‘Embellishes vulvar Form’
From Kyle Browne’s show, “Garnish,’’ at Boston Sculptors Gallery, through March 30.
Edited version of the gallery’s description:
“Kyle Browne’s exhibition invites viewers to a surreal feast where mixed-media sculpture, found objects and hand-beaded photographs offer an ornate cabinet of curiosities. This installation draws from Browne’s Celtic lineage, the natural world, the decorative arts and sacred rituals to explore tensions between wild and domestic spaces, as well as between acts of consumption and celebration. ‘Garnish’ uplifts and meticulously embellishes the vulvar form, an archetypal symbol of creativity and the divine. Subverting the role of decoration as mere vanity, here it becomes a portal to deeper meaning.’’
Chris Powell: Conn. insanity Law is Crazy
Depiction of Mongol cannibalism from Matthew Paris's chronicle.
MANCHESTER, Conn.
Having recently shrugged off his inability to get state government employees to return to their normal workplaces, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont may have been lucky to be traveling in India the other week when the state Psychiatric Review Board announced it had conditionally released Tyree Smith, a murderous cannibal, back into society, proclaiming him cured of his taste for human flesh.
Members of the Republican minority in the General Assembly exploded with exasperated questions.
Of course, the Democratic majority let the event pass without comment. But at least the Democrats' indifference wasn't caused by what might have been expected -- the political influence of something like the Connecticut Anthropophagist Association. Such a special interest would have to work hard to become as predatory as the primary constituencies of the Democrats, the state employee and teacher unions. No, Democratic legislators ignore everything questionable in state government when their party controls the administration, which is almost always.
The Republican questions were fair: Where is the cannibal living? Does he have roommates? If so, are they aware of his past? If he is in a group home, is the staff aware? Do his neighbors know he is nearby? Who makes sure he takes his medication? How often he is to take it? What are the supervision and mental health regimens imposed on him? What safety protocols surround him?
The Psychiatric Security Review Board's executive director, Vanessa M. Cardella, answered some of the questions. The parolee's medicine will be administered by a visiting nurse. (He or she better be tall, muscular, and heavily armed, or accompanied by several such guards.) The state probation office will supervise him. He will wear an electronic monitoring device, be tested regularly for drug and alcohol use, and keep receiving mental health treatment. If he fails to comply, the board can send him back to Whiting Forensic Institute, Connecticut's euphemistically named prison for the criminally insane.
Cardella said, ‘‘There is a 0% recidivism rate for violent crime for acquittees on conditional release status."
Yes, so far, so good -- or so it may seem. But many ordinary parolees violate their probation, not all crimes are violent, and psychiatric parolees may offend again short of violence and may already have done so.
Now who wants to volunteer to be neighbor to someone acquitted by reason of insanity for murder with a side of cannibalism?
For that matter, where do the governor and legislature find volunteers to serve on the Psychiatric Security Review Board? Those jobs may be as thankless as those of the state auditors, who at least get paid.
But there are fair questions here for legislators too.
The law distinguishes the ordinary criminal from the insane one on the presumption that the latter did not understand the wrongfulness of his actions and so shouldn't be held responsible for them -- shouldn't be punished but just confined, comfortably enough, for the safety of society -- and that he may be restored to sanity and good behavior.
While this may seem sensible and just in principle, it is not persuasive in practice when the crime is murder. For then the law's presumption carries much greater risk. The law assigns the Psychiatric Security Review Board to measure that risk and make a judgment.
That is, state law, not the board itself, already has decided that release should be available to insane murderers judged cured. The board's judgment on the cannibal may be mistaken but appears to have been conscientiously reached.
The problem is that the law itself is crazy.
The best solution here may be to forbid any release of murderers acquitted by reason of insanity, allowing release only for insane people acquitted of lesser crimes, if there are any such offenders.
The cannibal's case provides a strong financial reason for this change in policy. For enforcing all the complicated conditions imposed on his release to protect the public probably will be far more expensive and far less reliable than keeping him at Whiting and continuing to treat him there.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net),
Christine Keiner: NOAA, Which Trump wants to Tear up, plays a vital role in Coastal economies
Fishing boats in New Bedford, Mass.
From The Conversation (except for image above)
Christine Keiner is chairwoman of the Department of Science, Technology and Society, at the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology
She conducted research at the NOAA Library for her books The Oyster Question and Deep Cut.
Healthy coastal ecosystems play crucial roles in the U.S. economy, from supporting multibillion-dollar fisheries and tourism industries to protecting coastlines from storms.
They’re also difficult to manage, requiring specialized knowledge and technology.
That’s why the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – the federal agency best known for collecting and analyzing the data that make weather forecasts and warnings possible – leads most of the government’s work on ocean and coastal health, as well as research into the growing risks posed by climate change.
The government estimates that NOAA’s projects and services support more than one-third of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet, this is one of the agencies that the Trump administration has targeted, with discussions of trying to privatize NOAA’s forecasting operations and disband its crucial climate-change research.
As a marine environmental historian who studies relationships among scientists, fishermen and environmentalists, I have seen how NOAA’s work affects American livelihoods, coastal health and the U.S. economy.
Here are a few examples from just NOAA’s coastal work, and what it means to fishing industries and coastal states.
Preventing fisheries from collapsing
One of the oldest divisions within NOAA is the National Marine Fisheries Service, known as NOAA Fisheries. It dates to 1871, when Congress created the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries. At that time, the first generation of conservationists started to worry that America’s natural resources were finite.
