Editorial

Boston Globe urges President to back Cape Wind

GLOBE EDITORIAL
As leader of green economy, Obama should back Cape Wind

August 29, 2009

AS PRESIDENT OBAMA vacationed on Martha's Vineyard this week, he had many occasions to look at the horizon. And if he didn't realize that he was looking at the site of a major dispute over offshore wind power, activists on both sides journeyed to the island to remind him. He should also understand that he can play a key role in resolving it.

Neither Obama nor his administration has yet weighed in on Cape Wind, the controversial 130-turbine wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound that could supply the electricity needs of more than 300,000 homes on the Cape and Islands. If Obama's pledges for a greener economy are to be kept, his administration should not delay any longer the arduous process that began in 2001 to develop this clean energy source.

The proposed offshore wind project has sustained more than seven years of heated debate; political maneuvering, including some by the late Senator Edward Kennedy, a project opponent; and environmental review. It now awaits a decision from the Department of the Interior - the last major regulatory hurdle its developers must clear for the project to move forward. As the country's first proposed commercial offshore wind farm, and the only project of its kind this far along in the approval process, Cape Wind could open the door for developers to harness the vast wind energy resource along the nation's eastern seaboard. The approval could make Massachusetts the trailblazer of a power source that is an essential part of the country's strategy to address global warming and to achieve energy security.

In January, Interior's Minerals Management Service, the federal agency charged with assessing Cape Wind's potential impacts on the environment, published a detailed report that found the wind farm would pose little harm to fisheries, birds, and other wildlife. The agency also concluded that developers could readily address any navigational concerns for ships and planes posed by the 440-foot turbines.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is now responsible for issuing a decision on the project. Salazar, like Obama, has spoken publicly about the importance of offshore wind as an energy source, but has not indicated whether the administration plans to approve Cape Wind.

The wind farm would slightly alter the view of the ocean from certain points on Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket; developers predict that the turbines would be visible from Edgartown, for example, as distant white smears on clear days.

Obama may have had time to enjoy the pristine view from the beaches near Edgartown this week, but Americans have run out of time to stick their heads in the sand when it comes to global warming. The administration should not wait any longer to show its support for Cape Wind, a project consistent with the president's pledge to support clean energy and open a frontier for harnessing wind power.

Boston Globe on Saturday, August 29, 2009.

26 comments »

What IS capecodtoday.com?

Could it be the "newspaper of the future"?
Although the word "paper" doesn't fit anymore

By Walter Brooks

We started capecodtoday.com over a decade ago to fill what we believed was becoming a need for Cape Codders - local news and opinion written by and about Cape Cod exclusively.

Cape Cod's un-media
The 8 missing newspapers
These local newspapers have died:

Cape Cod Voice
Provincetown Advocate
The Oracle
Dennis Bulletin
Yarmouth Sun
Cape Cod News
Osterville Advertiser
Mashpee Messenger

The drop in local news we saw back then has grown exponentially ever since as more newspapers are either taken over by giant media groups or simply closed down.

When a local newspaper is sold to a media group, the purchaser has to find ways to pay for the purchase, and the easiest way for a financial person to do that is to cut staff. Since reporters are the highest paid, they go first.

The new owner doesn't live in the local area, and doesn't have to explain these cuts in quality to his or her neighbors at church next Sunday or at the next Rotary luncheon or Chamber of Commerce meeting.

Over time this means a drop in circulation since the readers were buying the newspaper for the very thing the new owner is eliminating, and thus the thing purchased has less value to those it was meant to serve.

This is NOT a situation we either like or applaud. We too were raised reading newspapers, and regret their diminution.

Every newspaper here is losing readers

Help make us better

● Write a letter.
● Register to comment (there are 3,000    
   others already registered).
● Sign up for our free daily updates.
● Suggest something for us to cover.

The latest figures we've seen indicate that less than 17% of Americans under the age of forty read a daily newspaper. CapeCodToday.com is our modest, Cape Cod family-owned response.

