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Editorial

Online learning can ease economic inequality

igital learning is often seen a complement to sitintheclassroom colleges courses, but at a recent conference at MIT, experts convinc ingly portrayed innovative online offerings as a key tool for helping those of modest means move up the economic ladder. College degrees pay off. But lowincome students often face family, financial, or work constraints that keep them from pursuing higher education fulltime or even on a regular nightsandweekend basis. Citing the fact that 36 million Americans have some college but no degree, key note speaker Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education and a former federal undersecre tary of education, said the American higher education sys tem is “leaving too many students along the side of the road.” And though Massachusetts is a comparatively welled ucated state, the same problem exists here. Chris Gabrieli, chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Educa tion, noted that those who have a bachelor’s degree make, on average, about twice as much as those who don’t. Still, 1.5 million workingage Massachusetts residents either

have only a high school diploma or, if they have taken some college courses, have not obtained any kind of de gree. That despite the fact that almost a third of working age residents without a degree say they’d like to pursue one. The Baker administration hopes that flexible, expand ed digital learning opportunities will help them achieve that goal. One subject that came up repeatedly at was the importance of college courses built around mastering competencies, something that students can work on at their own pace and on their own schedule, rather than on spending a specific amount of time in the classroom. A second: College credit for prior learning. By identify ing and giving credit for legitimate skills already obtained, colleges can ease the path toward a degree. That’s particu larly important for those who have served in the military, since their careers often included highquality training. Meanwhile, several leading employers showcased their own efforts to make digital learning work for current and prospective employees. Partners HealthCare, the state’s largest employer, announced it will make a new online health caremanagement program, offered through the

University of Southern New Hampshire, available to all its employees on an affordable basis. General Electric pledged to interview for jobs any state resident who com pletes a “MicroMasters” program in cybersecurity, artifi cial intelligence, supplychain management, or cloud computing offered through the onlinelearning platform edX.org. So how to push these trends along? One problem is that federal financial aid is generally not available for competencybased online learning. Meanwhile, more em ployers should take their cues from Partners and GE in encouraging digital education. And more colleges should get in the game with affordable, forcredit online offer ings. The Baker administration, which sponsored the con ference and will soon appoint a commission to explore ways to expand online learning opportunities in areas critical to the state’s economy, should be applauded for its efforts here. This kind of wonky work often get over looked, but it’s an important effort to create a future where more residents can share the benefits of our knowl edgebased economy.

Tyranny of the lobbyists By David Dodson

“T

axation without rep resentation is tyranny!” was the ral lying cry 244 years ago when a crowd of Boston patriots dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. But if those same freedomloving colonists lived among us now, they’d have a strong lesson for us: America is suffering the same tyranny to day. Earlier this month House Speaker Paul Ryan released the tax bill, written in secret by the Republican Party, with 429 pag es of proposed changes to the tax code. He then pressed the members of Congress to vote on it in 13 days. They did what they were told. Without floor debate, or thoughtful review, nearly every Republican repre sentative came out in support of 429 pages they almost certainly never read. The Internal Revenue Code is now 74,608 pages long, and buried in those tens of thou sands of pages is a tax scheme that virtually no American un derstands. Therein lies the de ceit: We rely on a system of rep resentative democracy. We en trust others to represent our interests. It is not our job to read those 74,608 pages, which is why when they tell us it’s a middleclass tax cut, we believe they are telling the truth. We entrust them while the rest of America takes on equally important jobs, like teaching our children, fighting overseas, digging coal, or making cars. Every day the middle class does its part, while our representa tives in Washington, who have taken an oath, continue to fail to do theirs. Both parties play the same tyrannical game. During the

last 35 years, while control of the Senate and the House has been nearly equally shared by Republicans and Democrats, the number of pages in the tax code has tripled. Representa tives from both parties continue to write paragraphs they know will never be seen by those they were elected to represent. In recent weeks, the leaders of the House and Senate have been delivering soundbites from behind a podium decorat ed with a blue logo and the words “Tax Reform”— profess ing they have simplified the tax code for the middle class. What most Americans are shown is the top tax bracket of 39.6 percent. What we fail to see, though, are the thousands of pages that allow wealthy peo ple to avoid ever paying that rate. To illustrate this, Warren Buffet generously released his 2015 tax return to the public, showing he paid taxes at a 15.5 percent rate — the rate some one making $50,000 per year would pay. The same is true for corpora tions. We are told that corpora tions pay a 35 percent tax rate, when in fact many pay nothing at all, and on average they pay only 17 percent. I’m not coming from a place of sour grapes here. I am lucky enough to be a one percenter, and I’m telling you: The tax bill was not written for the middle class. It was written for people like me. President Trump, who re fused to release his own re turns, acknowledged that he paid very little in taxes. “That makes me smart!” he bragged, to which those of us in the top 1 percent rolled our eyes. Why? Because any businessperson knows wealthy people don’t have to be smart to pay lower

taxes. The game is rigged in our favor. You don’t have to be smart to win when you get to write the rules. Samuel Johnson said the taxation system of King George was “a mere cobweb, spread to catch the unwary, and entangle the weak.” That’s the same out rageous game our representa tives are playing against us to day. We’ve been fooled into thinking the tax code is just too complicated for the average American to understand. But that’s hardly a line of thinking Sam Adams or Paul Revere would have accepted. There is the saying: “Those with the gold get to make the rules.” But that is how great eco nomic systems fail, not how they thrive. Real tax reform, the kind we should insist on, will be about creating a system that doesn’t favor those with power or access. It’ll be simple and un derstood by all Americans — much like the tax code of our grandparents, who lived during a time when America won two world wars and ushered in an

other industrial revolution. If we really want to make America great, we’re going to need to chuck those 74,608 pag es into the harbor and insist on a truly reformed tax system that represents the interests of an in terstate truck driver as faithfully as a millionaire. Letting lobby ists for the moneyed classes build ever more complex tax rules that even our representa tives don’t understand is 21st century tyranny. David Dodson is a general partner of Futaleufu Partners and a lecturer in management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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SATURDAY AUGUST 26, 2017

OPINION Editorial

Arroyo’s firing exposes Latino power gap The termination of Felix G. Arroyo has ended a brief chapter with sordid allegations against the for mer Health and Human Services chief. But the con troversy isn’t entirely over for the Walsh administra tion: The departure of the highestranking Latino in city government leaves a gaping hole in an adminis tration that already does not have enough Hispanic representation. For all of Mayor Walsh’s wellintend ed efforts, Latinos are still a relatively invisible politi cal force in Boston, even though they account for nearly 20 percent of the city’s population. Arroyo was the first official appointed to Walsh’s cabinet. It was a move seen as payback for Arroyo de livering the Latino vote with a hearty endorsement of Walsh following Arroyo’s elimination from the may oral race. As chief of Health and Human Services, Ar royo oversaw seven agencies that serve some of the most disenfranchised populations: Boston’s youth, el derly, disabled, veteran, and immigrant residents.

The mayor made the right decision in swiftly firing Arroyo, but Walsh needs to double down on efforts to elevate Hispanic representation. Latinos account for 92 percent of Boston’s popula tion growth since 1980. Paul Grogan, the president of the The Boston Foundation, recently said it best: “There is no Boston Renaissance without Latinos.” And yet, the Latino power gap remains as large as ev er. According to a recent report commissioned by the Greater Boston Latino Network, only 10 percent of the city’s executive positions are held by Latinos, up from 7 percent three years ago. By another measure, reflective representation of Hispanics has actually di minished: Their membership on the city’s boards and commissions declined from 7 percent to 5 percent. According to city officials, 11 percent of the city’s workforce is of Hispanic origin, while 12 percent of Mayor Walsh’s new hires since he took office have been Latino.

When a minority group is not represented in gov ernment in a way that mirrors their share of the pop ulation, the group’s voices and concerns cannot be fully considered in making policy. “Latino represen tation is important to ensure cultural and linguistic competency in the provision of city services and pro grams,” said Iván EspinozaMadrigal, executive di rector for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice. “We want everyone in the city to see that their government is attuned to their needs.” The numbers also make it clear that there is a need for more mobilization and political organization in the Latino community. That may happen over time, but visible Latino leadership in government — as well as in business and nonprofit sectors — will help accelerate the process. While not all of that re sponsibility should fall on the shoulders of the mayor, there’s more work to be done at City Hall.

READERS’ FORUM

‘Free speech,’ from left, right, and middle

The bandwagon is headed for a cliff I wish to commend Jeff Jacoby on his article regarding the “free speech” rally on Boston Common (“On Bos ton Common, free speech took a beating,” Opinion, Aug. 23). At the risk of incurring the wrath of the righteous, I must say that most fairminded, nonpartisan people rec ognize we have a problem — in our country, in our media, and most par ticularly on our college campuses — with speech that conflicts with the popular narrative. Tyranny on the left is no more virtuous than tyranny on the right. The bandwagon leading the pa rade to stifle contrary opinions will go over the cliff if it continues to be guided by a compass which points in only one direction. Imposing taboos on discomforting conversations only thickens the walls of the echo cham ber. Pretending that beliefs that are not compatible with the prevailing orthodoxy are heretical just fuels the fires of partisanship that are consum ing our society. It’s the mentality that fed the In quisition. It takes impressive forti tude and conviction for Mr. Jacoby to regularly hurl himself against the lib eral tide that surges from the Globe’s editorial page.

their way into our groups and often disrupt our peaceful and civil demon strations. I think that this happened during the recent tragedy in Charlot tesville, Va. Many of these extremist groups only want to provoke vio lence. They thrive on conflict and the national attention it merits to pro mote their distorted views. They want to segregate Americans to the point that we have civil war. We who love our country must re sist these divisive efforts to initiate conflict, as we will all lose when cha os overtakes our largely peaceful so ciety. I worry about the everincreas ing violence that is occurring around the world. We cannot allow extrem ists to set the agenda for our future. MICHAEL PRAVICA Henderson, Nev.

Both speech and thought were stifled

MICHAEL SHEEHY Boston

The left is silenced far more often than the right RE Joan Vennochi’s “Protecting speech we hate” (Opinion, Aug. 15): The right is no stranger to silencing free speech. President Trump has claimed people should be jailed for burning a US flag. The US govern ment has attempted to make it a felo ny to participate in a boycott of Isra el. Leftist protesters are constantly arrested, not for encouraging vio lence, but for acts of peaceful disrup tion. At times, this even extends to journalists covering protests. The Es pionage Act, incredibly, is still law, and has been used to prosecute whis tleblowers who share information

with the press, from Snowden to Manning. Yet when white supremacists take to the streets and incite violence, then the free speech advocates come out in droves. Stand up for free speech, if you want to. But do it con sistently, not just when it’s neoNazis practicing it. And stop pretending that attempts to silence the extreme right is why our free speech is under

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threat. It is under threat, but the left is prosecuted far more than the right. GERARD CONNOLLY Roxbury Crossing

Don’t let extremists set the agenda RE the “skirmishes” and arrests ref erenced in your coverage of the “free

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speech” rally (Page A1, Aug. 20): As a longtime activist for over 25 years, one of the things I would notice about our past protests (e.g., pertain ing to NATO’s illegal and savage bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999) — many in the Boston area — was that it was difficult to control who would participate in the protests and, as a result, fringe elements with alterna tive agendas to our own would work

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A free speech rally in Boston was stopped short by force. The mayor of Boston brags that violence was avoid ed and everything went well — ex cept for one thing. What happened to free speech? Did anyone actually lis ten to the words this group spoke be fore their right to speak was removed by force? Did they say a single hateful word? Nada. What has happened to Patrick Henry’s “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Al mighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!” I used to hear the thought that an American would fight to the death to protect the rights of others to freedom of speech and thought and religion. Not in Boston today. Maybe not in Ameri ca ever again. Yes, I understand vigi lance against ideologies of hate — I lost most of my family in two world wars — but I have never seen this bully before, not in my home town. If you are not on the correct side, you are now called a racist, and the pow erful take away your tongue. JOHN PHILLIP GUSDON Arlington

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Editorial

Trump’s cynical ploy on the Iran deal

nce again, President Trump is engaging in cyn ical behavior on the Iran nuclear deal, refusing either to retreat from his illinformed cam paign posturing about the agreement or to fol low through on his vow to dismantle it. In stead, he’s trying to position others as the fall guy for a future US withdrawal from the multiparty pact. In October, Trump refused to certify that Iran was com plying with the deal, but stopped short of applying sanctions for that supposed noncompliance. Instead, he left that up to Congress to decide. Congress did nothing, and wisely so: In November, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors the accord, said that Iran was in fact in compli ance. Because of reporting requirements, the certification cycle recurs every 90 days. Thus on Jan. 12, the president again declined to certify that Iran was in compliance, but again de clined to reimpose sanctions. Instead, Trump threatened that if the other parties to the pact — Great Britain, Russia, France, Germany, and China — and Congress don’t strength en it within 120 days, he will withdraw the United States from the deal. Among other things, Trump wants to change

the inspections regime, remove the expiration dates on the agreement’s provisions, and include restrictions on Iran’s missile program. Those conditions read like a calculated effort to under mine the pact. The original thinking behind the agreement was that Iran’s alleged nuclear aspirations should be ad dressed as its own discrete issue. Other concerns would be dealt with separately, since including them would add multi ple layers of geopolitical complexity. The United States obviously can’t impose Trump’s new demands unilaterally. And there’s absolutely no reason to be lieve the other parties to the pact will embrace them; they think, correctly, that the agreement is working. Russia has already ruled that out, and France, Britain, and Germany have made it clear they back the current deal. Thus there’s no way a new arrangement could be presented as a unified front ultimatum to Iran by world powers. And even if all par ties, including Iran, were willing to reopen the agreement, it’s absurd to expect a renegotiation of this scope and com plexity could be completed in 120 days. So Trump is obvious ly not looking for a solution, but rather attempting to posi tion others as the scapegoat should he pull out of the ar

rangement at some future point, as he is threatening to do. In that light, it’s important to underscore several impor tant truths Trump has long ignored. By requiring the altera tion of Iran’s heavywater reactor, the deal has closed the path to a plutonium bomb. By dramatically reducing Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, it has lengthened from a cou ple of months to at least a year the time it would take Iran to enrich enough uranium for a bomb. And as far as detection goes, the agreement gives the International Atomic Energy Agency 25 years of inspections of Iran’s nuclearmaterials cy cle. Finally, if Trump does withdraw the United States from the pact and reimpose sanctions, absent the other countries following suit, that solo action would be unlikely to force Iran to accept new terms. All Trump would really have done is undermine an antinuclearproliferation effort that has been a significant success so far. In other words, the presi dent is currently engaged in a cynic’s errand. It’s past time for the president to change course. No, the Iran deal isn’t perfect. Rather, it was an exercise in the art of the possible. But it has made the Middle East safer — and sticking with it is preferable to any realistic alternative.

ALEX BEAM

Norway, here we come! AP

nlike you, I have options. A number of years ago I married an intelli gent, blonde woman who spoke many languag es, including one that sounded like the sound track from “Thor: Ragnarok.” It was gobbledy gook to me, but she turned out to be Norwegian — imagine my luck! That’s right. Not only do we have the right to resettle in Donald Trump’s favorite whitebread country — Norway makes New Hampshire look like the Model UN — but Nor way is also anxious to have us. We have been perusing a website called “New Beginnings in Ringerike,” which bills it self as a “recovery” program for NorwegianAmericans trau matized by the presidential election: “In light of the results of the US presidential election, the Ringerike Recovery Program has been developed by the re gional development company of Ringerike, Norway. We are offering acute aid to descendants of emigrated Norwegians, and other Americans, considering a new start abroad.” Where the heck is Ringerike, you ask? As indicated, it’s in Norway, a bit north (ugh) of Oslo, and to the left (west.) On Google Maps, it looks like an enchanted land of lapis lakes and forested mountains, which is how I will choose to think of it. “Ringerike has a lot to offer,” the website explains, in

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nearperfect English. Did I mention that all Norwegians speak perfect English, and Swedish, and German? The fact is, Norwegians in particular and Europeans in general (don’t get me started on the Dutch) can be pretty annoying profiling their peacocky polyglottalia. Which may or may not be a word; my English is a work in progress. Where was I? “Ringerike has a lot to offer: free health care and schools, reasonable [sic] priced housing, wide cul tural scene, high tolerance for religious beliefs and sexual orientation, stunning nature, clean air and fresh water. All are equal; women’s rights are advanced, and our current fe male head of state is not our first.” This refers to prime min ister Erna Solberg, whom, inexplicably, President Trump treated like an actual human being during a recent White House visit. This country’s sense of self is positively Trumpian, e.g.: “We believe our highly developed welfare state is the best. Not only are we among the richest countries in the world, but the United Nations’ Human Development Index has ranked us the world’s best country to live in — 12 years in a row. That’s facts.” The comeNorske website has links to homes for sale in the area. It looks like I could buy a threebedroom house in Haugsbygd, if only I could learn to pronounce it, for about as much as it would cost me to move to Waltham. Further

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more, there seem to be plenty of job opportunities in my pu tative new home. I could work for Norwegian public broad casting in Buskerud, covering “the elongated Buskerud County, which has both coasts, high mountains and the ur ban big city life.” There is one thing the Ringerike website doesn’t offer, which is answers to direct questions. I fashioned an unctu ous egrovel, which, translated into plain English, read: “Can I come sponge off of your legendary social welfare sys tem, which your prime minister says remains intact, despite the cataclysmic collapse in world oil prices?” No reply. How seriously are we thinking about moving? A few days ago, my wife and I got down to cases: She (who has always wanted to move back to Norway, kind of): “It would be nice to be able to get Ekte Gjetost.” (Brownish sweet goat cheese; don’t ask.) Me (who thinks Norway is awfully darned cold): “Don’t they sell that at Whole Foods?” She: “No, that’s Ski Queen. It’s not dark enough.” The coin is in the air.

Alex Beam’s column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @imalexbeamyrnot.

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No support for fake service animals

ucks on planes? Bunnies in restaurants? Al pacas in the drugstore? We increasingly face a menagerie in public places, part of a trend that suggests person and pet are inseparable. Animal lovers grow bolder by the day, often claiming the animals provide essential emotional comfort. What’s the harm of sharing an air plane cabin with a pig, right? Problem is, tolerance for support animals, originally a privilege extended by some businesses, is evolving into an assumed right, at times undermining the needs of people who legitimately must have a service animal to navigate life. In many cases, passing a pet off as a support animal is an act of smalltime fraud. Pet lovers take advantage of websites selling bogus equipment — vests, ID tags, and “certifications” — to designate a pet as an emotional support or service animal. And because there’s wide spread misinformation about what kind of legal protec tions exist around service animals, the scam is easy to get away with. Unfortunately, current federal law is vague and con flicting. The Americans with Disabilities Act only recog

nizes dogs and certain miniature horses as service ani mals. They are required to be individually trained to perform a specific task for a person with a disability: dogs that fetch items on command, turn light switches on and off, lead blind or deaf people, etc. It can cost up to $40,000, and take several years, to acquire and train a dog to perform some specialized tasks. Restaurants, airlines, and other businesses must accommodate such animals. The ADA, however, does not cover emotional sup port animals, or those whose “mere presence provides comfort.” In other words, CVS can’t be required to rec ognize your emotional support parrot. But the rules are muddier on airlines, which are also subject to a differ ent set of rules. The Air Carrier Access Act allows pas sengers to bring their selfdesignated and unofficial emotional support pets in airplane cabins. Pet owners are, consciously or not, exploiting such confusion when they insist on a right to bring pets into nonairline settings. Compounding the situation is the lack of an official certification or national registry for le gitimate service dogs; the ADA doesn’t even require them to wear a special tag. Unscrupulous pet owners

By Anthony Flint

can buy a service dog vest for a yellow lab online for as little as $17.99 and bring him to a restaurant, even if his training amounts to little more than “sit.” That’s why state Representative Kimberly Ferguson filed a bill on Beacon Hill to crack down on abuses. The bill, which will be heard on Tuesday, makes it a civil in fraction, carrying a $500 fine, to intentionally misrepre sent a pet dog as a service animal. It’s a step in the right direction — one already taken by a dozen states — that Massachusetts lawmakers should swiftly codify into law. Still, the crackdown doesn’t go far enough; more substantive reform is needed at the federal level. After a particularly horrifying incident on Delta Airlines recent ly, where a man was mauled by a fellow passenger’s emotional support dog during boarding in Atlanta, fed eral authorities are being pressured to regulate access more strictly. New standards for airlines that can be eas ily enforced are long overdue. Fake service dogs and dubious emotional support animals on planes can endanger public safety. Worse yet, by distracting legitimate service dogs, they may even harm the very people the legal protections for ser vice animals are meant to help.