By conducting surveys and interviewing fishermen and seafood dealers, the fish commissioners discovered that freshwater and saltwater fisheries across the country were declining.
Looking back on 150 years of NOAA’s fisheries history:
Oil spills and raw sewage were polluting waterways. Fishermen were using high-tech gear, such as pound nets, to catch more and more of the most valuable fish. In some areas, overfishing was putting the future of the fisheries in jeopardy.
One solution was to promote aquaculture, also known as fish or shellfish farming. Scientists and entrepreneurs reared baby fish in hatcheries and transferred them to rivers, lakes or bays. The Fish Commission even used refrigerated railroad cars to ship fish eggs across the country.
Today, U.S. aquaculture is a US$1.5 billion industry and the world’s fastest-growing food sector. Much of the salmon you see in grocery stores started as farm-raised hatchlings. NOAA provides training, grants and regional data to support the industry.
Men carry pails of fish specimens to a U.S. Fish Commission ‘fish car’ – a train car designed specifically for transporting fish or fish eggs to stock U.S. rivers, lakes and coastal waters – in this historical photo. Smithsonian Institution Archives
NOAA Fisheries also helps to regulate commercial and recreational fishing to keep fish populations healthy and prevent them from crashing.
The 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and other laws implemented catch limits to prevent overfishing. To develop fair regulations and combat illegal practices, NOAA and its predecessors have worked with fishing organizations through regional fishery management councils for decades.
These industries generate $321 billion in sales and support 2.3 million jobs.
Restoring coral reefs to help marine life thrive
NOAA also benefits U.S. coastal communities by restoring coral reefs.
Corals build up reefs over centuries, creating “cities of the sea.” When they’re healthy, they provide nurseries that protect valuable fish species, like snapper, from predators. Reefs also attract tourism and protect coastlines by breaking up waves that cause storm-driven flooding and erosion.
Divers relocate corals damaged by a ship to a safer restoration site. NOAA
The corals of Hawaii, Florida, Puerto Rico and other tropical areas provide over $3 billion a year in benefits – from sustaining marine ecosystems to recreation, including sport fishing.
However, reefs are vulnerable to pollution, acidification, heat stress and other damage. Warming water can cause coral bleaching events, as the world saw in 2023 and 2024.
NOAA monitors reef health. It also works with innovative restoration strategies, such as breeding strains of coral that resist bleaching, so reefs have a better chance of surviving as the planet warms.
Battling invasive species in the Great Lakes
A third important aspect of NOAA’s coastal work involves controlling invasive species in America’s waters, including those that have menaced the Great Lakes.
Zebra and quagga mussels, spiny water flea and dozens of other Eurasian organisms colonized the Great Lakes starting in the late 1900s after arriving in ballast water from transoceanic ships. These invaders have disrupted the Great Lakes food web and clogged cities’ water intake systems, causing at least $138 million in damage per year.
Zebra mussels found attached to this boat at an inspection station in Oregon show how easily invasive species can be moved. The boat had come from Texas and was on its way to Canada. Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife, CC BY-SA
In the Northwest Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, invasive lionfish, native to Asia and Australia, have spread, preying on native fish essential to coral reefs. Lionfish have become one of the world’s most damaging marine fish invasions.
NOAA works with the Coast Guard, U.S. Geological Survey and other organizations to prevent the spread of invasive aquatic species. Stronger ballast water regulations developed through the agency’s research have helped prevent new invasions in the Great Lakes.
Understanding climate change
One of NOAA’s most crucial roles is its leadership in global research into understanding the causes and effects of climate change.
The oil industry has known for decades that greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels would raise global temperatures.
Evidence and research from around the world have connected greenhouse gas emissions from human activities to climate change. The data have shown how rising temperatures have increased risks for coastal areas, including worsening heat waves and ocean acidification that harm marine life; raising sea levels, which threaten coastal communities with tidal flooding and higher storm surges; and contributing to more extreme storms.
NOAA conducts U.S. climate research and coordinates international climate research efforts, as well as producing the data and analysis for weather forecasting that coastal states rely on.
Why tear apart an irreplaceable resource?
When Republican President Richard Nixon proposed consolidating several different agencies into NOAA in 1970, he told Congress that doing so would promote “better protection of life and property from natural hazards,” “better understanding of the total environment” and “exploration and development leading to the intelligent use of our marine resources.”
The Trump administration is instead discussing tearing down NOAA. The administration has been erasing mentions of climate change from government research, websites and policies – despite the rising risks to communities across the nation. The next federal budget is likely to slash NOAA’s funding.
Commercial meteorologists argue that much of NOAA’s weather data and forecasting, also crucial to coastal areas, couldn’t be duplicated by the private sector.
As NOAA marks its 55th year, I believe it’s in the nation’s and the U.S. economy’s best interest to strengthen rather than dismantle this vital agency.
Friendlier than people
“Tree Hugger,’’ by Andrew Fish, in the group show “Spring 2025 Solo Exhibition,’’ through June 22, at the Southern Vermont Arts Center,Manchester, Vt., through June 22.
“View of Manchester, Vermont,’’ by DeWitt Clinton Boutelle, 1870
Before the insurers
Sideboard (1804) (Mahogany, satinwood, holly, ebony and brass), made by Aaron Chapin (American, Hartford, Connecticut, 1753-1838), in the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art’s (Hartford) show ‘‘Made in Hartford,’ through July 13.
