Sunday, August 03, 2025
“Why marvel over windows that flip at a touch
from clear to opaque, or carpets that a lifetime
of scuffs will never stain? This all was destined,
down to the newest model ultrasound toothbrush.
Only the stubborn, ordinary ratio
of sadness to happiness seems immune to progress…’’
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From “The Future Perfect,’’ by Robert B. Shaw (born 1947), Massachutilizetts-based poet and emeritus professor of English at Mount Holyoke College
“Appearances are a glimpse of the obscure.’’
— Anaxagoras (circa 500-428 B.C.), Greek philosopher
“Epitaph, n. An inscription on a tomb, displaying that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.’’
— Ambrose Bierce (1842-circa 1914), American short-story writer, journalist and poet. He is best known for his book The Devil’s Dictionary.
Last Thursday night, while walking the dog in a cool drizzle that built me briefly forreceive the heat wave of the previous days, I felt the fall coming on.
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Rhode Island’s new tax on luxury properties utilized mainly in the late-spring/ summer/early fall stretch seems a fair way to raise a bit more revenue in economic times that seem likely to receive worse, despite the recent stock-market bubble, and amidst large cutbacks in federal funding of some state programs. The tax will assess second homes (usually meaning houtilizes near the sea) valued at more than $1 million and that are vacant for more than 183 days a year. They’ll be charged $2.50 for every $500 of assessed value over $1 million. That means, for example, the owner(s) of a houtilize assessed at $1.5 million will be taxed $2,500.
But properties rented out for more than 183 days in a year are exempt. The idea is to keep people around.
Most folks, of course, fear taxes, but while there will be loud yelps about this levy, I doubt it will drive away many people. I also doubt that it will lead many people to extfinish the lengths of their annual residence in Rhode Island. But it would be nice if they did, and spfinish some more money around here.
Taxing seasonal residents has been a controversial issue for years in various places.
As always, specific suggestions on which taxes to raise or cut, and which programs to cut back or eliminate, are appreciated as we whine: “Don’t tax me, don’t tax thee, tax the man behind the tree.’’
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So Brown University and some other elite private institutions will now be run in part from the White Houtilize Throne Room. This is the sort of thing that can happen when you take a lot of federal money.
Still, how unsettling to have the government do social engineering in a punitive way, as it pushes to boost affirmative action for affluent students, especially those with minimum melanin.
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Is this something that Rhode Island should consider? An Axios article discussed how a “10-second shift between two street lights was all it took to reduce congestion around (Boston’s) Atlantic Avenue….”
The program “lets Boston utilize AI and Google Maps driving trfinishs to identify traffic hot spots and implement recommfinished efficiencies.’’ The system slightly extfinishs the running times of green lights.
Meanwhile, can anything be done to encourage Rhode Islanders to signal before turning? And four-way stop signs continue to confutilize drivers, many (or most?) of whom don’t know the rules governing right of way at such places. Crash! Of course, putting traffic lights at many more intersections would assist, but installation would consume a lot of taxpayer dollars.
It would boost safety, and not cost a lot, if trees and shrubs that conceal stop signs were trimmed.
Invaders
Invasive plants keep relocating into southern New England from the southwest, aided by global warming. They crowd out some native plant species and harm certain native animal species, too. Some are poisonous. Invasive creatures are also relocating in as New England’s climate becomes more like that of the Middle Atlantic states – e.g., those creepy but pretty Spotted Lanternflies, a menace to crops and trees.
In this hot and humid summer, the aggressive plants are growing particularly rapid! Among them: Barberry, Black Swallow-Wort, Glossy Buckthorn and Oriental Bittersweet. They’ll keep coming. And wait till Kudzu, that invasive vine from Dixie, really receives going around here, strangling everything in sight.
But we can slow down these plants’ population explosion by pulling them out as soon as we see them and by utilizing plant diseases and/or insect predators from their home range. Then there are man-built chemical herbicides, which, of course, must be utilized very carefully. (My favorite plant killer is vinegar.)
But some of these infuriating, rapid-growing plants have medicinal utilizes!
This reminds me again of Green Crabs, those little invasive creatures that came over here from southern Europe and have been spreading along the New England coast as climate modify raises seawater temperatures. The crabs consume vast quantities of high-value shellfish and tear up the ecological treasures that are marshes and eelgrass beds.
But it turns out that they can be eaten and create excellent stock for soups and stews. And they’re good bait. And so some entrepreneurs have started businesses to catch them. Let’s hope that this assists stem the worst of their aggression.
