Physical Gratuity

In 1956 the League of American Wheelmen designated May as American Bike Month. Might have rode a tricycle that year. Its predecessor, League of American Bicyclists, renamed it National Bike Month with Ride-a-Bike-Day on its 1st Sunday, and Bike-to-Work-Week Monday through Friday of 3rd week. For New England region, it’s when recreational bicyclists generally begin their 6 month season anyway. Hardcore riders with right gear defy mud, rain, and snow year round.

LAB has a conflict of interests advising anyone to take on sports challenges in that they represent bicycle manufacturers and sellers, not consumers and users, especially incompetent or infirm folks for whom bicycling could be dangerous. These days their claims of congressional influence are largely confabulations and deceits; Republicans in control hate cycling and uniformly vote against funding. Throughout LAB literature you’ll note many references to avoiding automotive traffic and obeying motor codes that cause unsafe situations for cyclists. Seems they’re serving Big Oil more than the 70 million liberated Americans who arrive anywhere by biking there.

Stories about amusements or food might get read, but not mundane routines by which one earns bread. Media highlights so many gratuitous distractions, tips, and what to do with your time, makes you wonder whether they’re safe hacks or scams, and why insiders are so interested in your welfare as to share so-called secrets. Misery craves company, so be wary. It’s been indubitably proven that, instead of Houses of the Holy in nonviolent service to humanity, villains promote harm for their own gain (e.g., sell opioids for which WHO attributes 600,000 fatalities annually worldwide, still less than heart disease in USA alone caused by lack of exercise due to automotive convenience and idiotic policies). Your demise leaves more for them. Billions of your taxes dutifully and involuntarily forwarded are being stolen outright by highest office as treasonous capital felonies beyond prosecution. Constitution entitles courts to issue writs of mandamus to cease and desist, but justices appointed for life stand idly by or support corruption during current administration.

Hard to admit, 6 decades ago cut lawns, did chores, and shoveled snow for empty promises or literal coins. Not having a bike at the time, delivered newspapers on foot; summers, walked to Roger Williams Park Carousel to collect tickets, pick up rings, start/stop rides, and sweep spilled popcorn. All work is heroic, inevitable, noble, and taken for granted by ignorant ingrates and selfish narcissists. Minimum wage laws didn’t apply to part time teens, so took years to save $125 for a Schwinn Continental (aged Kodachrome slide); bought used cars for less, in fact, restored and sold them for profit. Waitstaffs are just now getting to keep physical gratuities previously taxed, not due to an altruistic policy but a political stunt. Trudged miles on mornings to restock assembly cells at Elmwood Sensors, not on a bus route, next to Pawtuxet River, forever a threat to flood its banks.

Even before Led Zeppelins’s Physical Graffiti dropped on original vinyl half a century ago, began own bicycling transportation scheme through crosstown commutes to high school. Didn’t work out... no safe place to store an attractive new 10-speed during a bike boom; one in family was stolen despite sturdy chain and locked to a wrought iron fence. Nevertheless, ever since learning of this recurring observance, determined to bike everywhere feasible, not just to work. Bomb proof gear, dedication, early rises, lights, and logistics were needed to cover 250,000 miles in under 25,000 hours, which equates to a full time job for 13 years, yet half as far as stressful commutes in cars on highways. Some weeks drove 1,000 miles. Traffic has only gotten worse since. Little wonder why so many need mood altering and pressure reducing medicines.

Now retired from a 40 year professional career and consultancy, 3 proprietorships, and 38 sundry paid positions, decided to revisit by bike from Eden Park all 33 Rhode Island work venues except Portsmouth; also excluded a construction site, 2 colleges, 3 Fortune 100 medical device manufacturers (though bike commuted to 2 of them), and a regulatory agency in Massachusetts. Was engaged at multiple sites for certain employers, though most are now either gone altogether or repurposed for new businesses. Given short distances, regret not biking to more at the time. Throughout personally did steady work of carpentry, electric installation, gardening, landscaping, masonry, painting, plumbing, and roofing for sweat equity, unless tasks were dangerously complicated, a slew of short term volunteer gigs including Procycle 2009, region's 1st all bicycling art gallery show, and worked long overtime hours late into nights, so may have been preoccupied with those projects.