We are far from perfect, but always willing to listen to those readers who disagree with our coverage.

The result has been almost embarrassingly successful. Our web traffic last year was up 34% over the year before, and our advertising revenues are increasing almost as fast.

If you have an idea of how to make us better, please write either me or editor Maggie Kulbokas.

6 comments »

Bay State Democrats hoisted on their own petard

America is a nation of laws, not of men
It seems that Mr. Kennedy wants to choose his successor

By Walter Brooks

Senator Ted Kennedy would have Massachusetts change the law which mandates how the Commonwealth replaces a United States Senator due to a departure from office in mid-term. Insiders are suggesting he will resign if the law is changed and thus have a say in choosing his replacement - instead of you voters doing it.

As our front page story reported today, Senator Kennedy has sent a letter to the governor, the state's Senate president and House speaker at a time when Congress is considering an overhaul of the nation's health care system, which has been a life cause of Kennedy's when he wasn't working with Republicans and the oil interests to stop America's first offshore wind farm.

Mr. Kennedy's concern for the health of his fellow citizens could more quickly be realized if he urged President Obama when he sees him shortly to immediately approve the positive final report on the Cape Wind project.

Kennedy would then repair his tattered environmental reputation and improve the air we all breath years before any beneficial effect of the health care bill he espouses.

Hoisted on his own petard

Kennedy's request is truly ironic when we recall the recent history of the legislation he now wants re-changed.

Only five years ago our other anti-wind farm U.S. Senator, John Kerry, was running for President, and we had a Republican Governor, Mitt Romney.

The law then allowed the governor to replace U.S. Senators when they left before their terms were completed.

In fear that if Kerry became President his Senate term would be vacated and Romney would replace him with a Republican, Kennedy and the Democrats in Boston changed the law to take away that authority from the governor and replace it with the present law requiring a quick election instead.

Now when Kennedy may himself not fulfill his term, and we have a Democrat governor, he wants to return to the old law.

That's about as classic an example of being hoisted on one's own petard as we've ever heard.

And besides, Beacon Hill is too busy this year raising your taxes and lining their own pockets to think about making laws.

12 comments »

21st Century Cape Cod Tories sink to new depths

Wind farm opponents stoop to new low
Demean the memory and legacy of Walter Cronkite

There is a new entry into the hall of shame for the sleazy misdeeds perpetrated on the public by opposition groups to Cape Wind, the misrepresentation and trashing of Walter Cronkite by windstop.org, a.k.a. Cliff Carroll.

This takes some doing as the caliber of past opposition misdeeds and untruths are so egregious.

Remember the chart they sent to a hundred thousand homes on Cape Cod depicting a chunk of Nantucket Sound that was going to be "stolen" by the wind farm in which they tripled the actual footprint of the project?

From Carroll's caricature: "Though the promoters of this project claim that Mr. Cronkite changed his mind, it was the constant barrage of harassment from the green movement interrupting his personal life that led him to withdraw as spokesman (for the anti Cape Wind group)."

Or how about the time the Technical Director of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound admitted he committed fraud in an attempt to smear Cape Wind President Jim Gordon?

Painful as the exercise can be, if you go to windstop.org, wait for the bottomless homepage to download (caution to anyone considering printing the homepage, it is over 400 pages long and may take five minutes to download), then scroll down past the photo of children applauding a burning wooden wind turbine that looks disturbingly like a burning cross, and scroll past the heavily distorted and manipulated visual simulation of the wind farm from Craigville Beach which looks like the wind farm is sitting on the resident's rooftops, after all of that you get to the Walter Cronkite passage which claims that the man who stood up to President Lyndon Johnson over Vietnam on national television could be frightened off by a few environmentalists.

While the passage begins by praising Cronkite, it is in reality highly insulting and demeaning to this legendary great newsman in two respects.

