summer town doesn’t have a legacy of industrial pollution buried in its sediment. But despite not being polluted with toxins from long-since-gone jewelry makers and dye manufacturers, the Westport River and its watershed still face the threat of contamination from stormwater runoff, nitrogen-rich fertilizers, failing septic systems and outdated cesspools.

In fact, one of the more commonly seen but often ignored threats — unless you happen to step in it — to this two-pronged river and its economically vital watershed is waste left on the ground by inconsiderate pet owners. While certainly not on the order of concern of, say, carbon pollution, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does label dog waste a “pollutant.”

Sorry, Snoopy, but dog poop is 57 percent more toxic than human waste, according to the EPA, and can harbor bacteria and parasites that cause illness in humans.

This waste problem is so rampant in dog-friendly Westport and the surrounding area that the Westport River Watershed Alliance (WRWA), the nonprofit protector of the this important natural resource, was compelled this year to print a two-fold brochure entitled “The Shocking Truth About Your Dog’s Poop.”

“Even the smallest amount of dog poop is filled with bacteria,” said Roberta Carvalho, the WRWA’s science director.

It has been estimated that an ounce of dog waste can contain 650 million fecal coliform bacteria. The EPA has estimated that two to three days’ worth of dog poop from a neighborhood with about a hundred dogs would contribute enough bacteria to temporarily close a bay, and all watersheds within 20 miles of it, to swimming and shellfishing.

In 1976, the Westport River Defense Fund was created in opposition to a septage lagoon proposed by the Board of Health that would have been built near the East Branch of this tidal river. The idea to construct a sewage pit by the river to dispose of the town’s septage pump-outs created a major controversy, and resulted in what is now the WRWA.

“It didn’t happen,” Carvalho said. “It was our first victory.”

Since that battle nearly four decades ago, the Alliance has grown from 15 members to more than 2,000. Numerous projects have been developed over the years that promote education and advocacy — all in an effort to protect one of the region’s most significant coastal assets in both habitat quality and scenic beauty.

But the fact that 23 percent of shellfish beds in the Westport River are permanently closed for harvesting documents the continued problem of contamination, according to Carvalho.

In all, some 50 percent of the river’s total shellfish beds are seasonally or conditionally closed, and 76 percent of the river’s harvest potential is limited because of bacterial pollution, according to the WRWA..

“The river has gotten much better in the past 10 years, but nitrogen pollution, runoff and septic systems are still a concern,” said Carvalho, who has been with the organization for 13 years. “It’s a costly endeavor, but it is vital we protect our water resources.”

Nutrient loading and pathogen contamination are water-quality concerns, particularly in the upper reaches of the river’s 35-mile shoreline. The river suffers from the problem of eutrophication, especially in the upper East Branch. Carvalho also is concerned about the emerging threat of chemicals from personal-care products and pharmaceuticals. In addition, she believes Massachusetts needs to do a better job phasing out antiquated cesspools and replacing them with modern septic systems or municipal sewer. Westport, for one, doesn’t have public sewer.

WRWA staffers work with local schools to educate students, from kindergarten through high school, about the importance of protecting the watershed, and the organization has partnered with municipal and state agencies to run water-quality programs. The nonprofit also promotes the use of buffer strips, rain gardens and low-impact development technologies to help keep the river and its watershed clean.

WRWA has maintained a summer bacteria-monitoring program for the Westport River since 1991, and the organization’s collection and analysis of site samples has been used by municipal and state agencies to document bacterial contamination.

The Westport River watershed spans two states, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.The watershed

The Westport River has two branches. The smaller West Branch is about 7 miles long, rising from a confluence of brooks near the village of Adamsville, R.I. The West Branch separates the village of Acoaxet from the rest of Westport — one needs to pass through Rhode Island to reach the rest of the town.

The larger East Branch is about 11.5 miles long, rising at the border of Westport and Dartmouth, at Lake Noquochoke. After a short length, the river meets Bread and Cheese Brook before reaching the head of Westport village, where the WRWA will soon move into its new home. From there, the river continues southward, fed by several brooks, before an initial widening to between 100 and 400 yards at Widows Point.

Once in Westport Harbor, the combined branches bend around Horseneck Point, before flowing into Rhode Island Sound, just west of Horseneck Beach State Reservation, at the point where Rhode Island Sound meets Buzzards Bay.