Yet I felt the guilt that only an environmentalist can feel, about the resources that were consumed and the energy spent making this vehicle, in Japan, and shipping it here. We all should be driv ing less, and if we do drive, it should be in a fully electric vehicle, recharged with electricity from solar and wind. I could have held out for the new $30,000 Tesla, and just hid my face when I pulled up to the valet in the meantime. But then I started to feel better. Thanks to improvements in the hybrid system, the new car will use the battery more often and spew less carbon into the atmosphere. They will fix up my old car and sell it to somebody else, who will pay under $10,000 and drive it for another 60,000 miles — to work and for family trips and to see grandparents in a neighboring state. So I took a deep breath. The next day, I started driving a car un adorned with duct tape. Taking delivery was bittersweet. I took a picture of this year’s model next to the dented silver steed. I steadfastly declined an ar ray of options and extras, trying to stay Spartan. Still, pointing out the impossibly shiny vehicle to the staff of nearby Victor’s Diner, I felt sheepish. This was supposed to be a big moment, but dogged by being both a Yankee and a walkthewalk environmentalist, I couldn’t celebrate the consumerism. Even my one small homage to recycling was deterred. I hoped to transfer my marker plates, faded green numbers on a dirty white background, honoring the tradition of them being on my previous cars. But I was told in no uncertain terms that the old plates wouldn’t pass inspection, because the Commonwealth wants everybody to drive now with bright redandwhite reflective plates, legible by police and the EZDrive electronic tolling cameras. In the showroom, the salesmen looked at me quizzically when I insisted on keeping the old plate. But I think I know just the place to hang it on the wall of my basement. They can’t take that away from me.

used to drive a BMW, until it overheated on the way to a launch party for my book about visionary urbanist Jane Jacobs. I took that as a sign. That year, in 2009, I bought a silver 2010 Prius that has served me well. It was the butt of jokes, but it was transportation, it was spry, it was home. I changed the way I drove off when red lights turned to green, and it was a rare occasion when I switched from economy to “power mode.” I was righteous in my environmental contribu tion, spewing less in emissions every time the indash display indi cated my propulsion was powered by the battery. Lately, though, the silver steed has been the worse for wear — cracks in the fender sealed with duct tape, a crumpled passenger door thanks to someone who hit me in a parking lot and didn’t leave a note, and a slightly disturbing loud sound whenever I drove on the highway. The dings and dents and scratches on the rear fender looked like a Jackson Pollock painting. Somebody keyed a side panel — out of sheer principle, I’ve always speculated — on my last days parking in South Boston. I’m a Yankee who believes in using it up and wearing it out. My first car was handed down, a 1968 Chevrolet Malibu convertible, that I drove, in my Hush Puppies, until the frame rusted out. Next was a skyblue Buick Skylark, a company car my father no longer needed, with a DukakisforPresident sticker on the chrome bum per. My grandfather offered to trade it in for a Cadillac Cimarron — Spanish for “wild thing” — which I drove until it would drive no more, conking out on I95 as we were on our way to a Super Bowl party, in the late ’90s, my wife sitting silent next to me in the front seat of the tow truck on the night ride home. Use it until it disintegrates. The same credo applies to shoes and suits, much to the entertainment of my extended family, who will readily kick a couch to the curb at the first sign of a scuff. But on a recent day at Toyota of Watertown, I succumbed, accepting a generous offer on a tradein. There was a charcoal gray 2017 Prius V3 on the lot, all full of promise and 88 miles on the odometer, and they were ready to sell it to me.

Anthony Flint is a fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. He can be reached at anthony.flint@gmail.com.

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Another look at charter schools’ report card

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Editorial Still sought after, charter schools are not a sector in decline This year marks the 25th anniversary of the state’s land mark Education Reform Act, which helped propel our pub lic schools to the top of the charts nationally. In addition to providing significant funding to local districts and estab lishing high standards, the law also created public charter schools. These schools not only have provided highquality educational options for families across the state but have al so demonstrated that all students can achieve regardless of their family’s economic circumstances. I was, therefore, surprised by the article “Charter schools struggle amid lost momentum” (Page A1, March 8), which tied together several disparate events to weave a nar rative of a sector in decline. Far from it — public charter schools are as strong as ever. Charters in Massachusetts are wellregulated, nonprofit public schools that have promoted educational equity in our urban districts and offered innovative programs in sub urban and rural schools. The loss of the 2016 ballot initiative to lift enrollment caps on charters was certainly a political setback for char ters, but it had no impact on the quality of the educational programs in their class rooms or the role char ters play in furthering educational excellence in the Commonwealth. These schools still en joy bipartisan support among state leaders, and parents are still lining up to enroll their children. In my view, strong principals and teachers lead to strong class rooms, strong classrooms lead to strong schools, and strong schools lead to strong communities, regardless of whether it is a traditional district or charter school. Public charter schools in Massachusetts have proved their value over the past 25 years; they should be embraced, not treated as ad versaries.

These schools still enjoy bipartisan support, and parents are still lining up to enroll their children.

SAMANTHA STAMAS/GLOBE STAFF ILLUSTRATION

REPRESENTATIVE ALICE H. PEISCH Democrat of Wellesley

The writer is House chair of the Joint Committee on Edu cation.

Unionization efforts should not be portrayed as bad for charters How curious that James Vaznis, in his article “Charter schools struggle amid lost momentum,” lists “multiple unionization efforts” as part of the charter school move ment’s “relentlessly bad” recent news. On the contrary: Pro moting the wellbeing of the faculty through the power of unionizing can improve these schools. A strong union pres ence is good news. ROD KESSLER Salem

The writer is a retired member of the faculty of Salem State University.

Seaport business owners ought to help keep gondolas aloft As your March 8 editorial “Will gondolas fly in the Sea port?” points out, the concept of using gondolas to alleviate some of the traffic pressure in the Seaport is intriguing, but it needs to be fleshed out. As to the question of how to pay for the maintenance, repair, and replacement of a gondola system, if it is built with developers’ dollars, why not con sider a business improvement district fund where the building owners in the area, who benefit from it, pay for its support? A similar program seems to be working well in Down town Crossing, and one is proposed for the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway. Such programs improve the user friendliness of these areas, which benefits all who work, shop, live, or recreate there as well as maintaining and im proving the values of the real estate. DONALD VAUGHAN Dorchester

The writer is a commercial real estate lawyer.

It seems Mississippi lawmakers’ concern for kids ends at birth The Mississippi Senate approved a bill that would set the earliest abortion ban in the United States (“Mississippi moves toward abortion ban at 15 weeks,” Page A12, March 8). The lawmakers’ concern for the unborn would be more credible if they expressed an equal concern for living chil dren. Mississippi has the secondhighest infant mortality rate in the United States. JULIA GLENDON Lunenberg

Within a hair’s breadth of a diplomatic breakthrough on N. Korea? Now we hear that our president, like Dennis Rodman be fore him, is willing to meet with the North Korean dictator. What is it about people with orange hair and Kim Jong Un? MICHAEL P. MURRAY Nahant

Letters should be written exclusively to the Globe and include name, address, and daytime telephone number. They should be 200 words or fewer. All are subject to editing. Letters to the Editor, The Boston Globe, 1 Exchange Pl, Ste 201, Boston, MA 021092132; letter@globe.com

Congratulations, Utah! Now, here are some expert tips on how to use your new Mitt Romney

he latest upgrade to Mitt Rom ney’s operating system apparently required a lengthy reboot. But now, after several months in beta, the erstwhile Belmont resident has re emerged as a Senate candidate in Utah, with features that include a new grovel ing app to accept an endorsement from President Trump, and efficiency improvements allowing him to operate at lower dignity levels. Unfortunately, much like an iPad, Romney doesn’t come with an instruction manual. That might leave voters in Utah struggling to understand their inscru table new political candidate. So, because Massachu setts is the only jurisdiction ever to elect Romney to anything — he served one term as governor between his various runs for other offices — here’s a short us ers guide: The Romney mouth: Due to a longstanding bug, the words from Romney’s mouth are highly inconsis tent, and shouldn’t be relied on as an indicator of his views. As a gubernatorial candidate in Massachusetts, Romney supported a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. As a presidential candidate, he identified as prolife. As a candidate for Senate in Massachu setts in 1994, he said he would be “better than Ted Kennedy” on gay rights and promised a gay rights ad vocacy group that he would support laws preventing discrimination against gays and lesbians in the work place. Hands: Surprisingly well behaved for a politician. All joking aside, Romney didn’t embarrass Massachu setts with scandal, and he isn’t likely to embarrass Utah. Spine: Well, nobody’s perfect. Romney’s spine fluc tuates between momentarily stiff and then suddenly nonexistent. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he bravely blasted Donald Trump as a con man, pho ny, and fraud. Then Romney truckled to Trump, the presidentelect, in a failed attempt to become secre tary of state. During the presidential campaign, he tweeted that if Trump had said in 2012 what he was saying as a candidate about “the KKK, Muslims, Mex icans, disabled, I would NOT have accepted his en dorsement.” Then, last month, Romney cheerfully ac cepted President Trump’s endorsement. Heart: He has a big one for his large and loving family. A drawing of his wife, Ann, is part of the offi cial Romney portrait that hangs in the Massachusetts

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State House. But he infamously put the family dog, Seamus, in a cage atop his car during a trip from Mas sachusetts to Ontario. He told Iowa State Fair attend ees, “Corporations are people, my friend,” when asked about raising taxes on them. And, in a secretly record ed video, he also said 47 percent of Americans are “dependent on government,” “believe that they are victims,” and “believe the government has a responsi bility to care for them.” Eyes: Partially defective. Immigrants who were il legally in the country were famously found to be do ing landscaping for Romney when he was governor, and reported that he occasionally he greeted them with a cheery “buenos dias.” But he denied knowing anything about their legal status and, during the 2012 presidential campaign, called for immigrants unlawfully in the United States to selfdeport. He has been critical of Trump’s tone on immigration, but re cently told the Salt Lake Tribune that he supports “a border fence or wall or whatever you want to call it.” Hair: No problems reported. Ever. Stomach: Capable of handling policy Uturns that would cause extreme indigestion in others. As Massa chusetts governor, Romney signed the first perma nent state ban on assault weapons. In the 2012 presi dential contest, he declared himself “a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will,” and was endorsed by the NRA. After 17 people died recently during a Florida high school shooting, he said it was appropriate to talk about the role of guns, but it’s un clear what action he would take. He recently said gun control measures should come from states and he’s unlikely to support federal gun proposals, with the possible exception of an enhanced background check proposed by Senator Orrin Hatch. Brain: Smart enough to help craft good policies like Massachusetts’ health reform, but often crashes as a result of failures in other critical systems (see, e.g., spine). Though health care was Romney’s signa ture accomplishment, and became a model for Presi dent Obama’s Affordable Care Act, Romney turned tail out of political expedience. He now calls Obamac are “bad news” and says he would repeal and replace it with “statecrafted plans.” Feet (not pictured): Made for walking, and that’s just what they do. Romney had no problem ditching Massachusetts to run in Utah. And if he loses there? Romney’s called enough states home that who knows where he might unveil his next version?

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Editorial

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Opinion BOSTONGLOBE.COM/OPINION

Editorial

Too much pain, not enough gain in GOP tax plan

ad: the federal tax provision that allows homeowners to deduct mortgage interest. On the books in some form for a century, the deduction unfairly favors homeowners over renters, and amounts to a giveaway to the construction and real estate industries. Worse: The Republican plan to shrink the deduction overnight. It’s a recurring theme in the House GOP tax plan, which is expected to come to a vote this week. Not ev ery idea in the sprawling plan is so bad, but they add up a harmful bill overall. The tax plan would make chang es that might be worth considering — if they weren’t yoked to huge giveaways for the wealthy. Good features of the sweeping House proposal in clude expanding the child tax credit. Likewise, season tickets for college sports shouldn’t be deductible. The Republican proposal also changes the method used to calculate inflation to a measure that economists consid er more accurate.

But there’s also plenty to dislike. The proposal would take away the deduction for medical expenses, which is vital for a small number of taxpayers with cat astrophic medical bills. It also eliminates tax credits for adoption expenses. And it does not spread the pain equally. Whether the mortgage interest deduction is good policy or not may be debatable, but it’s clear that it affects some regions more than others. Reducing the size of mortgages that can qualify for the deduction from $1 million to $500,000, for instance, would be a particular blow to Greater Boston, where housing prices are high. So would the GOP’s plan to cap at $10,000 the amount of property tax payments that filers can deduct, while eliminating completely the deductions for state and lo cal income taxes. And for what? The GOP wants middleclass taxpay ers to forego deductions so the government can . . . wait for it . . . lower corporate tax rates, abolish the estate tax, and go further into the red. The bottom line of the

GOP plan is that it takes from the somewhat rich — and from future generations saddled with more debt — to give to corporations and the very rich. The Senate GOP is expected to unveil its own tax overhaul proposal soon. Hopefully they’ll do better, be cause the House bill is way too flawed to support. If Congress wants to tackle a thorny issue like the mortgage interest deduction, they need to do it with a serious bipartisan effort. Any change should be phased in. It should also apply equally to all homeowners. (The House plan grandfathers in existing mortgages, a provi sion that is apparently designed to make the bill more politically palatable but will distort the housing market even more.) And the reclaimed revenues should go to housing uses, not tax breaks for the rich. If the GOP sticks to its artificial deadlines and con tinues to sideline Democrats, this bill is probably be yond repair. Nobody thinks the current tax code is per fect, but Congress may need to reform its own partisan ways before it can reform taxes.

MARGERY EAGAN

Sucked into the widening gyre of the Tman GLOBE STAFF ILLUSTRATION/AP

he impossible happened a year ago Tuesday. The Tman cometh to bully the world. Who among us is the same? Perhaps you too need a night guard to keep from grinding your

teeth to dust. Perhaps you too have developed a slight nervous twitch. And perhaps you wake up feeling lowlevel dread, trapped, fearing the next Tpocalypse. It’s Post Traumatic Tman Disorder, my therapist says. It’s been spreading for months, like bubonic plague. The American Psychological Association reports that Americans are more stressed than ever about the nation’s future (63 percent), beating our usual stressors, money (62 percent) and work (61 per cent). More than half think we’re at the lowest point ever — lower than World War II, Vietnam, Sept. 11, or the Cuban Missile Crisis, when millions of school kids practiced hiding under their desks. We just can’t escape the stressor in chief, who sucks us down the widening gyre. I see the Tman on the kitchen TV. At the podi um. He’s making that circle with his right thumb and index finger, jutting it at us in hostile little bursts. He’s calling something “a total disaster” or somebody a “total loser.” What he’s doing himself?

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That’s “Yuge,” “bigly,” “epic,” “historic,” “the best and biggest ever, believe me!” And there I stand, dish towel in one hand, sponge in the other, pathetically paralyzed, unable to turn away from those sowhite teeth, the most powerful Chiclets on earth. “My name is Josh Freed and I am a Trumpahol ic.” So the oncemildmannered Josh confessed this summer to a Canadian newspaper, proving that T obsession knows no geographic bounds. Josh said he “used to be a normal person.” Now? He “shoots up” Ttales like an addict with a needle. He’s ever alert for the errant Ttweet that ends it all. 12:14 a.m. “Take out Korea!” 12:21 a.m. “Whoops! I meant get Korean take out!” I used to be a more or less normal person too. Belonged to a book club. Walked the dog. Talked to my neighbors. One of my children would call from o’er the miles. I’d drop everything to chat. That’s all over now. If the phone rings when my two favorite Davids, Axelrod and Gergen, appear with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, forget the kid, I hate to say it. I need my two Davids — sane, soothing, so firmly grounded on planet earth — to talk me down. The book club fizzled because, well, really, who has time when one must obsessively swipe smart

SENIOR DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORS Mark S. Morrow Jennifer Peter

phone or iPad for Tupdates, Tpoll numbers, and Matt Kiser’s newsletter, “WTF Just Happened To day?” Now I walk the dog wearing headphones, listen ing for podcast reassurance: This can’t go on. The closest I’ve come is “Pod Save America” by the cocky exObama whiz kids. Unfortunately, they’re the same cocky whiz kids who promised this could nev er happen at all. I know. We’re supposed to get out of our bubbles. I try hard to listen to relatives. I read “Hillbilly Ele gy” and “Strangers in Their Own Land.” I’ve watched Sean Hannity, read Breitbart, even Alex Jones’s Info Wars, where 2 million to 5 million heard that kid napped children are sex slaves on Mars. Jones deserves a Pulitzer, the Tman has said. But I’m done now. Enough already. Sex slaves on Mars? Are you kidding me? I know some of you are thinking: Stop whining. You’re just a privileged, hysterical snowflake. Maybe I am. But here’s the thing: I’d long believed Churchill’s line that American politicians, facing the abyss, will exhaust every ridiculous possibility but eventually do the right thing. Well, the abyss is here and deepening, and I just don’t know anymore. Margery Eagan is cohost of WGBH’s “Boston Public Radio.”

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Editorial

A cruel new front in war on reproductive rights

n early September, a 17yearold pregnant teen sought to have a legal abortion in Texas. The girl, one of thousands of immigrant mi nors from Central America apprehended after entering the country illegally, was living in a federally funded shelter in Brownsville when a medi cal exam found that she was nine weeks pregnant. When the Trump administration blocked her re quest, she sued, with the help of a courtappointed lawyer and the American Civil Liberties Union, and ultimately prevailed. Although Jane Doe, as she was known in court documents, was legally allowed to terminate her pregnancy on Oct. 25, her case is part of an alarming new assault on abortion rights for one of the most vulnerable populations: undocumented teenagers held in government custody. In another recent case, a teen known as Jane Poe, who became pregnant as a result of rape, was allowed to get an abortion only after she went to court. A third young woman, known as Jane Roe, was found to be 19, not 17, when immigration officials received

a birth certificate from her home country; she was transferred from a shelter for minors to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, and then freed — allowing her to pursue a legal abortion. But it’s clear that the admin istration is girding for battle on a number of fronts. The direc tor of the Office of Refugee Re settlement — the federal agen cy under the US Department of Health and Human Services in charge of looking after unac companied minors — has re portedly reached out to some of these pregnant teens personally to try to convince them not to have abortions. (Not surprisingly, the federal official involved is not only underprepared and inexperienced for the role, but is also reported to be a fierce opponent of abortion.) For now, government lawyers try to get around the

The White House is targeting teenage immigrants.

constitutional questions by suggesting ludicrous and burdensome alternatives: that pregnant immigrants can obtain abortions by going back to their home countries or by locating a relative or a family friend to whom they can be released from federal care. But the US Supreme Court has reaffirmed a wom an’s constitutional right to access legal abortion ser vices without unnecessary requirements. And as the federal judge in the Jane Doe case writes: “Surely the mere act of entry into the United States without doc umentation does not mean that an immigrant’s body is no longer her or his own. Nor can the sanction for unlawful entry be forcing a child to have a baby.” Immigrants in US custody would not be denied other essential medical treatment — even if they’ve crossed the border illegally. The protections for these young women, based in the US Constitution and af firmed by the nation’s highest court, are clear and un equivocal, despite the Trump administration’s efforts to intensify its war on immigrants, and on reproduc tive rights.

