In the hub of the Hub

In the Boston Public Library (oil on canvas), by AITHAN SHAPIRA  in the painter's "Architecture, Nature, and Light'' show at the Adelson Galleries, Boston

Summer beach mystery

 

One of the great  New England summer mysteries to me is the appeal of sitting on a public beach (usually too hot or too cold) with loud people reeking of lotion pressed up virtually on top of you. They have usually gotten there by driving their way through traffic jams. They find new traffic jams on the beach, which can be as crowded as subway cars at rush hour.

And the ocean water is almost always too cold for comfortable swimming, even on the hottest days. Then there's the skin cancer, and the sand in your bathing suit.

What an unpleasant way to spend the day.  Is it that most people feel that they must go to the  beach in our brief summers?

-- Robert Whitcomb

Boston-area firms' pricey pills driving healthcare to cliff

The Boston Globe discusses how pricey new drugs, many of them developed in the Boston area, threaten to  derail the healthcare system.

"But instead of affordable Fords and Chevys, our hometown  {Boston area} firms are cranking out Lamborghinis and Bentleys. They make expensive drugs that are steering the health care system toward a precipice. ''

"{T}he industry has been doing everything in its power to make itself look like Monty Burns, the money-hungry mogul who owns the nuclear power plant on The Simpsons.''

One big way Big Pharm continues to drive up costs is by doing all that it fan to keep out biosimilars. "Express Scrips estimated that if just 11 biosimilars were introduced for drugs coming off parent, about $250 billion could be saved over a decade.''

Then there's the surging pay of execs in biotech.

The Globe notes: "Finally, the price of the products has started to make headlines. A new two-drug combination from Vertex to treat cystic fibrosis, on the verge of FDA approval, is expected to cost north of $300,000 per year. ''

And The Globe says:

{"T}he price is often determined by asking, 'What’s the highest price I can charge and get away with,'said Alison Taunton-Rigby, a former biotech executive who serves on several corporate and nonprofit boards. Speaking at a recent industry conference, Taunton-Rigby said, 'It’s an attitude we need to talk about. I think we actually have a black mark against us as an industry.”'

But insurers are pushing back.

"Tony Dodek, associate chief medical officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, says high-priced 'specialty drugs' represent just 1 percent of the prescriptions handed to Blue Cross’ members, but 25 percent of the insurer’s spending on drugs, a share that is rising rapidly. 'That’s not sustainable,' Dodek says.''

Whales in the sky

"Zeppelin'' (intaglio, screen print), by ALISON BIANCO, at Cade Tompkins Projects, Providence.

Oh how we loved to see zeppelins (aka blimps) over beaches and football and baseball games so many years ago, even with the sick jokes about the Hindenburg.

-- Robert Whitcomb

Hastert the real-estate speculator

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert may have done some bad stuff with a boy a long time ago. What is crystal clear, however, is that his political influence helped enrich him in huge land deals in Illinois even as he helped push into law some of the most fiscally irresponsible legislation in U.S. history. Like the Clintons and many others, he used  his power in Washington to make a killing as the capital has slid ever deeper into corruption during the last few decades.

Whichever way you want

"Which Way Up?" (watercolor), by PHILIP PARSONS, in the show "PHILIP PARSONS (1896-1977): A Tribute to a New England Artist,''  through July 3 at the Patricia Carega Gallery, Center Sandwich, N.H.

College fraternities should rethink values

  Emily Esfahani Smith has written a wonderful piece about the long history of, and current  controversies facing, American college fraternities in The New Criterion, where she used to be the managing editor.  Ms. Smith, who was a member of college sorority, says at the end of the piece:

"Rather than giving fraternities new rules that they will surely break, college administrators and faculty members might encourage them to rethink their values and ideals. The problem with Greek life today is not Greek life itself; it is that the masculine ideal the fraternities currently celebrate is depraved. If that ideal changes, perhaps the culture of the fraternities would change too.''

Oil spill on the bay

"Provincetown Bay'' (oil on canvas), by ROBERT MOTHERWELL, in the show "Robert Motherwell: A Centennial Celebration'' at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum through May 31.