Long before graduating from university, knocked out brass tags and rubber stamps for A. A. White, Chestnut Street; this entire workshop was absorbed into Johnson & Wales campus, as was iconic Outlet Company, then state’s largest department store, having served in payroll-personnel office on 5th floor high above bus hub Weybosset Street, downtown’s oldest thoroughfare, before landmark edifice was raised to rubble. Parallel Westminster Street had E. L. Freeman stationers, where as an East Side high schooler worked late afternoons delivering packages to skyrise offices on route home by a 2nd bus. In 1969 and 1970, worked at Wingate Computing on mezzanine floor of Dorrance Building above Waldorf cafeteria processing payrolls for client companies during a Night Flight shift.

On way downtown to them intersecting old paper route led by fading sharrows, rode by what once was Jake Kaplan’s car lot on Elmwood Avenue. As a licensed chauffeur drove a bus for Warwick schools from behind Thayer Rink, and a decrepit Yellow Cab out of a dingy garage on Lockwood Street near Central High School. Passing city’s “scenes of occupational crimes” returned via Field’s Point, having driven Jake’s new cars off cargo boats from Europe and Japan, including Datsuns (Nissans), Saabs, Volvos, and whatnot. About this time took a bus trip to Manhattan, and hiked though St. Mark’s Place in Greenwich Village; it definitely resembled album cover. Shipyard once built naval vessels under banners proclaiming “On to Nippon” blocking sun at dawn during war in the Pacific. Ironic that Japan sent competitive vehicles back through same docks.

Blocks away rode by Federal Products’ 3 buildings. Wrote thousands of instruction manuals, Ten Years Gone yet holding on, for dimensional inspection machinery crucial to product quality and reliability among world’s largest manufacturers. The “sheer amount of physical energy poured into writing” (both Led Zep's and own) impressed contemporaries, but AI now outputs many more paragraphs per hour, surpassing foundational lifetime efforts. Earlier on Eddy Street, rang up purchases and wrangled carriages at Almacs food market, which served South End shoppers and was bought by Federal. Almacs competed with A&P and Star, both on parallel Broad Street but now long gone. Eddy branch, known to insiders as “The Zoo”, was where they sent incompetent newbies fresh from their training facility on Noyes Street, along Seekonk River in East Providence. Also did a stint at a nearby waterfront dye mill on Dexter Street. Used Gano Street Bike Path to get to Richmond Square, a CyberMdx worksite, Henderson Bridge Bikeway to Dexter and Noyes, then Broadway to Rumford Mill at Greenwood Avenue, having braided shoestrings and shuttled barrels of them for further processing or storage. Returned via Commercial Way past another place for CyberMdx, Waterman Street, East Providence, Wampanoag Mall, having crafted leather and sold retail, then Henderson again, across Wayland Square, down Angel Street, and through Providence Place to level of Woonasquatucket River.

Made it a point to pass both former Brown&Sharpe facilities on Promenade Street on a new adjacent bikeway, and South Main Street where it was founded in an old house on defunct harbor. Passed Pat Izzy Trucking, at Hemlock Street, having served there as a driver and striker, that is, an apprentice who rode along on triangle runs among Boston, Cape Cod, and Providence to help unload trailers and learn to drive tractors. Without climbing Chalkstone Avenue a few blocks away, got close enough to Roger Williams Hospital, where washed commissary pans and pots during a college summer break. Same bikeway accessed 2 other spots: silk screened panels in Eagle Square, and stamped tags in what’s now the Rising Sun Mill, on Valley Street in Olneyville. Not at all funny, seems the more onerous conditions and strenuous demands are the less employers are willing to pay. When after 6 months they refuse to give the 5 cent raise they promised as a sign-on incentive, it’s either get trampled under foot or time to ramble on, neither of which ensure unemployment compensation.

