Good Gourd!

The Ocean State confuses residents and visitors alike with similar names for places widely separated. Don’t even start with roads and streets with identical uncommon names in cities or towns that don’t share a border, as opposed to Central, Church, Main, Maple, Oak, Park you’d find anywhere. Consider for examples: Cranston Street in both Cranston and Woonsocket, Laurel Hill Avenue in both Pascoag and Providence, Tidewater Drives or Streets in 5 communities from Pawtucket to South Kingstown. By old road customs highways, not modern interstates, carry names of destinations or origins, such as Hartford Avenue, New London Turnpike, Plainfield Pike, and Putnam Pike, cities and towns in neighboring Connecticut, or Taunton Avenue and West Wrentham Road toward Massachusetts. Makes sense to direct traffic efficiently. However, these hamlets, places and villages push reasonable limits by seemingly mimicking one other as if alternate aliases, bizarre buddies, dizzy dopplegangers.

Allendale (North Providence) vs. Allen Harbor and Allenton (North Kingstown) vs. Allins Cove (Barrington); there are also Alan Avenue (Cumberland, Narragansett, Portsmouth), Alan Drive (Bristol), Alan Street (Tiverton), Allan Court (Newport), Allan Drive (Lincoln), Allen Avenue (Cranston, East Providence, North Providence, Warwick), Allens Avenue (Providence), and Allen Street (Riverside) not connected to places. This alone is remarkably strange, but read on...
Alton (Richmond) vs. Ashton (Lincoln)
Annaquatucket (North Kingstown) vs. Annawomscutt (Barrington)
Apponaug (Warwick) vs. Quonochontaug (Charlestown)
Aquidneck (Island) vs. Quidnick (Coventry)
Arlington (Cranston) vs. Darlington (Pawtucket)
Ashaway (Hopkington) vs. Ashton (Lincoln)
Avondale (Westerly) vs. Adamsdale (Cumberland) vs. Adamsville (Little Compton)
Barberville (Hopkinton) vs. Burrillville
Blackrock (Coventry) vs. Blackstone vs. Greystone (North Providence) - a shade different?
Burr Hill (Warren) vs. Burdickville (Hopkinton) vs. Burrillville
Canonchet (Hopkinton) vs. Chepacet (Glocester)
Canonchet Farm (Narragansett) vs. Canonchet (Hopkinton)
Centerdale (North Providence) vs. Centerville (West Warwick)
Charlestown vs. Charles (Providence)
Clayville (Scituate) vs. Dayville (nearby Connecticut) vs. Davisville (North Kingstown)
Crompton (Warwick) vs. Little Compton
Dunn’s Corner (Westerly), Dunn Park (Woonsocket)
Esmond (North Providence) vs. Richmond
Fairbanks (Coventry) vs. Fairlawn (Pawtucket)
Foster Center being 3.3 miles southeast of North Foster and 4 miles southwest of South Foster; take your cartography and geometry lessons in Glocester to be safe.
Georgiaville (Smithfield) vs. Graniteville (Burrillville) vs. Graniteville (Johnston)
Glendale (Burrillville) vs. Glen Meadow (Warwick) vs. Glen Park (Portsmouth)
Gordon Street (Cranston), Gordon Avenue (Providence), Gordon Avenue (Warwick), Gorton Pond Warwick
Great Island vs. Great Swamp
Greene (Coventry) vs. Green’s End vs. Greenville (Smithfield)
Harris (formerly Harrisville, Coventry) vs. Harrisville (Burrillville)
Hillsdale (Richmond) vs. Hillsgrove (Warwick)

Hillsdale vs. Mountaindale; one-upsmanship?
Hope (Scituate) vs. Hope Valley (Richmond)
Hopkins Hollow (Coventry) vs. Hopkinton
Indian Lake (South Kingstown) vs. India Point (Providence)
Jackson (Coventry) vs. Johnston vs. Jamestown
Manville (Lincoln) vs. Melville (Middletown)
Maryville vs. Mapleville
Mapleville vs. Maple Valley
Meshanticut (Cranston) vs. Moon's Cut vs. Metacomet (East Providence)

Mount Hope (Bristol) vs. Mount Hope (Providence); Hope is the state motto.
North Kingstown vs. West Kingston (South Kingstown) with neither an East Kingston nor North Kingston
Oakland vs. Oaklawn vs. Oak Valley
Oaklawn vs. Woodlawn; okay, enough with the oaks and their copper/russet leaves denoting end of autumn and start of winter.
Park Square (Cranston) vs. Park Square (East Providence)
Paucatuck (Westerly) vs. Pawtucket vs. Pawtuxet (Cranston)
River Point (West Warwick) vs. Riverside (East Providence) vs. Riverview (Warwick)
Sandy Point Beach (Warwick) vs. Sandy Point Beach (Portsmouth)
Sayles Hill (North Smithfield) vs. Saylesville (Lincoln) vs. Slatersville (Burrillville)
Slater Park (Pawtucket) vs. Slatersville (Burrillville)
Saundersville (Scituate) vs. Saunderstown (North Kingstown)
Slate Hill Park (Cranston) vs. Slater Park (Pawtucket)
Smithfield vs. Smith Hill (Providence) vs. Smithville (Scituate)
South County with no North County
Tucker Hollow (North Scituate) vs. Tug Hollow (Richmond)
Valley Falls (Cumberland) vs. Valley (Providence)
Washington Park (Providence) vs. Washington (Coventry)
Warren vs. Warwick
Warren's Point Beach (Warren) vs. Warren Town Beach (Little Compton)
Warwick’s Buttonwood, Edgewood (Cranston, but bordering), Greenwood, Lakewood, and Norwood - except Buttonwood, none especially wooded, thought there’s a Wood Lake Park in Johnston.
Woodlawn (Pawtucket) vs. Woodville (North Providence) vs. Woodville (Richmond)
Woody Hill (Exeter) vs. Woody Hill (Westerly)

Sunflowers in Saunderstown

Coincidence could account for some repetition, or envy, or laziness, or terrain (hills, lakes, woods). You’d think residents would want unique names to avoid having mail or visitors misdirected. Post office mostly goes by zip code precisely because of this. Kudos to forebears for using Native American names so often, thus preserving what locales were called for millennia. Narragansett literally means Narrow River, town’s chief topographical feature. Ninigret, Pettaquamscutt, Ponagansett, Pottowomut, Quidnessett, Saugatucket and Westconnnaugh roll delightfully over your tongue, and to those to whom they hold meaning a hearth and hovel in which to huddle. Majority of names, however, hark back in time to important statesmen or port towns in Britain from which first settlers embarked.