Rhode Island an easy mark

  This very interesting piece from GoLocalProv suggests that experience has shown wheeler-dealers that Rhode Island is an easy mark.

"The City of Boston tax records show the ownership team that owns the Boston Red Sox pays millions annually to the city in property taxes for 103-year-old Fenway Park and they pay hundreds of thousands more for three other parcels of land.

"The same ownership group is leading the effort to move the Pawtucket Red Sox to Providence and asking for tens of millions in state subsidies, and looking in Providence to avoid paying property taxes for decades.''

'Cities with Heart' author on 'White House Chronicle'

This came from  our old friend Tom Paine, a distinguished international landscape architect based in Boston. He recently spoke at a meeting of the Providence Committee on Foreign Relations (thepcfr.org)

"I was recently invited to appear on the PBS show White House Chronicle to talk about the importance of parks and greenspace in urban life around the world, and  about my book Cities with Heart. This half-hour PBS program first airs this Sunday, May 31.

White House Chronicle has been around for 18 years and is broadcast  on  more than 200 stations nationwide -- a mixture of PBS,  public-access and commercial stations (many of which air the program more than once a week). The commercial stations include those on the AMGTV Network. The show also airs worldwide on Voice of America Television.

In Washington, D.C., the episode will air at 9 a.m. on WETA, Channel 26; then at 11:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. on WHUT, Channel 32. (WHUT, Howard University Television, is the PBS originating station for the program.)

In New England, the episode will air at 11:30 a.m. on Rhode Island PBS, Digital 36.1/ Cox 08 /1008HD/Verizon FiOS (RI) 08 / 508HD / (MA) 18 / 518 HD Full Channel 08/Comcast in southern Massachusetts.

Pataki a fine candidate, but for....

  Former New York Gov. George Pataki, who was very successful in his three terms running the Empire State, is running for  the 2016 Republican presidential nomination -- finally.

This amiable and very smart politician and administrator might be a fine president, but his nomination seems impossible in the current version of the Republican Party.

Too bad.

Pacific Fleet admiral speaking tonight at PCFR

Admiral Robert Girrier, deputy chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, will be our speaker tonight at the Providence Committee on Foreign Relations (thepcfr.org) monthly dinner.  We're pretty sure that he'll talk about how to counter Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea.

Frank Carini: The selfish slobs of Brown University

Photo  and article by FRANK CARINI, ecoRI News

The trashy scene above recently left behind after the Brown University Class of 2015 graduated perfectly exemplified growing U.S. selfishness.

Kindergartners leave a cafeteria with more grace than the  elite who exited the Main Green by dumping their lunch trays on the ground. It’s sickening how little we think of others and the places we share that it’s considered acceptable to leave behind an easily-avoidable mess for someone else to clean.

After celebrating the accomplishments of young men and women, the  elitists who attended the May 24 graduation left the university lawn littered with half-drunk plastic water bottles, newspapers, commencement programs, half-empty coffee carafes, pieces of lightly bitten fruit and other barely touched foods, and, of course, all things plastic.

The elitists  ignored the many bins, barrels and totes  that Brown University had thoughtfully placed throughout the area to collect trash and recyclables. Plastic crunched underfoot and litter was inadvertently kicked as graduates and their guests slowly left. The workers responsible for folding the chairs and removing the rest of the commencement infrastructure were left to navigate the debris.

It would be nice to think that the  elite kindly left their unwanted food for hungry squirrels, but, sadly, they just thought someone else should pick up their mess. The littering elite couldn’t even be bothered to freshen the trampled lawn with the water they left locked in jettisoned plastic bottles.

There’s little wonder the U.S. recycling rate is a lackluster 35 percent, our composting rate considerably less, consumption is soaring, apathy increasing and our collective concern negligible. Wasted food makes up the largest percentage of all material buried in our landfills. We throw away up to 40 percent of our sustenance, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In fact, the average American wastes 10 times as much food as the average Joe in Southeast Asia — up 50 percent from Americans in the 1970s.

Of the more than 150 million mobile devices we discard annually — many still in fine working order but no longer socially fashionable — only about 12 percent are recycled.