Arranged a separate trip to Frenchtown Road grounds of Brown&Sharpe, North Kingstown, which was sold off after parent Hexagon moved them to Quonset Point’s Kifer Park. This award winning property of berms and natural gardens hidden from highway has crumbled into ignominy behind chainlink gates that disturb pine scented memories of 3 mile lunchtime walks twice around Precision Park’s perimeter road. During 14 years there producing new media and publishing technical documents it stood as the largest manufacturing plant in Rhode Island, and probably still is its biggest single structure, nearly twice the floor space of national food brand Daniele in Mapleville. Indeed, it now encompasses 6 medium size ventures including a massive rooftop solar array, though question remains whether its water treatment has been kept operational. Was where bike commuting became routine, although 24 mile roundtrip route crossed some tough segments including Apponaug Circulator, since improved for motoring but not bicycling or walking.. 

Last bike commute of career turned out to be favorite one, 30 miles roundtrip, one hour each way to pharmaceutical giant Amgen in West Greenwich, where edited and spot checked regulatory filings. Used West Bay Bike Path, a segment of the East Coast Greenway, to get to Coventry Center, then climbed Hopkin’s Hill to campus, where they had lockers for bike storage. Amgen was title sponsor of annual Tour of California, once America’s premier pro cycling race, so understood cycling needs. Often varied routes, especially on summer returns along country roads, so week after week covered century mileage, even double metrics, nothing to brag about, since professional Giro d’Italia and Tour de France racers go farther in a single 4 hour stage. Return trip transited Metro Center, where in 2 different offices separated by half a mile compiled dicenial population data for US Department of Commerce. Rounded third by Midland Mazda on Post Road where stocked auto parts, self start-up Warwick Woodcraft on Harrington, Elmwood Sensors at Wellington, then home, site of many succesful consultancy projects and job searches. This 4th revisit loop completed personal Bike-to-Work challenge.

Details matter. Bicycling is how you gauge your vitality and reward yourself for being in shape. In final day of Spring, Memorial Day recalls sad memories derserving of the mood boost that bike spins bring.

“And if you feel that you can't go on, and your will's sinkin' low, just believe and you can't go wrong. In the Light you will find the road, find the road.” John Paul Jones, Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti, Swan Song Records, 1975; Grammy winner and 16 times platinum

Ride Rode Ridden

Relatively flat and ridiculously puny Rhode Island may well be the nation’s epicenter of bicycling culture. In decent weather within a work shift you can ride a bike from Watch Hill to Woonsocket Hill, which represents state’s longest cross. Besides genesis of Labann’s Bike&Chain: The Ultimate Guide to Bicycling Culture, denizens of Providence’s art and music scene routinely haunt its West End by bike. League of American Bicyclists (originally Wheelmen) was founded in Newport, nowadays tourism central; some of The 400 began Good Road Movement to advocate road improvement, long before cars were common, and denied membership to non-whites. The City by the Sea was once a prefect venue for public bicycling on neatly paved streets before distracted gawkers in busses and cars invaded. It still hosts local shop and reliable purveyor Ten Speed Spokes should you opt to spin out to Brenton Point.

Population density increases death statistics. After monitoring carefully for over a decade, must caution that one bicyclist dies on average every 2 years among Rhode Island’s 5 counties, particularly within a new season and these 2 cities. Despite national trends, all but one were adults, not teens.

In September of 2007, 41 year old real estate developer Frank Cabral of Oakland Beach, while recreational cycling in the wide breakdown lane alongside US-1 in Charlestown, was struck dead instantly by a Mercedes SUV. Driver excused herself with sun in her eye after politely swerving onto road edge to answer a cell phone while continuing at speed. “Couldn’t be helped,” so no charges were filed. Since incident occurred in an obscure spot where few would notice, a ghost bike was deployed for a year in Frank’s hometown honor at Hoxie 4 Corners [shown], a persistent impediment to bicyclists defying Federal Code of Regulations, then displayed with reverence at Procycle 2009, a curated art show in which bicycling was depicted by 75 works in every medium, first of its kind in New England attended by thousands.