1. Cliff posts the minute long video opposing Cape Wind that features Walter Cronkite, that Cronkite famously came to regret and very publicly asked the opposition to stop using and to remove from the airwaves, which they agreed to do at the time.
2. Cliff suggests that Cronkite never really stopped opposing Cape Wind. That flies in the face of the interviews Cronkite did in August, 2003 with the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Associated Press, Vineyard Gazette and the Cape Cod Times in which he stated his changed views on Cape Wind quite clearly. Let's remember some of Cronkite's public statements at that time...

What Walter really said

On his initial position of opposition to Cape Wind based solely on the briefing he received by the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and their allies Walter Cronkite said:

"My alacrity in accepting an invitation to make a comment was partly my own dropping of my reportorial role of investigating a situation before making a comment"... "I did not do it, and it was my fault"... "As an ardent environmentalist I have been uneasy about my strong statement that did not include my belief that wind power must be harnessed, and as early as possible, as the cleanest alternative to the dangerously increasing pollution of fossil fuels."

Cronkite described the opposition group's position on Cape Wind being an "almost hysterical one".
   (Photo of Walter Cronkite  in Vietnam.)

Cronkite described the opposition group's position on Cape Wind being an "almost hysterical one", and their opposition being "premature".

On his treatment by the opposition group he said, "They have exploited my simple comment in almost making me the spokesman for their cause.  I really am a little disappointed in that".

And Mr. Cronkite's went on to  say about his subsequent three hour meeting at his home with Cape Wind's Jim Gordon that he noted the "sincerity and dedication of the principals."

The greatest insult to Cronkite yet

The greatest insult to Walter Cronkite in Cliff Carroll's write up is his contention that the only reason Cronkite withdrew "as spokesman" for the opposition was the "constant barrage of harassment from the green movement interrupting his personal life". That has to be one of the most insulting, and least accurate, things ever said about Walter Cronkite.

To think that this legendary newsman who had the guts and tenacity to stand up to the President of the United States and look right into the camera to say to the American people that the Vietnam war could not be won, and then somehow to for Cliff Carroll to write that a man that courageous could not later endure some letters from environmentalists?

C'mon Cliff, that's not just stupid, it's bullshit.

The Alliance to Protect Coal, Oil, and Big Waterfront Homes

Oh, one other thing you have to scroll past before you get to the attack on Cronkite on windstop.org is an emphatic fundraising appeal. Not surprising you might say, most non-profit organizations have these on their websites. But here's the twist: the appeal is for people to send checks to Save Our Sound (a.k.a. the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound), not Windstop.

Alliance's Glenn Wattley described by Cape Cod Times as a "coal industry insider".

It's been well known locally these two groups have been in bed together for some time. Actually, to call Windstop a "group" is using a very generous definition of that word as the only people who have ever been publicly associated with it are Cliff Carroll, Rob Bussiere and Frankie Spellman, the anti-wind farm's own "Larry, Moe, and Curly".

Think of Windstop as the more radical armpit of the Alliance, throwing ‘red meat' to the hard core wind farm haters and fossil fuel freaks while the Alliance clings to notions of retaining some small shred of credibility.

Cliff's WindStop and Audra's Alliance are so intertwined that his site solicits funds for hers.

Yet with the departure of Susan Nickerson and loss of their Nantucket Soundkeeper designation, the Alliance has forfeited any remaining claim of being an environmental organization. What notably remains is leadership for an organization that would be more accurately named the Alliance to Protect Coal, Oil, and Big Waterfront Homes.

The Alliance's CEO is Glenn Wattley, described by none other than the Cape Cod Times when he took this role as a "coal industry insider", who had spent most of his professional career working in the coal industry.

Follow the money

The Alliance Chairman of the Board is Bill Koch who owns Oxbow Energy that works in coal mining, selling coal combustion waste, and petroleum coke. If that sounds like a pun, it's not. It is the solid waste dregs from oil refineries. According to the secret Alliance fund-raising documents unearthed in 2006, 94% of their funding comes from a fairly small group of summer residents who own waterfront homes which they visit a few weeks a year.