JOAN VENNOCHI

The power of Melania Trump

elania Trump must be feeling the power. On Christ mas Day, she posted a selfie where she’s wearing a Santa hat and a festive pout. According to Gallup, the first lady’s favorability rating is 54 percent and rising — while President Trump’s unfavorability rating is 56 percent. No wonder the White House put out word that it was Melania’s decision to remove part of a historic magnolia tree that has long graced the South Portico. She has wiggle room to weather the pushback. He has none. Special counsel Robert Mueller will have a lot to say about how things go for Trump in 2018. But the person Trump really needs to keep in his corner is his wife. As Melania goes, so goes Trump’s tenu ous grasp on the shrinking percentage of Americans who have any positive thoughts at all about their president. The woman who reportedly never wanted to be first lady is one of 2017’s “most fascinating people,” according to US Weekly. “Criti cized for everything from her Slovenian accent to the 4inch stilettos she wore boarding a flight to hurricaneravaged Houston, the first lady stood strong,” declared the magazine. The FLOTUS criticism persists. She’s ironically against cyberbul lying, while married to a cyberbully. Her clothes are critiqued to the point that her dress sleeves undergo deep psychoanalysis. She and her odd White House Christmas decorations were spoofed on “Sat urday Night Live.” And the Christmas Day selfie of Melania was, of course, savaged by grinches, who deemed it inappropriate. Just guessing here: She anticipated the fallout when she posted it. Despite the critics, Melania has power, more than she ever did before. And it all comes from her body language around her hus band. A video of her facial expression on Inauguration Day launched #FreeMelania. That was followed by the swatting away of Trump’s hand on his first major trip abroad. When she stands next to him, with those mysterious, squinting eyes and a slightly bemused look crossing her face, it’s hard not to wonder what she really thinks about the real estate huckster turned president of the United States. When Trump endorsed Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama and questioned the credibility of the women who said he molested them when they were teenagers — what did Melania think? What does she think every time Trump is asked about the women who accuse him of groping and worse? Imagine the political damage Melania Trump could cause her spouse with a hurt look and an arched eyebrow. The former model knows the camera is always on her and, in her camerasavvy way, plays to it. Every first lady endures the harsh scrutiny of life in the White House, and through it all they stand by their man. Rosalynn Carter humanized Jimmy. Ronald Reagan basked in Nancy’s adoring gaze. Barbara Bush was a nononsense ballast to George H.W. Bush. Hil lary Clinton took flak for playing the role of Tammy Wynette while also seeking respect as Bill’s policy adviser. Laura Bush gave George W. a veneer of respectability. Michelle Obama brought Barack down to earth and could even outwow him when it came to speechgiv ing. Now Trump needs Melania just like his predecessors needed their loyal spouses — maybe even more, given his own unpopularity. “They’re loving Melania,” Trump said at a private dinner last fall. For a narcissist like Trump, that must be painful to acknowledge. The president’s shrinking base may like some of what he does politi cally, but not many like him as a person these days. Melania Trump’s popularity gives Trump’s third wife the power to shape public opinion about her husband. How she uses it could make her even more fascinating — or scary, if you’re Trump. Joan Vennochi can be reached at vennochi@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @Joan_Vennochi.

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GLOBE STAFF ILLUSTRATION

JOAN WICKERSHAM

The name of the elephant

n the afternoon of Dec. 31, 1870, the French writer Edmond de Gon court went to a butcher shop in Paris and saw, for sale, the trunk of Pollux, the young ele phant from the zoo. The city was under siege. The French government had blundered in to a war with Prussia and been disas trously defeated; Paris was surrounded by the enemy and no food could get in. In that New Year’s Eve passage, Goncourt is recording his own shock. He understands there isn’t much meat to be had, but now it’s gotten to the point where even animals associated with familiar bourgeois pleasures — he knows the elephant’s name, he knows that everyone knows the elephant’s name — are being slaughtered for food. I came upon this passage recently in “On Christmas,” a little collection of essays about the holiday season. Some were cheery, some dark; but this one jumped out because it was political. It wasn’t directly about elections or lead ers. It was about the impact of politics (in this case, an elected president turned selfdeclared emperor) on the lives of everyday citizens. I read this piece sitting up in a warm bed after having eaten a good

SENIOR DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORS Mark S. Morrow Jennifer Peter

dinner. Yet the words chilled me in a way that they wouldn’t have if I’d read them a yearandahalf ago. As a white middleclass American born in the sec ond half of the 20th century, I’ve had the unusual, and unearned, luxury of feeling like a spectator to history. My Russian grandparents fled pogroms; my GermanJewish father fled Hitler; my mother’s French Jewish cousins died in the camps. I’ve known about these terrifying experiences while also having been insulated from them; I’ve known these stories as stories. But 2017 has been a different kind of year. We have a leader who has glee fully and recklessly been dismantling and destabilizing our government and our ties with other governments around the world, and the majority party in Congress has been colluding. Some days it feels as if no one is driv ing the car and some days it feels as if a maniac is driving; one of these days, the car is going to crash into a tree or an oncoming vehicle. We’re afraid of what’s happening, and we don’t know what will happen next. I have always thought of Edmond de Goncourt as a historian, but actual ly he was a diarist. He was writing about the moment while still in the moment. When he went into that butcher shop on New Year’s Eve, he

was sickened and scared and he didn’t know what was going to happen next. He didn’t know that the Germans were about to start shelling Paris, or that the siege would be followed by a violent and bloody civil war among the French, or that subsequently he would get to live out the rest of his life during decades of relative peace and prosperi ty. The other morning, going into a store, I held the door open for a wom an who was in her 80s or even 90s. She was walking with a cane and wearing a handknitted pink hat. I know what her hat looked like to me in the mo ment (solidarity, protest, a continua tion of last January’s Women’s March), but I’m also newly aware that we are living through a series of moments that will take shape as history — sto ries told, analyzed, and understood — only in hindsight. We don’t know yet what all this will add up to. For now, what we have are fragments: the pink hats, the unhinged tweets, the white supremacists marching with torches in Charlottesville, the cries of “fake news.” The trunk and the heart of Goncourt’s Pollux the elephant, hanging in a Paris butcher shop. Joan Wickersham’s column appears regularly in the Globe.

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Opinion BOSTONGLOBE.COM/OPINION

Editorial

It’s now or never for UMass Boston

t’s nowornever time for the Univer sity of Massachusetts Boston — time to stop talking about its huge poten tial as an urban institute of higher learning and do what it takes to make it happen. Unfortunately, after a year of fiscal chaos and unsettled leadership, UMass Boston still must prove itself worthy of such commit ment. In July, the interim chancellor, Barry Mills, took over after J. Keith Motley resigned as chancellor amid controversy over budget ary matters. Mills plans to leave next sum mer, at which point UMass Boston hopes to appoint a permanent replacement. Mean while, the interim chancellor is overseeing ef forts to reduce a deficit that at one point was estimated at $30 million. Martin T. Meehan, the president of the entire University of Massachusetts system, now pegs the deficit at $8 million. The plan is to bring it down to $5 million when the cur rent fiscal year ends, on June 30. Meehan

said he’s leaving it up to Mills, the former president of Bowdoin College, to figure out how to do that. But Mills’s deficit reduction plan has got ten off to a rough start. Staff reductions and a hiring freeze that is supposed to save $3.5 million targeted, among others, a janitor with mental health and physical challenges — who was two years away from his ability to retire with maximum benefits. That ham handed move raises concerns that the cuts unfairly target employees at the lower end of the pay scale at the expense of highly paid employees who are politically connected. Meehan should assure that future reductions are done more equitably across the board. Meehan should also be expected to make sure that UMass Boston gets its fiscal house in order before a new chancellor is installed. Financial stability is a must; great candidates won’t come forward if they know they are walking into a fiscal and infrastructure disas ter. It is also critical that UMass Boston show the state it can manage the money needed to

fix its crumbling underground garage. So far, Governor Charlie Baker is committing $78 million for the repair project; more is needed. To help in the search, Meehan has enlist ed the help of Freeman A. Hrabowski III, the longtime president of the University of Mary land, Baltimore County (UMBC). Hrabowski, who is credited with helping to establish one of the most successful urban public research universities in the country, is being paid a $25,000 consulting fee; according to a Mee han spokesman, it will be donated to scholar ships at UMBC. Here’s some of Hrabowski’s advice, at no cost to anyone: First, UMass Boston needs to demon strate to the public that it knows how to manage its funds well. Then, the state needs to ask itself if it wants its public institutions — including UMass Boston — to be universi ties that “large numbers of students, includ ing wellprepared students, will seriously consider,” Hrabowski said in a telephone in terview.

The next leader also needs to know “there is a plan” and that Meehan, the UMass board, and the public are working together to address problems. Finally, “the state needs to understand the role of a public urban research university and the important role it can play in the econo my.” To do that, Massachusetts has to “look in the mirror” and decide whether it has the de sire to make UMass Boston “an institution of choice” and not just “an institution for ‘those people’ who are less advantaged and who have no other choice,” said Hrabowski. His verdict: “I think UMass Boston has tremen dous potential to become one of the nation’s leaders among urban public universities.” Of course, that’s been said many times be fore. Absent real commitment to harness the potential of UMass Boston, and clarity of vi sion set by the system’s top leadership, Mas sachusetts might as well auction off this valu able waterfront property for private develop ment and stop paying lip service to a mission it has yet to fully embrace.

RENÉE LOTH

A memorial in green AP

ou’re walking along in the vast Harvard Forest in Petersham, the air sharp and redolent of fall en leaves, when suddenly you reach a brightly painted wooden barrier. “Trail closed,” it reads. “Safety hazard.” It’s the first stop of the Hemlock Hospice, an art installation and interpretive trail by designer David Buckley Borden and his team of forest ecologists. As its name suggests, the milelong project is an elegy for the New England hem lock forest, which is dying. “People who walk these trails expect a certain experience and then they run in to this,” said Borden. “It’s meant to jar them, to say, ‘You have to think about your woods in a whole new way.’ ” Part sculpture, part pedagogy, part citizen sci ence, the project speaks largely in artistic meta phor. But the popular Black Gum trail really is offlimits to the public, because its towering eastern hemlock trees have been infected by the invasive woolly adelgid. These tiny bee tles suck all the nutrients out of the hem lock’s needles and leave ghost trees, bare and vulnerable to toppling over in the wind. Another stop along the hospice trail offers visitors a row of brightly decorated hard hats. Smaller than George Washington’s eye on the US quarter, the adelgid probably arrived from Ja pan on a shipment of ornamental wood. It was first noticed in Virginia in 1951 but was mostly contained until the climate began warming. Then it started a steady, deadly march northward. Whole forests have been decimated; there are almost no large stands of eastern hemlock in Pennsylvania, where it was once plen tiful enough to be named the state tree. “You can track this very predictably up the East Coast,” said Aaron Ellison, senior research fellow in ecology at Harvard University. The bug has no known lethal parasites, and attacking it with a chemical insecticide has dire implications for the rest of the environment. It may be possi ble to save a few isolated legacy trees, but nothing can be done on a landscape scale. Even

Hemlock Hill at the Arnold Arboretum is completely infested; with about onethird of its 1,900 hemlock trees gone. “It’s more like Birch Hill now,” said Ellison. Well, birches are nice; what does it matter if the hemlock disappears? For one thing, the hemlock is what is known as a foundation species; its role in the forest can’t easily be swapped with another tree. Because it is a conifer, it begins photosynthesis in late winter — pulling in water at the roots, stabilizing the land, and preventing flash floods. It’s a cultural touchstone for New England; Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost wrote some of their most famous poems about the familiar wood land sentry. And the hemlock is a marker for cli mate change — the canary in the forest. The adel gid can’t survive if temperatures reach about 13 degrees below zero Fahrenheit; Petersham, near the Quabbin Reservoir, used to see those temperatures in winter, but Ellison says it hasn’t been that cold for at least 10 years. “We speak of invasive species as if they have agency,” he says. “But we carried it here.’’ As we walk along the trail, we arrive at a large wood sculpture tipped on its side, looking rather like a giant circular hairbrush painted yellow. It represents a hemlock carcass, and visitors treat it like a shrine, leaving messages scrawled on blue tape and tied to the branches. “We will miss you,” one reads. And: “Sorry, hu man race.” For Borden, who has a degree from Harvard in landscape architecture, the Hemlock Hospice is a way to build awareness of forest ecology, even if he can’t stop the ravaging. “It’s endoflife care not just for the thing that’s dying, but for the living,” he said. The idea is to “not be overwhelmed by fear and to learn something from the loss.’’ It’s getting late in the afternoon, and turning cold, and suddenly the season’s first sugary snowfall is upon us. Later, I’ll dig through my Robert Frost and find that poem where he describes a crow shaking down the dust of snow from a hemlock tree, which “saved some part of a day I had rued.” It’s hard not to feel rueful about the fate of the hemlock, some of which have been growing in the Harvard forest for 200 years. But the Hemlock Hospice will be open for another year, a long goodbye for this magnificent tree. Go pay your respects before it’s gone. Renée Loth’s column appears regularly in the Globe. PHOTOS BY DAVID BUCKLEY BORDEN

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Salem State leads on closing the graduation gap

f you’re a Hispanic high school student in Massa chusetts, the odds that you’ll go to college, and then earn a degree, are alarmingly slim. Fewer than half of Latino college students in the Commonwealth — 44 percent — earn a degree or certificate within six year of enrollment, compared to 69 percent of whites. The challenges for Hispanic college stu dents start right away: More than half of Latino students in the state had to take a remedial lesson in their first semes ter of college, compared with 28 percent of their white peers. The numbers play out unfavorably in the workforce: Only 23 percent of Latino adults in Massachusetts have an associate degree or higher. Those workers, and the whole state, suffer the consequences when pathways to higher wage jobs close. The Massachusetts economy needs better educational attainment in general, and particularly from the growing Latino community. One university has managed to close the graduation gap, though, showing that with close attention and effort, prog ress is possible. Salem State University was recently recog nized as one of the 10 topperforming institutions for Lati

no student success by the nonprofit advocacy group the Ed ucation Trust. Salem State, the only New England institution included in the top 10, offers a blueprint that the rest of our public universities should replicate. The school ranks seventh in the country among similar universities, according to the report. Its Latino graduation rate is 46.7 percent, only 1.5 percentage points lower than the rate of white students. The winning formula is not that complicated. “When La tinos or AfricanAmericans are a small part of the campus, they’re pretty much ignored,” said Carlos Santiago, the state’s commissioner of higher education. But Latinos ac count for 17 percent of the enrollment at Salem State. “What we’re seeing is when they’re visible, then the institu tion pays more attention to them.” The gains have been achieved by increasing the number of faculty and staff members of color; hiring multilingual personnel; and opening the student navigation center, a onestop shop to help guide students with anything from billing and financial aid to registration and housing. A greater focus on earlier interventions should help, too.

Governor Baker’s proposed budget includes $3 million to expand the state’s nascent earlycollege program; a similar program has been very successful for Hispanics in Texas. High school programs like Mass Insight Education’s Ad vanced Placement STEM and English coursework have made significant inroads in bringing collegelevel academ ics, and, with it, collegelevel ambitions, to more students from diverse backgrounds. Then there’s the state’s 100 Males to College program, which focuses on helping young men form a collegegoing identity and already is yielding strong results. The need for concerted action is clear: Massachusetts was recently ranked as the state with the worst economic inequality between its white and Latino residents. The in come gap is staggering — on average, a white household earns $82,000 annually, while a Hispanic one earns just $39,000. Massachusetts still lacks enough college graduates to fill its workforce needs. Stronger efforts to build a better pipe line of Hispanic graduates promise to go a long way toward keeping the state an economic leader.

ALEX BEAM MARGERY EAGAN

You’ve been recontextualized!

y favorite new term of art is “recontextualize.” I first encountered it in a New York Times account of how the career of zanily overpromoted portrait painter Chuck Close is plunging southwards, in light of reports that he sexually harassed models. The National Gallery of Art has postponed a Close show sine die, raising the question of “whether the work of other artists accused of questionable conduct needs to be revisited or recontextualized,” ac cording to the Times. As an example of Artists Behaving Badly, the Times reported that the Baroque master Caravaggio “was accused of murder,” although the facts are grimmer indeed. Caravaggio butchered a rival – and the pimp for one of his female models – in an attempted castration. Because these events occurred in 1606, I think they fall outside the statute of limitations for recontextualization. But one never knows, does one? Right now, recontextualization is bursting out all over. In the grand tradition of casino moguls everywhere, Steve Wynn might have thought it OK to ask one of his female employees for a special favor now and then. Not any more! Thanks to a Wall Street Journal investigation into his extramarital (and extralegal) dallianc es, Wynn is out of a job, and institutions such as his alma maters, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Iowa, are tear ing his name off of donated buildings faster than you can say seven comeeleven. Hey, Wynn — you’ve been recontextualized! “Recontextualize” reminds me of the equally voguish multisyl labic nonsense word “intersectionality,” which more or less means: Be very very careful what you say or do in any social interaction, be cause you almost certainly are violating some behavioral norm that was put in place the day before yesterday. When in doubt, just remember: Recontextualize generally means “ban.” “We are thinking about recontextualizing Woody Allen’s mov ies” means, “We are thinking about taking them out of the theaters.” (Allen is either a shameless child predator, or a blameless, caring stepfather, depending on which side of the multifarious accounts of his behavior you choose to believe.) Helpful example: You may think, along with Ernest Hemingway, that “all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called ‘Huckleberry Finn,’ ” but you might want to keep that opinion to yourself. “Huckleberry,” along with “To Kill a Mocking bird,” perhaps the 20th century’s most moving story about combat ting racial injustice, is in the process of being recontextualized, i.e. removed from school syllabi. I suspect that “Papa” (Patriarchy!) Hemingway won’t be far be hind. Donald Trump is, of course, recontextualizing what it means to be president of the United States. It was one thing for Andrew Jack son to lift his muddy boots onto the White House furniture, it is quite another thing for the president to rise at dawn and tweet out vile accusations against all and sundry. Where the presidency is concerned, I could do with some pre contextualization. Trump makes me long for the days when the White House tweeted out pictures of Barack Obama’s goofy Portu guese water dog, Bo, or updates from Michelle’s Marie Antoinette like (“Let Them Eat Kale”) vegetable garden. Another time, a different context. Alex Beam’s column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @imalexbeamyrnot.

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Finally, a crack in Donald Trump’s chintzy armor GLOBE STAFF ILLUSTRATION/GETTY IMAGES

ere’s how bad it is. When the stock market plunged last week, I was perversely pleased, willing to risk my 401(k) if it meant embarrass ing Donald Trump for just one day. Have to work five extra years? Ten years? Forever? I’d come in on a walker had it been a game changer in Ohio — when Trump was bragging about his tax cuts and his economy and, suddenly, the news crawl at the bottom of the TV screen screeched, “Dow Plummets Nearly 1,000 Points!” I’d come in from the grave had the stock plunge meant the beginning of the end. The Dow bounces more than 300 points Friday, reported CNBC, “but still posts the worst week in two years.” What a satisfying week it was. That’s demented, you say? UnAmerican? Pathetic? Well, I’ll tell you this: I’m not alone. “I’d work 17 extra years and throw in my house,” said Monique Paturel, one of many Never Trumpers who e mailed my radio show saying a financial hit would be worth derailing Trump. “Nothing traitorous in saying I’d rather see Trump taken down, even if it means 8 more years of working,” emailed Sean. “I’ll take the loss.” Said Maureen, “Sean Hannity is already saying this is Obama’s fault.” Or Hillary’s. Or perhaps: the FBI’s? Meanwhile, the Twitterverse was in full mocking mode. Republican strategist and writer Rick Wilson: “Im possible. I was very clearly told that Donald Trump has completely turned around the economy and that the stock market would rise forever.” Parody account Rogue Betty: “Donald Trump: ‘I hardly knew the Dow, it was merely a coffee boy.’ ” President Trump, unlike most of his predecessors, has claimed full credit for the stock market, pumped its rise relentlessly — 23 times last month alone — and tweeted about it at least 60 times since his election. “The world was gloomy before I won,” he said. “There was no hope.” But now?