This senseless example of privileged contempt for mankind did inspire unprecedented legislation aimed at protecting vulnerable road users. Frank’s Law, largely unknown but named after Cabral, demands that motorists only pass bicyclists and pedestrians when they can maintain a distance of more than 3 feet, or pay a $75 fine. However, no arrests or tickets have been reported in the decade since bill was passed. Motorists rather pay insurance companies to assume liability for any fatality. Frank’s was the only demise to occur in Washington County, popular with cyclists given reduced traffic count, served by NBX and Stedman’s shops.

Rhode Island's unenforceable Hand's Free Cell Phone Provision takes effect next month. Hard to stay safe bicycling or walking while motorists, bored by driving, can't resist talking, texting, and worse behaviors when they're supposed to be obeying laws to continue slinging around tons of legal steel. By taking a license motorists agree to put other road users above own convenience. Drivers are obliged to let pass, stop for, and watch out for bicyclists and pedestrians, not pass them unless they can do so without coming within a meter, a yardstick. Self driving vehicles represent a worrisome development; in March of 2018 a prototype Uber taxi killed a Tempe bicyclist after failing to recognize her as a human.

In January of 2008, 21 year old Amanda Lynn Benge lost her promising vivacity near the Providence Art Club on Thomas Street between Benefit and North Main. A winter ride down a steep hill could explain it, but cause was never disclosed. Imagine she was a college hill student, but whoever knows didn’t have anything to say on incident’s 10th anniversary. People rather forget and seldom discuss such tragedies. Makes it hard for public to celebrate vibrant lives of victims slain, mostly commemorated by local Dash and Legend shops, Providence Bicycle, and RI Bicycling Coalition.

In May of 2009, 66 year old Victor Rodrigues Porter of Providence’s West End was found near intersection of Cranston Street and Niantic Avenue by police, who heard his anguished cries after being struck by a hit-and-run driver. He did not survive his injuries. This cold case crime, within blocks of Cranston Police HQ and Washington Secondary Bike Path, remains under investigation, though will probably stay so forever. Nearby Olneyville’s Red Shed educates youngsters to bike safe, repair own, and steer clear of mortal despair.

Nevertheless, in November of 2010, 13 year old North Smithfield Middle School student Scott Wright, while in crosswalk at the intersection of RI-5 and RI-102, was mowed down by a minivan. Those who commented in driver’s defense speciously say damage to side of her vehicle and lack of police arrest prove she was blameless. Might made her right. Only juvenile to join Providence County’s list of sacrificed cyclists in this century, Wright must’ve been wrong. With a sigh, Blackstone and Circuit bike shops serve cities north of Providence.

With no reports in Bristol, state’s smallest county, focus shifts to Aquidneck Island. In March of 2012, 42 year old submariner systems engineer Michael Strickland went down on Purgatory Road near Tuckerman, in Middletown. He planned to return home to Perth, Australia, after completing his defense industry contract. Details again were sketchy: assumption of bicyclist’s error, blinded by setting sun, and so on, stupid excuses heard all too often.

Later, in October, 64 year old retired naval officer then capitol city dentist Elliot Kaminitz was struck on Memorial Drive near Old Beach Road in Newport. He’ll be missed by his bereaved family and entire community in which he was very active. Family established a ghost bike as a further memorial, which still can be seen; most don’t survive long. Residents typically resent such reminders to be kind and share public thoroughfares responsibly.

Update: Somehow overlooked sad story of able seaman, Middletown grandfather, and Naval electronic technician Art Weekley, who died of injuries sustained after colliding with a deer charging across Ocean Drive near Goose Neck Cove at 7:15 AM on June 9th, 2014. Art had been an avid cyclist since 1990. A ghost bike has been installed in his honor and for service to his country. Figures that Newport would account for more than its share, with distracted tourists, heavy traffic, and narrow streets.