The museum says:\
“Saukiog. Huys de Hoop. Newtown. Hartford. The site of Connecticut’s capital city has been known by many names over the centuries. Shaped by Indigenous traditions, immigration, and the insurance industry, the objects in this gallery form a dynamic portrait of Hartford and its environs. Local stories of people and place are reflected in objects of everyday life including ceramics and glass, furniture, and metalwork as well as paintings and photography. Take a closer look. Explore over four hundred years of community at the confluence of the Connecticut and Park Rivers. Join us in celebrating a living legacy of creativity and innovation that bridges past, present, and future.’’
Adam-Troy Castro: Sounds like you’re a Hell of a lot worse than ‘Stupid’
“The Ass in the School” (1556) – engraving after Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Caption translated from the Flemish: “Even if the Ass travels to school to learn, as a horse he will not return."
A real question from a Trump supporter: ‘‘Why do liberals think Trump supporters are stupid?’’
THE SERIOUS ANSWER: Here’s what the majority of anti-Trump voters honestly feel about Trump supporters en masse:
That when you {Trump voters} saw a man who had owned a fraudulent university, intent on scamming poor people, you thought ‘‘Fine.’’ (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/04/10/trump-university-settlement-judge-finalized/502387002/)
That when you saw a man who had made it his business practice to stiff his creditors, you said, “Okay." (https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hotel-paid-millions-in-fines-for-unpaid-work)
That when you heard him proudly brag about his own history of sexual abuse, you said, “No problem." (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/list-trumps-accusers-allegations-sexual-misconduct/story?id=51956410)
That when he made up stories about seeing Muslim-Americans in the thousands cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center, you said, “Not an issue." (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/11/22/donald-trumps-outrageous-claim-that-thousands-of-new-jersey-muslims-celebrated-the-911-attacks/)
That when you saw him brag that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and you wouldn't care, you exclaimed, “He sure knows me." (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/23/president-donald-trump-could-shoot-someone-without-prosecution/4073405002/)
That when you heard him relating a story of an elderly guest of a Trump country club, an 80-year old man, who fell off a stage and hit his head, to Trump replied: “Oh my God, that’s disgusting, and I turned away. I couldn’t—you know, he was right in front of me, and I turned away. I didn’t want to touch him. He was bleeding all over the place. And I felt terrible, because it was a beautiful white marble floor, and now it had changed color. Became very red.” You said, “That's cool!" (https://www.gq.com/story/donald-trump-howard-stern-story)
That when you saw him mock the disabled, you thought it was the funniest thing you ever saw. (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-criticized-after-he-appears-mock-reporter-serge-kovaleski-n470016)
That when you heard him brag that he doesn't read books, you said, “Well, who has time?" (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/americas-first-post-text-president/549794/)
That when the Central Park Five were compensated as innocent men convicted of a crime they didn't commit, and he angrily said that they should still be in prison, you said, “That makes sense." (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/06/19/what-trump-has-said-central-park-five/1501321001/)
That when you heard him tell his supporters to beat up protesters and that he would hire attorneys, you thought, “Yes!" (https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-trump-campaign-protests-20160313-story.html)
That when you heard him tell one rally to confiscate a man's coat before throwing him out into the freezing cold, you said, “What a great guy!" (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/donald-trump-orders-protesters-coat-is-confiscated-and-he-is-sent-into-the-cold-a6802756.html)
That you have watched the parade of neo-Nazis and other white supremacists with whom he curries favor, while refusing to condemn outright Nazis, and you have said, “Thumbs up!" (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/why-cant-trump-just-condemn-nazis/567320/)
That you hear him unable to talk to foreign dignitaries without insulting their countries and demanding that they praise his electoral win, you said, “That's the way I want my President to be." (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-insult-foreign-countries-leaders_n_59dd2769e4b0b26332e76d57)
That you have watched him remove expertise from all layers of government in favor of people who make money off of eliminating protections in the industries they're supposed to be regulating and you have said, “What a genius!" (https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/12/29/138-trump-policy-changes-2017-000603)
That you have heard him continue to profit from his businesses, in part by leveraging his position as President, to the point of overcharging the Secret Service for space in the properties he owns, and you have said, “That's smart!" (https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2018-03-05/how-is-donald-trump-profiting-from-the-presidency-let-us-count-the-ways)
That you have heard him say that it was difficult to help Puerto Rico because it was in the middle of water and you have said, “That makes sense." (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/09/26/the-very-big-ocean-between-here-and-puerto-rico-is-not-a-perfect-excuse-for-a-lack-of-aid/)
That you have seen him start fights with every allied country from Canada to New Zealand while praising Russia and quote, ‘‘falling in love" with the dictator of North Korea, and you have said, “That's statesmanship!" (https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/02/politics/donald-trump-dictators-kim-jong-un-vladimir-putin/index.html)
That Trump separated children from their families and put them in cages, managed to lose track of 1,500 kids, has opened a tent city incarceration camp in the desert in Texas - he explains that they’re just “animals” - and you say, “Well, OK then.” (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/more-5-400-children-split-border-according-new-count-n1071791)
That you have witnessed all the thousand and one other manifestations of corruption and low moral character and outright animalistic rudeness and contempt for you, the working American voter, and you still show up grinning and wearing your MAGA hats and threatening to beat up anybody who says otherwise. (https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2018/06/04/451570/confronting-cost-trumps-corruption-american-families/)
What you don't get, Trump supporters, is that our succumbing to frustration and shaking our heads, thinking of you as stupid, may very well be wrong and unhelpful, but it's also... hear me... charitable. Because if you're NOT stupid, we must turn to other explanations, and most of them are less flattering.