The people who live behind the gate in Oyster Harbors who write the biggest checks to stop Cape Wind are not like you and me, they don't share our concerns and certainly don't share our lifestyle.

How do the big checks cut by these high rollers get spent? Certainly on salaries for Glenn Wattley, Audra Parker and the rest of the crew, but most of it goes to lawyers, lobbyists, and advertising - turn on the radio lately?

Those of us who live on Cape Cod have been subjected to an intense eight year paid advertising and direct mail onslaught from this cabal rife with claims so misleading they would make propaganda ministers blush.

Yet the Alliance does wage a sophisticated campaign, supported by a stable of consultants all too happy to tap into this cash cow. They have succeeded over the years in using money and influence to mislead and scare a lot of good people on the Cape and Islands.

The good news is that the tide is turning. There is a growing awareness that the people who live behind the gate in Oyster Harbors Osterville who write the biggest checks to fund this group are just not like you and me, they don't share our concerns and certainly don't share our lifestyle. Cape Cod is just a destination point for them to jet into for a few weeks during the summer and they are aghast at the prospect of ever seeing wind turbines in their ocean playground, clean energy be damned.

So let us properly salute Walter Cronkite and champion his memory. He is the most respected and impactful journalist our country will probably ever know. In our neck of the woods he will always be fondly remembered as being very friendly in-person, generous with his time and money for charitable causes, and an avid sailor.

When it comes to the wind farm, Cronkite will be remembered as someone who had the courage to admit, in the glare of the spotlight, that he had been mislead by project opponents, and in so doing the most trusted man in America gave permission to many others of us on the Cape and Islands to do the same.

wb

14 comments »

Room tax, meal tax, bad tax

Editor's note: The meals tax is an option towns will have to add an additional 3/4% to the tax on restaurant meals in each town increasing the total from the present 5% to 7%. We have asked Steven Sullivan to articulate our position on this further tax.

Taxing the tourism goose which lays our golden egg
Why a 40% increase in meal tax is bad for Cape Cod

By Steve Sullivan

New Hampshire retailers rejoice
Increase in meals tax by up to 40 percent - The tax on restaurant meals will increase from 5 percent to 6.25 percent. Additionally, the state is now allowing the local towns to impose an additional local meals tax of 0.75 percent to each bill. Thus, the state and local government take will in all cases rise 25 percent, and in many cases it will rise 40 percent. (Globe)

First the good news. Massachusetts is doing better than California. Here's the bad news. California raised the sales tax in a misguided attempt to solve there budget problems long ago and has suffered ever since.

I do not know of an economist of any ilk that would advocate raising sales taxes in a recession. The question is, why did the voters wait until the deed was done to start their complaining?

Why did the newspapers treat it with such little coverage? The third question is the most important. Why do we need a permanent tax to solve a temporary problem. I voted for this governor and I have been sorry ever since.

The lack of checks and balances in Massachusetts has never been more impactive. I cannot imagine Bill Weld, or any other republican governor going along with this. They may have lost in the long run but they would have put up a fight. Just try to imagine having a big ticket retail store near the New Hampshire border.

The great folly of this action is that the near term results could be a net lower revenue stream. If we take a look at the states that have taken the same tack in the past we see that the recovery process is lengthened.

If you want to throw a big monkey wrench into this simple scenario, you make it harder to spend. That is what a sales tax does. It creates savers.

Here is why.

70% of our economy is us.  When we spend the economy is good and when we don't, well we have a recession. If we don't have jobs, we don't spend. The starting point of getting out of a recession is spending. That creates need for more product which creates the need for more labor which creates more jobs Yada yada yada.

So if you want to throw a big monkey wrench into this simple scenario, you make it harder to spend. That is what a sales tax does. It creates savers.

Pols are not stupid people, they know what they are doing.

The problem is they are not addressing the same problem which we all are. They just want to force more revenue as quickly as possible in order to pay the state's bills without impacting their supporters and contributors.