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“Six trillion dollars in value created,” he said. Then seven trillion. Then eight. “The stock market has smashed one record after an other,” he tweeted, “since our big election win!” He’s taken credit, too, for increased 401(k)s — the ones “Crooked” Hillary would have surely driven into the ground. We all know the line: You live by the Dow, you die by the Dow. But now the Dow is dithering. What does the presi dent say about it? Basically, nothing. Nada. Crickets. Suddenly, says Sarah Huckabee Sanders, it’s all about “longterm economic fundamentals.” And Teflon Trump seems not embarrassed, not a teeny, tiny bit. He emerg es unscathed, as he does from every fiasco. The popular ity of his tax plan has nearly doubled. His poll numbers have inched up. And we all move on to another wildandwoolly, any thinggoes White House week. Trump trashing the Rus sian hoax. Chief of Staff John Kelly trashing Dreamers as “too lazy to get off their asses” while praising the in tegrity of his righthand guy, an accused serial wife abuser. And the Pentagon is planning Trump’s Moscowstyle military parade — tanks, howitzers, and rocket launch ers rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue. Bigger than any thing anybody anywhere has ever seen before. The bouncing Dow faded into history, but not for all of us. No. For a few brief shining moments last week, as CNN’s Dow Watch careened madly — up 8, down 12, up 17, then 25 — some of us thought we spied a crack in the armor. The big black blanket over our heads — could this really go on for six more years? — lifted just a bit. We contemplated how much cash we could lose. It seemed more than worth it for some peace, quiet, nor malcy, reclaimed national dignity, and a stretch of days free of breaking news alerts, infighting, backstabbing, and international humiliation. It felt so fine. Here’s hoping we can keep on feeling it. Margery Eagan is cohost of WGBH’s “Boston Public Radio.”

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Boston voters deserve more mayoral debates

rom the imperial concrete bunker known as Bos ton City Hall, Mayor Martin J. Walsh is doing what incumbents always do: working overtime to limit his opponent’s exposure to voters and his own exposure to scrutiny. With that dual mission in mind, the mayor has decreed that he will participate in only two televised debates with City Councilor Tito Jackson. What makes political sense for Walsh, however, is a disservice to Boston voters, not to men tion democracy. Jackson asked Walsh to participate in four debates. In re sponse to that very reasonable request, Walsh campaign manager John T. Laadt sent a letter dripping with the disdain that goes along with a big lead in the polls. “We understand your frustration with the state of the race so far, but Mayor Walsh has spoken to thousands of Bostonians about his plan

for the next four years and will speak to thousands more be fore the election is over,” wrote Laadt. Speaking to Bostonians via canned events is not the same as being held accountable on a debate stage. Walsh can cele brate the start of “Manufacturing Month” at the Dorchester Brewing Company. But that’s not the same as fielding ques tions about income inequality in a city increasingly defined by it. Backing a plan to commission a monument to Martin Luther King Jr. is a welcome mayoral gesture of inclusion. But it doesn’t explain the achievement gap between black and white students in Boston public schools. As mayor, Walsh can make an important play for Amazon to build a sec ond headquarters in Boston. But it doesn’t erase the need to address the hard economic reality for those citizens and busi nesses left out of the boom. Meanwhile, who knows if Walsh will even follow through

on his commitment to two televised debates? Citing schedul ing difficulties, he backed out of a promise to participate in a debate before the preliminary election. A facetoface debate that was scheduled to take place on Oct. 10 on WBZ News Radio with host Dan Rea was canceled after the union repre senting WBZTV technicians, photographers, and master control operators went public with its contract dispute and asked the candidates to boycott the event. Both agreed. After all, no Democrat running for office can afford to offend labor in Walsh’s Boston. The turnout on September’s preliminary election day was an absymal 14 percent. Celebrating his 63 percent share of the 56,000 people who cast votes, Walsh said, “I look forward to six great weeks of positive conversations in every single neighborhood.” If he truly wants to maximize those conversa tions, he should agree to more than two televised debates.

The nuclear threat doesn’t stop with North Korea By Jennet Conant

o one can say they did not see this day coming. Sev entythree years ago, Vannevar Bush and James B. Co nant, the scientific leaders of the Manhattan Project, the secret program to develop the atomic bomb, wrote to Secretary of War Henry Stimson to warn him that the time to prepare for security in the nuclear age was before the weapon was ever used. Alarmed by the bomb’s unprecedented destructive power, Presi dent Franklin D. Roosevelt’s science advisers expressed their grave concerns about the precarious situation that would result if no United States policy were formulated before the war ended. They did not believe the American and British monopoly on nuclear technology could be maintained for long, and predicted the devel opment of a weapon of even greater destructive capacity, with an other thousand times the explosive power — the hydrogen bomb. In a few years, they reasoned, guided ballistic missiles capable of delivering hydrogen bombs with tremendous speed over great dis tances could threaten every major city in the world with complete devastation. “Progress in the new field of nuclear weapons would be so rapid in some countries” that “it would be extremely danger ous for this government to assume that by holding secret its present knowledge we should be secure.” They had a clearsighted vision of the terrible threat posed by nuclear bombs, and argued the only way to avoid a catastrophic conflict was to begin working out immediately a system for their in ternational control. Many of the Manhattan Project scientists joined them in sounding the alarm. Two months before the bomb ing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a prominent panel of physicists concluded that if the United States were the first to unleash this in discriminate destruction upon mankind, it would set a dangerous precedent and precipitate an arms race. Their warning was ignored. Now, with President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un engaged in an escalating war of words, and moving inexorably toward conflict, the allout nuclear

war the bomb’s creators feared may be close at hand. In allowing himself to be provoked into the present nuclear standoff, and recklessly ratch eting up tensions, Trump seems to have for gotten the chief lesson of the Cold War: Over whelming military superiority is no guarantee of security. “There is no defense against a surprise at tack with atomic bombs,” Conant stated bluntly in the fall of 1945. “If a situation were to develop where two great powers had stacks of bombs but neither was sure of the exact status of the other, the possibility of a devastating surprise attack by one upon the other would poison all our thinking. Like two gunmen with itchy trigger fingers, it would only be a question of who fired first. Un der such circumstances, the United States might be the loser.” There are no effective military countermea sures that could provide complete protection. No intercept system can guarantee that it will catch every missile, and even one getting through would be a humanitarian disaster. Faced with this intolerable risk, no statesman can reasonably contemplate the unmatched danger and unforeseeable cost — measured in lives lost, damage to the region, and risk of retalia tion — of the actual use of megaton weapons. The in hibition against direct war between nuclear superpow ers, and smaller nuclear foes, has been the acute awareness that the stakes have grown too high. The effect of taunting Kim Jong Un with threats of “teaching him a lesson” is to endanger our nation and the world. Nuclear weapons are not a quick fix. One surgical strike could turn into two, especially given the probability that North Korea’s warheads are on mobile systems that make them hard to target, and the situation

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Publication Title: The Boston Globe Publication Number: 661-420 Filing Date: October 1, 2017 Issue Frequency: Daily Number of Issues Published Annually: 313 Annual Subscription Price: $599.04 Complete Mailing Address of Known Ofﬁce of Publication: Boston Globe Publishing, 300 Constitution Drive, Taunton MA 02780 Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters or General Business Ofﬁce of Publisher: Boston Globe Media, 1 Exchange Place, Suite 201, Boston MA 02109-2132 Full Names and Complete Mailing Address of Publisher, Editor, and Managing Editor: John W. Henry, Publisher; Brian McGrory, Editor; Christine S. Chinlund, Managing Editor; all at 1 Exchange Place, Suite 201, Boston MA 02109-2132 Owner: Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Security Holders Owning or Holding 1% or More of the Total Amount of Bonds, Mortgages, or Other Securities: None Tax Status: n/a Publication Title: The Boston Globe Issue Date for Circulation Data: September 2016-August 2017 Friday September 01, 2017 Extent and Nature of Circulation Average No. Copies Each Issue No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date During Preceding 12 Months

Total Number of Copies (Net Press Run)

154,546

151,569

Paid Circulation 1. Mailed Outside-County Paid Subs Stated on PS Form 3541 2. Mailed In-County Paid Subs Stated on PS Form 3541 3. Paid Dist Outside Mails inc Sales Through Dealers & Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, & Other Paid Distribution Outside USPS 4. Paid Distribution by Other Classes of Mail Through the USPS

124

115

126,716

126,054

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2. Free or Nominal Rate In-County Copies Included on PS Form 3541 3. Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed At Other Classes Through the USPS 4. Free or Nominal Rate Distribution Outside the Mail

ALLY SHWED

2,083

1,199

2,083

1,199

Total Free or Nominal Rate Distribution

Total Distribution

Copies Not Distributed

25,619

24,198

Total

154,546

151,569

Percent Paid

98.38%

99.06%

128,927

127,371

16. Electronic Copy Circulation a.

Paid Electronic Copies

102,450

113,706

Total Paid Print Copies + Paid Electronic Copies

229,294

239,878

Total Print Distribution + Paid Electronic Copies 231,377

241,077

Percent Paid

99.50%

99.09%

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would quickly spiral out of control. The idea that the United States can achieve national security by getting rid of one nu clear foe is foolhardy, when the number of nations with nu clear ambitions is steadily growing, among them Iran. At the level of policy, Conant consistently urged caution and restraint. Our only hope was that international pressure and tough, patient diplomacy would buy us enough time to change the present nuclear stalemate, and the chance to work to ward some mutual agreements to control these weapons and mod erate the arms race. Throughout his five decades in public service, as a weapons maker, nuclear statesman, diplomat, and educator (he was presi dent of Harvard for 20 years), Conant always sought to remind Americans what we are fighting to defend. As concerned as he was about the external threat, he was just as worried about the internal threat, the growing discord caused by unemployment and the widening economic divide imperiling our democracy. He believed the best way to beat our enemies is to prove that democracy is better than dictatorship, and to work to preserve the founding principles of our distinctive American meritocra cy, with its diversity of beliefs and tolerance of this diversity, and promise of social mobility and equality of opportunity. For him this was the basis of our democratic creed, the thing that separated us from repressive regimes, and it needed to be just as vigilantly guarded. At the height of the Cold War, he penned an open letter to fu ture generations, warning of the long struggle ahead. “Patience and yet more patience, strength and wisdom to handle strength — all these we will need in abundant measure. This nation, having ar rived at the point in history where the words ‘foreign policy’ take on new meaning, must traverse that narrow knife edge which divides supineness from belligerency.” Trump would do well to heed his words. Jennet Conant is author of “Man of the Hour: James B. Conant, Warrior Scientist.” She is the granddaughter of James B. Conant.

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A young refugee becomes a citizen, and calls the US home

here are 730 almostAmericans waiting quietly in the grand auditorium. Many are dressed in their best — suits, brightlycolored dresses, exquisite turquoise saris, and vibrant orange head wraps. They are citizens of Ethiopia, Haiti, Guatemala, Ireland, Syria, Brazil, Bhutan, Uzbekistan, and 75 other coun tries. And then there is Po. Po is a citizen of nowhere. I met Po when she was a student in one of my US history classes, one of more than 140 recent immigrants and refu gees I taught in my first year at a large public high school north of Boston. They came from Cambodia and Colombia, Iraq and El Salvador, Uganda, Nepal, and Portugal — more than 25 countries in all. Many had escaped persecution. All were seeking a brighter future. Po stood out. She was bubbly and enthusiastic, and she loved history. She eagerly debated top ics like the women’s suffrage movement, and she lingered af terward to ask questions about World War I. She told me that she hoped to become a teacher. As fall chilled into winter, I grew to know Po. At lunch time, my classroom filled with students swapping stories and snacks. They shared homemade Iraqi baklava, Vietnamese soups, and Liberian stews. Po fed us spicy egg curries and fer mented tealeaf salad. During these meals, Po told me about her journey. Like many of my students, Po was born into conflict. Po’s family had been prosperous farmers in southern Myanmar. Her grandfather had cultivated an extensive farm through a lifetime of hard work, with buffalo, cows, chickens, and two friendly elephants. In their small town, families without enough to eat always came to him. Their life changed when Burmese soldiers came in 1997. While twothirds of Myanmar’s population is ethnic Bur mese, the country is also home to more than 130 ethnic groups. Po’s family is Karen, an ancient hill tribe people. For more than 60 years, the Myanmar government has been in armed conflict with many of the ethnic minorities, including the Karen. According to international reports, the military has regularly committed atrocities, including burning of vil lages, forced labor, and rape. Since the 1980s, refugees have been streaming across the border into Thailand. When Po’s mother was eight months pregnant with her, Burmese soldiers invaded their home, demanding lodging

B y J e s s i c a L a n d e r

ost of us have been there. We’re in the kitchen, sponging down the counter. The teens are in their rooms, or maybe 20 feet away, noses glued to their phones. The thought comes to mind, again: Could that smoothskinned boy in ratty sweats really be watching as much pornog raphy on that phone as endless media stories claim? And his sister, too? Most of us don’t really want to ask. The teens? They’re not talking. But earlier this month came more bad news: Teens are likely watching much more pornogra phy than we think they are. Worse, it’s shaping, even distorting, how they believe sex should be. For too many kids, pornography is becoming the new sex ed, concluded a Feb. 11 New York Times Magazine story that focused on Boston teens in a “Porn Literacy” program sponsored by the city’s health department. It also cited much current research. • Twice as many 14 and 18yearolds have seen porn as their parents think. • Parents underestimate what kind of sex acts their kids know about and may consider nor mal. • The percentage of 18to24yearold women who reported trying anal sex rose to 40 percent in 2009, from 16 percent in 1992. • Onesixth of teen boys reported “choking” a

and food. Po’s father and brothers were already in hiding, to avoid conscription. Refusing the soldiers would have meant certain death, but after three days of quartering them, Po’s mother fled with her two young daughters. Po was born in jungles of Thailand. She was an infant caught in the inbetween spaces of borders and conflicts. She was stateless, a citizen of nowhere, one of 10 million such people globally, according to the United Nations High Com mission for Refugees. Her family moved to a Thai refugee camp, where they lived for 14 years. (Today, nine main Thai camps hold roughly 100,000 Myanmar refugees.) It was there that she acquired her name, when a UN aid worker christened her in the offi cial record with the Karen words meaning “tiny one.” The camp provided refuge, but no path to a normal life. Po’s family could not become Thai citizens, and they could not work or go to school outside the camp’s small circumfer ence. Po would occasionally sneak out to search for bamboo shoots or to swim in the nearby river. Rations dwindled: When she was five, there were eggs, beans, sometimes sugar; by the time she was 10, they ate mostly rice flavored with fish paste. Only 1 percent of refugees worldwide are resettled, but Po’s family was lucky. After years in the camp, the family filed an application to come to United States, and following exten sive interviews, security checks, and medical examinations, their request was granted. Po landed in Boston in February 2012, as a wideeyed 14 yearold. Having never seen snow, she raced her siblings to the schoolyard to jump and roll and attempt to build snow men. Everything was new — the airplane, the multistoried buildings, the Market Basket with aisles and aisles of food. School was strange too — large, crowded, and loud. Po struggled to understand and to be understood. At first, she was not accepted. Students teased her, called her derogatory names, refused to talk with her. But a kind Nepalese girl took her under her wing, and they quickly became friends. Among the immigrant students, a circle of friends expanded — Iraqis, Dominicans, Cambodi ans. They couldn’t speak each other’s native tongues, but they watched out for each other. Po began to make connections, not just with students, but also teachers, who were kind, fun ny, and accepting. Slowly, she grew into a leader.

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For an actioncivics project during her junior year, Po led my class’s efforts to propose new policies to support teen mothers in school. She conducted surveys, drafted recom mendations, and collaborated on an oped in the local news paper. She and four classmates traveled to the Massachusetts State House to present their work. As a senior, Po took a seminar I teach on diversity in America. As a final project, Po and her fellow students coau thored a book about key Supreme Court cases, federal laws, and concepts through which this country broadened its no tion of what it means to be an American. Their book is now in more than 150 school libraries across the country and has been incorporated into several school curriculums. Now, Po will finally experience for herself what it means to be an American. “In Thailand and Burma, I never had opportunities. I didn’t have rights. I was treated like I was nothing,” she told me recently. “In the United States, they treat us equally. Here, there are people of many colors, many backgrounds. They help people from around the world, they give us a chance, they open their heart to us.” Now a freshman in college, Po is studying to become an el ementary school teacher. She hopes especially to help immi grant students find their footing in a new land, just as her teachers helped her. Po’s journey is one of many stories of resilience, determi nation, and optimism that I have learned from my students. They have overcome great odds to be here. Each morning, they arrive in class ready to learn and eager to give back to their new community. Last week, on Valentine’s Day, Po swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. America be came the first place she could truly call home. In gaining citizenship, Po also decided to acquire a new name. She changed the second word of the name she received in the Thai refugee camp, creating a combination that in Kar en means “forever.” As she told me: “Nothing in my life has been forever. I have never had a place that accepts me. I changed my last name because I hope I won’t have to flee anymore. I want here to be forever.” Jessica Lander is a teacher and writer living in the Boston area.

MARGERY EAGAN

The question we don’t want to ask our teens sex partner, with choking ranging from a gentle hand around a neck to a more formidable squeeze. • Teens often don’t know what’s fake or real in pornography. One 14yearold boy told Times reporter Maggie Jones, “I’ve never seen a girl in porn who doesn’t look like she’s having a good time,” no matter what’s being done to her. • Teen girls, seeing the same scenes, may be lieve they are supposed to endure what female porn actors do for pay. “Years ago, when a guy asked you to do some thing like this, you’d think he was a crazed psy chopath,” said Gail Dines, a professor emerita of women’s studies at Wheelock College. “Now you may think it’s the norm.” Mainstream media add to the confusion, writes Jones, from “Family Guy” (references to choking and anal sex) to Rihanna’s “S&M” (“Sticks and stones may break my bones but

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chains and whips excite me”) to the bondage bestseller and movie trilogy “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Then there’s the president of the United States, whose personal lawyer said he paid $130,000 of his own money to a porn star who allegedly had a sexual relationship with Trump in 2006. Because so many states, including Massachu setts, do not mandate sex education, online por nography can become a teen’s primary sex edu cator, Jones’s article argues, right there on their phones. Certainly not every teen, said Jones in an interview, not wanting to cause panic. “But what’s alarming is that we are so paltry in our sex education, while porn is so readily available. Why shouldn’t we expect they’re looking at it for information?” And then taking it to their dating relation ships.

So what is a parent to do? We could advocate for more of what Boston’s “Porn Literacy Program” does: recognize reality. Since teens see so much pornography, make them critical consumers. By the end of the Bos ton program, Jones reports, teens’ attitudes changed to acknowledging pornography’s vio lence and misogyny and understanding that it’s like sexual fake news. But since a program like that won’t take off soon in a country still arguing about birth con trol and abstinenceonly programs, we need oth er options. Dines just completed a free course for parents of tweens on the website CultureRe framed.org. Jones suggests other sites, including The Porn Conversation, for parents, and Amaze.org or Scarleteen.com, for preteens and teens. Luckily, all this means we need not swoop in from the kitchen, completely unarmed, to start the sexual inquisition of our teens. Yet numer ous studies have found that we’re not the suc cessful sex educators we think we are. Technology, again, has left many of us be hind. Teen culture has changed too fast. Few of us are ready for this both grisly and delicate task. Few of us, really, have any idea what we’re talking about. And our teenagers know it. Margery Eagan is cohost of WGBH’s “Boston Public Radio.”