Adam-Troy Castro is a Florida-based writer.
(To all who agree with its content, he asks that you PLEASE SHARE IT on your own post, and ENCOURAGE OTHERS to do the same.)
...
‘Nanny State Rules’
Painting by Mary Cassatt (1844-1926)
“Most of Boston’s suburbs have been around for centuries, and they’ve been ingrained with a tolerance for the ‘nanny state’ rules and regulations, the zoning laws and the taxes, that make it possible for so many people to live in a rocky, marshy state that will probably never see cheap land again. It’s not really a surprise that candidates who thrive here don’t do so well in the sprawling suburbs of Georgia or Texas.’’
— Robert David Sullivan, senior editor of America magazine
Arthur Allen: With RFK Jr. running HHS, supplement makers see Taxpayer-Subsidized gold mine
From Kaiser Family Health News (except for image above)
“Essentially they’re (the supplements industry) seeking a government subsidy.’’
— Pieter Cohen, a Harvard University physician who studies supplements.
Last fall, before being named the senior U.S. health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the Trump administration would liberate Americans from the Food and Drug Administration’s FDA’s “aggressive suppression” of vitamins, dietary supplements, and other substances — ending the federal agency’s “war on public health,” as he put it.
In fact, the FDA can’t even require that supplements be effective before they are sold. When Congress, at the agency’s urging, last considered legislation to require makers of vitamins, herbal remedies and other pills and potions to show proof of their safety and worth before marketing the products, it got more negative mail, phone calls, and telegrams than at any time since the Vietnam War, by some accounts.
The backlash resulted in a 1994 law that enabled the dietary-supplement industry to put its products on the market without testing and to tout unproven benefits, as long as the touting doesn’t include claims to treat or cure a disease. Annual industry revenues have grown from $4 billion to $70 billion since.
With Kennedy now in the driver’s seat, the industry will likely expect more: It aims to make bolder health claims for its products and even get the government, private insurers and flexible spending accounts to pay for supplements, essentially putting them on an equal footing with FDA-approved pharmaceuticals.
On Feb. 13, the day Kennedy was sworn in as secretary of health and human services, President Trump issued a “Make America Healthy Again” agenda targeting alleged corruption in health-regulatory agencies and instructing them to “ensure the availability of expanded treatment options and the flexibility for health insurance coverage to provide benefits that support beneficial lifestyle changes and disease prevention.”
Kennedy, a former heroin addict, has said that exercise, dietary supplements and nutrition, rather than pharmaceutical products, are key to good health. Supplement makers want consumers to be able to use such programs as health savings accounts, Medicare and even benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to pay for such items as vitamins, fish oil, protein powders and probiotics.
“Essentially they’re seeking a government subsidy,” said Pieter Cohen, a Harvard University physician who studies supplements.
As the Senate Finance Committee questioned Kennedy during his Jan. 29 confirmation hearing, supporters in the Alliance for Natural Health lunched on quinoa salad in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center and crowed that the moment had finally arrived for their health freedom movement, which has combined libertarian capitalism and mistrust of the medical establishment to champion unregulated compounds since the 19th century.
“The greatest opportunity of our lifetimes is before us,” said Jonathan Emord, the group’s general counsel, who has brought many successful lawsuits against the FDA’s restrictions on unproven health claims. “RFK has dedicated his whole life to opposing the undue influence” of the pharmaceutical industry and “assuring that our interests triumph,” Emord said.
In speeches and in a pamphlet called “The MAHA Mandate,” Emord and alliance founder Robert Verkerk said Kennedy would free companies to make greater claims for their products’ alleged benefits. Emord said his group was preparing to sue the FDA to prevent it from restricting non-pharmaceutical production of substances like biopeptides — complex molecules related to drugs like Ozempic.
HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon did not respond to a request for comment on the agency’s plans vis-à-vis dietary supplements.
While the basic law governing the FDA establishes that a substance alleged to have treatment or curative effects is by definition a “drug,” and therefore comes under the agency’s requirements for high standards of scientific evidence, the new administration could reallocate money away from enforcement, said Mitch Zeller, former head of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products.
As a Senate aide early in his career, Zeller investigated a tainted L-tryptophan supplement that killed at least 30 people and sickened thousands in the U.S. in 1989. The scandal led the FDA to seek heavier regulation of supplements, but a powerful backlash resulted in the relatively weak supplements law of 1994.
Even that law’s enforcement could be undercut with a stroke of the pen that would keep FDA inspectors out of the field, Zeller said.
Sweeping changes couldn’t come too soon for Nathan Jones, founder and CEO of Xlear, a company that makes products containing xylitol, an artificial sweetener. The Federal Trade Commission sued Xlear in 2021 for making what it called false claims that its nasal spray could prevent and treat COVID.
Jones points to a handful of studies evaluating whether xylitol prevents cavities and infections, saying that the FDA would require overly expensive studies to get xylitol approved as a drug. Meanwhile, he said, dentists have been bought out by “Big Toothpaste.”
One can hardly find any products “without fluoride for oral health,” he said. “Crest and Colgate don’t want it to happen,” he said.
Kennedy’s desire to rid water supplies of fluoride because of its alleged impact on children’s IQ is welcome news, he said, and not only because it could highlight the value of his products. Jones stresses, as do many health-freedom advocates, that clean air and water and unadulterated food do more to prevent and cure disease than vaccines and drugs.
For example, he and other advocates claim, wrongly, that the United States eliminated the crippling disease polio through better sanitation, not vaccination.