Tourists visit state's coastal hamlets and villages for general ambiance and quaint architecture. They weigh in record gourds (490 pounds) and pumpkins in Warren. Rhode Island was really about mills along its 13 steady rivers churning wheels of productivity before water power was replaced by electricity. Mill villages still have businesses and residences without charming presences. You're more likely to encounter entrepreneurial gnomes and nursing homes than family domiciles and specialty shop miles. If you make an effort to follow rivers and see, you’ll get a lesson in history.

It’s well known that residents ignore official labels, prefer to give directions in terms of landmarks that used to exist. “Hang a left where Almacs used to be,” stupidly assumes you once knew of such a supermarket. Why even ask for directions? State is so small, you can bumble around a bit and still find it. Well, maybe not Antushantuck Neck Necropolis on Pocasset River where many end up anyway.

A disturbed mind finds everything disturbing; why bring up anything that demands thinking? All these places were once collectively called Providence Plantations; these days they want to remove that phrase from state's name (longest in America) because of some false associations to southern farms with captive labor. Rhode Island was the first state in nation to abolish slavery, but nobody remembers early innovation. 

Boomers in baseball caps only offer a lifetime of experiences during wild times. Somehow they managed to keep vicious megalomaniacs with shiny new nuclear weapons from destroying all life on planet. They deserve a bit of credit. Some issues do bear mentioning after all. In an election year like none since nation began, petty concerns of political divide can be taken in stride.

"Pendemic" Polemic

Babies are adorable, no? So what happens meanwhile to produce so many homely and misshapen adults? Diet fads, expensive cosmetics, gyms visits, and plastic surgery wouldn't ferry vast majority into vicinity of beauty with decent skin, narrow waist, nice hair, and proportionate figure. Although clothing creates a desirable illusion, are people allowing themselves look grotesque on purpose? Looking like a movie star just invites unwanted attention. Plus it's hard to maintain for too little gain. Anyway, bar to hurdle is too low to bother among obese subhuman crews in ragged wear with greasy hair and gross tattoos. And, as abundantly apparent, every pinch of exterior surface can also be pierced, though good looks aren’t necessary to be effective or superior, so you shouldn't care.

Toned up spandex cyclists tempt wrong types. Yet bicycling has become the exercise of choice among furloughed workers who can’t afford to drive, don’t own home gyms, and rather distance themselves from public spaces and subways. Former “governator” and self quarantined septuagenarian Arnold Schwarzenegger endorses cycling wholeheartedly. Safe distance for bicyclists is 30 feet, since rolling at speed can inadvertently intercept a cough, sneeze or talk faster than those who walk. Epidemiologists advise covering eyes, mouth and nose. Double thick cloth masks and m-frame safety glasses join gloves and helmets as essential cycling apparel.

Blog neglect “pendemic” parallels outbreak of pandemic, but not because author was sick. During a disease outbreak dare one delve into local detours? COVID-19-SARS did cause worst recession on record in England, but has also had a devastating effect on Rhode Island in particular among other American states. Ocean State economy already weak, work closures resulted in massive joblessness, worse than The Great Depression 90 years ago, which lasted for a decade with a peak of 25% unemployment. Policy miscalculations let most jobs revolve around badly hit government, small businesses, and service industries. Yet pandemic hardly affected banking, construction, home repair, insurance, laboratory, landscaping, manufacturing, mining, pharmaceuticals manufacture, road maintenance, and such crucial sectors as supermarket sales, though elective doctor and hospital visits were severely curtailed, so many medical layoffs occurred, while manufacturers of durable goods all but suspended operations. Consequently, availability and choice of major appliances has declined while prices have skyrocketed. Epidemics display total contempt for profit motives, in fact, target greedy along with aged, careless, homeless, poor, stupid, and those who think threat isn't real. Pundits recommend saving for a rainy day and staying home for good reasons.

Never a time out, less traffic offered RIDOT an opportunity to repave highways and secondaries, and restore bridge underpinnings. When departments of transportation repave streets they restripe them, as well. Federal and state laws mandate equal accommodations for all users; roads must allow for bicycling, walking and wheelchair use. To remove road shoulders or skip curb reliefs is to violate ADA and CFRs. When infection threatens, not taking public transportation and relying on self could save your life.

League of American Bicyclists rates cities through their Bicycle Friendly America program, but among Little Rhody's cities only Newport earned any mention, third class, based on biased reporting by advocates there. Providence, which lately has had more bike-centric boosts, was entirely snubbed. At least People for Bikes recognized state’s “speed of infrastructure improvement” over last few years, which still only garnered a 2.9 overall rating. With a post-contagion outlook, planners and street repainters might overlook guidelines already in the book.

Self improvement, street amendment and survival investment are interdependent. To do nothing is to die. Body needs to exercise though it loves rest, resists exertion, and screams, “No more reps!” Roads made more dangerous by limiting cycling and stealing shoulders for unnecessary lanes endanger lives and scare away self propellers. People balk at spending thousands of dollars on a bike when they think they can’t safely ride them. Yet state does have 100 miles of dedicated bike paths, more miles in signed neighborhood routes, and thousands of road miles recommended by RIDOT and vetted by bicyclists. Click here for 2020 construction status, but note no new projects are underway except for two bridges in Western Coventry. Wouldn't be a big deal to turn over swaths of soil alongside bikeways so cyclists passing by could sow wildflower seeds. Goal should be to link all infrastructure with shared roads and wide shoulders. Issues arise with what’s best to do, who has jurisdiction - federal, private, state or town - and who must pay. Healthcare costs taxpayers trillions annually, an enormous expense worth reducing. Cardiovascular and cancerous ills, both preventable via bicycles, still cost and kill more than infectious diseases ever will.

All road funding comes from a combination of sources, mainly government grants matched by local tax revenue. Delays in updating streets for all users impacts funding. Feds may deny or divide grants, or impose fines that residents have to pay. You might be outraged to know officials not only force you to abide outdoor restrictions but it comes at your own expense. Certain parties lobby leaders for these policies because it hastens the transfer of money from you to them. Weren’t family losses, economic recession, pandemic protocols, and supreme sacrifices already too much to bear without pure greed forcing bureaucratic decisions in favor of autocratic ambitions? Pawns greatly outnumber kings and resent being treating as toys or trophies. 

Don’t toss the baby out with the bathwater come election time. Support any politician no matter how repulsive who arranges progressive changes for a healthy alternative. Meanwhile, go forth safely and sensibly for fresh air and sunshine in style. 