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A gun in every classroom? Stop, for a second, to consider the job teachers are already doing I am blessed to have a career in education. I work with pre service teachers — informally known as student teachers — and teachers in their early years in the classroom. Watching the news, I cannot believe the idea that teachers should be armed in schools (“Teachers renounce Trump’s call to arms,” Page A1, Feb. 23). The job of teaching is holistically challenging: intellectually (teachers have to know their con tent); pedagogically (they have to know how to teach to all students); morally (they have to be aware of the social jus tice aspects of teaching and meet all student learning needs); physically (it’s really exhausting — ask any teacher); and spiritually, since you teach who you are (if you arrive at school tired, stressed, or upset, your students’ learning may be influenced). Those who have not worked in a real classroom really have no idea of the comprehensive nature of teaching. When I hear the suggestion that teachers — those responsi ble for the growth and development of students of all ages — should be armed, I think: Are you kidding me? This is an outrageous and contextually absurd mandate for teachers. It’s an insult to what teachers do. BETTY DAVIDSON Natick GLOBE STAFF ILLUSTRATION/ADOBE

‘Get down!’ (class is in session)

How can we remedy the shortage of health providers? B y J e f f r e y S . F l i e r

n a medical mecca like Boston, which is home to three medical schools and many worldclass hospitals, you’d think that getting a timely ap pointment with a primary care physician or specialist would be a breeze. It isn’t. Finding a doctor is even harder in rural and underserved areas. Yet the public debate on health care re mains focused on insurance and funding, and largely ignores the undersupply of health care profession als. Access to care means more than adequate insurance. Many factors influence projections about the size of the health provider workforce, which have swung widely over past decades. How best to assess that workforce, from aver age wait times for appointments to number of physicians per population (both of which vary geographically and by specialty), is still an open question. That said, it is clear that the growth and aging of the US population combined with an aging physician workforce translates into a need for more providers. The Association of American Medical Colleges has recently predicted a na tionwide shortage of between 40,800 and 104,900 physi cians by 2030. Ironically, one of the biggest obstacles to improving ac cess to health care providers is the profession itself, enabled by a plethora of public and private agencies that control li censing and certification. These often inadvertently limit access to care rather than enhance it. The current system for training doctors dates to the ear ly 20th century, when medicine transitioned from a largely ineffective and amateurish enterprise to one rooted in sci ence. Physician training and licensing have certainly evolved since then, but at a disappointingly slow pace. Phy sician shortages are increasing as the population ages, while many enthusiastic and capable students and trained foreignborn caregivers are shut out of the profession. Why has so little attention been paid to the number and quality of health care providers? Physician education, li censing, and credentialing are determined by an alphabet soup of organizations that change at a glacial pace. Their roles and interactions are difficult to delineate, even for a former dean of Harvard Medical School, and this complexi ty makes change difficult. Worse, while the mission statements of these licensing organizations stress public health, they also serve the inter ests of incumbent professionals, who may be wary of new competitors. Tension between these conflicting interests produces a less innovative, less diverse, and less accessible workforce than could be the case. Accreditation is regulated by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, a body sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Medical As sociation and recognized by the Department of Education for accrediting programs leading to the medical doctor de gree. It manages a rigorous process that, despite many ben efits, raises the bar too high for creating new medical schools and slows the rate of educational innovation. After completing medical school, graduates must pass a threepart exam and complete a oneyear internship to be come eligible for state licensing. Most physicians undertake further clinical training and specialization in hospitals, overseen by other certifying organizations. Hospital com mittees conduct evaluations before granting admitting priv ileges to carry out specific procedures or tasks. Medical standards are essential. Can we develop more efficient approaches to ensuring them? As my colleague Jared Rhoads and I argue in a white pa per on the US health provider workforce, the key is to sub stitute competencybased assessments for the process

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driven approaches used today. Some costly exams and re certification processes have little or no evidence to support their use. Which schools a doctor has attended or exams she has passed matter far less than her competence. And please don’t misconstrue finding new ways to train and cer tify competent providers as lowering standards or expecta tions for quality — it’s quite the opposite. The number of US medical schools and the size of each year’s class have increased over the past decade, but not enough to solve the pressing workforce issue. Nearly a quarter of currently licensed physicians — well over 200,000 — are foreign trained, and the care they provide equals that of graduates of US medical schools. They dis proportionately practice in rural and underserved commu nities. Why not increase their numbers? The Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Grad uates certifies international medical graduates from legiti mate medical schools, regulates access to the same exams that US graduates must pass, and authorizes the residen cies required for licensing. But many more foreign medical graduates are eligible for residency positions in US hospi tals than there are available slots for them. If training slots are limited, why not allow fully trained foreign physicians to fill the void? Under current rules, to secure a license they must repeat in US hospitals the resi dencies and fellowships they already completed in their home countries. Many outstanding doctors will not do this. It would not be difficult to design a system through which hospitals and other health organizations facilitate and take responsibility for physician relocation. Another indicator of the medical profession’s inadequate response to consumer demand is the rapid growth of non physician health providers. Nurse practitioners undertake advanced training that enables them to diagnose and treat disease, write prescriptions, and bill for services. They can practice independent of physician oversight in 21 states and the District of Columbia. Today’s 234,000 licensed nurse practitioners can’t pro vide every health service. But for those they are able to per form, the quality of the care they deliver and patient satis faction are equivalent to that provided by physicians. They fill major unmet needs, such as primary care. Yet some states still seek to limit the activity and independence of nurse providers. Increased use of computers, artificial intelligence, tele health, sensor technology, and health apps will someday transform the practice of health care. The only questions are when, and how training and licensing will adapt to these new realities. Consumers are now more actively in volved in their own care, and are likely to support such in novations. Organized medicine should do the same. Per haps, as has occurred in other industries, new entrants like Amazon, Apple, and Walmart will more aggressively seize opportunities to transform health care and how we train fu ture professionals to deliver it. While insurance and health expenditures continue to grab the headlines, let’s not ignore the vital role of health providers in the health care equation. We need more pro viders who are better suited to the challenges and opportu nities of tomorrow’s world, and there is no legitimate rea son why we shouldn’t start getting them today. Dr. Jeffrey S. Flier was dean of Harvard Medical School from 2007 to 2016. He is the coauthor of the new white paper“The US Health Provider Workforce: Determinants and Potential Paths to Enhancement,” published at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. This column first appeared in STAT.

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Here are some of the educational benefits of President Trump’s plan for school safety. A shooter enters the school. Lesson 1: posttraumatic stress disorder. The armed teacher tells the students that they will never sleep well be cause they are about to witness their teacher killing a hu man being. They will see how bullets destroy a body. They will watch a person die. Lesson 2: biology. The students will see blood and bone and tissue sprayed into their classroom. Lesson 3: physics. The teacher tells the students to put on their eye and ear protection because the sound of the gun will permanently damage their hearing, and the pieces of flying debris might permanently damage their eyesight. Lesson 4: horror. The students will exit their classroom through the wreckage of a human being. Lesson 5: deadly confusion. Let’s see what happens when the police arrive to find two or more adults shooting at each other. Lesson 6: political cowardice. The teacher explains that the students’ sanity and their classmates’ lives have been sold for votes. JAPE SHATTUCK Newport, R.I.

How far do we take armed response? Shootings at schools — arm the teachers? Shootings at movie theaters — arm the ushers? Shootings at nightclubs — arm the bartender? Shootings at restaurants — arm the waitstaff? Shootings at malls — arm the store clerks? Shootings at church — arm the pastor? Shootings at work — arm the workers? Shootings everywhere — arm everyone? MARY HENNINGS Concord

Do more for students’ mental health We need to change gun control laws, but that is only part of the problem. If we change gun control laws without doing anything for mental health, it would be like taking cars away from people with drinking problems. It would solve the immediate issue but would not delve deeper into why it happened. Our school system needs to put a lot more emphasis on helping kids who have unaddressed mental disorders. If those kids are cared for at an early age, they would have a much better chance at a nonviolent future. One way to address this is to enact social and emotional learning, a method promoted by Scarlett Lewis, who lost her son, Jesse, in the Sandy Hook shooting. This would help establish healthy ways to deal with emotions and oth ers around you. Until the National Rifle Association can come to its sens es and loosen its rein on Congress, we have to change the way American schools deal with mental health. LAURA KRALICKY North Kingstown, R.I.

The writer is a student at North Kingstown High School.

Among the luminaries, Jack Hynes stood out for being downtoearth Kudos to Bryan Marquard for capturing Jack Hynes’s con tributions to Boston as a journalist as well as his unique personality (“For halfcentury, Jack Hynes informed Bosto nians,” Metro, Feb. 15). I knew him when I was as a high school kid and worked as a busboy in the legendary 1280 restaurant in Coolidge Corner. Long closed, in its heyday it was the place for lumi naries: politicians, highpowered lawyers, famous doctors, bank presidents — even celebrities, such as Ed Sullivan, stopped in occasionally. There were broadcasters, too, but Hynes was everyone’s favorite: one of the most downto earth, unassuming, “real” people one could meet. When you talked with him, he never thought he was a big deal, and as someone who used to be a media relations director before I practiced law, I’ve seen my share of those. My late father, John W. Kickham, was a friend of his from the 1280, and though Hynes was near my father’s age, he always treated me as though I were his contemporary. I waited on him countless times, and if I had a dime for every piece of valuable advice he gave me about life and dealing with the powerful, I’d have millions in the bank. Once, in the winter of 1976, he had just come in from in terviewing some of the presidential candidates who were either in town or up in New Hampshire. I remarked that in terviewing such people on major national and global issues must be exciting and rewarding. His response: “No more so than interviewing a store owner in Dorchester. Down the road, never let power or titles bowl you over.” WILLIAM D. KICKHAM Westwood

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Editorial

Full accounting needed on Northern Pass

he Baker administration had to know it was courting controversy by picking Eversource’s Northern Pass project as the winner of a lu crative state bid on Thursday. The 192mile line through New Hampshire has a long line of critics: Environmentalists worry about its impact on the White Mountains, trade groups don’t like the $1.6 bil lion cost, and competitors worry that the company had an unfair advantage because of the privileged role the Legislature gave Eversource and the state’s other electric utilities in the project selection. To answer those critics, and bolster confidence in its choice, the administration should release all the analysis that went into picking the project, including the specific scores it gave to individual bids. If Northern Pass repre sented the best option for ratepayers, the administration should be able to demonstrate that. A full accounting is especially necessary because, as the administration itself said on Thursday, Northern Pass was not the cheapest option. An official said it had been

picked for its “economic benefits as well as its ability to be in service.” Speed is definitely a valid and important con sideration, but “economic benefits” could mean anything. The extra cost of picking Northern Pass will be borne by Massachusetts ratepayers, so what’s the ostensible benefit they’re getting in return? There are other reasons, unique to this procurement, to err on the side of disclosure. Awkwardly, Eversource was not only a bidder, but played a role in evaluating the applicants. That’s how the law was set up by the Legisla ture, but the company’s dual role gave rise to obvious con cerns about selfdealing. The state hired a thirdparty evaluator to ensure the process was aboveboard, but that’s not a substitute for sharing that information with the public. Finally, it’s impossible to ignore the political context. Executives at NStar — the old name for Eversource — were big backers of Baker in his failed 2010 gubernatorial bid, when Canadian hydro arose as a campaign issue. That piece of history certainly isn’t lost on the other bid

Francis after Chile

ders, and it justifies a bit of extra transparency as Baker’s administration hands the company such a rich contract. The 2016 law was designed to get more clean energy on the state’s power grid. It should be an important step toward weaning the Commonwealth off fossil fuels. The state was fortunate to attract so much interest from inves tors: In total, 46 bids came in, offering many different op tions for getting clean energy into Massachusetts. The state is expected to award another competitively bid proj ect, this time for offshore windpower generators, in the spring. In that procurement, too, National Grid and Ever source are both bidders and judges. Competitive bidding is usually a good way to secure the best, cheapest deal for ratepayers — so long as bidders believe they have an even playing field. The dozens of ap plicants who bid for the clean energy contract were ex pressing confidence in Massachusetts. But if favored in siders win, even without offering the lowest price, the burden shifts to the state to show why any bidder should bother in the future.

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ALEX BEAM

MARGERY EAGAN

The man’s full measure

A faith misplaced

ne strike and you’re out — is that the new reality? On his recent trip to South America, Pope Francis shocked many Catholics, including, appar ently, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, by re fusing to condemn Bishop Juan Barros, who is widely assumed to have abetted clerical sex abuse in Chile. O’Malley, who is president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, chided Francis for a poor choice of words, but others reacted more bluntly. A Chilean news paper called Francis’s visit “the worst of his pontificate.” Let’s stipulate that Francis made a grievous error, and that Barros is complicit in the church’s heinous crimes. And then what? We should turn our backs on the most open hearted pope in recent memory because he made a mistake? This is the pope who has abjured the splen dor of the papacy, who has washed the feet of Muslim and Hindu refugees, who has crusad ed for the environment, and who has con demned the harshest depredations of capital ism. Less well known, but equally important, is Francis’s renunciation of the church’s bizarre crusade for the conversion of the Jews, a sub set of doctrinal antiSemitism that stretches back, well, 2,018 years. In 2015, a papal com mission declared that “the Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports any specific in stitutional mission work directed towards Jews.” The declaration hinted at a deeper ecu menical embrace, as James Carroll explained in The New Yorker: “If Jews can be under stood by the Catholic Church as having their independent religious integrity, wholly deserv ing of respect, so can other faiths.” Perhaps most significantly, according to the National Catholic Reporter, the pope is “presenting a new way of thinking about mor al issues. . . . Rather than seeing the world as divided between the good and the bad, we are all seen as wounded sinners for whom the church serves as a field hospital where the Eu charist is food for the wounded rather than a

reward for the perfect.” Translation: Francis’s Catholicism is a faith that, for the first time, is opening its arms to divorced men and women, to gays, and to Jews, traditional targets of scriptural anathe ma. Catholicism, like many Christian faiths, remains very conservative. But Francis’s theol ogy of understanding and outreach trumps a theology of rote condemnation any day of the week. Moral authority is an elusive commodity. The Vatican, as Josef Stalin cynically noted (“How many divisions does the pope have?”) has no temporal power. But the papacy can lead by example, and under Francis, it has. Consider the secretary general of the United Nations, who occupies an analogous, essen tially powerless post with tremendous moral potential. Without googling, can you name the current UN secretary general? Well good on you, because I can’t. People vested with moral authority make mistakes. Barack Obama, who won a Nobel Peace Prize, solicited and received Justice De partment permission authorizing the assassi nation of US citizens, in extraordinary circum stances. He repeatedly promised Americans that his Affordable Care Act would allow them “to keep your own doctor,” which proved not to be true. He callously jettisoned his own minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the man who married him and baptized his children, for reasons of political expediency. Does this mean Obama was incapable of providing moral leadership? I think not. In deed, in today’s America he looms hugely as a paragon of moral rectitude. Sermonizing belongs in the pulpit, and not the oped pages. With that disclaimer, I re mind readers that Jesus Christ himself fal tered in his time of trial, asking God to spare him an agonizing death: “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39). Jesus bounced back. I have faith that Pope Francis will as well. Alex Beam’s column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @imalexbeamyrnot.

ere’s a safe bet: Even if a day ar rives when the Catholic Church is pure, none of us will live to see it. So maybe Catholics should stop looking for saints among its

leaders. On Jan. 18, Francis took a sledgehammer to millions who’d misplaced saintly hope in him. He went to Chile and called priestly sex abuse survivors liars. What happened? This was the Francis who ditched the papal apartment, rode around in a tiny Fiat, kissed prisoners’ feet, focused on the poor, refugees, the planet, forgiveness, mercy — not the typi cal Catholic focus on anything to do with sex. Wowed, we talked of “The Francis Effect.” Jaded Catholics returned to Mass, risking un inspired preaching because, well, Francis in spired. Plus, to paraphrase Hebrews, there is ever that yearning to find proof of things un seen. There had long been signs that Francis didn’t really “get” the sex abuse mess. But nothing confirmed it like Chile, when he said he needed proof that Bishop Juan Barros had covered up crimes. Otherwise, multiple survi vors’ claims were “calumny.” For Americans, the timing was ghastly: in the midst of the #MeToo moment and of 156 gymnasts detailing in court gross abuse by a trusted physician. At least one was only six when her horror began. So was the little boy whom priest Paul Shanley, protected by Cardi nal Bernard Law, repeatedly plucked from Sunday school to take to a bathroom and then rape. So we are back to the dark days, asking, again, how to remain a Catholic? Yet here’s what may seem odd: the many Catholics, including those with every reason to ditch it all, who have kept their faith and ditched the institutional church instead. Take Juan Carlos Cruz, one of the men ver bally attacked by Francis. He was a 16yearold seminarian when first sexually assaulted by a priest in the ’80s. Cruz and two other survivors say Barros, the bishop Francis defends, wit nessed this. Cruz did leave the church, but not for long. He told me in a phone interview that

Catholicism has been “incredibly powerful in my life” and that a bunch of criminals “were not going to take it away from me.” Take Anne Barrett Doyle and Terry McKier nan, Catholics despite working full time run ning BishopAccountability.org, a website chronicling an actual lack of bishop account ability, plus decades of sickening abuse. Just before the pope arrived in Chile, Doyle held a press conference there to release new data on accused priests and bishops and sup port survivors like Cruz. McKiernan believes Doyle’s extensive media coverage helped push Francis over the edge. “The only way I have found to be a good Catholic now is in a state of protest,” said Doyle, who protested Law outside Holy Cross Cathedral for years. “I believe the church will be reformed not under the papacy but through subpoenas and criminal proceedings.” McKiernan, like Cruz and Doyle, says Cath olics “go to Mass all the time without faith in the authority structure. The church isn’t theirs,” he said. “It’s ours.” Said a frank and cleareyed priest who re quested anonymity, as priests usually do, “If someone came to me and said, ‘I am crushed by this,’ I’d tell them the head of the church is not the pope, it’s Jesus Christ.” And that church leaders, like family, country, or the president, will let you down. And that it’s often “people in the pews, not priests or bishops” who most courageously live their faith. In fact, at a packed Mass at her hometown parish, a courageous Doyle, then only 14, rose from one of those pews to confront her priest. He’d just praised the archdiocese for refusing to baptize the baby of a couple who were abortionrights proponents. Doyle told him he was wrong. Like many of us, Doyle has longed for he roes and saints in her life. The saintly Francis, she said, turned out to be a “fairy tale.” But she’s found what she sought by hearing survi vors speak truth to an awesome power. Through them, she said, “I have been in touch with heroes. I have been in touch with saints.” Margery Eagan is cohost of WGBH’s “Boston Public Radio.”

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Free the craft brewers

he craft beer community is a happy, hoppy, happening business sector, one fermenting, if not exactly fomenting, a marketplace, um, bevolution. But when it comes to distributing their many exhilarating elixirs, the craft beermakers, like the big macro brewers, find themselves locked into an tiquated arrangements. Under state liquor laws, once a brewer has signed on with a distributor for six months, he or she is basically a captive in that rela tionship forever. To break those bonds, brewers must prove to regulators that the distributor has violated the law, failed to “exercise best efforts” in selling their beer, badmouthed their brew, or unfairly preferred a competitor’s product. Doing so is a long, cumbersome process. That statute dates from decades ago, when the pro duction of beer was basically limited to big national or international brands, whose exit from a business rela tionship could send a distributor over a cliff. It is hard ly the only part of the state’s liquor laws that reflects a

sensibility from a different era. Equally nonsensical: the limitation on wine and beer sales in supermarket chains. Those stores are now restricted to seven that sell beer and wine, though that cap is slated to rise to nine in 2020. And add to that list the restrictive quota system under which liquor licenses are given out. Under Treasurer Deb Goldberg, a task force has been studying the state’s liquor laws, with an eye to modernizing them. That’s unlikely to happen anytime soon, however. But changing the law that governs dis tribution is on the more immediate agenda, in part be cause legislative leaders have signaled they want the craft brewers’ concerns addressed. Senate legislation would do away with the current hardtobreak relationship altogether with regard to beer, and let contracts define the relationship between brewers and distributors. Several other proposals are also in play. One, which the small brewers also prefer to the current situation, would create an exception to current law for any brewer whose product makes up less than 20 percent of a distributor’s business. Those

small brewers could terminate the relationship with 30 days’ notice. The distributors want a much lower limit: any brewer who produces less than 30,000 barrels, or about 413,000 cases, annually. By way of comparison, the wellknown Boston Beer Company, brewer of Sam Adams, produces 3.5 million barrels of beer a year in its three breweries, one of which is in Massachusetts; Harpoon, whose principal brewery in South Boston, produces about 250,000 barrels. Ninety percent of the craft beer brewed in Massachusetts would not, ah, flow free under the distributors’ bill. As it is currently exists, this aspect of state liquor law has become a stale, cumbersome, craftsection stifling arrangement. If any brewer, large or small, thinks he or she can get better sales and service by signing on with someone new, they should be free to do so, at least when a contract expires. But at very least, the small brewers need relief. Granting them that freedom would boost an energetic emerging part of the state’s smallbusiness sector.