The Alliance for Natural Health hopes that in lieu of strict FDA standards, Kennedy will enable companies to make expanded marketing claims based on evidence from non-FDA sources, Verkerk said, such as the National Institutes of Health’s nutritional information site, which describes the pros and cons of different supplements.
Kennedy has also called for relaxing the strictures on psychedelic drugs, which interest some veterans as potential remedies for such conditions as post-traumatic stress disorder. VETS, a San Diego-based organization, has paid for 1,000 veterans to get treatment with the powerful hallucinogen ibogaine at clinics in Mexico and other countries, said the group’s co-founder Amber Capone.
She got involved after her husband, a retired Navy SEAL, pulled out of a suicidal spiral after spending a week at an ibogaine clinic near Tijuana, Mexico, in 2017.
She wants NIH, the Defense Department, and the Department of Veterans Affairs to fund research on the illegal substance — which can cause cardiac complications and is listed as a Schedule I drug, on par with heroin and LSD — so it can be made legally available when appropriate.
Coincidentally, the push for less onerous standards on supplements and psychedelics would come while Kennedy is demanding “gold-standard science” to review preservatives and other food additives that he has said could play a role in the country’s high rate of chronic diseases.
“Put aside the fact that there’s precious little evidence to support” that idea, said Stuart Pape, a former FDA food center attorney. “There’s been no indication they want the same rigor for supplements and nutraceuticals.”
Although most of these products don’t have major safety concerns, “we have no idea which products work, so in the best case people are throwing away a ton of money,” Zeller said. “The worst-case scenario is they are relying on unproven products to treat underlying conditions, and time is going by when they could have been using more effective FDA-authorized products for diseases.”
Supplement makers aren’t entirely unified. Groups such as the Consumer Healthcare Products Association and the Council for Responsible Nutrition have advocated for the FDA to crack down on products that are unsafe or falsely represented. The Alliance for Natural Health and the Natural Products Association, meanwhile, largely want the government to get out of the way.
“The time has come to embrace a radical shift — from reactive disease management to proactive health cultivation, from top-down public health diktats to personalized, individual-centric care,” Emord and Verkerk state in their “MAHA Mandate.”
Kaiser Family FoundationHealth News would like to speak with current and former personnel from the Department of Health and Human Services or its component agencies who believe that the public should understand the impact of what’s happening within the federal bureaucracy. Please message KFF Health News on Signal at (415) 519-8778 or get in touch here.
Arthur Allen is a Kaiser Family Foundation Health News reporter.
This ‘Duppie’ won’t bite
Work by Nickola Pottinger in her show “Fos Born,’’ at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Greenwich, Conn., June 8, 2025 through Jan. 4, 2026.
The museum says:
“Nickola Pottinger’s practice spans drawing, collage and sculpture. Her objects often appear in the round, on the wall, or sometimes within tableaux. She refers to her sculptural works as ‘duppies’ (Jamaican patois for ghosts) in reverence to her Jamaican ancestry and the West Indian community in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where she was raised and still resides today. Composed out of recovered heirlooms, excavated and recycled materials, Pottinger creates pigmented paper pulp from family documents, past artworks and rubble using a handheld kitchen mixer. Akin to clay or concrete and imbued with memories of her family lineage as well as folklore heard as a child, she embellishes her mystical creations, which sometimes manifest as protectors, couriers or even spirits of the deceased, with oil pastel and watercolor, casts of her hands and face, teeth, gilded Yagua leaf, lava rocks, Bantu hair knots and more.’’
Heat-resistant kelp Identified as the world Rapidly Warms
Some kelp close up.
Edited from a New England Council report
“Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have identified a strain of kelp with natural adaptations to cope with heat. As water temperatures are rising, kelp beds are declining, a fact that researchers are concerned about. Kelp has played a role in fighting against global warming; productive kelp farms can act as a carbon sink and absorb carbon dioxide from the oceans, elevate pH levels, and supply oxygen, helping to mitigate the local effects of ocean acidification. However, the algae will no longer be able to perform these functions unless it can withstand the heat of its habitat. Kelp has many, manu uses.
“In a new study published in the Journal of Applied Phycology, WHOI researchers assessed the heat tolerance of kelp gametophytes and crossbred those with the highest tolerance together. Results found that when the gametophytes identified as heat-tolerant were crossed, they produced kelp blades that grew better under heat stress compared to the offspring of non-heat-tolerant gametophytes. Researchers hope that this new strain will help support sustainable farming and give kelp a chance against climate change.
“Kelp has been observed to be a versatile tool for fighting global warming, with the ability to be converted into new fuel sources and potentially reduce greenhouse gasses, ‘in a hotter and drier world of the future, it will be hard to find a better resource for biofuels than farmed seaweed. This study allows us to accelerate the breeding of heat-tolerant kelp strains, thus helping sustain the industry,’ said Scott Lindell, a research specialist in aquaculture technology at WHOI and co-author of the published study.’’
Read more in the WHOI press release.
Kelp is also used for food, supplements, fertilizers, cosmetics and other things.
Llewellyn King: Musk’s Techno-barbarians wreak havoc and Permanent damage to government
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
At the recent “Future of the Blue Economy” conference in Newport, R.I., entrepreneurs and their investors were talking about breakthroughs, but the term they used — replacing “Sputnik moment” — was “SpaceX moment.”
That was a salute to the extraordinary precision engineering that enables the booster stage of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket to reposition itself on the launch pad after firing. It is inspiring to watch, but there must have been untold preparation, thought and planning to bring about that seemingly miraculous engineering feat.