Bread Lines

Once upon a time, Rhode Islanders could barely avoid delicious aromas of baking bread. You’d climb viaduct from Allens Avenue and inhale a heartwarming waft of Sunbeam from an adjacent mill. These day you must abide acrid exhaust, rotting debris, and skunk spray that Waterfires mask in burnt creasote. Across Point Street Bridge, then Henderson into Rumford, you’d pass Mrs. Kavanaugh’s English Muffins. Boulangerie and panetterie dotted Johnston and Providence neighborhoods: Atwell’s Avenue, Carpenter Street, Cranston Street, East Side, Killingly Street, North Main, Olneyville, and Washington Park. Nobody misses, or notices, ones long gone. Rainbow on Reservoir in Cranston is state’s last Jewish bakery. Get a Proustian remembrance of things past for checkerboard cake from Korb’s and danish from Bob Carol’s on Pontiac.

Bread was once the very staff of life and still underpines nutrition pyramid, though carbohydrate rich diets lead directly to diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. People have shifted to fruits, seeds, sources of protein, whole grains, and vegetables. Plates of pasta may be popular, but tacos full of beans and greens probably outnumber them. Inability to adapt menu may account for TGI Friday’s demise, another failed local restaurant to add to this list of over 500. Expect more with fears of Chinese or Italian foodstuffs. Bats and dogs, filth and infection, disrupt attraction and digestion.

Rapid evolution and technological change make Truth a victim. Pandemics, terrorists and wolves at their door, nobody has time enough to consider carefully and reason thoroughly, only react fearfully according to how they’ve been conditioned. Laughably, official channels warn of misleading info, when for decades they’ve been the biggest lie factory around. You can only choose to be cannon fodder, sacrificial pawn, servile minion, or surplus victim. Identified an informational crisis in What Do YOU Know!? on page 34 of Labann Says (2013). Bloggers account for only remaining independent journalists who report from direct experience without bias, though most still color observations with opinions. Indeed, prejudiced reporting will always be more popular than unvarnished objectivity. Seems disjointed facts require a roadmap to connect the dots, though oversimplifying veers far from tangled reality.

Impressionist paintings or literary masterpieces shouldn’t be the only place you can still find beauty. It should be evident everywhere anyone makes efforts necessary. Yet you may roll down bike paths flanked by bulldozed mounds of dirt, swampy creeks, and tangles of brambles and wonder, “Why not forests, gardens or lawns?” Overgrown corner lots used to feature exceptional gardens, but planting and weeding went out of style a century ago. Not uncommon now to find properties strewn with stuff that usually fills dumps. Staying isolated at home this Spring seems ineviatble, so who knows? Notice more people than usual raking yards and working properties.

Deficiencies in ambience directly relate to labor costs and lifestyle choices. Time is too valuable to fritter away at $10.50 minimum/hour. Last crew through charged nearly a grand for three hours of tree limb removal. Smartphone chatter, spectator sports, and stupid movies occupy intervals not otherwise spent earning and sleeping. Home baking and prudent yardening, lowest of priorities since housing standards are no longer enforced and Seven Stars was voted among nation’s best bread makers, could make a comeback. Small businesses are closed, and supermarkets have cut back on freshly baked local products. Retail visits reveal many empty shelves.

Home ownership, cornerstone of the American Dream, hardly exists anymore, since banks hold mortgages and town assess taxes that amount to rebuying over and over. Municipalities elsewhere terminate house taxes after 100 years, but not here. In addition to nation’s average personal indebtedness of $150,000, unsecured federal, local and state debt means every citizen - child, man and woman - owes at least $300,000 in total. Who can afford to buy bulbs, seeds or shrubs? But avoiding lines, dodging contagion, and staying sheltered leave hours to bake bread and trim verge. Any government relief only goes to paying back banks and state, Just another bigwig bailout, obligations that come before buying food and paying bills, since they’d make you homeless, take away your residence. Street beggars get no furloughs.

Always say that survival is paramount, and ways to die can be prioritized. In America over last hundred years, cardiovascular diseases killed more than any other cause, a million annually, with cancers second, hundreds of thousands affected. Car collisions, at around 40,000 per year, come in third, more drivers and passengers than soldiers in wars over the bloodiest century in history. Infections and gun violence are about equal, ~15,000/year. All are preventable, although few measures are taken to mitigate. Commuting by car to jobs isn’t necessary: can self propel to some, telecommute for many, and use public transportation for others. Home delivery has hugely resurged lately, though porch piracy spread to follow suit.

Worldwide today, infectious diseases, especially malaria, remain a leading killer. Pharma companies shy away from vaccines, because they can make billions treating allergies and annoyances where their drugs only need to be marginally effective. A vaccine actually has to prevent infections. Antibiotics can create incurable strains and spread illnesses. Lawsuits might result in billion dollar settlements. Diseases are directly related to sanitation. Viruses cannot live outside a host, either animals, bacteria, insects or people. So minimizing contact with bacteria is key, whether in airborne droplets, bug bites, or on surfaces. Humidity harbors but rainfall flushes bacteria. High internal temperatures, such as during aerobic exercise or fever, is a mechanism that body uses to kill infections. This new SARS virus is highly contagious, takes up to two weeks to incubate, tough to diagnose without specific kits, as many symptoms are like ordinary cold and flu, so may already be more widespread than reports say, some 300,000 identified cases. Supposedly, new incidents in China are falling, though America and Europe is currently being hit hard. So, avoid groups, disinfect diligently, and move under own power.

What about food? You must shop or starve. Since virus was traced back to food, can imported foods infect people? Will virus affect farming industry so drastically there will be shortages? Many reacted with stockpiling nonperishable items, though some bought retail only to gouge illegally during internet sales. Over last 5 centuries, over a billion people died of starvation for various reasons: antiscientific sentiments, bad policies, financial ruin, ignorant practices, unanticipated blight, and world wars. Shades of depressions bread lines still haunt memories. What jobs will go away forever after each organization is arranged around contagion? In this Decennial Census year, who’d want to open door to a visiting enumerator? Amidst an extinction vortex event with decreased genetic variance from outbreeding depression, can you expect global population to stall at 8 billion? Yet you’ve already dealt with HAV (Hepatitis) and HIV (AIDS), both far more prevalent, with fewer precautions. As usual, priorities are misplaced because news media fans fears for responses that favor the wealthy. Instead of genuine concern, it’s, “Don’t get sick, because you might make me too sick to profit and stockpile.”

War of Words

Wow! What’s our world coming to? Climate denialists discredit environmental activists, say solar cycles cause temperature fluctuations, and try to convince all to consider Little Ice Age, Maunder Minimum, and Wolf Index. Indeed, fewer sunspots always coincided with colder winters, but exact opposite is now occurring with least count and record highs. Begs question as to what’s really going on. Don’t know? Don’t care?