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Should Twitter silence Trump? No By Dante Ramos

f course Twitter shouldn’t ban Donald Trump. And surely the president’s critics can find some thing better to do with $1 billion than buying a social network just to kick him off of it. Recently, Valerie Plame Wilson — the former CIA operative who became a cause celebre when the Bush administration outed her before the Iraq war — set up a GoFundMe page for her #BuyTwitter campaign. She argued that acquir ing the publicly traded company, at a cost of about $1 billion, is “a small price to pay to take away Trump’s most powerful megaphone and prevent a horrific nuclear war.” Imagine if Wilson succeeded. She and her backers would be out a lot of money. Trump would still be president. And he’d still have plen ty of other ways to lambaste opponents, promul gate bad policies, and raise tensions on the glob al scene. Trump has not just the nuclear codes but also aircraft carriers and troops and bombs at his dis posal. If he wants to engage in brinkmanship with North Korea, he’ll do it, no matter how many Twitter shares Wilson and her supporters succeeded in buying. But if you don’t like Trump’s policies, you should be glad he’s on Twitter, because his state

ments there so often boomerang on him. When a federal appeals court blocked enforcement of the president’s travel ban earlier this year, judges cit ed his tweets as evidence of discriminatory in tentions. If Trump hadn’t tweeted about sup posed tapes of his conversations with James Comey, the fired FBI director wouldn’t have leaked the memo that prompted the Justice De partment to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the president’s Russia connections. For liberals casting about for ways to resist Trump, silencing him on Twitter might feel emo tionally satisfying. But big, showy gestures only achieve so much. If Wilson and others can raise $1 billion for the sake of harrying the president, they can also spend the money in more conse quential ways. Republicans control Congress, most state legislatures, and the overwhelming majority of governorships. Because conserva tives are better at turning out voters in offyear elections for lower offices, they have dispropor tionate influence over redistricting and voter registration laws. Maybe, instead of Twitter stock, antiTrump resisters should invest in grassroots organizing instead. Dante Ramos can be reached at dante.ramos@globe.com. Follow him on Facebook: facebook.com/danteramos or on Twitter: @danteramos.

abcde Fo u n d e d 1 87 2 JOHN W. HENRY Publisher

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CHRISTINE S. CHINLUND Managing Editor

SENIOR DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORS Mark S. Morrow Jennifer Peter

Yes, his account should be deleted By Alan Wirzbicki

resident Trump’s tweets de stabilize the world and have raised fears about stumbling into an accidental war with North Korea. If Twitter were a responsible company, it would disable the president’s account to remove that possibility. Silencing Trump’s tweets was the goal of an aborted effort by Valerie Plame Wil son, the former CIA spy who launched an effort this summer to raise money to buy Twitter and then boot Trump. As it turned out, her effort seems to have been little more than a publicity stunt. But her point made sense. The idea of deleting Trump’s account has come up before, usually after espe cially offensive rounds of inflammatory or inciting tweets. Trump has come close to violating Twitter’s written terms of ser vice, and arguably crossed it. But whether Trump has obeyed Twit ter’s terms of service should be beside the point. Those rules were written with or dinary people in mind, not unstable world leaders. The traditional Silicon Valley dodge is

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that companies like Facebook and Twit ter are mere platforms, and bear no re sponsibility for how they’re used. But Twitter doesn’t owe President Trump a platform, any more than newspapers are obliged to print letters from every crack pot. Shutting down Trump’s account wouldn’t wouldn’t set any sort of prece dent — except possibly for other Twitter users with immediate access to nuclear weapons. As for his personal free speech rights, Trump would still have plenty of ways to communicate his views. What banning him from Twitter would do is enforce some delay — force the president to count to 10, as it were, and maybe even consult with advisers first. (And I know — what he says on TV isn’t much more temperate.) Twitter needs Trump — he accounts for about $2 billion of the company’s val ue — and the company has made it clear that his account is staying. But allowing itself to be a conduit for saberrattling is making the company complicit. Alan Wirzbicki is a Globe editorial writer. He can be reached at awirzbicki@globe.com.

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It’s a jungle out there Lay off the Canada geese!

RENÉE LOTH

Slow Space is design with dignity

ou’ve probably heard of the slow food movement: the idea that our meals should be wholesome, sustain able, and locally sourced — that is, the opposite of fast food. (And no, it’s not about eating snails.) Started in 1986 by an Italian farmer protesting the arrival of a Mc Donald’s in Rome, the movement has spawned a variety of off shoots, including slow travel, slow fashion, slow medicine, and slow parenting. Now comes slow architecture, or as its adherents often refer to it, Slow Space. Applied to buildings and public spaces, the move ment’s principles include using local, nontoxic materials, respect ing community traditions, and fair treatment of local labor. Slow space promotes a humanscaled environment and the somewhat less tangible idea of human dignity. “There are so many ways to slice it,” says Cambridge architect Mette Aamodt, “but what we mean is places that allow for a connection between ourselves and the world that is deeper and more meaningful than the boxes we inhabit day to day.” She uses words like empathy, intuitive, reflec tive. Slow space is the opposite of junk space. A good example is a district hospital in Burtaro, Rwanda, de signed for the international aid group Partners in Health by Bos ton architect Michael Murphy of MASS Design Group. The team wanted to reverse poor conditions at local hospitals that tended to spread communicable diseases and often made patients sicker. They installed large windows that open to freshening breezes and used permeable pavement to minimize the standing water that breeds insects. The hospital was constructed with 100 percent lo cal labor, employing nearly 4,000 residents to excavate, construct, and manage the project. The buildings are clad in volcanic rock from a nearby mountain range that could be worked by local stone masons, keeping costs low and reducing the environmental foot print that comes with imported materials. An infamous counterexample is the new Khalifa International Stadium in Qatar, designed for the 2022 World Cup by the late ar

chitectural superstar Zaha Hadid. That project has been exposed for its exploitation of migrant workers who were coerced into ap palling conditions, many of whom died from heat exhaustion and accidents. Qatar has made improving working conditions at the World Cup building site a priority, but human rights groups re main skeptical. Even here in New England, immigrant construction workers — many of them undocumented — are put at risk of injury with little recourse to compensation or even decent medical treat ment. A Boston Globe investigation last year found thousands of violations of worker safety regulations as the region tries to rapid ly meet the demand for new construction. Unfortunately, com mercial enterprises far outnumber smallbatch, slow space proj ects that stay close to the communities where they are sited: what Murphy calls locally fabricated or “lofab” construction. Murphy and Aamodt spoke at a recent conference cospon sored by the Boston Society of Architects (where I also work as editor of the organization’s quarterly magazine). They are hopeful that just as developers, homeowners, and other clients have come to want “green” credentials for building energyefficient projects, they will eventually see the value in “slow” principles. Fair, safe construction practices, clean local materials, and designs that use what neuroscientists know about how physical structures affect personal wellbeing all are part of the slow space movement. It is difficult to imagine bringing these practices to scale on large commercial developments, where speed is a financial im perative. Still, some kind checklist or pledge that clients could sign, to show they at least aspire to slow space goals, would be a good start. The built environment around us, Murphy says, is “the physical manifestation of the power relationships in our world.” Slow space aims to change that relationship, one brick at a time. Renée Loth’s column appears regularly in the Globe.

JOAN WICKERSHAM

The nightmare aftermath of a nuclear bomb

I have long wondered if it is Globe policy to always speak of wildlife disparagingly. When I started to read Nestor Ra mos’s article today (“A turkey’s lament: His goose is cooked as foul fowl thrive,” Metro, Nov. 23), I was overcome with relief until he, like many other Globe reporters, proclaimed Canada geese to be the scourge of the planet. In response to President Trump’s recent asinine reversal of the law regard ing bringing elephant parts into the country, Gisele Bund chen stated that all wildlife is precious. We should all re member that this also applies to bears, deer, turkeys, and Canada geese. It has been proved that goose droppings do not carry diseases, and the birds are not aggressive. (The next time a Globe article reports turkeys that demolished a car or a goose that put someone in the hospital, could we please see some proof?) Stop teaching children that incon venient wildlife should be exterminated in inhumane ways. Invest in machinery that vacuums up goose poop, and be grateful that we have these beautiful, friendly birds in our midst. DEBBIE PRATO Westford

And keep your cats indoors . . . Re “Catcarrying coyote spawns concerns” (Metro, Nov. 22), where it was reported that a Newton woman became con cerned after she spotted a coyote with a cat in its mouth. I wonder if she is equally concerned by the large number of cats with wild birds in their mouths. Many species of wild birds are decreasing rapidly, and a primary cause is cats. It is estimated that domestic cats kill from 1.4 to 3.7 billion birds in the lower 48 states each year. There is an easy solu tion to the catcoyote problem: Keep cats indoors. It will protect a lot of wild birds as well. MARGARET RHODES Brookline

Fossil fuels are a bad investment for pension fund It’s gratifying to see that the state pension fund, under Mi chael Trotsky’s leadership, has done so well (“State’s pen sion fund chief gets 9 percent salary hike,” Business, Nov. 24) . But the figures hide a dangerous undercurrent — the continued large investments in fossil fuels. As oil, gas, and especially coal become stranded assets, never to be burned because of their destructive effects on the climate, these in vestments can easily undermine the pension fund’s future success. That is why leaders of some of the largest unions representing current and future pensioners (Massachusetts Teachers Association, the Service Employees International Union, Boston Teachers Union, Massachusetts Nurses As sociation) recently joined investment experts and environ mentalists testifying in favor of House Bill 3281. The bill would have the fund immediately begin divesting from coal and would establish a commission chaired by the state trea surer to investigate and make recommendations on oil and gas investments. Let’s all support this bill so our pension in vestments remain safe and keep up with the times. FERD WULKAN Montague

Don’t dump vehicle inspections

n Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped a nuclear weapon on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. In the spring of 1946, writer John Hersey went to Japan to interview some survivors. The result was one of the most powerful and influen tial pieces of writing ever published: a long article which filled an entire issue of The New Yorker and then appeared as a book, “Hiro shima.” The book is not about politics or policy. It’s about people, and what a nuclear weapon does to them. Hersey focuses on six indi viduals: a Protestant minis ter, a seamstress, a factory worker, two doctors, and a German Jesuit priest. All of them were at least three quarters of a mile away when the bomb went off (vir tually everyone closer than that was incin erated). Hersey recounts, in cool prose that is all the more devastating for its restraint, what happened. First there was the blinding flash of light, then the blast, the collapsing buildings, the flying glass. Then the people trapped, crushed, under rubble. Then the fires. “Now not many people walked in the streets, but a great number sat on the pavement, vomited, waited for death, and died.” Hospitals were destroyed; more than 1,000 doctors and nurses were killed or in jured. Inside one major hospital, the single uninjured doctor labored to take care of the 10,000 wounded who poured in: “Ceil ings and partitions had fallen; plaster, dust, blood, and vomit were everywhere.

Patients were dying by the hundreds, but there was no one to carry away the corps es.” Wounded and burned people made their way to the banks of the river, where they lay all night shivering and festering, and strafed by the whirlwind that arose in the freakishly bombcharged atmosphere; by morning many of them had drowned, too weak to retreat from the rising tide. Hersey’s survivors couldn’t compre hend the magnitude of what had hap pened to them or to their city. The center of the city was gone, leveled. What was left was on fire. Each of them wandered in a world of nightmarish scenes. Hersey lets the vivid detail speak for itself. The pastor, trying to rescue survivors, “reached down and took a woman by the hands, but her skin slipped off in huge, glovelike pieces.”

A priest carrying water to victims came upon a group of 20 soldiers in the under brush. “Their faces were wholly burned, their eye sockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks.” In all, over 100,000 peo ple died in the immediate aftermath of the bombing. Thousands more suffered from the longterm, often ultimately deadly, afteref fects of radiation. Hersey’s great achieve ment is to translate these unimaginable numbers, this unspeakable death and damage, into individual stories. Before I read his book I thought I knew what a nuclear weapon was and what it could do; afterward I realized that I hadn’t known anything. GETTY I was lucky enough to take a writing workshop with John Hersey in college. He was a grave, meticulous, selfeffacing teacher. I have always admired “Hiroshima” as a piece of masterful prose. But this month, listening to the increasingly strident, irre sponsible, and dangerous rhetoric from the White House, I got out the book and read it again. I felt its urgency and its rel evance for today. The story of six people at Hiroshima is the strongest possible indictment of nu clear weapons. Looking this closely at what happened, as Hersey did and as he allows his readers to do, is the best way to make sure it never happens again. We have to look. Joan Wickersham’s column appears regularly in the Globe.

Evan Horowitz is correct to recommend reforms to the Massachusetts vehicle inspection program but mistaken for suggesting that is not effective or should be scaled back (“It’s time to inspect need for car testing,” Business, Nov. 23). I bicycle daily and can attest to the sorry state of too many vehicles: broken lights and mirrors, belching ex haust, and rusted, dangerous fenders, to name a few. And it’s not just these that need correction but also — and im portantly for the sanity of our neighborhoods – the noise vi olations of modified exhaust systems. The police rarely cite drivers for these problems. It is not just the overall effects of vehicles the inspection program is important for — it is equally the individual violations that endanger us and re duce our quality of life. Let’s beef up and improve the in spections and do better at stopping violators. ALAN WRIGHT Roslindale

Haitians won’t accept Trump ruling without a struggle Our president underestimates Haitians living in the United States if he thinks they will accept his new edict without a struggle — already they are organizing to resist (“America welcomed Haitian refugees in need, and Trump shouldn’t kick them out,” Editorial, Nov. 23). Haiti today, after a series of environmental disasters, is in no shape to receive them back. Trump can dismiss Haitians as losers, but if we in the United States ever looked into why Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, we would be shocked at our treatment of a country that won its independence from France in a slave revolt, only to suffer the harsh poli cies of US invasion, domination, and trade restrictions. The richness and strength of Haitian culture both in the United States and at home endures and will enable Haitians to fight this new injustice. SAYRE SHELDON Cambridge

Getting beyond traumatic loss Re “Reach and regrip: lessons beyond play” (Page A1, Nov. 24): This magnificent story of loss, courage, and success is a great reminder of how we all do better with a little help from those around us. Leo, Amelia, and Dillon and their teachers haven’t let Leo’s initial setbacks hold him back. He discovered his abilities with their cheerleading and encour agement. May they all keep their cando attitude as they get older and wiser. EDWIN ANDREWS Malden

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Inbox With antiMuslim retweets, Trump stoops to new low Re “Trump shares antiMuslim videos online” (Page A1, Nov. 30): Given Donald Trump’s digital history since his in auguration, we’ve come to expect behavior in the form of earlymorning tweets that, by the standards of any previous administration, Republican or Democratic, can be viewed only as notably unpresidential. Even so, I felt like I’d been slapped in the face when I read about his retweets of the three videos disseminated by a farright British fringe group intent on inflaming antiMuslim fear and hatred. And I’m Jewish. I can only imagine the pain and offense ex perienced by my American friends and colleagues who are Muslim, and who are forced to endure, repeatedly, this kind of stereotyping, hatecrimeinducing mistreatment at the hands of their own president. It didn’t take long for British Prime Minister Theresa May to condemn the retweets and the group that first post ed them, who, her office said, seek “to divide communities by their use of hateful narratives that peddle lies and stoke tensions.” By retweeting, Trump no doubt realized he was doing the same. The American people, regardless of faith or tradition, need to say that this is not who we are, and that Trump’s corrosive tweets, designed to drive wedges be tween us, disserve us all. MICHAEL FELSEN Jamaica Plain

Nursing facilities, and their residents, will feel impact if Haitians’ status ends SAMANTHA STAMAS/GLOBE STAFF, AP

It’s my (political) party and I’ll cry if I want to b y D i a n e H e s s a n

‘M

y party is in an absolute sham bles,” said Ar nold from Wis consin. “They used to represent my beliefs, but they are in disarray and crying out for new leadership.” He’s a Republican. But if he were a Democrat, he might well be saying the same thing about the Democrats in Washington. I’ve finally found an issue everyone agrees on. In my most recent survey of 400 voters from all ends of the political spectrum, 98 percent agreed that their party is a mess. Voters from both parties use adjectives like “dis organized,” “splintered,” “weak,” and “stumbling.” They insist that their parties are letting them down, driven by money and power and extreme voices rather than moral clarity and conviction. Republican voters see a party that has been bought by big business, the NRA, and pharmaceuti cal companies, whereas Democrats see their party as trying to stand for everything, willing to spend on ev erything, and also funded by the very wealthy. And then we wonder why voter turnout is so low. Start with the Republicans. At a time when the party has a majority in the Senate and the House and a lead er in the Oval Office, Republican vot ers are shocked at the lack of much legislative progress in 2017. Charlene, a Republican from Pennsylvania, said her vote for Trump was taking a position against the Clintons and for change in the Washington power structure. “Drain the Swamp” was more compelling to her than “Make America Great Again,” but she now feels that the swamp is getting deeper, due to what she calls the mess within her party. “The Republicans have been corrupt ed by powerhungry rightwing con servatives, greed, and special inter ests, and no one knows how to stand up to Trump,” she wrote to me. “Where is my party? Where is the party of economic vitality, personal responsibility, and efficient govern ment?” Enthusiastic Trump supporters are just as unhappy, but for different reasons. “If the Republican Party

would support our president, we would be so much better off,” said Su san from Ohio. “Instead, they are do ing everything they can to get in his way — and we have no breakthroughs in health care or tax reform or infra structure because our representatives in Congress never did any planning.” This sounds like an opportunity for Democrats, but their voters are just as disappointed. The strategy of “resistance” may have helped turnout in the recent Virginia elections, but most Democrats are crying for a halt to the infighting and a new vision for the future. Whereas the party’s most passionate voices are Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, well over half of the Democratic voters I speak with are interested in less partisanship and much more centrist policies.

in the mud. This is no way to govern, and it’s the reason that voters are so upset. In a world where technology threatens jobs, North Korea threatens war, and melting ice caps threaten coastlines, the tugofwar has lost its appeal. Americans are begging their respective parties to wake up: to work together to solve problems, to stop the partisanship and bickering, to talk, instead of tweeting, and to stop rigidly supporting positions with no willingness to compromise. Although nearly half of my group of voters have considered registering as Independents, most have ultimate ly rejected that action because it doesn’t solve the core problem, as ex pressed by Ernie of Indiana, that “at least until now, being moderate is too

While the parties are fighting over increasingly extreme positions — and getting so little done — more than twothirds of voters on either side are begging for moderates to right their respective ships. “When I think of the Democratic party,” said David from Minnesota, “it’s like I am watching a divided, con fused team playing defense. Perhaps that is needed when Congress and the executive branch are controlled by Republicans, but there is little about that party that makes me want to join it.” Added Sheryl from South Caroli na, “I feel like the Democrats are still reeling from last year, and have turned into fearmongers badly in need of refocusing.” While the parties are fighting over increasingly extreme positions — and getting so little done — more than twothirds of voters on either side are begging for moderates to right their respective ships. Some Democrats say they would vote for John McCain over Bernie Sanders. Some Republi cans say they would vote for Joe Biden over a candidate supported by Steve Bannon. It’s a tugofwar, and no matter who pulls hardest, everybody ends up

abcde Fo u n d e d 1 87 2 JOHN W. HENRY Publisher

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much about compromise and not enough about innovation.” If the left wants “free health care for all” and the right wants “free health care for none,” the compro mise, “subsidized health care for many,” is not captivating. If the left wants all clean technology and the right wants more coal, it’s not as com pelling to get a little of each. This is a time when a majority of voters are willing to move toward the center in order to make progress. Without the intellectual leadership and political will required to reinvent the center, however, all we can do is watch the shambles on both sides, shrug, and resign ourselves to unin spired voters failing to turn out at the polls. Diane Hessan is an entrepreneur, author, and chair of C Space. She has been in conversation with 400 voters across the political spectrum weekly since last December. Follow her on Twitter @DianeHessan.