All hail Elon Musk, boss of SpaceX, and his brilliant engineers.
Sadly, none of that precision preparation, thinking and planning has gone into Musk’s latest venture, the Department of Government Efficiency.
It has raged across the government, leaving a trail of havoc, shattered careers, broken departments, endangered missions: techno-barbarians running wild inside the government.
In the history of social engineering, nothing as vast and self-defeating has been attempted since Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution set China back decades.
Prepare for a similar dividend from the President Trump-Musk team. If they had approached launching a rocket the same way they have sought to make the government more efficient under the mantra “waste, fraud and abuse,” they would have piled a jerry-built rocket atop a pile of explosives and lit a match. Result: a catastrophic failure.
There are things here which are beyond explanation. Trump has run businesses. He knows if you fire half the front desk staff in a hotel, things aren’t going to go smoothly. If you berate the staff and accuse them of waste, fraud and abuse, essentially stealing, morale will plunge.
In the Soviet Union there was an adage: They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work. An awful lot of government workers who haven’t lost their jobs but are disconsolate will be pretending to work for the rest of the Trump administration. Efficiency? Hardly. Many will efficiently do nothing.
Everything about the unleashing of the DOGE suggests that it had little preparation and little planning. Particularly, Musk and his crew knew nothing about the departments they were savaging. Hence, the embarrassment with the nuclear workers at the Department of Energy. Or the folly of shutting the window through which most of the world saw America’s goodness, the U.S. Agency for International Development.
We have as a society a tendency to believe that those who are good at one thing must be good at everything, something which might be called “success syndrome.”
This was on display during the energy crisis that erupted in the fall of 1973 with the Arab oil embargo and lasted through the Iranian revolution of 1979 and beyond, toppling governments and driving inflation.
Many thought that proven inventors, like Edwin Link, the creator of the first flight simulator for pilot training, and Edwin Land, creator of the Polaroid camera, were expected to be able to invent us out of the oil shortage. They didn’t.
Good, patient science, regulatory reform and entrepreneurial courage did that.
Another myth is that if only you put a tough businessperson in the White House, someone who will apply their foot to the rear end of the bureaucracy, wondrous things will happen.
We have a brilliant businessman and innovator at the controls in Washington, and so far, the kicking of the bureaucracy with the aid of high-tech tools has produced chaos in the government workplace and devastating consequences globally.
Taken together the evidence that you can’t run a government as a private company and great investors and innovators — even one so remarkable that he has made the greatest fortune ever {partly with the help of massive federal contracts} — can’t reinvent government without some coherent planning.
Musk was given a chainsaw as a symbol at the CPAC meeting in Washington. They are useful but dangerous tools, as any emergency-room physician who has had to sew up an over-exuberant operator can tell you. Trump and Elon Musk appear to be attempting what should be delicate surgery with a chain saw.
A restraining of the bureaucracy may be overdue, but the bloodbath is going to weaken the patients, rendering them unfit for duty at a critical time.
A chainsaw moment is not a SpaceX moment.
On Twitter: @llewellynking2
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. He’s based in Rhode Island.
White House Chronicle
‘Her ‘Games of Remembering’
“Cigarette, Candles, Fireworks, Swan’’ (oil), by Mariel Capanna, in her show “Giornata,’’ at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., through Jan. 25, 2026.
The museum says:
“Mariel Capanna (b. 1988, Philadelphia, where she lives and works) plays what she calls ‘games of remembering’ as a way of reckoning with loss. Working from home videos and family slideshows, whose runtime is her constraint, the artist races to record fleeting memory images in oil paint. She scatters these flat, pastel forms like confetti across deep, atmospheric surfaces, creating compositions that are at once jubilant and wistful.’’
Memories of Belief
Wood engraving by R.P. Hale, at New Leaf Gallery, in Lyme, N.H.
On the Lyme Common
Chris Powell: Conn. doesn’t Need More Meat; why unionize government?
MANCHESTER, Conn.
Environmentalists think that raising cattle for meat and milk harms the environment. Animal-rights advocates and vegetarians think that eating creatures is immoral. They have a point, but the political struggle has not been going their way, especially since the world always confronts hunger and famine somewhere.
So eventually the General Assembly may pass and the governor may sign legislation to let farmers in the state raise and butcher rabbits and sell their meat for food. The argument is that some people would like locally butchered rabbit meat, rabbit meat is a staple in some cultures, and raising rabbits for meat might help sustain some farms as agriculture is declining.
It's a weak argument.
Rabbits are said to be the third most popular companionate animals after dogs and cats. Rabbits have greater intelligence than many animals, they have a social nature, they can be trained to some extent, and they show loyalty to their owners. While some cultures eat rabbits, some also eat dogs and cats, and federal law prohibits the commercial slaughter and sale of dogs and cats for meat, presumably because of their suitability as pets.
So why shouldn’t rabbits be protected against raising and slaughter for food as dogs and cats are?
It’s not as if the country doesn’t have enough meat. Huge amounts of beef, pork, poultry, and fish are produced commercially. Nor does the country lack for the killing of sentient creatures and its coarsening of the culture. State government doesn’t need the expense it would incur with the commercial farming of rabbits for meat -- inspection by the Agriculture Department of the farms and slaughtering facilities.