Kent Country account for last two. In July of 2015, political aide to both governor and senator Chafee, 64 year old Charles Hawkins of North Providence, was vetoed down on Bald Hill Road (RI-2) just North of College Street by a 4 decade old Datsun. Ironically, avid cyclist Hawkins advised on energy and transportation approaches, which probably included peddling pedaling. “Charlie was unique and special," Lincoln Chafee emailed to NBC 10 News. Reports suggest he was returning from beach in late afternoon, walking his bike in gore area to cross 4 lanes of incessant high speed traffic, wanting to reach bike path just blocks away in direction he was headed. Have personally witnessed pedestrians and wheelchair users struggling without crosswalks and sent letters in protest to state officials prior to accident. Who’s really to blame?

In June of 2017, 36 year old Christopher Ziobrowski of Chepacet, while attempting to switch lanes, collided with a white Nissan SUV at Coventry’s 2400 Block of Nooseneck Hill Road (RI-3), then succumbed to injuries days later. Can’t find much more to relay about this eager light snuffed out way too soon.

All appear to have been wearing helmets; so much for protection they allegedly afford. Feel-good laws that both affected folks and law enforcers forget negligibly increase safety. The fastest way would be if more drivers licenses were denied, revoked or suspended, and traffic laws were enforced, which even police admit aren't 90% of the time. Had officials heeded activists and reacted accordingly, would some of these deaths have been avoided? Actually, eight bicyclist fatalities in 2 decades represents relatively few versus hundreds of motorists who die every year on Rhode Island roads. Bordering Massachusetts, denigrated for its dangerous drivers, buried thirty-three bicyclists since 2015.

Fear and inconvenience are why so few adults ride bikes. There's far more to fear from motoring, unsafe in countless ways and horribly inconvenient. You must annually work on average 4.5 months to clear $9,000 needed to drive. You're rewarded by abusive traffic, big deficits, crumbling bridges, no parking, poor health, and stress. Motor collisions are the nation’s 3rd leading cause of death, more than gun violence and infectious diseases combined. Nationwide, NHTSA notes as many motoring fatalities (~40,000) each year as bicycling has seen in total since The Civil War when first bicycles appeared.

As America’s smallest state, why isn’t RI leading in road design? Why are we only 29th in bike friendliness? Why steal shoulders for cramped lanes that cause more accidents? Why install controls that don’t work for cyclists? Highways and railroads cut off routes and don’t post signs to guide cyclists around, although they’re supposed to. Bad intersections, bridge bans, and brutal traffic create detours and intimidate riders. RI's cyclonet has been an unsafe afterthought since automotive expansion during 1970's. Motorists wouldn't stand for this. Bicyclists shouldn’t either!

Your sense of safety will never compel official decisions; distance, hazards, hills and ice persist for which cyclists must prepare. Nonprofits will capitalize on your feeling exposed to criminal behaviors and crushing vehicles. Yet you’ll always be safer cycling than driving.

When states make it difficult or impossible to bike or walk, they illegally restrict those who’d choose to. State Chapter 31-19 grants bicyclists access to all bridges and roads, and, where impractical, mandates parallel accommodations. Illegally, 25% of RI’s roadnet is either bike unfriendly or clearly dangerous. Every road 24’ or wider must either facilitate cycling or factor in a nearby bikeway or bikeable road. They can’t just construct bridges and highways restricted only to motoring. This also implies zoning codes that deny malls and stores permission to locate on busy roads if they neglect bike access from adjacent neighborhoods. Planners need to reconsider; complete compliance involves less than 5% of roadnet and usually only after repaving segments and repainting stripes, which must be done anyway. Costs little, yet cures many problems.