The Westport River watershed encompasses parts of Westport, Dartmouth, Fall River and Freetown, and Tiverton and Little Compton in R.I., and 85 percent of the watershed’s landmass drains into the river’s two branches.

Frank Carini is editor of ecoRI News, where this piece originated.

Sam Pizzagati: Why we need $50,000 parking tickets

All of us would like to live in a world where people always do the right thing — without anybody looking over their shoulder. But that world doesn’t exist and never will. So every society on our planet has penalties. You break the rules, you pay a price.

But penalties only work if the wrongdoer feels that price. A ridiculously tiny penalty amounts to no penalty at all.

Take traffic fines, for instance.

Most of us obey our traffic laws. We know these laws help keep our roads — and communities — safe. We also know that if we slip up and speed, we could end upstaring at a $150 ticket. If we slip up again, we could be talking really serious pain.

But not really serious pain for everyone. In today’s deeply unequal United States, some people — extremely rich people — have no reason to worry about traffic citations. If you’re pulling down $1 million a month, a couple hundred dollars for a traffic ticket won’t even register.

Billionaire Apple CEO Steve Jobs, his biographer Walter Isaacson relates, used to brazenly park in handicapped spaces and motor around without license plates. He “acted as if he were not subject” to the rules the rest of us face.

And why should any of our billionaires think different? If they break the rules, they face no real penalty. The rest of us can only hope they choose to do the right thing.

But what if traffic fines varied by income? In Finland — and a host of other nations, from Denmark to Switzerland — they actually do. “Sliding fee” fines in these nations give people with deep pockets reason to think twice before they speed or otherwise trample on community safety norms.

One Finnish businessman recently had to pay a 54,000-euro fine — the equivalent of over $58,000 — after police caught him going 65 in a 50 zone. That speeder’s income? Just over $7 million a year. Tickets in Finland have on occasion even topped $100,000.

Might the time be ripe for similar sliding-scale fees in the United States? Some of our localities have actually experimented along that line, and one person involved in those experiments back in the 1980s — Judith Greene of the nonprofit Justice Strategies — thinks we should try again.

Why? Greene points to the protests that followed last year’s deadly police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.

In addition to police violence, those protests have helped to spotlight how local governments all across the United States are routinely gouging poor people for minor offenses. In jurisdictions like Ferguson, municipal officials have been squeezing the poor to fill their city coffers.

This squeezing, a U.S. Justice Department report earlier this year revealed, can become incredibly oppressive. The authorities in Ferguson hit one local woman with a $151 fine for two parking tickets. She couldn’t afford to pay the fine immediately. That triggered more penalties. The woman eventually paid $550 in fines and still owed — seven years later — another $541.

For cities, that’s easy — and irresistible — money. In 2011, Ferguson officials collected $1.38 million of the city’s $11.07 million in general revenue from fines and additional penalty fees. By last year, the city was budgeting to collect nearly twice that amount, $2.63 million, from municipal court fines and fees.

Ambitious revenue targets have local officials going after drivers and pedestrians alike. In Ferguson, U.S. Justice Department investigators found, a “manner of walking” violation can bring a $302 fine.

This constant preying on the poor breeds an intense and understandable community frustration. At some point, as we saw last summer in Ferguson, the frustration combusts into tragedy.

So what can we do? One small step: Instead of gouging the poor, let’s make like the Finns. Let’s make our penalties proportionate to economic circumstance. Let’s make sure our penalties amount to penalties for everyone, even if they’re rich.

OtherWords columnist Sam Pizzigati, an Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow, edits the inequality monthly Too Much. His latest book is The Rich Don’t Always Win. OtherWords.org. 

Tagged: ferguson, Inequality, Police

No forwarding address

Are many readers irritated that so few Web sites tell you the physical location in real time and space of an organization you're looking up on  its Web site? And how difficult it is to get a name of a person you can easily contact? They reside somewhere in a cloud....away from the need to deal with those pesky physical entities called people.

Chris Powell: What is a 'living wage' amidst social disintegration?

MANCHESTER, Conn.

For more evidence that Connecticut's economy has passed the tipping point and is locked into reverse, consider the legislation recently reported favorably by two General Assembly committees to penalize large employers $1 for every hour worked by every employee who isn't paid at least $15 per hour.