People in Connecticut hungry for rabbit meat can buy it from out of state via the internet or hunt the creatures themselves in the countryside, as they can hunt and butcher deer. But when there is plenty to eat and no overpopulation of annoying or dangerous wild animals, killing without necessity should be opposed.
xxx
Having just shrugged off his inability to compel state government employees to return to their normal workplaces, a consequence of the collective bargaining that hobbles state and municipal government in Connecticut and increases its costs, Gov. Ned Lamont should note the remarkable reform just enacted in Utah.
The Beehive State has prohibited collective bargaining for government employees.
This doesn’t mean that state and municipal employees in Utah can’t organize and agitate about their compensation and working conditions. It doesn’t mean that government in Utah won’t pay attention to the desires and grievances of its employees. It means only that the agitation by Utah's state and municipal employees won’t have the support of collective- bargaining law -- that state and municipal government won’t have to recognize and negotiate with unions formed by their employees.
That is, government in Utah will be free to put the public interest first in public administration and not be like Connecticut, where the public works for the government instead of the other way around -- where the governor lacks the authority to order state employees to return to their workplaces.
Of course, since Connecticut’s government employee unions control the majority political party, no serious reforms for government efficiency are likely here. But Utah’s example should prompt a few brave legislators in Connecticut to ask some critical questions.
How exactly is the public interest in Connecticut served by collective bargaining for government employees and the state’s binding arbitration law, which makes the union interest equal to the public interest when government employee compensation and working conditions are determined?
How does the public benefit from collective bargaining’s constant evisceration of workplace discipline?
How does the public benefit from the political machine that state law establishes and subsidizes with government employees to work against the public interest, as when union officials who are nominally state employees are paid by the state to do union work and politicking instead?
Or is the main purpose of collective bargaining for government employees in Connecticut just to keep their political party in power?
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).
Paul Bierman: Despite Trump’s seizure Ambitions, Greenland dubious Place for Massive Economic Exploitation
From The Conversation (except for map above).
BURLINGTON, Vt.
By Paul Bierman
Fellow of the Gund Institute for Environment, Professor of Natural Resources and Environmental Science, University of Vermont. He receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the University of Vermont Gund Institute for Environment.
Since Donald Trump regained the presidency, he has coveted Greenland. Trump has insisted that the U.S. will control the island, currently an autonomous territory of Denmark, and if his overtures are rejected, perhaps seize Greenland by force.
During a recent congressional hearing, senators and expert witnesses focused on Greenland’s strategic value and its natural resources: critical minerals, fossil fuels and hydropower. No one mentioned the hazards, many of them exacerbated by human-induced climate change, that those longing to possess and develop the island will inevitably encounter.
That’s imprudent, because the Arctic’s climate is changing more rapidly than anywhere on Earth. Such rapid warming further increases the already substantial economic and personal risk for those living, working and extracting resources on Greenland, and for the rest of the planet.
Arctic surface temperatures have been rising faster than the global average. Arctic Report Card 2024, NOAA Climate.gov
I am a geoscientist who studies the environmental history of Greenland and its ice sheet, including natural hazards and climate change. That knowledge is essential for understanding the risks that military and extractive efforts face on Greenland today and in the future.
Greenland: Land of extremes
Greenland is unlike where most people live. The climate is frigid. For much of the year, sea ice clings to the coast, making it inaccessible.
An ice sheet, up to 2 miles thick, covers more than 80% of the island. The population, about 56,000 people, lives along the island’s steep, rocky coastline.
While researching my book “When the Ice is Gone,” I discovered how Greenland’s harsh climate and vast wilderness stymied past colonial endeavors. During World War II, dozens of U.S. military pilots, disoriented by thick fog and running out of fuel, crashed onto the ice sheet. An iceberg from Greenland sunk the Titanic in 1912, and 46 years later, another sunk a Danish vessel specifically designed to fend off ice, killing all 95 aboard.
Now amplified by climate change, natural hazards make resource extraction and military endeavors in Greenland uncertain, expensive and potentially deadly.
Rock on the move
Greenland’s coastal landscape is prone to rockslides. The hazard arises because the coast is where people live and where rock isn’t hidden under the ice sheet. In some places, that rock contains critical minerals, such as gold, as well as other rare metals used for technology, including for circuit boards and electrical vehicle batteries.
The unstable slopes reflect how the ice sheet eroded the deep fjords when it was larger. Now that the ice has melted, nothing buttresses the near-vertical valley walls, and so, they collapse.
A massive rockslide, triggered by permafrost melt, tumbled down the fjord wall and into the water at Assapaat, West Greenland. Kristian Svennevig/GEUS
In 2017, a northwestern Greenland mountainside fell 3,000 feet into the deep waters of the fjord below. Moments later, the wave that rockfall generated (a tsunami) washed over the nearby villages of Nuugaatsiaq and Illorsuit. The water, laden with icebergs and sea ice, ripped homes from their foundations as people and sled dogs ran for their lives. By the time it was over, four people were dead and both villages lay in ruin.
Steep fjord walls around the island are littered with the scars of past rockslides. The evidence shows that at one point in the last 10,000 years, one of those slides dropped rock sufficient to fill 3.2 million Olympic swimming pools into the water below. In 2023, another rockslide triggered a tsunami that sloshed back and forth for nine days in a Greenland fjord.
A cellphone video captures the June 2017 tsunami wave coming ashore in northwestern Greenland.
There’s no network of paved roads across Greenland. The only feasible way to move heavy equipment, minerals and fossil fuels would be by sea. Docks, mines and buildings within tens of feet of sea level would be vulnerable to rockslide-induced tsunamis.
