EXTRA...

Saving the sea's bounty; Edwin Dickinson an American painter; More inmates for Barnstable?

One fish, two fish, no fish

A new approach tries to save the sea's bounty--and those whose jobs depend on it

CHATHAM, MA - Bob St. Pierre is grateful just to keep what he can catch. On a recent July morning in this postcard-perfect Cape Cod village, St. Pierre's haul amounted to 3,100 pounds of codfish. Most of his peers are limited to 1,000 pounds a trip. That restriction is supposed to save fish, but in this inexact profession where any day a net can bring in nothing or hundreds of pounds, catching extra fish is inevitable. Whatever exceeds the limit is thrown back, often dead. Last year alone, U.S. and Canadian fishermen threw overboard about 1 million pounds of codfish from the premium hunting ground of eastern Georges Bank, about 100 miles northeast of here. "The amount of discards you end up with at times [is] sickening," says St. Pierre.

The discards are one unintended consequence of government rules regulating the fishing industry. Trip limits, net size, restricted areas, and an overarching days-at-sea system are all meant to keep U.S. fishermen from sweeping the oceans clean. But it is a system that is failing-47 of 187 fish stocks remain overfished. A recent study in Science says if trends persist, seafood stocks will collapse by 2048.

Meanwhile, the rules are driving fishermen mad. New Englanders pursuing the 19 species of bottom-dwelling groundfish, such as codfish and haddock, have seen the number of permitted fishing days slashed from 250 a year in 1996 to fewer than 50. And even that number is halved when they fish in sensitive areas. To stay in business, some have paid six-figure sums to buy days-at-sea permits from others. ... US News & World Report

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Worcester County Jail overcrowded, inmates may be off-loaded to Barnstable and other county jails

WEST BOYLSTON - As soon as this fall, suspects charged with serious crimes such as assault and battery and burglary could be released under electronic monitoring if the Worcester County jail does not stay below a new federally set cap on the inmate population.

It would be the first time that pretrial detainees in Massachusetts would not go to jail but would be put on the street because of jail overcrowding.

Sheriff Guy W. Glodis also is preparing to shift more than 200 inmates to other county jails and state prisons to comply with the proposed state inmate cap of 1,251 at the county jail. It was built in 1973 to hold 490. In 1991, 300 more beds were added with temporary modular units.   ...   Worcester Telegram & Gazette

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A painter who never settle on a style or a location

Dickinson works seem to belong to two centuries

PROVINCETOWN -- A gaunt, droopy-eyed old man and a beautiful young woman with long flowing hair sit at the center of "An Anniversary," one of the big, complicated, symbolically fraught works that made Edwin Dickinson (1891-1978) a famous American painter in the decades before World War II. She directs at the viewer a wide-eyed, sidelong gaze; he points upward with the index finger of one tired hand. On the floor at their feet is an array of ceramic ware and pieces of fruit painted with the realism of a Dutch old master. Behind them stands in profile a young man with a violin who gestures as though conducting an unseen orchestra. A crowd of seated figures fills in the murky space beyond -- customers in a purgatorial sad cafe of the soul.

What Dickinson meant by "An Anniversary" is anyone's guess. He refused to explain his pictures. Yet the tableau feels charged with allegorical meaning: themes of age, youth, beauty, artistic creativity, fantasy, and reality are all in play. If you'd like to figure it out for yourself, there's a fine opportunity to do so at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, where the painting is included in "Edwin Dickinson: The Provincetown Years, 1912-1937," a transporting selection of works produced by Dickinson during the years he lived in that extraordinarily fertile outpost of modern American culture at the far end of Cape Cod.   Boston Globe

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Tribe begins casino process with feds

MIDDLEBORO - The Mashpee Wampanoags plan to start the lengthy federal approval process for their proposed casino within the next two weeks, a tribe spokesman said Friday.

The tribe will submit an application asking the federal government to place roughly 540 acres of tribe-controlled land in Middleboro into a federal trust - freeing it from state and local oversight, and making the land non-taxable by the government.

Spokesman Scott Ferson said the tribe has been moving quickly to put together the application. One major piece of the puzzle fell into place this week when the tribe secured an option to buy about 200 acres of land from a Middleboro family. Ferson said it was the last remaining land the tribe wanted to acquire for the casino.   ...  The Enterprise