As with recent proposals to raise minimum wages throughout the country, the premise of this legislation is that every full-time job should pay a “living wage,” a wage large enough to support a family -- that people should not be paid more or less in relation to the value produced by their labor, the method traditionally used in a market economy, but paid according to their need, as determined by government.

But the legislation doesn't define necessary terms. How big a family exactly and at what stage of life? Exactly what living conditions -- what sort of dwelling, cars, amenities? And who is to decide these variables to make a master assessment of need? What state government agency is equipped for that, or will one have to be created some place between the Office of Early Childhood and the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women?

Advocates of the legislation claim that big companies that don't pay their employees at least $15 per hour are being subsidized by the various income supports and welfare stipends given by the government to the working poor. The advocates say the dollar-per-hour tax on such companies will recover some of government's expense.

But the level of welfare benefits is a matter of the discretion of government itself, not employers. That government now considers even cellphone service to be a necessity and has begun providing it as a welfare benefit suggests that such benefits are highly arguable. That people merely want rather than need cellphones hardly establishes that a large employer is bad or underpaying them.

Further, there does not seem to be any mechanism in the legislation to prevent companies from recovering the new tax by reducing wages, transferring the tax from companies to their employees and actually worsening the circumstances of the working poor. But then the legislation may be meant mainly to improve the financial circumstances of state government itself so that it may blithely continue to pay salary and benefit increases to its own employees and those of local government even as the state budget deficit grows.

Judging from the examples cited by the wage legislation's advocates, the essential problem here seems to be that tens of thousands of unmarried, uneducated and largely unskilled women with several children, often by different fathers who are not contributing to the support of their offspring, cannot survive in Connecticut without government subsidies in the only sort of work available to them, low-skilled jobs in food service and other retailing.

The governor and legislators refuse to note this social disintegration and its facilitation by welfare policy. They also refuse to note that, because of the state's comprehensive policy of social promotion in education, two-thirds of Connecticut's high school seniors and public college freshmen have not mastered high school math and half have not mastered high school English but have been given high school diplomas anyway and sent into the workforce grossly unprepared for anything but similar low-skilled employment.

So instead state government will blame McDonald's and Walmart.

Connecticut's policies lately have given it the reputation as the most pro-labor and anti-business state even as the state's economic and population declines have continued into a third decade. Connecticut now excels at giving things away but it is hard to find any business willing to locate or expand here to produce something without a direct cash subsidy from state government.

Of course correlation is not causation but a little curiosity might be in order, if only as an academic exercise for warning other states about what not to do.

Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Conn.

Introducing more instability

"White Madonna'' (sculpture), by KATHLEEN VOLP, in the "Splendor Redux'' show at the Room 83 Spring gallery, in Watertown, Mass., April 23-May 28.

The gallery says her  work "topples notions of stability and permanence'' and "express a futility of consumption''.

Sam Pizzigati: Penalties only work if the wrongdoer feels that price

All of us would like to live in a world where people always do the right thing — without anybody looking over their shoulder. But that world doesn’t exist and never will. So every society on our planet has penalties. You break the rules, you pay a price.

But penalties only work if the wrongdoer feels that price. A ridiculously tiny penalty amounts to no penalty at all.

Take traffic fines, for instance.

Most of us obey our traffic laws. We know these laws help keep our roads — and communities — safe. We also know that if we slip up and speed, we could end upstaring at a $150 ticket. If we slip up again, we could be talking really serious pain.

But not really serious pain for everyone. In today’s deeply unequal United States, some people — extremely rich people — have no reason to worry about traffic citations. If you’re pulling down $1 million a month, a couple hundred dollars for a traffic ticket won’t even register.

Billionaire Apple CEO Steve Jobs, his biographer Walter Isaacson relates, used to brazenly park in handicapped spaces and motor around without license plates. He “acted as if he were not subject” to the rules the rest of us face.

And why should any of our billionaires think different? If they break the rules, they face no real penalty. The rest of us can only hope they choose to do the right thing.

But what if traffic fines varied by income? In Finland — and a host of other nations, from Denmark to Switzerland — they actually do. “Sliding fee” fines in these nations give people with deep pockets reason to think twice before they speed or otherwise trample on community safety norms.