Melting ice will be deadly and expensive
Human-induced global warming, driven by fossil fuel combustion, speeds the melting of Greenland’s ice. That melting is threatening the island’s infrastructure and the lifestyles of native people, who over millennia have adapted their transportation and food systems to the presence of snow and ice. Record floods, fed by warmth-induced melting of the ice sheet, have recently swept away bridges that stood for half a century.
As the climate warms, permafrost – frozen rock and soil – which underlies the island, thaws. This destabilizes the landscape, weakening steep slopes and damaging critical infrastructure.
An excavator tries to save a bridge over the Watson River at Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. Part of the bridge and the machine were eventually swept away by the rushing meltwater from the Greenland Ice Sheet during a heat wave in July 2012.
Permafrost melt is already threatening the U.S. military base on Greenland. As the ice melts and the ground settles under runways, cracks and craters form – a hazard for airplanes. Buildings tilt as their foundations settle into the softening soil, including critical radar installations that have scanned the skies for missiles and bombers since the 1950s.
Greenland’s icebergs can threaten oil rigs. As the warming climate speeds the flow of Greenland’s glaciers, they calve more icebergs in the ocean. The problem is worse close to Greenland, but some icebergs drift toward Canada, endangering oil rigs there. Ships stand guard, ready to tow threatening icebergs away.
An iceberg passes near an oil drilling rig in eastern Canada. Geoffrey Whiteway/500px Plus via Getty Images
Greenland’s government banned drilling for fossil fuels in 2021 out of concern for the environment. Yet, Trump and his allies remain eager to see exploration resume off the island, despite exceptionally high costs, less than stellar results from initial drilling, and the ever-present risk of icebergs.
As Greenland’s ice melts and water flows into the ocean, sea level changes, but in ways that might not be intuitive. Away from the island, sea level is rising about an inch each six years. But close to the ice sheet, it’s the land that’s rising. Gradually freed of the weight of its ice, the rock beneath Greenland, long depressed by the massive ice sheet, rebounds. That rise is rapid – more than 6 feet per century. Soon, many harbors in Greenland may become too shallow for ship traffic.
Streams of meltwater flow over the silt-covered surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet as it melts in summer heat near Kangerlussuaq in western Greenland. REDA/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Greenland’s challenging past and future
History clearly shows that many past military and colonial endeavors failed in Greenland because they showed little consideration of the island’s harsh climate and dynamic ice sheet.
Changing climate drove Norse settlers out of Greenland 700 years ago. Explorers trying to cross the ice sheet lost their lives to the cold. American bases built inside the ice sheet, such as Camp Century, were quickly crushed as the encasing snow deformed.
In the past, the American focus in Greenland was on short-term gains with little regard for the future. Abandoned U.S. military bases from World War II, scattered around the island and in need of cleanup, are one example. Forced relocation of Greenlandic Inuit communities during the Cold War is another. I believe that Trump’s demands today for American control of the island to exploit its resources are similarly shortsighted.
Piles of rusting fuel drums sit at an abandoned U.S. base from World War II in Ikateq, in eastern Greenland. Posnov/Moment via Getty Images
However, when it comes to the planet’s livability, I’ve argued that the greatest strategic and economic value of Greenland to the world is not its location or its natural resources, but its ice. That white snow and ice reflect sunlight, keeping Earth cool. And the ice sheet, perched on land, keeps water out of the ocean. As it melts, Greenland’s ice sheet will raise global sea level, up to about 23 feet when all the ice is gone.
Climate-driven sea level rise is already flooding coastal regions around the world, including major economic centers. As that continues, estimates suggest that the damage will total trillions of dollars. Unless Greenland’s ice remains frozen, coastal inundation will force the largest migration that humanity has ever witnessed. Such changes are predicted to destabilize the global economic and strategic world order.
These examples show that disregarding the risks of natural hazards and climate change in Greenland courts disaster, both locally and globally.
Researching what’s Up there
“Prying Into the Secrets of the Sky,’’ by Jacob Hashimoto, in his show “a lowercase sky,’’ at Burlington (Vt.) City Arts, June 6-Sept. 14.
ECHO, Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, in Burlington.
Are We Ready?
Daniel Webster in 1847
“God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it. Let our object be our country. And, by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever!’’
— Daniel Webster (1782-1852), in a June 3, 1834 speech. He was a New Hampshire native who served as a senator from Massachusetts and secretary of state. Many historians rank him as the greatest American orator of the 19th Century.
You won’t get used to It?
A blizzard winding down in Boston on Feb. 13, 2006.
Beau Wade photo
“I dont hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark; I dont. I dont! I dont hate it! I dont hate it!”
― William Faulkner, in Absalom, Absalom!
Freshwater mussels are aquatic-system cleaners
Adult freshwater mussels
— Photo by the U.S. Coast and Geodesic Survey
Text excerpted from an ecoRI News article
“The presence of freshwater mussels is indicative of high water quality and a healthy ecosystem. Their absence tells a different story, and the latter is the more-familiar tale in southern New England. Their populations in this three-state region have been degraded by a long history of damming and pollution.
“University of Rhode Island research associate Elizabeth Herron noted these overlooked creatures are a critical part of the region’s aquatic systems.
“They help reduce nutrients and algae by filtering out things. They can reduce things like bacteria, so they’re important,” said the program coordinator for URI Watershed Watch. “They’re an important food source. I have a dock on a pond, and I can tell you every spring, when we put the dock back out, there’s a giant pile of empty, freshwater mussel clams that the muskrats feasted on over the winter.”