Many of them will not be around to pay the piper. Just imagine if instead of cutting your spending you could just tell your employer to give you more money. You would simply explain that you need to balance your check book and that is what the money will be used for. Oh, and by the way after you get back on your feet you expect the increase to continue. That is how it seems to work in the public sector. Here is the kicker. After the recession is over, the tax revenues will be substantially larger than they were before this recession started.

What do you think that will do? You don't need to be a genius to figure out that the budget will increase to match the new revenue. And when the next recession occurs ?

California here we come.

If you want to support something you subsidize it.
If you want to discourage something you tax it.

Here are a couple of economic facts.

Government has never created a job that created a job. There is a economic adage that if you want to support something you subsidize it. If you want to discourage something you tax it. Here on Cape Cod we owe half of our income too the spending of people who do not live here. Tourism as an industry is clean and requires little in the way of government support. Very little of the meal and lodging tax is spent on increased services.

However, taxing them seems easy. They come, they go and they leave their money behind.

So why not raise the taxes on these folks to cover our needs. First of all the money goes into the general fund and that does not specifically help Cape Cod. Second, It discourages people from coming here and that hurts Cape Cod.

Sin taxes are easiest to pass

Town now can raise the hotel tax from 4% to 6%, in addition to the state tax of 5.7%.

It is the easy part that is at the heart of the problem. Pols like to go after the easy marks like smokers and drinkers (sin taxes) The idea is that these are things we don't need or should not do at all. Unfortunately at some point if you tax something too much you start to create a black market and that just lowers the revenue, so those are all used up..

If you can afford to go on a vacation then you can afford to pay a little more to do it. Thats the rational but what is the reality. People solve the problem by cutting there vacation budget to match the increase.

That means folks in the tourism business are the ones who really pay the taxes not the vacationers. It is only fair that if I am going to point out the folly of these tax plans I should offer one of my own. It is very simply, raise the state income tax for a prescribed period of time. That time period would be based on revenue points and once those points were reached the tax increase would revert back to its original amount. Spending would be frozen at last years rate.

Before you start pointing out what happened the last time we had a "temporary" increase in the state income tax, I acknowledge that the weak spot is, we absolutely cannot trust these guys and that is because they are all on the same team. Good solid solutions come out of adversarial government and as long as we have little or no support of republican candidates then we will continue to get what we deserve. More checks and less balance.

Steve Sullivan is an officer and co:founder of the Best Read Guide and the BRG Franchise Corp. He has been a marketing execitive for three decades and lives on Route 6-A in Dennis with his wife Sue, two grand kids, Chuck and Bo, and the ghost of his long-gone pooch Ollie.

4 comments »

Sales tax be damned

How NOT to run a business, or a state government
When revenues fall, only cutting expenses is sane

By Walter Brooks

Governor Deval Patrick signed the 25% increase in our sales tax, and if I was shocked by his action, it's really my own fault for thinking any politician had the moral fiber, the backbone, the raw guts, to stand up to the corruption, cupidity and flim-flam of Beacon Hill's den of knaves.

A one-party state legislature like Zimbabwe, Iran and the former Soviet Republics is an abomination for our state.

My family and I run three different businesses, and we've survived through several recessions by following two simple economic rules:

1. when revenue is down, 
   
2. you cut expenses.

We don't "like" to cut expenses, but if anyone's expenses are greater than their income, they go broke. It's that simple. Of course it's painful, but so is it painful for the nearly 10% of Bay Staters who are out of work.

If a business fails, its owners and employees stop paying state taxes and go on unemployment creating added burdens on an already reduced state budget. The 25% increase in expenses for most everything we buy makes the problem worse for everyone except our politicians who can ignore economic rules because we gave them permission..

The "right" thing for our pols to have done was to cut their own pay to demonstrate solidarity with their voters and make state government run on the money it was getting under present laws.

Here's what they did instead.

The Democratic dictatorship on Beacon Hill

Beacon Hill, the legislature and the governor, were faced with the same problems of millions of other U.S. businesses and individuals.

The state's revenue is less than it used to be.