One Finnish businessman recently had to pay a 54,000-euro fine — the equivalent of over $58,000 — after police caught him going 65 in a 50 zone. That speeder’s income? Just over $7 million a year. Tickets in Finland have on occasion even topped $100,000.

Might the time be ripe for similar sliding-scale fees in the United States? Some of our localities have actually experimented along that line, and one person involved in those experiments back in the 1980s — Judith Greene of the nonprofit Justice Strategies — thinks we should try again.

Why? Greene points to the protests that followed last year’s deadly police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.

In addition to police violence, those protests have helped to spotlight how local governments all across the United States are routinely gouging poor people for minor offenses. In jurisdictions like Ferguson, municipal officials have been squeezing the poor to fill their city coffers.

This squeezing, a U.S. Justice Department report earlier this year revealed, can become incredibly oppressive. The authorities in Ferguson hit one local woman with a $151 fine for two parking tickets. She couldn’t afford to pay the fine immediately. That triggered more penalties. The woman eventually paid $550 in fines and still owed — seven years later — another $541.

For cities, that’s easy — and irresistible — money. In 2011, Ferguson officials collected $1.38 million of the city’s $11.07 million in general revenue from fines and additional penalty fees. By last year, the city was budgeting to collect nearly twice that amount, $2.63 million, from municipal court fines and fees.

Ambitious revenue targets have local officials going after drivers and pedestrians alike. In Ferguson, U.S. Justice Department investigators found, a “manner of walking” violation can bring a $302 fine.

This constant preying on the poor breeds an intense and understandable community frustration. At some point, as we saw last summer in Ferguson, the frustration combusts into tragedy.

So what can we do? One small step: Instead of gouging the poor, let’s make like the Finns. Let’s make our penalties proportionate to economic circumstance. Let’s make sure our penalties amount to penalties for everyone, even if they’re rich.

OtherWords columnist Sam Pizzigati, an Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow, edits the inequality monthly Too Much. His latest book is The Rich Don’t Always Win.OtherWords.org.

Tagged:

ferguson

,

Inequality

,

Police

Global warming good news for N.E. agriculture

  Read this nifty column by Froma Harrop about how global warming may revitalize New England's agriculture.

When stadium is empty all year, not just 5 months

After reading this piece, check out this link, which includes one of the insiders in the deal below, Tom Ryan. To add to the idiocies (for the public) of a proposal by a small group of rich political insiders to put a Minor League baseball stadium on land in the middle of Providence, may I remind people that companies have little loyalty these days to their employees or loyal customers. The loyalty in the current version of American capitalism is mostly one way -- the loyalty of the owners and senior execs to themselves.

Remember when one of the insiders, Terry Murray, moved Fleet Financial Group  from Providence to Boston so he could be a bigger player?

When the new Pawsow owners get a a nice offer (as they will one day) to move the farm team to some other  sucker burg (Omaha, Duluth, Ocala, Fla.?) they will do so promptly, leaving an empty stadium on land where there could have been hundreds of high-paying, year-round jobs.

Instead of having the taxpayers fork over  millions a year for this boondoggle, why not increase Governor Raimondo's new $1.3 million "Real Jobs RI" project to better train and place workers.?

Employers cite the lack of skilled workers as the biggest impediment to moving to, or expanding in, Rhode Island. The lack explains much of why the Ocean State economy lags behind that of most of the Northeast.

Meanwhile, of course,  staggeringly myopic (or just cynical) state  union leaders push to build the stadium because of the construction jobs. When those jobs disappear in a year or two after construction starts, the only jobs at the stadium will be a few dozen minimum-wage positions --- for perhaps seven months of the year. The rest of the time the taxpayers will have to pay them unemployment compensation and help cover their Medicaid.

But the six-months-and-a-day residents of Florida involved in this project won't have to worry about that, as they laugh all the way to the bank with tax money from poorer people and get to show how masculine they are by associating themselves with a sports team.

Bread and circuses, and government by deal, march on.

-- Robert Whitcomb

James P. Freeman: Baker's budget and the culture wars

   “I’m running outta change

There’s a lot of things if I could

I’d rearrange”

-- U2, “The Fly”

In his recent collection of columns, Mark Steyn offers what should be a new political maxim: “You can’t have conservative government in a liberal culture, and that’s the position the Republican Party is in.”