USDOT spends $250,000 on automotive transportation for every $1 on bikes. RIDOT diverts dollars so visitors can zoom though state at the expense of resident safety. State is suffering a billion dollar deficit with unsustainable road construction a main drain. Better bike infrastructure would address this waste. Bikeways return their investment 20:1. Separate street lanes make a statement: Bicycles belong. Make it safer, as FHWA demands, and more might bike than drive, since an average trip either way is only 3.5 miles, <30 minutes for even the slowest cyclist.

Once the worst place to ride a bike in a hundred mile radius, Providence has made numerous updates over the last decade. Public embarrassment and relentless advocacy played a part, plus electing a mayor who rides. Striped lanes were added during each road redevelopment. But they don’t make up for bikenet losses in Newport and Warwick. New $100 million Apponaug Circulator exemplifies federal code neglect by further limiting both bicycle and pedestrian access.

Traffic code is for regulating deadly momentum of cars, not bikes, originated specifically to protect those on bike and foot. Driving is a privilege to be earned and kept. A license obligates driver to obey laws and share roads. Impatience is the main reason air conditioned, comfortably seated motorists can’t wait and deprive others. Under numerous restrictions, motorists sought road dominance. In 1920 they coined fake term jaywalking to counter real complaints of joyriding. The following year Providence Boy Scouts, deluded by automotive lobbies, summoned jaywalkers to a school for careless pedestrians for reeducation. Be angry with traffic planners for negligence, not cyclists, other motorists, and pedestrians, who consequently happen to be in your way.

Bicycling or walking is an inalienable right, one of basic mobility. You’re entitled to: Go outside, improve health, reduce carbon footprint, ride anywhere public roads go, and skip motoring altogether. Bicyclists are not obliged to stay in gutters or on sidewalks, may legally assume lane and cross anywhere, and supposed to ride in travel lanes. Shoulders are what allow them to ease over and let cars pass. Despite slower pace, they do not have to give up lane, rather proceed unimpeded.

But freedoms aren’t free. You have to act responsibly and fight to keep them. Open your eyes! Don't be marginalized! Speak up; otherwise, officials sworn to serve you have no idea things stink. A Statewide Bicycling System will only happen if you demand it. Attend Transportation Advisory Committee and town meetings. Tell them, "Adapt roadsides, build bikeways, paint bike lanes... NOW." With cost of driving higher than minimum wages can afford, why have politicians forsaken the poor? Next election, vote velorution! Until then, bike and be seen.

Update: Ethan Simpson, 21 years old, was mowed down by an SUV at Arrowhead and Willet Avenues in East Providence in August, 2017. Mary Wilk, 22 years old, died after overtaken on Rt. 1 near Jerry Brown Farm Road in South Kingstown in July, 2016. Assailants were both women. No charges were filed.

Wages of Sin

Several Rhode Island cities and towns entered into or face bankruptcy: Central Falls, Coventry, East Providence, Johnston, Narragansett, Newport, Providence, and West Warwick. Distressed municipalities result from all sorts of reasons, but usually it comes down to either malfeasance or mismanagement. Seems no reason for this cancer not to spread throughout, since state has suspended municipal aid. It’s too easy to divert money from the treasury into pockets when times are good. Mayors or overseers often overestimate future revenues and promise too much to workforce in retirement entitlements. A less understood reason lies in an insufficiency of scale. If you give breaks to businesses for locating or staying within your borders, it restricts residential taxes you could assess and shrinks footprint for other investments. Foremost, people must somehow be able to secure gainful employment, which explains these acts of desperation.

Empty mills can be filled with artist lofts, entrepreneurial startups, or residential apartments instead of given away to subsidiaries of big businesses who employ ever fewer workers locally. Abandoned or neglected properties contributing nothing also waste resources when they burn or collapse. Centuries of oil dripping from machines make mills tinderboxes with massive remediation necessity. Holding companies interminably dodge responsibilities and taxes. Knocking them down could solve several problems at once. As long as they aren’t toxic brownfields, sell the land for revenue producing construction.