A mobile phone contains about 40 elements, including heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants such as flame-retardants, PVC, lead, cadmium, chromium, mercury, bromine, tin and antimony. Such chemicals have been linked to birth defects, impaired learning, liver toxicity, premature births and early puberty.

Our response to this problem has become the American Way. For instance, the United States is the only industrialized country that hasn’t ratified the Basel Convention, an international treaty that makes it illegal to export toxic e-waste. The convention’s main goal is to protect human health and the environment from hazards posed by trans-boundary movements of hazardous waste.

Since 1990, U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions have increased by about 6 percent, according to the EPA, and we have been one of the largest, if not the largest, emitter of climate-changing emissions for decades. Our response has been to blame China and India for now polluting as much as we do.

Unfortunately, thinking of others and the environment aren’t ideals that get you elected or make you rich and powerful. The trickle-down effect of our expanding self-indulgence was on full display last Sunday at Brown University. The mess is likely unseen in the background of countless selfies.

It has become increasingly OK to leave our trash at college graduations, on airplanes, in movie theaters, at ballparks, in public parks and at the beach. Someone else will pick up mess ... or birds will choke on plastic bottle caps mistaken for food ... or donations will eventually be made to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Since we can’t even be bothered to properly dispose of trash and recyclables at an event that celebrates society’s potential, what sacrifices are we truly willing to make to ensure a prosperous and healthy future for others?

Frank Carini is the editor of ecoRI News.

'Stillness and Motion'

"The Buck and Kick'' (oil stick on paper, mounted on board), by ANDREW NIXON, in his "Stillness and Motion'' show, at the Dedee Shattuck Gallery, Wesport, Mass., June 3-June 28.

'Keyhole and key'

 

From  "Finally Wear the Piano,'' an exhibition of large-scale paintings by Korean artist JUNG HUR, at the Corey Daniels Gallery,  Wells, Maine, May 30-June 30.

The gallery says that  in the show, Mr. Hur explores how objects take form, acquire a name, and become iconic symbols that can then be appropriated for other things, such as a logo, and influence other areas of cultural currency and eventually, ... land on a T-shirt. "I am interested in how many steps does it take to finally wear the piano and what does that process look like."

For this current work, Mr. Hur has developed his own version of the ubiquitous yin-yang symbol. "My symbol is a keyhole and key. It implies a visual lens, a door to pass through and different perspectives. It implies the relationship between looking and the process of perspective."

Chris Powell: 'High-stakes tests' for high-stakes life

MANCHESTER, Conn. Connecticut's biggest teachers union, the Connecticut Education Association, is increasing its clamor against what it calls "high-stakes" testing of students and against the "Smarter Balanced" test in use by the state Education Department.

The union has complained that the test has technical problems. The union’s bigger objection is that there is too much standardized testing and that test preparation distracts from learning. But the union's definition of "high-stakes" testing shows that improving learning is not its objective at all.

As the union's executive director, Mark Waxenberg, explains it, a test is "high stakes" if its results can be compared and construed to mean that a student, teacher, or school is not proficient or, worse, is a failure, or if its results can jeopardize a school's funding.

By that definition any standardized test whose results are made public is a "high-stakes" test and the union can accept only tests whose results are secret. That is, the union's objective is, predictably enough, to deprive the public and its elected representatives of any independent measures of student, teacher, and school performance, making public only unstandardized and uncomparable measures provided by teachers and school administrators. In the CEA's system, all students and teachers, as in Lake Woebegon, will be above average.

As a practical matter there is no "high-stakes" testing in Connecticut's schools -- no testing whose results have serious consequences, none that determines student advancement from grade to grade and graduation from high school, none that figures in teacher evaluation, and none that determines school funding.

Instead, Connecticut's schools practice the social promotion of students. Nearly every student who shows up is given a high school diploma even if he has learned little.

While Gov. Dan Malloy once thought that student performance should be a factor in teacher evaluations, criticism from teacher unions caused him to back off. With its clamor against "high-stakes" testing -- that is, against any testing from which the public might draw meaningful conclusions -- the union seeks mainly to keep student performance out of teacher evaluations.