Rather acutely, that idea resonates in the commonwealth. Here and across the liberal hinterland “culture trumps politics,” observes Steyn. Surely Gov. Charlie Baker, no conservative but a pragmatic Republican, is discovering this with his first budget for fiscal 2016, given the howls of disapproval upon its release.

It helps explain why undue attention and undeserved amplification of cultural hubris distort and diminish attendant serious fiscal – hence, political – matters in government, particularly on Beacon Hill. It is a morally superior but overly sensitive culture that detects minutiae in certain behaviors deemed offensive that, in its sole judgement, retards greater progress, all in the name of gauzy tolerance and acceptance. It not only demands greater access to progress, but expects the costs to attain that progress be borne by others (known as “the law of concentrated benefits and diffuse costs”).

Consider what goes viral and reaches “trending” status today just in Massachusetts.

A study conducted by Northeastern University of just 27 pairs of undergraduates playing Trivial Pursuit discerned “benevolent sexism” by male participants acting chivalrous. A Massachusetts inmate continues to demand “gender reassignment” surgery be paid by taxpayers. A Lexington high school has to think twice before hosting a dance with the exclusionary theme “American Pride.” A careless – ultimately harmless – social media posting by state Rep. Timothy Whelan was immediately found to be “racist.”

Former Gov. Deval Patrick was a master technician at blurring the lines between culture and politics when he said in 2013 that national healthcare reform was a “values statement.” What exactly are the values in Patrick’s progressive legacy? Chronic, uncontrollable fiscal dipsomania in the form of high debt, deficits, unfunded pension liabilities and taxes. Not to mention a bizarre philosophical underpinning whereby government’s role is to merely expand rather than simply fix. Like transportation infrastructure. As surely commuters and Boston 2024 organizers are understanding.

Against this feverish backdrop is the chilly backdraft greeting Baker’s new budget. Today he is confronting a $768 million shortfall in the current fiscal year that ends June 30 and a projected $1.8 billion shortage in 2016, legacy gifts from Patrick. In spite of these developments, Baker calls for $1 billion in new expenditures or 3 percent in overall spending next year, including a 20 percent hike in transportation funding. Thus far, taxes and fees will not rise nor is it expected that he will draw down on the stabilization fund. He is relying upon tax amnesty, capital gains tax revenue and targeted surgical cuts in appropriations to balance the budget.

“We’re going to have a big debate with the legislature about our priorities,” Baker says.

But as an act of enduring fiscal stability, nevertheless, he must realize this budget is still dressed up like a car crash. However, it is the start of restoring discipline to the process. Everyone must realize, with his experience in financial management, that he will employ a strategic view of budgeting, relieving the commonwealth of perennial stop-gap measures.

The Health and Human Services Department budget is fast approaching one half of all state spending, which is unsustainable. Romneycare, its largest line item, was hailed in 2006 by caring classes. But it is neither universal nor cost-effective.

Which brings us to the professed faux-outrage masqueraded as constructive criticism by self-important interest groups, ironically eager for greater community, understanding and accustomed to excess; but not used to meager constraints. Today’s culture knows no bounds. And budgets limit and arrest impulses of supposed limitless possibilities, among the hallmarks and drivers of progressivism and pan-culturalism.

State aid to public school districts would actually increase by 2.4 percent (or $105 million) and to state public colleges and universities by 3.6 percent. Tell that to Massachusetts Teachers Association President Barbara Madeloni. The budget is, she claims, “troubling for its lack of vision and absence of meaningful investments in education and other vital community services.”

As regards Hollywood – the ultimate arbiter and distributor of culture – the elimination of the state film tax credit is entirely defensible. According to the  state Department of Revenue, since 2006, it has cost the state about $118,000 per industry job created. There are 5,700 workers involved in the film and television industry.

If travel and tourism comprise the third largest industry in the commonwealth, why should the state subsidize it at all? Baker rightly reduces by $8 million its funding and cuts assistance to regional tourism councils by 90 percent. Predictably, Wendy Northcross, CEO of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce and chair of the  state Regional Tourism Council, expressed “shock” at the reductions. “Marketing works. Advertising works. To go backwards at this time doesn’t seem logical given the needs of the state.” And state Rep. Sarah Peake – whose business is an indirect beneficiary of such marketing – found the cuts “disturbing, short-sighted and misguided.”