Taxpayers and voters who absorb all the costs figure they have something to say about such fiascos. They can complain all they want, but it won’t do anything. The next mayor will inherit intractable obligations forged over decades. Better state arrests, incarcerates and seizes assets of miscreant bureaucrats formerly entrenched, but that, though possible, hardly ever happens. Better voters recall seated officials before holes get too deep, but that’s even more unlikely. Lasting solutions require foresight and intelligence, attributes forever in short supply. Progress is only possible when unsophisticated people work very hard on personal dreams in a cooperative society. Modernity is littered with educated slackers and greedy loners reacting to a dystopian plight. The medical adage of "do no harm but neglect no need" applies to every relationship, especially leadership.

In you can believe generalities and rankings, Forbes lists Rhode Island as the 8th worst place to make a living despite top 10 for livability. Sure, if you’ve got deep pockets and never need to work, buy a capitol city townhouse and lounge around aimlessly. Employers here sustain less than half of Rhode Island's residents. A disproportionate number of jobs are minimum wage and part time. One in six is illiterate in any language. About the same percentage has already retired. About 15% work in neighboring states. Economic development, though paid millions to a private organization in recent decades, has mostly been neglected for a half century. Despite efforts to improve Providence, most of Little Rhody decayed and shrank, in particular Pawtucket, West Warwick and Woonsocket. Census in 2010 revealed a 10% exodus with people leaving for opportunities elsewhere.

Shortly after land was granted to Roger Williams to establish these so-called plantations, his associate William Coddington, revered for founding Portsmouth then Newport, tried to sell it back to Massachusetts Bay Colony. Maybe Coddington was onto something. When a state is too small to exist on its own, annexing it cures many ills at once. Importantly, it sweeps away bad governance and patronage jobs. For what seems forever, state has been state’s biggest employer. Those currently holding elected office will speak eloquently for independence and pride of place, yet won’t ever deliver on promises for an unemployment percentage below 35%. Laughably,they boast it's below 6% based on new UI claims from thousands who exhausted eligibility. Furthermore, they entice unskilled immigrants and newcomers with benefits by taking them away from long time residents who established them through blood and sweat. Handouts and privileges cost someone, usually those hanging on by their fingernails.

Centuries before mills dotted adjacent villages, each a small fiefdom run by Anthonys, Browns, Knights, Slaters, Spragues, and such ambitious capitalists. Hardscrabble farmers and hungry immigrants flocked to mills for the promise of survival for which they traded backbreaking labor during 7-day workweeks. But geopolitical catastrophes, including Civil War and WWI, shuffled places where work could be done profitably. Unprepared to remake themselves to meet changing needs, owners closed shops. Well healed already, what did they care? Their patriarchal attitudes toward workers also led to devastating strikes, which further bolstered competition elsewhere. This remains one of the biggest risks facing business developers. It’s not that needs don’t exist for which manufacturers provide answers. It’s that getting humans to interact is fraught with abject failures and inappropriate responses. But it's sinful not to try. History proves that populations are best sustained by agriculture, manufacturing and mining. RI's decline is directly linked to destroying these 3 core industries that create all wealth and embracing "clean" finance institutions (banking, insurance) which contribute no profits and only count proceeds. One might argue Rhode Island lost resolve to sustain profitable enterprise long ago: factories relocated overseas, farms became golf courses and tract developments, and mines were emptied.

Today you can't visit any village without dozens of empty storefronts and fading FOR SALE signs. Antique retailers, bike recyclers, and dingy diners (folks still need to eat) are about all that's left. The wages of sin are distrust, reluctance, suffering, and this vicious downward spiral. Burnt so many times by business and governance, citizens find it nearly impossible to get enthusiastic and rally loyally. This is when dictators and theocrats appear and seize power. Conservative and religious hate has become planet's greatest threat. You never know just how bad things can get until you stop caring for equality and freedom. The sleep of reason produces monsters.