History vs. Unreality

Little of what you hear and only some of what you see describe facts. Neatly kept facades hide hazardous conditions and toxic repercussions. Don’t buy hype or drink politicized Kool-aid, either. You’d be surprised how fiercely neighbors swear by their delusions.

Commercial radio that dominates airwaves here have a weak counterpart in liberal nonprofit stations heard by few. To cater to advertisers who get their own way, talk hosts beat you with verbal cudgels every day. Those who heed their call are likeminded control freaks or pathetic downtrodden geeks. Radio, once admired as Theater of the Mind, has descended into pure agitprop for criminal, ignorant, illiterate, and lazy listeners and enable fake Fox television news. Cheery optimists disappeared following demise of Walter “Salty” Brine, whose very name suited the Ocean State like none other. Yet his fatherly advice to, “Brush your teeth and say your prayers,” didn't prove enough to protect Rhode Islanders from conservative lunacy and crass greed. But to this bilious blog do any heed? The only parties who ever listen to cranks are crooks inside with plenty to hide who fear honesty.

Networks provide no room for moderate opinion. Columnists kowtow to syndicate’s dominion. One expects but seldom gets objective reports based upon corroborated evidence and eyewitness testimony. Insurance premiums and specious suits killed journalism just as it did medicine and recreation. A Coventry Historical Cemetery lies on a middle class side street at state's geopolitical center. Lawyers padlocked Rocky Point Amusement Park; politicians converted it into a dog walk. Only media left to expose what is going on or went down are anonymous or independent bloggers. Denizens, contemptuous and distrustful of facts, seem eager and gullible for self serving myths and sensationalized infotainment. No amount of scandal, not even a prison sentence for in-office malfeasance, keeps convicts from running again and securing a sizable segment of votes. Misguided to believe the good old days can be embodied in an individual. Fear of change impedes progress. They say alone you move quickly, but together everyone advances steadily, or declines irrevocably. Survival’s chief nemesis will forever be stupidity.

Nevertheless, appears Exodus Rhode has ended. Real estate values have risen thereby creating a seller’s market. Perhaps lowly Little Rhody appeals to losers elsewhere, who figure they can compete better for what jobs remain among demented and illiterate than educated and sane opposition throughout region. Psychologists consider "going rogue" an avoidant behavior and sociopathic indicator.

Law enforcement here is lax at best, mainly focused on revenue producing traffic violations, more eager to issue a ticket than a teach a lesson. Even then countless violations get overlooked. They never stop pickup or stake truck drivers who don’t cover loads with tarps then bestrew roads with debris and cause accidents. See belching smoke, broken windshields, no inspection stickers, outmoded plates indicating car isn't registered, parts hanging off, and vehicles whose drivers endanger others. Safer stopping law abiders desperately trying to navigate bolloxed street layouts than legally armed criminals who’ve just ransacked your home.

Fleet conditions reflect road neglect. Federal earmarks and state matches go into huge projects with enormous overruns, political kickbacks, and probable graft, which largely ignore routine maintenance. Unless you drive a military tank or swank rover, whatever you rely upon will be beaten all over. Talk about sending a dysfunctional message to visitors and voters.

Seated officials cancelled entitled pension plans, diverted cash into doomed hedge funds to indulge coconspirators, and quietly padlocked payback in personal campaign chests. How else can you run for higher office and satisfy power lust? Politicians only know how to cut dirty deals, not manage effectively. Most taxpayers seem unaware, but some endorse deck thereby stacked in their own favor. Progressives and reformers have no chance running against a rotten Democratic and Republican core. Too easy to pull one lever: This conditioned reflex among moonbats, nimble navigators, and wingnuts takes no effort whatever.

You'd think against all these indictable disgraces populace and press would have an acute sense of humor and irony. Just the opposite, they've been ground into grit by granite wheels, as if bagged and tagged at Kenyon Grist Mill nestled into a nondescript corner of old Usquepaug, where they began operating in earnest in 1696. Jibes and quips just aren't funny anymore when a killer clown occupies White House. Loathe to institutionalize aggressive madmen, nation instead elevated one to monarch akin to a syphilitic king from The Dark Ages. Modern medicine and nutrition should have cured more cases of dementia. Instead a so-called war on drugs was lost with entire nation victimized by latino gang lords and old money billionaires. As a result, you can now get tourista (TD, or T_D, The Donald) without passport travel.