Baker also proposes saving $4.7 million by replacing state-employed mental health crisis teams with contractors. Despite $727 million (a 1.7 percent increase) allocated for the state Department of Mental Health, the savings, in the words of a board member of a local mental health advocacy group, is “bad fiscal policy.”

Remember the federal sequester requiring 1-2 percent reductions in spending across certain bureaucracies? That was described as devastating and draconian. Today’s new austerity – barely anchored in fiscal realism – is not even as severe by comparison.

The new governor seems willing and able to address the most rudimentary structural and operational fiscal dilemmas now and, more importantly, for the future. For the precious few realists left in the commonwealth, take comfort. Baker’s budget is the beginning of a predictable miracle against untethered progressivism and unbridled cultural extravagance.

James P. Freeman is a Cape Cod-based writer

Using 'evidence-based art'

 

We recently  again saw the international movie I Remember Better When I Paint, which shows how the arts can  greatly improve the lives of people suffering from dementia.

The movie’s origins go back to co-director Berna Huebner’s watching her late mother, the distinguished Chicago painter Hilda Gorenstein, who had slipped into a depressed and anxious senility, become reengaged and reenergized when  young art students got her to resume painting.

One of the many watercolors she did  while in this program, with the cooperation of students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, is above.

 More and more healthcare experts have come to understand how art can promote healing.

A FierceHealthcare  report looks at  how Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital, in Pennsylvania, Lee Memorial Hospital, in Florida, and the Mayo Clinic  operation in Arizona have incorporated art in their facilities and in care delivery.

The news service reported that  for the past 20 years, “art — including paintings, sculptures and music–has taken on an important role in healthcare. Watercolors and abstract photographs often line the once-barren walls of hospital corridors. And harpists and pianists often play soothing music in hospital lobbies.”

“The use of art to help heal patients dates back to Florence Nightingale, according to the Center for Health Design’s “Guide to Evidence-Based Art.” Nightingale’s 1860 Notes for Nursing describes the importance of beauty to the body, as well as the mind, the study states.”

The FierceHealthcare  report looks at  how Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital, in Pennsylvania, Lee Memorial Hospital, in Florida, and the Mayo Clinic  operation in Arizona use art in their facilities and in care delivery.

-- Robert Whitcomb

Don Pesci: The Blumenthal/Clinton alliance

Yalies stick together, especially in the case of  Yale Law schoolmates Hillary Clinton and Connecticut’s senior U.S. senator, Richard Blumenthal. Blumenthal gushed last Friday over Clinton’s political stock, ahead of the former secretary of state’s announcement Sunday that she is running for president in 2016.

“She literally can make history,” Blumenthal told Hearst Connecticut Media. “How many people have been a presidential spouse, a senator in her own right and a distinguished secretary of state with a record of representing of major state (New York) and our nation abroad? By any measure, she is very seriously and significantly qualified, especially as compared to some of the other contenders.”

Blumenthal downplayed the recent email retention scandal that has dogged Clinton, who used her personal e-mail account to conduct official business as secretary of state inside of a protected government server.

“She has addressed it in a thoughtful and serious way, as she should,” Blumenthal said. “It’s not going to be the decisive factor in whether people vote for her.”

The prospect of appearing on the same ticket with Clinton must be particularly salivating to Blumenthal, who is up for re-election in 2016.

“I think the more people can see Hillary the person, I’m tempted to say the real Hillary Clinton, the more that they will develop very deep and genuine affection and admiration for her,” Blumenthal said. “It will be a demanding and difficult campaign, as every presidential campaign is. She has extraordinary breadth of experience and balance and temperament and intellect and insight on issues.”

In 2008 when he was still state attorney general, Blumenthal was co-chairman of Clinton’s campaign in Connecticut, which went to then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, of Illinois, in the Democratic Super Tuesday primary. Blumenthal is an active member of the group Ready for Hillary.

“I’ve urged her to take this step and I’m just delighted she’s doing it,” Blumenthal said.

Blumenthal wasn't in attendance for Clinton’s debut as a candidate. He was in Hartford for Sunday’s parade celebrating the 10th national championship for the University of Connecticut’s women’s basketball program.