Wether or not you believe that greenhouse gases can trap heat from escaping into space, despite a 97% global scientific consensus and obvious precedent on nearby 900° Venus, you can’t discount or excuse manifest negligence, which has dumped millions of tons of plastics, putrid streams of nuclear radiation, and tons of toxins into air and seas that increased pulmonary disease and killed coral reefs, schools of fish, and vital plankton. Abandoned factories, arbitrary pesticides, acid rain, clear cuts, garbage dumps, inorganic fertilizers, multilane highways, strip mines, and throw-away mentality have ravaged landscapes. Before Lovelock discovered CFCs were destroying ozone layer, too much smog had already corrupted atmosphere. Hurricanes begin as desert heat from deforested land at man’s hand which causes evaporation over ocean and delivers devastation ever more frequently. Even worse, sheer heat boils off clouds that shelter planet from ultraviolet insolation.

Environment inevitably became a hot topic. For 200,000 years modern humans slowly rose to one billion around planet; in next 200 years they became seven billion; over last 20, they added another billion. China’s one-child-per-family policy curtailed an estimated half billion, but has since been rescinded. Despite some heeding advice of zero population growth, expect another billion in next 2 years. Average life expectancy worldwide has reversed from 72.5 years, the highest of all time. Until now how many children, men and women planet could sustain was never in question. Wars didn’t slow repopulation, but slammed conservation. Industries detest any carbon bargain as discriminatory regulation and would rather pay fines instead.

Despite headcount, it’s been indisputably proven that humans induce ecological decline. But who wants to admit blame or collusion? London smog lifted once burning coal ceased. Aggressive air quality regulations improved Los Angeles. What humans did can be undone. Once nature no longer supports life, extinction follows. Have we already reached the point of no return? Fear of doom dominates art, has already become a whole genre of paranoia films: bees, birds, bugs, dystopia, sharks, snakes, toxins, viruses, wastelands, zombies.

You can now visit Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three Mile Island disaster sites, but still must wear a dosimeter and protective clothing. Only takes one exposure of 100 rads in 8 hours to kill you from cancer or leukemia. There’s no telling what you might get in a one megaton nuclear blast, up to 10 times that within the first 48 hours. Cancer is already a pandemic, mostly due to petroleum use and radiation leaks. Why risk that by inciting ill will, installing fission reactors in your neighborhood, making insane demands, and negotiating in bad faith? Tough talk betrays weakness. True strength requires no explanation, qualification, or repetition.

See so many texting and typing their lives away, wonder what they're trying to say, what they expect to achieve, or who they hope to deceive. Consensus doesn’t assure truth. Throughout history, most of what humans agreed upon or believed alone couldn't be proven. Experts in a field should be given more credence than street rabble who can’t ace an arithmetic quiz. But monetary motivation and moral corruption strangle truth and subvert perception. Given catastrophic potential of doing nothing, logic dictates careful study of real causes and reasons behind 3% disagreement. Makes sense to dismiss a few naysayers as spokespeople for those for whom climate fixes would interfere with investments. Automotive, Big Oil, coal miners, industrialists, truckers can all afford to bribe scientists to lie on their behalf; so can venture capitalists for green startups. Lowbrows defend conspiracy theories and self delusions.

Personally test own choices, conclusions and resolutions. Practiced net negative carbon footprint and population growth. Produced and saved costs over compensation by a factor of 5. Owe no one. Expect and waste nothing. Am tempted to carry around a bar of wax to write warnings on car windows, not windshields, when drivers park illegally, especially in spots designated for the handicapped. It would be writing that would be read, provoke reaction, rise above apathy, unlike most of what's otherwise offered. To sacrifice own wealth for community's welfare is your strongest stance, unlike parasites and politicians who merely redirect what’s yours among favored groups.

Consensus is only heartwarming among those similarly minded, worth little among indifferent rabble. Anyway, don’t desire or require validation. Just because something once worked for you doesn't mean it will work now for anyone else. Persons are packages of particular looks and talents that may or may no longer suffice, has beens or heroes in the present. No matter what you profess, your message will be something some faction will dismiss due to unfair association by age, orientation or race. “Okay, boomer,” is evident ageism, gutless anthem among those who never been beaten down during peaceful protest to secure rights they take for granted, so will lose them. Don the Despot Trump is a boomer, as was Dubya Bush and Slick Willy Clinton, all born in 1946, but only one among them was a Rhodes Scholar. Arguably, Barry Obama was nation's only Gen X president to date, and only Nobel Peace Prize winner since Jimmy Carter.

There are plenty of reasons you wouldn’t want to communicate. Bad behaviors increase risks in billions of ways. Blogs, conversations and street corners are monitored. Though they claim they want to be heard, people never shut up, want ever more if your time, won't ever be satisfied. You're almost safer among wild animals. If peace is your goal, isolate yourself on a deserted island. Great invention, Caller ID: Answer no calls from collection agents, only fronts for organized crime. Being exposed in blogs and social media nudges you into crosshairs of scammers, who use what little they learn against you. It's too easy to lure people into something they don't need or want. Government notifies you by USPS mail. Scammers would add felony mail fraud if they decided to affix postage, but there's no misdemeanor for email or phone fraud, just civil suits, which are hard to mount and seldom recover losses.

Best forms of communication read people's minds, suggest new perspectives, think beyond boundaries to anticipate needs and inspire improvement proactively. This precludes catering and validating. Unique refuses to be dismissed or pigeonholed. Those who waltz through life with blinders on, who won't observe how others suffer from their acts of omission and transgression, warrant leaders who'll betray, rape and slaughter them. Aggression and neglect invite retaliation. Comforts carry hefty costs. Someone has to pay, though millionaires want to spread costs among current masses and future generations while evading own taxes. Pardon? If you're worth more than rest it’s a privilege to pay in a higher bracket. Amassing that much doesn’t make life any easier, either, just a struggle to keep surplus you'll never spend. Trick of trickle-down is it never created jobs, painfully obvious and repeatedly proven, pabulum and propaganda politicians use to hoodwink rubes and stooges.

Someday without warning you'll be given a choice to do what's honorable. Consider carefully. Sacrifices you make out of fairness and justice will best serve everyone’s wellbeing, including yours. Selfish greed and spiteful opportunism will damn and haunt you for eternity, invoke God’s vengeance. Sociopaths, however, have no guilt, never graduated past infantile need and teenage jealousy. Why care about how others conduct themselves, unless it impacts you personally? The real abomination is when a nazi fraud sets himself upon a throne in judgment over hard working, honest innocents who deserve better.

