Adapted from an item in Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

Against the advice of scientists, Canada this year lifted a moratorium on cod fishing that was imposed  back in 1994 after cod stocks plummeted off  the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. There’s been a bit of revival in the past few years, but the stocks remain far below what they were for hundreds of years following European colonization. (The proximity of vast stocks of cod, which, importantly, could be easily salted and preserved, was part of what made New England and, to a lesser extent, the Maritime provinces, prosperous starting in the 18th Century. Indeed, what became known as Boston Brahmins also used to be called “The Codfish Aristocracy.’’)

The moratorium was lifted at least in part for political reasons. Newfoundland/Labrador suffered mightily and angrily from the fishing ban, which forced many “Newfies’’ to leave.  Politics,  public opinion and science often  don’t happily co-exist. Look at America’s COVID experience.

In any case, Canada might now be jumping the gun, leading to another crash in cod stocks.

Meanwhile, warming water and changes in currents associated with climate change mean that the mix of fish species off New England and the Maritimes will continue to change in predictable and unpredictable ways over the next few years.

(I’m a halibut fan myself; that fish generally comes from the more northern waters off the Maritime provinces. I had some the other week at a business dinner in a New York restaurant that was so dark that I asked for a flashlight to read the menu and the alarming bill; I can’t afford Gotham anymore.)

Totalitarian Temptations

He probably won’t win the final election, set for Dec. 8, but  far-right Romanian politician Calin Georgescu,  who is anti-NATO,  anti-Ukraine and pro-Russian, was the top voter in the country’s first election stage, on Nov. 24, when he won about 23 percent of the vote. But he’s still troubling for all those who treasure democracy.

He's an admirer of the country’s virulently anti-semitic fascist dictator and Hitler ally Ion Antonescu (1882-1946), who was  executed for war crimes. He reflects the authoritarian/totalitarian temptation – a belief that a “strong leader’’ can end a nation’s frustrations. And for those uncooperative citizens not lusting for dictatorship to fix all their national woes? The sort of extreme Orwellian surveillance strategies being perfected by Xi Jinping’s tyranny in China can keep them well under control.