Blumenthal’s decades-long alliance with Clinton could pay dividends for the freshman senator, whose name has often been connected to Cabinet jobs in a hypothetical Clinton administration.

“I think that’s kind of way ahead of where anyone is thinking at this point,” Blumenthal said. “My focus is on working and fighting for the people of Connecticut in a job that I love, and I hope to continue to serve them.”

Don Pesci is a Vernon, Conn.-based political columnist.

Designer dairy

 

"Cattle Call" (encaustic and mixed media), by ANGEL DEAN, in the show "Colorful Characters,'' at the Providence Art Club through April 24.

38 Studios Memorial Stadium, continued

I tip my hat to the rich folks seeking to get Rhode Island taxpayers to help the rich folks build a baseball stadium on downtown Providence land where there otherwise might be high-paying, year-round jobs. They're even more brazen than I thought. I wonder how many of these entrepreneurs are Florida residents for six months and a day every year.

And it's exciting to see that Brown University is in on the scam, too.

Why not put the money into fixing the roads and bridges,  expanding RIPTA and improving vocational education instead? Now that would be good for business. But too boring?

--- Robert Whitcomb

Llewellyn King: A look ahead at my presidency

Some of you were expecting me to announce my candidacy for president of the United States along with those other two who got all the headlines. There have been a few problems. There are solutions, too. (How's that for a campaign zinger?)

There is the problem of my birth. I was, er, born in a foreign country with, er, un-American parents. I have to check with the Ted Cruz camp on that problem.

There is a money problem. At the moment, I have $138 in my current account. But that amount will swell when my Social Security check comes in next week.

In the long term, I have a crafty, two-pronged approach to raise the billion or so dollars I will need for my campaign. My wife will set up a foundation, called the Foreign Governments' Friends Committee, which will raise money like a Fourth of July flag.

Unlike one of my opponents, I will not beat about the bush on foreign campaign donations. I will take them all, see that they are properly laundered, and promise the donors all sorts of favorable treatment. I can renege later. Not a word, please.

Then there is crowd-sourcing. When my message gets out, I expect a Niagara Falls of money. I will be after the disaffected, unhappy people who hate all candidates. The nutters of the left and the nutters of the right have lots of dough.

Here is a peak at other aspects of my program:

Bring back manufacturing (back story, by lowering the minimum wage), so that our labor is cheap.

Get tough with Iran. Any Iranian waiter found passing himself off as an Italian at a New York restaurant will get summary deportation.

Give China an ultimatum: Double the value of your currency or millions of Americans will be forbidden to shop at Walmart.

In the Middle East, trust the dictators. We will support the most awful monsters in the time-honored way. If we could get Saddam Hussein out of the grave, I would go for it. Likewise Muammar al-Qaddafi. Call it the strongman policy: No messing about with uprisings.

I will be a tough guy supporting other tough guys. I will say to Vladimir Putin, when we are shirtless, “I don't give a hoot about Ukraine. Take it. But want you to invade China -- just a little way. And crush ISIS. You know, the way you did Czechoslovakia and Hungary in the glory days.

That should take care of the world.

At  home I will have the most flexible of policies, based on the latest polling. If you are in favor of abortion, tell Gallup and you will get them.

Want the Ten Commandments on the wall of the Capitol? No problem if you can produce a convincing poll, preferably written on stone tablets.

What is democracy but a craven pursuit of votes through polling? Go democratic all the way, I say.

Wait until you hear some of my appointments. How do you fancy Donald Trump for secretary of state? Here is someone who will appreciate my tough- guys-are-always-right policy.

Before I announce, I will perfect my Israel strategy. I am leaning toward giving honorary citizenship to Benjamin Netanyahu, so I can make him my national-security adviser. Why should Congress claim Bibi as their own? I will have goodies to offer him that will beat whatever John Boehner and Mitch McConnell can do. How about a hard pass to the White House and a regular chance to be on the Sunday talk shows, for starters?

Darrell Issa is my choice for ambassador to Libya, in recognition of his Benghazi studies.

Finally, my coup de grace: immigration. Simple, no one will want to live here when I am in the White House.

Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of “White House Chronicle,” on PBS. His e-mail is lking@kingpublishing.com.