Guilty of ignoring what's important? Does negativity include people you just don't want to hear? No sense of duty to those who've turned cynical out of needs you didn’t fulfill? Is peace an earnest aspiration or final destination? Even graves are no resting place, corpses disinterred for land grabs. Such advice never reaches those too busy doing right or having fun. Conversations change corespondents, could cause growth, improves civilization. Life is confusing, messy, risky and therefore wonderful. Bono sang, “When you stop taking chances, you stay where you sit. You won’t live any longer, but it’ll feel like it.” Does this meme mean to ignore wretches you've exploited without conscience? Psychologists agree the primary reason for today’s epidemic of male suicides is silence. Heeding society's discontents leads directly to authentic life experiences though it increases risks.

Smart people constitute a minuscule minority. If democracy rules, they are actually outsiders, deemed among the unhinged fringe whose actions are akin to sadomasochist and skinhead sin. They probably ought to keep every opinion to themselves lest they confuse lamebrains and invite retaliation. It's conceivable there are individuals who think so clearly they can see through any scam, solve any problem, and view rest of humanity as if an insect swarm. However, revelations come to whoever is active or awake enough to invite them, and they never demand explanation or qualification, as does sales persuasion. It's almost proof of falsehood when someone has to lecture nonstop to convince anybody.

This barrage of agitation does provoke counterproductive polarization. Although exhausting, what’s required is to weigh merit of every argument and wend own way accordingly. When boomers were teens, they had little to go on. Information wasn’t so easily fact checked over internet. Based decisions instead upon common sense, fuzzy intuitions, gut feelings, moral codes, past experiences, scant data, or stubborn prejudice. These become awesome practices in an age of propaganda. Among authentic correspondents today you have axe grinders, bogus bloggers, disreputable publicists, fake reporters, official liars, scam artists, sedition broadcasters, and social backstabbers. Pays to remain skeptical.

Not one candidate in this election cycle laid out any visionary path forward. Effective policy requires intelligence to consider every aspect of all issues, how one effects another, what can be postponed, what must be prioritized. Survival always comes first with room for civility, etiquette, niceties. Greed, divisive posturing, misappropriation of public treasury, outright criminality, suborning lies and perjury (so common in congressional testimony it is cliche), and whatever doesn’t result in sensible compromise has no place on a national level. Eyewitness testimony ought to be encouraged and heard.

Parallels decades between wars in Germany a century ago, a gradual build up to nazi dictatorship, which led to constitutional overthrow and coups by thugs emboldened by those who bought into false hopes of criminal crackdowns, full employment, and infrastructure improvements, then closed eyes to genocides. And pharaohs whipped millions of slaves to build monuments to themselves, not what you'd call share the wealth or social justice.

Root causes of dysfunctional government include both integrity of politicians and system itself. Many narcissists, nazis, self aggrandizers, and sociopaths are drawn to positions of power. Normal people shy away from scrutiny. Those in office would never get away at real jobs with cheating, lying and making empty promises. Campaign financing means they have to cater to billionaires, creating devastating wealth disparity, and foreign warlords, leaving nation vulnerable to financial and military attack. All this could be cured by treating congressional service as if jury duty. Qualified candidates could be pulled from a pool of people between 30 and 50 years old, vetted for intelligence and psychological health (which would exclude many currently in office), with right of refusal based on family hardships. Pay them like sports stars, millions for 6-year contracts, with cuts should they be recalled. This resembles what the founding fathers intended, vital land owners conscripted into roles of representing neighbors, and sacks career louts who hang around until decrepit and senile, selling votes to whoever pays the most. Precedents exist for discriminating against age or youth in crucial roles, including not being able to vote until 21 years old, and mandatory retirement of pilots and police. But random selection would include women, who are nearly ignored and not currently represented as half the population. For the Senate, only those who’ve previously served a term in The House would be eligible. Presidents, too, should have previously served as legislators.

What would be the consequences of eliminating imperial aggression? History shows that England was none the worse after relinquishing control over Hong Kong, India, and other colonies. US interjects itself into every civil war, regional instability, and tribal squabble, when should only be there alongside UN overseers upon their request. No harm in patrolling seas to protect commercial fishing and shipping, but parking just offshore to intimidate probably backfires by losing more support than gaining. Shows of force make Americans more vulnerable, though irreparable damage has already been done, spent every credit from helping win WWII, spun lies to start subsequent actions in Afghanistan, Balkans, Iraq, Korea, Viet Nam, so warmongers alone could profit. Yet quality of life might diminish for lucky 10% who can spend on something other than debt interest. Readily availability of imported materials, in particular oil, would decline. The average motorists could no longer afford gasoline, though people still drive everywhere in Europe, where pump prices are higher by factors of 3 to 6, since they don’t possess own reserves as does USA. Electronic gadgets would cost more without slaves assembling them overseas, though minimum wage American assemblers could certainly handle.

Producing stuff locally for own consumption rates as an effective alternative to fuel wasting international shipping. One could argue that any savings through cheap labor cost are lost before product arrives at mail or retail outlets. In truth, shipping is done only to maintain industrial monopoly and intellectual property, how a thing is made and spread, so a select few profit. Allowing many factories to produce locally means distributing knowledge and losing control. After you make an expensive purchase, you are charged unjustified fees to use it. Computers more frequently go obsolete while crucial data and forms are increasingly transferred into internet sites, which demands your repeated investment. All this is by design, no coincidence at all. No longer a tool, a computer is a pricey ticket into an expensive amusement park.

Holding a job to earn money to survive is a demeaning and limiting construct. There are alternatives. Explore venture capital startups. Run for office. Start a religion. Parasites and scammers make more money doing these things than honest workers. Prisons are full. All wealth derives directly from only three industries: agribusiness, manufacturing, or mining. Oddly, employees in these industries are the least paid, with profits often marginal, because there is no social justice. Farmers keep you alive, and many go bust on abusive land taxes. Miners mortgage homes and lose them when dirt doesn't pay. And manufacturing assemblers must compete with slave labor abroad. Parasites win, producers lose.

Why should Rhode Islanders care? Because ills of entire country blow up over Watch Hill’s Napatree Dune across this nondescript state, whether political retribution or prevailing weather. Conservatives avenge disloyalty, cut funding for liberal states. Community either faces competition and rises to meet or slides downward and succumbs to scavenger mentality. Conservatives demonize liberals, because they fear real criminals and figure peaceniks make easy targets. They embrace evil, and need someone to blame who won’t fight back. Although it makes no sense, they group all non-conservative factions together, including moderates, progressives, and whoever won’t kneel before them and pledge allegiance to fascism. Rhode Islanders led the original revolution by burning The Gaspee, still worth considering during tax time, paying to fund their crimes against you. Blame nobody else for your fate if you do nothing.