Forbes listed world’s biggest corporations. On top were American and Chinese banks. Finance parasites produce nothing, thereby impoverishing consumers and public. Only value adding business - farming, manufacturing, mining - churn wealth in better than a 2:1 ratio. Which of these industries could Rhode Island best exploit? Soil may be played out and taxes prohibit, but a break could be given to leave fields fallow for 5 years or till in compost repeatedly to restore. Growing and harvesting trees could be encouraged. Aquaculture might pay provided need to clean up bay does succeed some day. If not for brutal state policies and high utility fees, industries such as these might return. Inventory taxes could be eliminated and nonsense regulations relaxed, lessons policymakers should be persuaded to learn.

Not a good candidate for solar power with too few bright days, water and wind might mitigate costs of manufacturing here. Water power from 13 rivers once made state the richest per capita. One mill still runs on hydroelectric power. Empty factories and unused sites zoned for industry abound. Given paucity of material left in ground, could grant tax exemptions to active mining operations; little is currently being made off gravel, lime and sand. Anyway, such deals generally benefit millionaires and seldom evenly distribute wealth.

Banking, finance, insurance and retail only seem cleaner and safer, but profits go elsewhere. Employees do pay income taxes that state desperately needs, although poverty they cause kills more people than anything else. Likewise, holding and warehousing operations could be expanded given empty lots, existing infrastructure, and protected locations on seacoast, though that wouldn’t answer issue of massive unemployment. Economists promote logic of making durable goods where they will be used, which minimizes shipping costs. While this cuts cash influx from interstate commerce and overseas export, it despoils environment less and reduces end user costs, so competes with internet sales.

State could sponsor retail stores that sell locally made products, especially at or near transportation hubs. Suspect that would be few at first, since so many products have already been off-shored. But artwork, cloth, cordage, jewelry, knitwear, rugs and whatnot still made suggest discount outlets at airport, downtown, Newport, and next to interstate. Retail stores and supermarkets do carry such products, but don’t emphasize.

Unlike New York City, where too many films and television series have been shot to list, Rhode Island has a decent track record for attracting production crews. Lately, The Polka King starring Jack Black (School of Rock) joins hundreds who’ve brought fiction to life and life to film here (location set shown, reverted back to rentable space). What does it take to draw attention and investment? Luckily, previously mentioned gardens, parks, Rosecliff Mansion of The Great Gatsby and True Lies fame (shown on top), and significant architecture have been maintained and preserved, reasons to list and make sure they continue to exist, not get closed or sold to balance budgets. But old assents to mold and rot when you do not preserve stone ended, wood framed antiques, outlays which forever climb as materials and skills decline. These days most tradesmen only know how to slam up some sheet stock from a box store, then invoice at doctor or lawyer rates.

Besides several 17th Century structures still standing, Rhode Island has many surviving historical reminders, to mention a smattering: Benefit Street augmented and preserved from 18th Century in Providence, Block Island Lights, Breton Point and Tower Hill towers, Fort Adams, Flying Horses at nation’s oldest carousel in Watch Hill, Gilbert Stuart’s colonial Grist Mill in Saunderstown, Gray’s General in Little Compton (nation’s oldest still in operation), Great Road in Lincoln, native meeting places, Newport Mansions, noteworthy bronzes of Providence and Newport, Old Stone Mill (c. 13th Century), precolonial Brown&Hopkins store in Chepacet, Quonset Point home of SeaBees, Slater Mill (where American industry was founded), Smith’s Castle, Stillhouse Cove in Cranston (HMS Gasppe was burnt, the first act of Revolutionary War patriots), White Horse Tavern in Newport harbor (America’s oldest public house), and Wickford’s rune rocks (from before recorded time). You can get a sense of existing at any time in continent’s past right up to present within an hour’s drive, if that floats your boat.

Plentiful ideas have no value until attempted, then face prejudiced resistance. People who have it good consider evolution intolerable. Yet change and taxes are inevitable. Whatever you think possible crashes into automatic denial, layer upon layer of impossible obstacles, and zero scrutiny, that is, unless you’re elected to highest office, which then renders plans merely improbable. When you let markets decide, buyers choose cheapest, patients quaff poison, voters elect sociopaths, and you pay for it in ginormous premiums and humongous taxes.

When citizens condone a history of political villainy, guess who gets stuck holding the bag. Investors look elsewhere. Tourists take detours. Townsfolk relocate. Those who sunk roots unwilling to cut losses inherit billions in costs and debts. Why should America absolve Rhode Island from desperate national trends against which local leadership can do nothing? No IRS outpost or naval base will make any difference. Neither would a wholesale switch to GOP convince conservative feds to decide favorably. Hasn't happened since The 16th Century.