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The Trump administration’s decision to end temporary pro tected status, or TPS, for Haitians living in the United States will have a devastating impact on the ability of skilled nursing facilities to provide quality care to frail and disabled residents. Massachusetts nursing facilities rely heavily on firstgen eration Americans and immigrants to meet care needs. There are approximately 4,300 Haitians who provide care and companionship to our residents. These workers in clude licensed nurses, certified nursing assistants, and laundry and food service staff. They are on the front lines daily — and nightly — and their dedication is inspiring and cannot be understated. Because of longstanding government underfunding for nursing facility care, 1 in 7 direct care positions are un filled. Eliminating TPS for Haitians would undoubtedly make the situation worse and affect our ability to provide quality care. We need to adopt immigration policies that help ensure that we can meet the care needs of our resi dents today and in the future and provide a living wage for our dedicated frontline staff. Many people affected by the repeal of the TPS designa tion have been working in the United States for years. They have created a life for their families and have become part of the collective caregiver community. And they help make life better for the more than 150,000 people who live in the state’s nursing homes each year. We urge the Trump administration to reconsider its de cision. MARVA SEROTKIN President The Massachusetts Senior Care Foundation TARA GREGORIO President Massachusetts Senior Care Association Waltham

We’re tugged between plutocracy and monarchy In the Nov. 28 edition of the Globe, Jeffrey D. Sachs calls out the United States as a plutocracy on one page (“The tax bill shouts, ‘Greed!’ ”), while Indira A.R. Lakshmanan be moans the royalist tendencies of the president on the other (“At the State Department, l’état, c’est Trump”). I’m sure both authors are familiar with Baron de Montesquieu’s pithy observation that “republics end through luxury, mon archies through poverty.” Whether we should luxuriate in that delicious irony or wallow in this inequitable vale of tears presents a uniquely 21stcentury political thought experiment. C. P. CARLIN Plymouth

Disturbed by portrayal in editorial cartoon We were deeply disturbed and offended by Ward Sutton’s editorial cartoon in Friday’s edition of The Boston Globe (“Murder on the taxcut express,” Opinion). While the debate over the tax bill in Washington, includ ing the role of political donors and private interests, is im portant, this cartoon promotes antiSemitic themes. The portrayal — singling out, among all the donors and interests who stand to benefit, a prominent Jewish individ ual, Sheldon Adelson; depicting him with an exaggerated hooked nose; linking him with money; and positioning him as hidden inside the train while others conduct — evokes classic antiSemitic imagery and reinforces existing stereo types. At a time when hatred and bigotry of all forms are seep ing into the mainstream, it is critical that the Globe and other responsible media outlets refrain from giving addi tional aid to those who no doubt will see this cartoon’s pub lication as further verification of longestablished anti Semitic views. ROBERT O. TRESTAN Regional director AntiDefamation League, New England region JEREMY BURTON Executive director Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston Boston

Drop ‘whom’? What?

Charles H. Taylor Founder & Publisher 18731921

Richard H. Gilman Publisher 19992006

William O. Taylor Publisher 19211955

P. Steven Ainsley Publisher 20062009

Wm. Davis Taylor Publisher 19551977

Christopher M. Mayer Publisher 20092014

William O. Taylor Publisher 19781997

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Thomas Winship Editor 19651984

Regarding the suggestion to archive “whom” in “Is English deteriorating? LOL, no” by Mark Peters (Ideas, Nov. 26): I’m glad this wasn’t suggested in 1940. Somehow “Who the Bell Tolls For” just might not have cut it. K. TOOMEY Stoneham

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Editorial Endorsement

A second term for Mayor Walsh

our years ago, nearly all the candidates in the crowded field running to replace Tom Menino as mayor of Boston sang the same tune: The city needed more housing, better schools, and a more welcom ing environment for businesses and their em ployees. Voters chose Martin J. Walsh, a Dor chester state legislator and labor leader, to de liver on a set of concerns that drew a surprisingly broad consensus. So, with another Election Day approach ing, how’d he do? On two of those three goals — housing and the city’s vibrancy — the mayor has excelled. Boston’s building boom has added so many new housing units, so quickly, that the city is starting to turn the corner on what seemed like the unstoppable upward spiral of rents. The boom hasn’t reached every neighbor hood, and there’s still work to be done, but Walsh has already built an impressive legacy in bricks and mortar. The mayor also deserves credit for the new spirit of openmindedness at City Hall, and a commitment to asserting Boston’s place as a creative global city. He’s reduced the friends andfavorites atmosphere at City Hall, and backed efforts to liberalize the hidebound rules that stand in the way of neighborhood vitality. His administration seems more in clined to greet new ideas with open arms rather than a wary scowl. Attracting General Electric’s headquarters to Boston was a pow erful vindication of the way Walsh is running the city: One of America’s biggest companies showed its confidence in Boston as a place to do business and for its employees to live. Public education is still waiting for the kind of disruption that Walsh’s administra tion has brought to the housing market in Boston. Walsh spent his first term mapping a pathway to improvement for the school sys tem and has notched some victories. He im plemented a longer day, hired a good superin tendent, and expanded summer learning op portunities for lowincome kids. The Globe endorses Walsh with enthusiasm, in the hope that in a second term he will build on his ac complishments of the last four years while us ing more of his political capital to improve Boston schools. WALSH’S BACKGROUND AS A LEADER of the building trades left him fluent in the language of builders and developers, and uniquely posi tioned to supercharge the pace of residential construction in the city. He set an impressive goal of 53,000 new residential units by 2030. And developers in the city seem to be meeting it: The Fenway, Mission Hill, South Boston, Forest Hills, and other neighborhoods have seen a spurt of new growth, with about 22,000 new units built or in progress. The good economy helped. Walsh has eased up on the subterranean politics that de terred development under his predecessor, and should continue to strive for even more transparency in the approval process. Menino allowed the perception that only his favorites could build in the city, a clubbishness that helped chill business and create Boston’s housing crunch in the first place. The new units sprouting up across the city mean jobs in construction — an immediate economic payoff. But there’s a lasting eco nomic impact as well. By giving new residents a place to live, these units relieve pressure on existing housing stock and stabilize prices. They also mean new residents pay property tax and anchor the city’s budget.

to accusations that he broke his word. A more serious blot on his record are the two City Hall officials charged with federal crimes. The two men, Kenneth Brissette and Timothy Sullivan, are accused of using their power to force a music festival seeking city permits to hire the mayor’s political support ers. Walsh himself hasn’t been accused of any criminal wrongdoing, but his loyalties seem to be getting in the way of common sense. His refusal to fire Brissette is baffling. The trial will determine whether Brissette’s actions were criminal, but would an exoneration real ly mean he keeps his job? Is that all that may ors expect of their administration: simply not breaking the law? Sworn testimony indicates that Brissette abused his power; whether or not that was a crime, it should be enough for anyone at City Hall to get the boot. A better challenger might have been able to exploit Walsh’s few weaknesses. City coun cilor Tito Jackson has a compelling personal story and a commendable record of service in Governor Patrick’s administration and at City Hall. He promises a scandalfree administra tion, vows to take a much tougher approach to tax breaks used to lure companies like GE, and has made income inequality a central part of his platform. But he hasn’t spelled out a cohesive vision for the city, or translated that vision into the concrete policy proposals.

JESSICA RINALDI FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

The building spree has created some ten sion in neighborhoods leery of extra traffic. And it inevitably leads to grumbles about gen trification. But the alternative is much worse: The city conducted a realtime experiment in slowing down housing growth during Meni no’s mayoralty, and it resulted in the housing mess that’s only now coming back into bal ance. THE WAY THAT WALSH fended off demands that he shut down Uber and Lyft early in his tenure serves as a good symbol of another of the mayor’s strengths: He is not an enemy of change, and understands the value of em bracing innovation. Early in his mayoralty, the embattled cab industry — long sheltered from competition by political leaders, even as it exploited its im migrant workforce — pressed Walsh to crack down on the popular appbased services. Poli ticians in other cities — New York’s Bill de Blasio comes to mind — bowed to medallion holders’ demands, and it would have been easy to imagine some of Walsh’s 2013 oppo nents riding to the rescue of an entrenched special interest in the city. For Boston, a city that still labors to live down an outdated reputation for insularity, Walsh’s openmindedness has been especially crucial. So has his willingness to entertain transformative ideas — like vying for the

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Olympics or attracting Amazon’s new head quarters. Walsh has also tried new things at City Hall, opening an office of recovery services that’s become a national model in the midst of the nation’s opioid epidemic. It’s the sort of visionary thinking and nimble policymaking that should be applauded. In an era defined by threats of federal retrenchment, Walsh has stood up for Boston’s progressive values. On a granular level, Walsh hasn’t neglect ed the direct neighborhood presence that Bostonians have come to expect of their may ors — a recent poll found nearly 40 percent of residents have met him personally. Yet, at the same time, he’s not encrusted in parochial tradition: His receptiveness to change has translated into a willingness to rethink bad policies. For instance, Walsh backed an in crease in the number of liquor licenses, a longoverdue reform that provides opportuni ties for entrepreneurs in the city’s under served neighborhoods. The city’s future com petitiveness will depend on a mayor who treats economic change as an opportunity, not a threat. WALSH MADE SOME MISTAKES. His crusade against Wynn Resorts in Everett cost taxpay ers money and ended in a facesaving retreat. His promise to rebuild the bridge to Long Is land was impractical, and has left him open

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IF WALSH WINS REELECTION in November, he will have a freer hand to tackle challenges like income inequality and an uneven system of public schools, which should be a pathway to upward mobility. Too many Boston children still attend schools at the low end of state rankings, despite perpupil spending that’s among the top in the Commonwealth. Results from the most recent round of state tests, re leased last week, showed dozens of schools in Boston falling short. Over the next four years, the schools must show continued, measurable progress, and Walsh should clearly articulate his vision for reform. The first step is to negotiate a strong contract with the Boston Teachers Union. Walsh recently signed a shortterm deal that papered over the sticking points on both sides. In the next contract, the city needs the ability to ensure that the best teachers are in the classroom, and that the system isn’t pay ing the salary of teachers who don’t get a classroom assignment within a reasonable period of time. Entry requirements for Boston’s elite exam schools also need reexamination, and possibly reform. Discussion of changing the entrance exam should be reopened, and the city shouldn’t brush aside concerns about the im pact of the admissions policy on the racial makeup and climate of the school. The mayor wants to expand preK — a great goal — but that effort needs fresh mo mentum. He’s now angling for funding from outside the school budget to pay for it. But that may prove a fantasy. If the state won’t po ny up the money, the mayor needs to be pre pared to find savings elsewhere. It’s doable: Boston still spends too much on avoidable, nonclassroom expenses like unnecessary bus ing and outdated buildings, which could be solved by harmonizing school start times or consolidating schools. No doubt, it’ll be tough work. But Walsh’s record over the last four years should give voters confidence in his leadership. The city would be best served by Walsh’s reelection, and the Globe urges voters to pick him on Nov. 7.

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Boldly go: Joint Mars mission could be Trump legacy

onald Trump may not love science, but he cer tainly understands the physics of bold strokes and good publicity. Motives aside, his execu tive order reestablishing the National Space Council was a surprising, but welcome, sign in an administration stocked with climate deniers and neo nativists. It’s also heartening that Vice President Mike Pence, the council chair, kicked off the first meeting by restating a bold promise: to return to the moon and eventually land on Mars. At its best, the council could lift up the nation’s space program, with all of its inherent promise of exploration and innovation. At its worst, the agency, which includes Cabinet secretaries, commercial interests, and national security offi cials, could add a layer of bureaucracy that politicizes NASA. Or, worse yet, militarizes it. That dark possibility seemed to emerge at last week’s meeting. Dan Coats, director of nation al intelligence, warned that the council must “ensure we

achieve the dominance in space necessary to protect our people” and block adversaries who “could do us wrong.” Past administrations knew that manned space explora tion could fire the nation’s imagination — while adding rocket fuel to political agendas. In 1957, President Eisen hower saw opportunity when the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite, because it established an important con cept — the freedom of orbital space. President Kennedy basked in the reflective shine of heroes like astronaut John Glenn and called for the nation’s first moon shot. Although it wasn’t wellknown at the time, Soviet and US officials discussed collaborating in space from the earliest days. A declassified memo from a postSputnik conference notes “some discussion concerning the Soviet request as to whether we would like to put instruments of ours aboard one of their satellites.” As early as 1961, Kennedy met Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and proposed that the two countries go to the moon together, according to NASA historian William Barry.

In 1962, JFK wrote to Khrushchev proposing a number of joint space projects, including a possible manned flight to Mars. Collaboration with Russia now seems out of the question. But space exploration should be an international project, sharing both the costs and the glory. If the Trump adminis tration is serious about Pence’s goal, it should eschew a new space race, with all its militaristic overtones, and propose a global program instead. For instance, the United States could propose that China, the world’s secondlargest econo my, join in a program to land astronauts on Mars. A joint mission could galvanize diplomatic relations with the ag gressive regime of President Xi Jinping and, not coinciden tally, establish a united front against North Korea. It would also promote scientific collaboration — not ri valry — for decades to come. Trump, enmeshed in a fresh Twitter war over Senator Bob Corker’s height, looks more di minished by the day. He only stands to benefit from looking skyward.

BY JEFF JACOBY

Access to contraceptives isn’t a problem. So why did the feds get involved?

t has been 52 years since the Supreme Court ruled, in Griswold v. Connecticut, that government may not ban anyone from using contraceptives. The freedom to use birth control is protected by the Constitution’s “funda mental right” to privacy. That freedom is a matter of set tled law, and hasn’t been challenged in the slightest by President Trump or his administration. But you wouldn’t know that from the hysteria that erupted when the White House last week acted to uphold the conscience claims of employers who object to funding some types of contra ception on moral grounds. “The Trump administration just took direct aim at birth control coverage for 62 million women,” stormed Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood. On Twitter, Hillary Clinton ac cused Trump of showing “blatant disregard for medicine, science, & every woman’s right to make her own health decisions.” Eliza beth Warren, denouncing “this attack on basic health care,” claimed the GOP’s top priority is to deprive women of birth con trol. “News flash to Republicans,” Warren sneered. “The year is 2017, not 1917.” News flash to Warren, et al.: There is no attack on health care, and no one in America is being deprived of birth control. You are losing nothing but the power to force nuns to pay for your oral contraceptives. As a matter of common decency, you should be

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ashamed of demanding something so outrageous. Access to birth control may be deemed within the First Amend ment’s “emanations” and “penumbras,” as the Supreme Court put it. The right to religious liberty, however, is not merely implied by the words of the Constitution. It’s explicit. As a matter of econom ics and public policy, the Affordable Care Act mandate that birth control be supplied for free is absurd. But ramming that mandate down the throat of Christian colleges, Little Sisters of the Poor, and others with grave religious objections was worse than absurd, it was unconstitutional. In carving out an exemption to the ACA mandate for employers with genuine moral qualms, the Trump administration is belatedly halting five years’ worth of bullying by the federal government. “To the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law,” the adminis tration’s new religious guidance makes clear, “religious observance and practice should be reasonably accommodated in all govern ment activity.” It is disturbing to see “reproductive rights” hardlin ers react with such fury to treating nuns with respect and sensitiv ity. Especially since birth control will remain as available and af fordable as ever. Religious concerns aside, the new White House rule leaves the birthcontrol mandate in place. Trump’s “tweak won’t affect 99.9 percent of women,” observes The Wall Street Journal, “and that number could probably have a few more 9s at the end.” Washing

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ton will continue to compel virtually every employer and insurer in America to supply birth control to any woman who wants one at no outofpocket cost. Yet there is no legitimate rationale for such a mandate. Ameri cans don’t expect to get aspirin, bandages, or cold medicine — or condoms — for free; by what logic should birth control pills or dia phragms be handed over at no cost? It is true that a woman’s un wanted pregnancy can lead to serious costs, but the same is also true of a diabetic’s hyperglycemia. Should insulin be free? By and large, birth control is inexpensive; as little as $20 a month without insurance. For lowincome women who find that too onerous, the federal government’s Title X program provides subsidized contraception to the tune of nearly $290 million per year. American women are not forced to choose between the Pill or the rent. And access to birth control, as the Centers for Disease Control reported in 2010, was virtually universal before Obamac are. The White House is right to end the burden on religious objec tors. But it is the birthcontrol mandate itself that should be scrapped. Contraception is legal, cheap, and available everywhere. Why are the feds meddling where they aren’t needed? Jeff Jacoby can be reached at jacoby@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeff_jacoby.

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All eyes on GOP tax plan Lawmakers from the right and left are worthy of our scorn

ALEX BEAM

Loading your tray at the Social Justice Cafeteria AP

see that the pitchfork people are coming for Woody Allen. His movie “Wonder Wheel” opens next week, and there is talk of a boycott to protest Woody’s nu merous crimes against humanity. Allen may be the greatest comic writer of the 20th century, for those of us who remember his lapidary contributions to The New York er in the 1960s and 1970s. I’m not sure the magazine has ever published work as funny as “The Whore of Mensa,” or the chessbyfax parody “The GossageVardebedian Papers,” And yes, I know who S.J. Perelman is. What was Woody’s unforgivable trans gression? He had an adulterous affair with his stepdaughter, to whom he has been married for more than 20 years. In the course of a vitriolic divorce battle, he was accused multiple times — and exonerated multiple times — of molesting another stepdaughter. I’ll read the reviews of “Wonder Wheel” and take it from there. Welcome to life in the Social Justice Caf eteria! Eat this! Don’t eat that! While Hur ricane Weinstein was blowing through town, my wife and I were watching a TV series produced by the Weinstein Compa ny, “Trapped,” a goofy Icelandic police pro cedural — and saw the logo flash across our screen every night. Should we have turned the television off?

Should I nev er watch my fa vorite movie, the Weinsteinproduced “Shakespeare in Love,” again? Hey, cinephiles — will you stop watching “Cas ablanca,” arguably the great est movie of all time? I read here in the Tablet that its producer, Jack Warner, was “a serial exploiter of women . . . who may well have in vented the casting couch.” I am shocked, shocked. Speaking of eat this/don’t eat that, Globe food critic Devra First recently ven tured into a Chick filA restaurant, remind ing readers that Boston’s late mayor Thom as Menino pointedly uninvited the chain to set up shop here, because of its chairman’s outspoken support of “traditional” mar riage. “Where do we draw the lines about what we consume?” First asked, and it’s an interesting question. The lines are sinuous indeed. Guess who opposes samesex marriage? The ma jority of my cocommunicants in the world wide Anglican church. And yet I pop up at the altar rail a few dozen times a year be cause, well, I choose to. The state of Israel doesn’t perform samesex marriages, and yet I’ve travelled there twice, and would again in a heartbeat. Boycott the NFL? Why should I? If, like

me, you are still watching pro football, you are in pretty deep. You are apparently com fortable with paunchy white men raking in enormous amounts of money on the soon tobeshattered brains of promising young athletes. You somehow rationalized Balti more Ravens star Ray Rice smashing the bejesus out of a defenseless woman on videotape. Even though I deplore Donald Trump, it somehow doesn’t bother me that every member of the Patriots’ Holy Trinity — owner Bob Kraft, coach Bill Belichick, and the Gwyneth Paltrow of quarterbacks, Tom Brady — has been shilling for him since Day One. Football isn’t a morality play, and it doesn’t claim to be. It’s a violent spectator sport that mimics the ancient drama of battle to huge, appreciative audiences, in cluding me. The problem with overanalyzing the menu at the Social Justice Cafeteria is that you risk starvation. Bad people do great things, and mediocre people do very little at all. Our world was built with the crooked timber of humanity: the just, the bent, and the halt; the brilliant, disturbed writers who marry young girls; and the Godlike quarterbacks who won’t eat tomatoes, for some crazy reason. Welcome to it. Alex Beam’s column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitt@imalexbeamyrnot.