Limited Natural Growth (LNG)

Years ago joined fellow bicyclists in a suburb of Boston where Mayor Tom Menino used to live to visit several houses lavishly lit, made it all the more special by braving the cold, damp and dark. Some make it a goal to view a million points of Christmas lights each season. Private homes display on average only 300, so you'd have to witness over 3,300 to reach goal without major installations, still doable, though becoming ever less evident hereabouts. Clark Griswold in National Lampoon movie, as a measure, mentioned 20,000. Cranston City Hall displays about 30,000, possibly surpassed by Praise Tabernacle Church also on Park Avenue. LaSalette Shrine in Attleboro states in excess of 300,000. Nearby Slater Park offers at least 30,000 on over 100 memorial Christmas trees. Taunton Green [shown], through which for several years personally commuted, probably has 100,000, though you’ll see as many driving by homes on County Road in Seekonk. Some of this has to do with the Festivals of LIghts, Diwali and Hanukkah, which celebrate how evil gets subdued by lighting the night and remind people of the miracle of sustainability, oil lasting in ancient lamps for a week longer than expected. Snacks of jelly donuts cooked in oil are symbolic accompaniments. Consider how much oil they now waste generating electricity for folly. Traditions outlive useful lives, and substitute stupidity for rationality.

Surprising how little people have learned given 25 years of free access to information via internet. ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) adopted TCP/IP in 1983; once NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network) was decommissioned in 1995, last restriction to commercial traffic disappeared. Ever since, persuasion and profit have mostly driven factual exchanges. Eternal tease of telling you how to get it, why you need it, but not what you need to know screams scam, though works upon the unwary every time. Get bored and exhausted reading articles seeded with so-called facts only to be propositioned by some businessman greedy for another payday. Like any other tool, cash or data can be used for evil or good.

Historian Sophia Rosenfeld also said, “The Internet is particularly important because of its reach and because of the algorithmic way in which it promotes what’s popular rather than what’s true. It creates a culture of untruth, probably, that other forms of publishing can’t easily.” Advertisers look to exploit situations based on prevailing trends that social media reveals. Show any interest in anything whatever, and your mailbox will fill faster than you can delete irrelevant input.

Basic logic has never been taught. Empty promises and logical fallacies dominate choices. For perspective, see Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions (2008). Historically, important facts were carefully withheld, whether by guilds, who jealously guarded lucrative skills, or monarchies, who feared revolutionary anarchies. At intervals, authors sought to rectify this knowledge gap. Voltaire’s circle published encyclopedias revealing how to do trades. The Whole Earth Catalog ambitiously collected what it deemed necessary for do-it-yourself sufficiency and global sustainability. Mistakes and snafus are inevitable, probably necessary, for learning to occur. Profitability often relies on waste.

Stuff never changes. Idle gossip and ingrained prejudices still predominate, then talk of past events. Future plans and new ideas only appeal to a small minority of already gifted, and then often as image props, not serious concerns. Observations are slivers of life, what exists in a moment that can be perceived, including concepts, feelings, measurements, memories, patterns, smells, sounds and touches. What many would prefer instead of facts are prophecies. Who wouldn't want to know for sure, so brace for the inevitable? The hopelessly doomed, junkies, ne'er-do-wells, parasites, prisoners, and walking dead who account for probably a quarter or more of population just don’t care, never did, rely upon dole, handouts, and other people’s efforts.

Spare us your words. Most are just attempts to bilk, hoodwink and steal. Don't need what you're so eager to sell. People adamantly rationalize poor decisions; to admit a mistake is to reveal own gullibility or ignorance. Many doing likewise is how crooks keep congressional seats and tyrants grip on power. Ideals of individuality mean taking personal responsibility, not such an agreeable proposal for many.

Easiest thing any writer can do is predict doom and provoke conflagrations that mushroom. Dystopian stories abound. Risking apocalypse and tempting fate, they’ve plopped LNG domes and nuclear power plants right next to population centers. Could have located them at remote nodes on edge of grid, but that’s where private estates of the powerful are. Any accident could prove catastrophic. Getting humans to cooperate on a shared mission means imagining alternatives to greed and sloth and understanding what keeps ideals aloft. Improbable? Optimism has always been irrational and seldom rewarded unless warranted. However difficult reasoning may be, it beats assuming, blindly obeying, and capitulating to crowds. You're granted rights to believe whatever you want, but you have to pick your fights. Some aren't worth waging.

Can't tolerate abuse of office, armed insurgency, conservative bullying, consumer fraud, criminal conspiracy, identity theft, mass shootings, minority discrimination, mob violence, power hegemony, or thoughtless policy. They demand immediate amendment and indictment. But, otherwise, why sweat someone else's lifestyle?

For the most part, people forgive heinous abominations and prosecute venial sins. They allow murderous results and squabble over imagined insults. They don't properly prioritize because government, institutions, and news media condense crucial issues and present alongside trivialities, so minimize importance. Plus anything too complicated is hard to indict. Without infotainment, ratings would suffer, and share of advertisement fees decrease. Some stories never get told, because they'd detract from earnings of those who buy ad time. For examples, direct link between soft drinks and Type II diabetes, distracted driving collisions and deaths due to smartphone use, dozens of cancers and respiratory diseases related to petroleum use, and other issues industry doesn't want disclosed. Not only advertising time but national policies are bought by profitable corporations, particularly automotive, financial, insurance, medical, petroleum, pharmaceutical, utility, and weapon. Trillions from treasury were misspent on stuff nation didn't want and nobody really needed, while innovations were suppressed and stupid choices fostered on behalf of exclusive interests.

Never want to tout beauty or benefits of what you cherish, because greedy and needy will swoop in to exploit and trash it. Will always be a lot easier and safer to belittle and denigrate, lest you'll be accused of bad taste and lame choices. Anyway, when you survey surrounding culture and landscape there's really very little to recommend. Blacktop is boring, roads usually lined with strip malls, toxic expanses, and ugly wastelands.

Spent months compiling lists of public places. Parks prove residents want to improve ambiance of environments which they deem less than appealing or healthy. Pretty obvious they've got no control over business or private properties, only minor influence over mutually owned spaces. Planting trees seems to assuage their rage, but pleases arborists with commerce maintaining and trimming. So who pays? You guessed it.