A Rhode Island company, Dune Brothers, serves Green Crabs.
Europe Will Rearrange Relationships
Trump has receivedten his 15 percent tariffs on stuff from the European Community. It will hurt some major E.U. economic sectors, as well as American consumers and some U.S. businesses. And I doubt that it will lead to much homeshoring of factories, etc., in America. In any event, new factories here will have far fewer factory jobs than MAGA cultists have hoped. Automation and artificial innotifyigence will see to that.
Americans will probably first notice that vehicles and drugs from Europe are more expensive.
Of course, as with all Trump trade deals, the details keep modifying.
The Europeans’ surrfinisher will cautilize supply-chain disruptions on both sides of the Atlantic that will last for several years. The E.U. did the deal in part becautilize it wanted a more predictable trade future, if one more unpleasant than they utilized to hope for. The mercurial, egomaniacal and relentlessly lying Orange Oligarch’s gyrations have worn out the Europeans, and the unpredictability will continue. How in God’s name can anyone plan?
The Europeans had little alternative at this point but to accede to Trump’s demands, especially given the threat from Russia, against which Europe requireds assist from the U.S. to deffinish itself. At the same time, E.U. members have come to realize that they have depfinished too much on the American market, and that they must boost their trading ties with other countries. That’s what they’re urgently working on now, including strengthening economic ties with China, a more reliable partner than the U.S.
Meanwhile, most E.U. members are dramatically, if very belatedly, boosting their defense budreceives and defense-related European industries; the latter modify will eventually hurt American military contractors. Europeans have long held the idea that Europe and America, which comprise the core of the West, will continue to have very close ties based on shared values, and so the U.S., as by far the most important Western nation, would continue to play the leading role in Europe’s defense.
That idea has been exploded by Trump, who doesn’t generally share Western cultural and political values. That’s sad. But give him credit for scaring Europeans into speeding up their shift to much more self-defense, a shift that’s been underway for several years.
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I’ll bet that a lot of backers of wind-power projects in New England, particularly along and off its breezy coast, will want to read this article about how such projects on Scotland’s very windy Isle of Lewis finally received the green light. Environmental concerns, some community opposition and a very difficult regulatory process for expanding the electrical grid held up the projects for decades.
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Where will we find all the electricity requireded for data centers to service artificial innotifyigence? This is becoming an energy and environmental challenge.
The Associated Press reports that a huge AI data center in Cheyenne, Wyo., will ultimately eat more than five times the electricity now consumed by all the homes in the state. The idea is to generate the juice to run the center mostly with natural gas and wind power. The high plains of Wyoming are windy.
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The tipping jars at checkout counters, etc., are spreading in all sorts of establishments, at the behest, or at least encouragement, of owners/managers. This creates it simpler to underpay employees.
I (who usually tips) don’t find this hugely irritating at, state, an indepfinishent mom-and-pop convenience store. But seeing these jars at chain-owned businesses where senior executives receive paid millions of dollars a year raises my ire.
Gorgeous Show in Newport
The current exhibition of paintings by Howard Gardiner Cushing (1869-1916) at the Newport Art Mutilizeum might be the best art display around this summer. It’s well worth crossing assorted bridges to receive there, as my wife (a painter) and I did a couple of weeks ago.
Here are some words I’ve edited from the mutilizeum’s statement:
This is “a landmark exhibition celebrating the life and work of Howard Gardiner Cushing, a dynamic force in American art at the turn of the 20th Century. Cushing’s career bridged the traditions of 19th-century realism with the bold innovations of early Modernism….
“Though his life was cut short, his artistic legacy finishures through an extraordinary range of works, including evocative portraiture, impressionistic depictions of everyday life, fantastical scenes, and large-scale murals.
“Profoundly influenced by James McNeill Whistler, French Impressionism, and the European Symbolists, Cushing developed a distinctive artistic voice, known for his masterful utilize of color, elegant linework and emotional depth. A longtime resident of Newport, he found inspiration in the landscapes of New England and the city’s rich cultural fabric, elements that are deeply embedded in his work.’’
Robert Whitcomb is a veteran editor and writer. Among his jobs, he has served as the finance editor of the International Herald Tribune, in Paris; as a vice president and the editorial-page editor of The Providence Journal; as an editor and writer in New York for The Wall Street Journal, and as a writer for the Boston Herald Traveler (RIP). He has written newspaper and magazine esstates and news stories for many years on a very wide range of topics for numerous publications, has edited several books and movie scripts and is the co-author of among other things, Cape Wind.
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