Lifesaving lessons in the time of Trump

he river of American his tory meanders inexorably through the political land scape. Sometimes it swerves right, then, after a while, swerves left. Then right again. Born in 1930, I’ve been around long enough to have survived several of these swings, some more acute than others. The river has never overflowed its banks to flood the countryside. Un til now. My heart sank when Richard Nixon beat Hubert Humphrey for president. This isn’t going to be pretty, I said to myself. . . . And it wasn’t. The White House was crawling with crooks and liars, not the least of whom was the leader of the criminal gang. For shame! My heart sank again when Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter. It won’t be that bad, I said. But it was pretty bad for those at the wrong end of trickle down. Somehow, we managed to stay afloat. My heart dropped further when George W. Bush beat Al Gore. (Al was a stiff, but we probably would have forgiven him for that.) During the ad ministration of Bush II, America and Iraq combined lost approximately 1 million men, women, and children in a war that should never have occurred. When Donald Trump won the 2016 election, my heart sank again, this time to such depths it was all I could do to come up for air. Those three other presidents — Nixon, Reagan, George W. Bush — had been formed in similar molds. Not ex actly interchangeable, they at least ful filled certain traditional forms of be havior — partly through political pres sures and partly because, as civilized citizens, they were more or less reli able and not insane. Donald Trump is a catastrophe. It’s distressing to listen to pundits discuss ing his latest toxic caper as if he were a normal person, not out of his mind, having only the flimsiest grasp of reali ty, and bloated with arrogance, narcis sism, and envy. He abused a Gold Star father, cut funding for HUD and the arts, axed regulations on business, quit the Paris Accords, threatened North Korea, and boasted that he likes to grab pussy. The New York Times

B y A n n e B e r n a y s

has compiled a list of thousands of lies that have slid off the end of his forked tongue. To sum up: Trump has violat ed almost every previous standard of public and private behavior, as well as reversing the humane trend toward improving people’s health and happi ness. If Trump has any agenda, it is the scorchedearth policy employed by barbaric conquerors who wiped out all evidence of their enemy’s existence. Early one morning in 1938, I walked into my parents’ bedroom to see my father standing by the window looking grim and my mother sitting on the bed, holding a handkerchief to her face. I asked my mother why she was crying. My father said, “Your mother’s crying because Hitler invaded the Su detenland.” I had never heard the word Sudetenland, but I didn’t have to ask. I was overcome by an 8yearold’s version of dread, a sickish feeling that blocks out everything else. That day, in 1938, marked the start of an antihu man political and military campaign that ended with 60 million killed around the planet, including the six million Jews slaughtered with a dia bolic efficiency not seen since the inquisition. There are a lot of theories about the causes of World War II, among them the Treaty of Versailles (viewed as too harsh toward Germany and its allies), Japanese expansion, and the rise of fascist regimes in Spain and Italy. Whatever it was, men seemed unable — or unwilling — to stop the forces be hind it any more than they could have stopped the flow of lava down the sides of a volcano. For me, as a descendent of German Jews, the worst aspect of the leadup to war was the denial, or even acquies cence, of people all over Europe who were, for the most part, well educated, who followed the rules, looked out for each other, doted on their children, and kept a tidy home. Like you and me. They looked on passively as Hitler kept Jews from entering universities and the professions, spread fake sto ries about them, and finally rounded them up to be dispatched like slaugh terhouse cattle. Those good German citizens did nothing to stop him. Those who want to find out more about those terrible times should read Aharon Appelfeld’s novel “Badenheim 1939,” a dramatic rendering of the tragedy of those who look but do not

see. Or who perhaps see but do not act. My dread came and went, like a vi rus that stays dormant for years, then explodes in shingles — or worse. It emerged during the Cuban Missile Cri sis. I drove to my children’s school and pulled them out of class in the middle of the day. They thought I was nuts. The dread receded. The things that Nixon, Reagan, and Bush did — ca lamitous as they turned out to be — were no worse than, for instance, the Rwandan genocide, or the political murders by tyrants all over the so called civilized world. In fact, these presidents don’t come off so badly when compared with the Shah of Iran or Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, or Bashar alAssad. I and others of like mind were disappointed, distressed, frustrated, and angry. But we were not overcome by dread. The dread came back when it looked as if Donald Trump was going to be our next President. It wasn’t so much that he was a rotten candidate in every sense of the word, it was more that it was inconceivable we had elect ed a mentally unstable 70yearold with an unsavory business and per sonal reputation and the emotional in telligence of a 4year old — who told lies more often than the truth, who abused women, war heroes, and the English language, who carried grudg es, bullied people who didn’t please him, urged his followers to commit vi olence, and was the star and producer of a cringeworthy TV reality show. America’s choice was as unsettling as if we had elected Bonzo. Remember Bonzo? He was the eponymous chim panzee in a movie that starred yetto be president Reagan. We now suffer from emotional dis location, anxiety, and a growing dread because this man has no conception of what it means to drop a nuclear weap on on a city, because he has turned in side out and upside down every single forwardlooking piece of legislation wrought not only by Barack Obama, but going all the way back to the life saving legislation of the 1930s New Deal. We look but we do not act. Or, to give us the benefit of the doubt, we want to act but don’t know how. We are in danger of drowning. Anne Bernays is a novelist, essayist, and teacher.

While Jeffrey D. Sachs gets it largely right in his dissection of Republicansponsored tax reform (“Daylight robbery,” Opinion, Nov. 14), he falls prey to the temptation to round up the usual suspects, most prominently, the Koch broth ers. It is a diversion from reality to make the Kochs the vir tual piñata of progressives. If anything, they are models of probity and transparency compared with their minions: the putative legislators who enable the fiscal assaults on our society. As with the sirens of Greek mythology, there will always be tempters ready to lure those of low character. For some, public service is little more than a trough from which they gorge their insatiable appetites for selfinterest and person al enrichment. That trough is hued in both red and blue. RICHARD GONCI Cambridge

Business owners welcome tax cut Re “Daylight robbery” by Jeffrey D. Sachs: The House tax cut, if enacted, would be great for investment in our econo my. I am the CEO of a small company, and here is the truth: My firm plans on hiring and training more than 20 percent more new people because of the benefits to the economy this tax cut can bring. I know many smallbusiness owners in a wide variety of fields who are planning to do the same. According to Businessweek, twothirds of the House tax cut would go to benefit business directly. The US tax code is highly imperfect, but for those of us who have invested all our savings, or taken out a second mortgage, to face the challenge of creating a job and building a business, it feels good to finally become a priority for our elected officials. MARK W. HOFFMAN Boston

The writer is chairman and CEO of LifeYield.com, a soft ware firm that serves individual investors and financial advisers.

Scrap the Social Security wage cap Kudos to Renée Loth for raising the payroll tax issue (“Missing from the tax bill,” Opinion, Nov. 8). Despite all the talk of taxes and tax reform, the payroll tax has gotten virtually no attention. Who pays this tax? Working people and businesses who employ people. Let’s reduce the Social Security tax rate, but eliminate the cap on income subject to the tax so that higherpaid employees can pay their fair share. Doing so would promote job creation and reduce one of the burdens crushing hardworking people across the country. Democrats should seize on payroll tax reform as the counter to the Republican determination to further en rich the wealthy. JENNY NETZER Cambridge

It’s easy to give away money — but it’s the wrong thing to do It’s not a tax cut if you simply give away $1.5 trillion with no way to pay for it. Jeffrey D. Sachs notes that the richest 6 percent of taxpayers are estimated to get more than half of the Republicanproposed giveaway, with most of that going to the top 1 percent. So, we can spend the next few weeks arguing how large the tax cuts should be for corporations and different income earners and whether we should limit deductions for state and local taxes, interest on home mort gages, or student loans. But when will this be seen for what it is: quite simply, a $1.5 trillion giveaway. KEN BUESSELER Falmouth

Dip in T ridership could be chalked up to unhappy customers Re “Ridership on MBTA is a bit lower” (Starts & Stops, Met ro, Nov. 12): I wonder if the Massachusetts Bay Transporta tion Authority, the governor, and the Legislature have con sidered that the decline in T ridership may stem from the fact that, all too often, the service stinks. A 6 percent de cline in bus ridership? That comes as no surprise to those of us who count on T buses for all or part of our transporta tion service. We have learned the hard way that we cannot count on the T to get us to work or to critical appointments on time. While Governor Baker and his oversight board have been cleaning the T’s financial house, it seems they have done little, if anything, to improve the daytoday experi ence of T riders. With traffic increasing to epic proportions, and subway cars and buses crowded like cattle cars at rush hour, let’s admit that the Commonwealth has serious transportation problems. It is time to begin the heavy lift of providing re lief to the riders of today, and of building the transit system and transportation infrastructure that will improve the quality of life and commerce in our future. If the transit system, in particular, is not made reliable and pleasant to use, the people may very well continue to vote with their feet. JOSEPH LEVENDUSKY Watertown

Texting, crossing street, pushing stroller? Seriously? Re “Step by oblivious step” (Page A1, Nov. 13): Several years ago, while witnessing the most egegious example of a pe destrian crossing while texting or talking — a woman push ing a baby in a stroller — I lost it. Rolling down the window, I shouted, “Are you trying to be an organ donor?” There is nothing more important than a life. JUDITH GUNDERSEN Milton

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Harsh light on an arrest report In extrooper’s 23 years, he never saw anything like this As a former Massachusetts state trooper, now retired, it was painful for me to read Andrea Estes’ Nov. 8 frontpage article regarding the trooper who was ordered to change his arrest report (“Trooper says he was forced to alter re port on judge’s kin”). I can testify to the fact that this outrageous inci dent is not a true reflec tion of the Massachu setts State Police. Our history has not been without its problems, but we always took com fort in the fact that our actions were above board. Hopefully some public scrutiny of this event will assist the State Police in regaining this tradition. Trooper Ryan Sceviour acted in the best tradition of the Massachusetts State Police when he complied with a di rect order, and then instituted a legal challenge. Such an order strikes at the heart of the integrity of a police de partment. The State Police spokesman, David Procopio, gave the impression that reviewing troopers’ reports and changing them was a common occurrence. He was mistaken. Order ing a trooper to change his personal firsthand account of an event that led to an arrest was something that I never witnessed in 23 years on the job.

Our history has not been without its problems, but we always took comfort in the fact that our actions were aboveboard.

ALEX BEAM

Never heard of him? All the better

friend suggested I read Rich ard Stern’s 1973 novel “Other Men’s Daughters,” a classic of the Harvard/Cambridge genre. The 42yearold physiology professor Robert Merriweth er upends his life for a comely under graduate, and it’s a masterpiece. I perused Stern’s fascinating obituary in The New York Times in 2013. He was the man who suggested to the young Philip Roth that he write a short book about his unusual summer experiences. The result was “Goodbye, Columbus.” Then I noticed the headline: “Richard G. Stern, Writer’s Writer, Dies at 84.” My heart sank. No wonder I had nev er heard of him! “Writer’s writer” is code for “unread, underappreciated, talented, and unknown.” In his lifetime, James Salter (“A Sport and a Pastime”) was known as a writer’s writer, as was the since reappreciated John Williams (“Stoner”). Apparently there is yet another level of abstracted obscurity, a category occu pied by the legendary (and unread by me) Henry Green: “the writer’s writer’s writer,” as Terry Southern called him. Be ing a W3 is no walk in the park. The final two decades of Green’s life were “a sad story of increasing reclusiveness, alco holism, and melancholia,” according to The New York Review of Books. Surely other professions celebrate this unenviable category, the smallbore successnik admired by more successful successniks? Yes, indeed.

ROBERT L. CERRA Auburndale

About 45 years ago, I remember my father calling Georges Braque a “painter’s painter,” a remark that seems to have stuck with me. Painter’s painters are pretty thick on the ground, once you fire up the proverbial search engines: Daniel Brustlein, Ed Moses, Frank Auerbach; the list is endless. It turns out the world is full of “chef’s chefs.” In 2005, “60 Minutes” reported, “The man who may be America’s most fa mous chef — the chef’s chef — is mild mannered, even shy. The recipes in his cookbook are so demanding that he actu ally warns readers not to try them at home.” That was Thomas Keller of The French Laundry, and now many other restaurants, a household name in every household but mine. Chef’s chefs are as plentiful as bogus “salts” — Pink Himalayan, Grey Guer ande, these sound more like designer dogs than spices to me — adorning high end retailers’ shelves. There is Jamie Bis sonette of Little Donkey; Charles Draghi of Bay Village’s Erbaluce, and the late JeanLouis Palladin (“While Mr. Palladin never achieved the public profile of con temporaries like Alice Waters and Paul

Prudhomme, he was a chef’s chef. . . .”) The Chicago Tribune once wrote that Alderman Allan Streeter, who reached a plea agreement on a bribery charge, “fair ly boasted that he was the crook’s crook.” In Chicago, that means something. The Tribune recently printed a list of 33 Chi cago aldermen who pleaded guilty to, or were convicted of, crimes, since 1972. That is a record that even our much indicted Speakers of the Massachusetts House of Representatives can’t hope to match. I came across a lovely salute to a Fleet Street hack, who, upon receiving a fan letter calling him “the greatest journalist of his generation,” sent a one word reply: “Bull****.” “He was the columnist’s columnist, the journalist’s journalist, the writer’s writer — we all bowed down before him,” Michael Parkinson wrote in The Daily Telegraph. The journalist’s name was Keith Waterhouse, and it’s OK if you’ve never heard of him. Alex Beam’s column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @imalexbeamyrnot.

MARGERY EAGAN

GOP tax plan hammers the middle class

aybe you remember news of this star tling claim: Nearly half of American women — even married women earning six figures — fear winding up as “bag ladies,” wandering the streets, homeless, like a modernday Blanche DuBois, depending “on the kindness of strang ers. “ Single and divorced women fear it most, revealed a muchdiscussed Allianz Life Insurance Company survey of 2,200 women four years ago. Barely above water, clinging to a slippery pole. That captures their sentiments best. Well, ladies, the GOP tax plan is here. Do you have reason to fear? “Yes, you do,” said US Senator Elizabeth Warren in an interview. Why? Because more women than ever are the family breadwinners. More are alone supporting and caring for kids, elderly parents, paying off college loans, trying to save for retirement in the thick of what Warren calls “the hammered middle class.” And the difference between what keeps them above water, and what puts them under, is all up for confusing grabs in Washington. This includes deductions for state, local, sales, in come, and property taxes. For mortgage interest, medi cal expenses, student loans, tuitions, even for school teachers’ supplies — crayons and paper for kindergar teners. The Senate wants to jettison some deductions and keep or cap others. The House wants to keep or cap some, jettison others. Both sides want to raise the child tax credit and double the standard deduction. Who knows what that means or if it’ll be enough? Bottom line: Paychecktopaycheck earners must brace for a hit and weigh options carefully. Chunk light, or solid white albacore? The slightly betteroff must de cide: travel team hockey, or math tutor, or neither? But this anxiety is apparently required so the wealth iest Americans can save millions, even billions. It’s “downright mean,” said Warren, “ugly, economi

cally dangerous.” And a massive transfer of wealth from the “hammered” to greedy plutocrats. The socalled bag lady syndrome got lots of press in 2013, two years after Occupy Wall Street’s 99 vs. the 1 percent protests, two years before income inequality helped define election 2016. Jittery sufferers insisted they weren’t paranoid but were legitimately scared about living so close to the edge, one illness or layoff away from catastrophe. Ber nie Sanders resonated. Donald Trump won the election at least in part because middleclass voters, women and men, had indeed met catastrophe, lost homes and jobs and hope. “I am your voice,” Trump told them, to ecstat ic cheers. Yet now we have a tax plan that throws crumbs to the scared while coddling titans of industry like Jeff Im melt (worth $211 million), who used to run General Electric (notorious for avoiding federal taxes) and who flew around the world with two private jets (one to sit in, one following behind — just in case). The House tax plan makes sure Ivanka and Jared Kushner (worth $206 million to $762 million) won’t have to pay a nasty estate tax when The Donald departs this mortal coil, thus creating a permanent hereditary aristocracy for the Kushnerettes and superrich kids like them. The Senate scam? To pretend to keep the estate tax, but raise the threshold so high almost no one will pay it. Here we are with Trump’s money man Gary Cohn, exGoldman Sachs investment banker ($285 million severance) telling the “hammered” to be happy. With their $1,000 windfall, they can renovate the kitchen! How would he know that $1,000 will barely buy you a GE stainless steel sidebyside fridge at Lowe’s? And here we are, back where we started, like a modernday Blanche Dubois, depending on the kinder of D.C. strangers not to pound the “hammered” com pletely into dust. Margery Eagan is cohost of “Boston Public Radio” on WGBH. Her column appears regularly in the Globe.

This is not in keeping with the mission of State Police The only “edits” to this police report should have been statements like my father is “going to kill me,” since that was not relevant to the alleged crimes. Such edits did not require rousing a trooper out of bed, which in itself im plies secrecy and wrongdoing. The complex issues surrounding truth in a police offi cer’s report can best be seen in a short film called “The Re port.” I commend the officer in this case for not allowing the truth to be redacted. State troopers do an incredible job of keeping our Com monwealth safe every day, and they have my deepest re spect. Forcing a trooper to falsify a report under duress is not in keeping with their mission or oath to serve and protect all citizens. VALERIE M. SLEE Shrewsbury

Trump and his ostriches — er, followers Mike Stopa’s “The myth of the Trump personality cult” (Opinion, Nov. 6) is truly amazing. Not only does Stopa find excuses for Donald Trump’s abhorrent behavior, but he manages to find excuses for the president’s diminishing legion of followers. I’m not sure which is scarier — a fascist president who lies every day and is under investigation, or the Trump enablers who ignore the facts and swear alle giance to this dangerous buffoon. He promotes hatred, pollution, corruption, and intoler ance. He insults world leaders in the throes of tragedy. C’mon now. If you think Trump is anything less than a to tal embarrassment, you’re just not paying attention. Or maybe you’re just straining your neck to look the other way. Stopa wraps up his piece with a few myths of his own, including the suggestion that Trump has something to do with a growing economy (the president probably takes credit for the sun rising every day, too) and the notion that the judiciary is “bending toward more traditional values.” Since when do “traditional values” include discrimina tion and religious fanaticism? HOWARD NEWMAN Melrose

‘Paradise Papers’ tell us much about stakes in current taxreform debate As someone who has been working on ending tax haven abuse for years, there’s not much surprising that we see in the massive “Paradise Papers leak,” 13.4 million documents about the tax dodging of the wealthiest people and compa nies. But it does reinforce a couple things about our current tax debate. For starters, we have a credibility problem. Those who are tasked with cracking down on offshore tax dodging, these leaks reveal, have been working closely with many who profited extensively from them. We, the public, who would be debt financing this pro posed taxreform plan to the tune of $1.5 trillion, deserve more time and input into just what this bill does and doesn’t do about offshore tax dodging. Congress should not rush through the process for that debate. Then we need to remove all the incentives that reward companies for hiding money in complicated offshore schemes, and my reading on this bill is that it increases in centives to offshore. Let’s hope the Senate can address these concerns. NATHAN PROCTOR State director Massachusetts Fair Share Boston