What’s out there to enjoy? Not enough vistas of neatly kept farms or shorelines still exist. Quaint villages with nostalgic architecture don’t receive deserved maintenance. Winding narrow lanes through overhanging forests are disappearing. Brookside bungalows you’d see on Christmas cards may be mere facets of memories and figments of imagination ever since poles with drooping wires and sign pollution befouled landscapes. What have you done to preserve anything worth seeing? Once cash, funds, gifts or taxes are given, you have zero chance to recoup.

Midwinter brings blues, depression, seasonal affective disorder (SAD), and scores of maladies remembered in melancholic songs. Cusp of a new year inspires hopeful resolutions to better oneself. “Art should improve your life, and who you are. It should lead to emotional and spiritual growth. Otherwise, why have it?” protested Billy Childish. But why suffer through self improvement when nobody values what you do? Because what one accomplishes against own expectations is all it matters. Readers will find and respect it. If one claims bicycling rates as a form of praying, then can’t disavow magic realism and mystic spiritualism. Never needed an otherworldly reason to improve self or trade fairly in any season.

Legal Daisy Spacing

Planet is awash in problems without ready solutions that you can do little or nothing to cure. But you can, unless disabled, improve self and surroundings. A better world begins internally and locally. For example, you can maintain place you live, mow grass, touch up paint, and trim bushes and hedges. Nobody wants to see debris, mold and overgrowth in their neighborhood. One derelict home lowers property values along entire street. Gracious gardens and pleasant ambience are gifts to whole town.

Nobody suggests sanctions or sentences for spacing daisies too far apart, though there are such rules as maximum unrelated occupancy, minimum housing standards, property setbacks, and zoning restrictions. You can’t park cars overnight on sidewalks or streets, can’t strew yard with junk, must remove ice and snow from public frontage, need to obtain permits to establish a daycare center, group home, public tavern, or retail store. Promptly remove garbage bins after pickup and store out of plain sight, not in front or on curb; lazy habits can cause traffic tragedies. Anything doesn’t go, though many things do. Usually penalties come as civil suits rather than arrests or fines, though both are possible.

Plus brains aren’t popular today. Experts who were placed in positions of trust betrayed and disappointed, consequently many distrust facts and fakes. Conservatives ushered in banking deregulation, biased news, citizen surveillance, constitutional bypasses, illegal wars, and unitary power aligned with dictatorships and monarchies. Education and endowments took a beating, with funding diverted from performers and students to directors and presidents. Without schools that teach not only job skills but ways to properly discriminate between facts and lies and teach self the truth, you get sheeple easily hoodwinked and violated. Rage against a statue in Columbus Square is misplaced, but there's rightly none of Cortés, who pillaged and slaughtered, so an intrepid explorer who codified Caribbean customs and languages and conquered no one gets defamed. Typical, ill informed zealots seek someone who can easily be blamed. The proof is made plain in social injustice and widest gap between poor and wealthy in recorded history. It’s a zero sum game in which nobody wins, not even billionaires who depend upon armies of unsung heroes while denying them any chance to thrive, not smart at all.

View toward downtown from H.P. Lovecraft's Grave, Swan Point Cemetery: "I am Providence."

Brutal taxation, insufficient funds, and national policies impact appearance. Poor people give up, lack tools, neglect homes, wear rags. If world’s going to end soon, does it matter? When you recall how Providence once looked, stately homes lining neatly paved streets with public parks dotted with artistic plantings under a canopy of mature elms, maples and oaks, the contrast to today’s wasteland makes you wonder. The 13th State was once nation’s richest per capita with plenty of jobs for able apprentices at mills all along 13 busy rivers. Colleges arose to graduate classes of well-informed citizens. Yet it was also a vacation spot for untouchable robber barons who built palaces on Newport’s cliffed coast and exemplified disparities of power and wealth.

Parks extended gardens to less fortunate masses, plus inspired many home owners to emulate on smaller scales. Anyone who rolls slow enough takes note and utters thanks to those who decorate a doorstep or develop a perennial border. All that effort isn’t in vain, as blooms and foliage boost mood and fight depression. Plus yardening provides aerobic activity outdoors that builds stamina, fights disease, and fulfills deficiencies of oxygen and Vitamin D.

Little Rhody has suffered economic decline as a target of political retribution for predominant Democrat votes and unchecked bank, developer, and insurer greed. For line access utilities cut tree limbs. Diseases took elms. Maples and oaks fueled fires. Costs very little to replant forests, though land gets snapped up for new housing tracts upon which to live the alleged American Dream, which lately accounts for 90% of population in six figure debt. Cable providers and other utilities are monopolies that demand outrageous fees for what little they offer. Annual property taxes in cities and towns are so high they force you to rebuy your home every decade or so. Cuts to state aid to cities and towns resulted in recurring double digit tax hikes. But pruning, raking, and recycling organic debris into soil improving compost cost nothing; you can also for free divide perennials to extend plantings or swap plants with other gardeners.

Restaurants fail so often, one suspects that huge capital investments can’t react to dining trends and readily adapt to suit. How do food trucks fit in? They are hard to regulate if they stick to private property with owner’s permission or public streets. Ice cream vendors and lemonade trucks prowl wherever a sale once occurred. Without food, festivals fall flat. Commerce draws patrons and enlivens shared space. But eateries demand sanitary facilities. Beer and beverage dispensers should park alongside places where anyone, including them, can pee, then wash hands; otherwise, what’s the infectious aftermath? Epidemics of Cholera? Hepatitis? It’s an attraction of merit when a microbrewer invites a food truck, thus meets all needs. And such pairings need not be temporary. One bike shop serves coffee and pastry. A farm stand features a popular deli with eat-in seating. Several new restaurants feature local farm to table. What matters are businesses anticipating customers’ needs, investing capital into them, and supporting entire community. Small business accounts for bulk of economy, and government gives few breaks other than to big business.

You’d imagine all this carping might condemn state’s residents and disrespect local entrepreneurs. Quite the contrary. You only chime in when you care. Robert Curley arbitrarily and histrionically lists 100 Things to Do in Rhode Island Before You Die, though many you’d only recommend to tourists, not friends, like drop a c-note to bloat your belly on Nordic Lodge delicacies, perilously skydive, or surf waves. Blount’s in Warren or Iggy’s in Warwick are eateries to visit before Ye Olde English Fish & Chips in Woonsocket. Aunt Carrie’s in Point Judith allegedly invented the clam cake. Locally all three clam shacks are legendary. You’d think he’d include bona fide attractions of farmer’s markets in Lippitt Park and Pawtucket, Glocester’s Brown & Hopkins General Store, historical houses, leaf peeping in northwestern towns, Memorial day commemoration at Exeter's Veteran's Cemetery, Newport mansions, RISD museum, Roger Williams Park, Swan Point Cemetery on a sunny day, and White Horse Tavern, though may have presumed those things had already been done. There’s no want for events, exhibitions, food, meetups, seasonal attractions, shopping, and things to occupy your time.