As for test results and school funding, the union has nothing to worry about. For state government's thinking long has been that the worse a school performs, the more funding it should get, on the mistaken premise that the main problem of education is schools rather than the growing neglect of children by their parents.

While the CEA's dissembling is tedious, teachers can't be blamed for not wanting to be judged by the performance of their students on tests when students themselves are not judged. Instead teachers can and must be blamed for not protesting the abandonment of academic standards, the results of which the CEA now strives to conceal lest they reflect unfairly on teachers.

For while there is no "high-stakes" testing of students in Connecticut, the stakes for the state itself could not be higher: Will we have an educated, self-sufficient, and civic-minded population or an increasingly ignorant proletariat unable to compete economically with the rest of the world, dependent on government income supports, and recognizing no obligation to sustain democratic institutions?

The costly consequences of Connecticut's abandonment of education standards are easy to see if hard to look at -- the failure of most students to master high school work before graduating and the growing number of unqualified students admitted to the state university system, which has institutionalized remediation. Connecticut now pays for 16 years of education but gets less than 12.

"High-stakes" testing in school is nothing to be disparaged. To the contrary, it will be crucial as long as life itself is for high stakes.

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

So ugly that we'd miss it

 

From dartblog.com, run by Joseph Asch:

{Boston's} Prudential Center looks as good as it’s ever going to get in this iPhone 6 shot in angled evening light, but it doesn’t hold up to the John Hancock Tower, Henry N. Cobb’s 1976 creation (he was working at I.M. Pei’s firm). The two buildings offer a sharp contrast, don’t you think? Squat brutalist power facing sleek elegance. To my mind and eye, the Hancock building wins every time.

Addendum: Wikipedia summarizes the reception that the Pru received from architectural critics:

When it was built, the Prudential Tower received mostly positive architectural reviews. The New York Times called it “the showcase of the New Boston [representing] the agony and the ecstasy of a city striving to rise above the sordidness of its recent past”. But Ada Louise Huxtable called it “a flashy 52-story glass and aluminum tower … part of an over-scaled megalomaniac group shockingly unrelated to the city’s size, standards, or style. It is a slick developer’s model dropped into an urban renewal slot in Anycity, U.S.A.—a textbook example of urban character assassination.” Architect Donlyn Lyndon called it “an energetically ugly, square shaft that offends the Boston skyline more than any other structure”. In 1990, Boston Globe architecture critic Robert Campbell commented: “The Prudential Center has been the symbol of bad design in Boston for so long that we’d probably miss it if it disappeared.”

The individual critics have it right. 

Boston's Children's Hospital buying metro NYC physician group

Boston Children's Hospital is buying  a big metro New York physician group, in a spectacular example of the drive of hospitals to get referrals of affluent, well-insured patients.  

http://cmg625.com/boston-childrens-hospital-buying-n-y-physician-group/

Avoid sleeping or sex there

"Our Bedroom, Westminster St. '' (screen prints, masonite, wood  and foamcore), by KEVIN FRANCES, in the "You Are Here'' show at New Art Center, Newtonville, Mass., next Jan. 15-Feb. 20.

The gallery says the show will present "place as physical, geographical, liminal or psychological spaces. Each artist will interpret the subjective phrase 'you are here' commonly found on directory maps to present place through the scope of their practice.''

Birdland at Maine gallery

 

"White Pullet'' (encaustic), by HELENE FARRAR,  in the show "Little by Little, Bird by Bird,'' at Monkitree gallery, in Gardiner, Maine.

The show includes bird-inspired art by nine Maine artists.

Ms. Farrar says she came to crafting birds when her dying mother made hamburger  available to attract, and watch the beauty of,  a flock of birds. (Not so beautiful for the  steer killed to make the hamburger.)

"As they swooped down for their dinner, their flying and fluttering forms forced a moment of quiet and observation in an otherwise intense and painful period in my life. Birds from that point on became something else  -- a witness to life's events and cycles, portraits, commentaries on life and relationships, and a general slice of humor.''

The gallery says that whether "they symbolize peace or freedom, flight or ambition, birds are the sole focus of the artists in this exhibition.''

Has she seen The Birds, the Alfred Hitchcock movie?