Before the next recession is the time to fix bridges, parks, paths, and roads, foster improvements, and realign attitudes. You need not tolerate asphalt overuse, creeping deserts, crumbled roads, sloppy properties, ugly strip malls, or urban blight. Neither should you be bullied by bad advice nobody ought to listen to.

Kicking Down the Cobblestones

Regrettably, admit this blog has been terribly neglected, no posts in over a year, but for a good reasons. Unless readers make comments and show interest, neither does author. Meanwhile, held a full time job, maintained another blog, and wrote two groovy books for publication. Have a feeling that upkeep isn’t a community strength anyway.

According to historian Sophia Rosenfeld, there’s no democracy unless majority communicates and participates. Rosenfeld says, “...highly trained ‘experts’ monopolize the business of determining the truth... end up threatening the democratic process itself... We cannot give up on trying... to find some elemental convictions about the nature of reality that we can hold in common. Our future depends on seeing, as well as living in, a shared world.” Aggression invites retaliation, hate visits hate, oppression consumes oppressors. With eight billion humans surrounding you, you have no choice but to coexist, let live, lest mankind grinds into a dead end.

Rhode Island is the melting pot incarnate, model of diversity, symbol of tolerant society. Conservative fascists prefer to purge anyone with opposing opinions and varied appearances. This leads directly to genocide, whereas pluralism expands economy, opens markets, and works toward social justice. Because of multi-ethnicity and optimal popularity this state hasn’t suffered as much as many megacities along Eastern seaboard. But microbrews and varied startups don’t always amount to a critical mass that spreads prosperity.

You can hardly expect anything would be worth saying about nation’s smallest state. But smallness can serve as an example and stimulate rapidity of change. After loss of Navy presence among other major downturns, Newport quickly adapted into one of top ten tourist spots in North America. After closure of many manufacturing plants, should be encouraged by spontaneous gentrification of once dilapidated neighborhoods flanking downtown Providence, and streets with a mayor who’s not afraid to apply experiences as a bicyclist to inform decisions to meet federal and state codes that demand bike infrastructure.

Regulations specify a bike lane for roads that exceed 24 feet in width, but many begun back in horse and buggy days vary from block to block. Having to get off bike or ride on sidewalks because you’re squeezed doesn’t lead to route continuity or transit reliability. Nevertheless, more now choose to commute by bike, so must be accommodated. Yet bike lanes on Eaton Street, directly adjacent to Providence College, planned for a decade with full local scrutiny, brought ire of a few vocal numbskulls, so must be removed. Sure that hundreds of students use lanes. This is not democracy at work, but corrupt rule akin to conservative U.S. Senate, where approved House bills are sent to die, what’s wrong with America beginning with Nixon’s era.

Broadway not only has bike lanes, as prescribed by law, but several popular eateries and shops have popped up to rival Atwells Avenue, which unfortunately has taken a hit because of recent violent crimes centered on barrooms and hookah lounges. Normally, cities relegate vice businesses - drinking, drugs, prostitution, sex shops, smoking, stripping, vaping - to isolated districts where hours can be limited, police patrols enhanced, and surveillance assured. They don’t allow them to set up imprudently in busy residential neighborhoods with schools and stores to which families bring children. Panderers and pimps prefer close proximity to legitimate decency, because after sunset Allens Avenue is an industrial ghost town that everyone avoids. Murder remains more prevalent in neglected neighborhoods where police won’t patrol and poverty prevails.

Another rising neighborhood is the Jewelry District, which was planned. Expanded by rerouting The Vortex, former interchange of Interstates 95 and195, through the half billion expense of I-Way, and fronted by J&W College, many medical research facilities have settled in. Previous experiment at Davol Square didn’t succeed, but distance to downtown doesn’t matter as much when you work within district. Eateries and shopping have returned despite no large flow of vehicular traffic. District will ultimately span Bermuda Triangle bounded by campuses downtown, East Side, and RI Hospital. No expense was spared to install a controversial bike-ped bridge that angles from center of city toward India Park, which still awaits specific bike path developments to complete corridor from Point Street Bridge to George Redman Linear Park and real tourist attraction of East Bay Bike Path, which lies beyond.

If you aren’t improving, you are declining, because that is how entropy, a proven natural property, works. However, many Rhode Islanders fight any change, prefer to endure rats and grow mold, reject innovations, maintenance, recovery and renovations. Nothing stays the same no matter what you do. Better to guide developments toward significant improvements than stand by pathetically.

If you look hard enough can still find a few colonial cobblestone stretches, a cycling challenge harkening back to pre-Civil War era, though none motorists would be interested rolling over. Remnants punctuate abandoned lanes and backwater alleys in Bristol, Central Falls, Newport and Providence. Developments at Conant Thread Mill will eliminate some, though you might gain a bike-ped bridge to Pawtucket to replace one long since closed. Planners seemed determined to pave last few stones over with asphalt, though ignore state’s numerous dirt roads in rural areas that need more attention.

Pawtucket was nearly destroyed when I-95 tore it in half. Its warren of dark downtown facades scares off state’s million plus population, but should benefit from planned commuter train stop with ample parking, perhaps a RIPTA trolley loop from downtown to terminal. McCoy Stadium might survive as a venue for an A or AA baseball franchise or more popular soccer, realigned to state’s growing Latino demographic.

Northern Rhode Island is also near Gillette Stadium where MLS and NFL franchises play professional sports. International airport and seaport of Boston, with MLB, NBA and NHL franchises, and world class colleges, hospitals and museums, is only an hour’s drive away. Living here you can avoid some of the disadvantages of Massachusetts, especially taxes and traffic, but enjoy employment and entertainment just across border.

Unless state finally moves forward with Big River Reservoir, a long range plan for which all property has already been acquired, it cannot expand Southern Rhode Island residency further. Clean, potable water is crucial to businesses and homes. Well water only works where homes are few and sceptic or toxic effluents are strictly controlled. Such limitations seldom cross most people’s minds in a race to install new housing tracts, solar farms, and wind turbines. Nine turbines can now be seen high upon ridge near landfill in Johnston, which join several in Portsmouth, Providence, and West Greenwich. With all the dams and infrastructure in place on 13 rivers previously used to power mills, you’d think any ecological impact of electric hydro-turbines would be minimal, though utilities summarily dismiss in favor of fossil fuel polluters in which they’ve already invested. Out kicking around you notice how tiny changes are tolerable as long as they don’t overturn totalitarian schemes.