Unlike you and me, however,  Beacon Hill doesn't have to follow your rules for what to do when revenues drop.

They simply raised your sales tax because they COULD.  And they have the power to do so because you gave it to them.

To my Democrat friends, I can only say their position on the sales tax is akin to what Samuel Johnson said about sex: "the expense is damnable, the position is ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting."

If Governor Patrick was the man we thought he was, he would have vetoed that 25% sales tax increase even if he knew the Beacon Hill dictatorship could and would override him.

If you question the word dictatorship to describe our legislature, perhaps you should read the definition here:

dic⋅ta⋅tor⋅ship - noun
1. a country, government, or the form of government in which absolute power is exercised by a dictator.
2. absolute, imperious, or overbearing power or control.

That correctly describes our one-party legislature where the Democratic majority is overwhelming and there is no effective "loyal opposition" left.  Like Zimbabwe, Iran and the former Soviet Republics.

And YOU elected them.

Contact your state rep today about their vote on the sales tax:

• Rob O'Leary - State Sen.
  
• Tim Madden - State- Rep.
• Matt Patrick - State Rep.
• Demetrious Atsalis - State Rep.
• Cleon Turner - State Rep.
• Sarah Peake - State Rep.
  

28 comments »

Re-test drivers at 75

Watch the cowards on Beacon Hill cave in to the AARP
85 is too late to test drivers

By Walter Brooks

Another older driver killed someone last week, and it was the fifth such accident in the last three weeks here in Massachusetts, yet our representatives on beacon Hill are still jabbering about passing a law to force drivers OVER 85 to be re-tested.

According to WBUR last week:
"...Legislators are considering several bills that would make it harder for the elderly to keep their licenses. One would require testing every five years for drivers older than 85. Another would protect doctors who notify the Registry of Motor Vehicles if they think a patient is too old to drive..."

According to the Globe last week:
"...The proposals to change driver licensing procedures come after a string of five accidents involving elderly drivers in the past four weeks. In addition to the Stoughton crash, a 93-year-old man drove his car into the entrance of a Wal-Mart in Danvers on June 2; a 73-year-old woman jumped the curb and ran into a crowd of people in Plymouth on June 3; an 86-year-old woman struck and injured a pedestrian in Melrose on Sunday; and an elderly driver pinned a young boy between two cars in a parking garage in North Attleborough on Monday..."

Once again, these small men and women will chose self over service and will in all probability annoy as few voters as possible (and there are certainly fewer over 85 than under), and be responsible for more highway deaths by drivers who should no longer be allowed to drive a car.

A Massachusetts driving license is a privilege, not a right.

Safe driving laws is a right Massachusetts citizens deserve and should demand.

Urge your representative today to endorse legislation to mandate the re-testing of drivers after the age of 75.

BTW, such a law would require this writer to be retested, and anyone who objected is probably aware that they can't pass a simple driving test.

Contact your state rep today:

• Rob O'Leary - State Sen.
  
• Tim Madden - State- Rep.
• Jeff Perry - State Rep.
• Matt Patrick - State Rep.
• Demetrious Atsalis - State Rep.
• Cleon Turner - State Rep.
• Sarah Peake - State Rep.
  

5 comments »

Back Wind Siting Act

Back Wind Siting Act, Berkshire Eagle Editorial
Friday, June 26

Unless we plan on moving back into caves we will continue to need energy, and unless we are content to continue polluting the atmosphere and fueling the scourge of global warming, we will need alternative sources of energy. One of those sources is wind power, which the Berkshires have the potential to supply in considerable quantity. Wind energy developers, however, are hindered by the absence of statewide siting standards. Local communities should have input into these wind turbine siting decisions, and anti-wind zealots should not be allowed to gum up every project regardless of its merits. To address all of these concerns, the Legislature has produced the Wind Energy Siting Reform Act of 2009.

The state produces 7 milliwatts (MW) of energy through wind power, and Governor Patrick wants the state to produce 2,000 MW by 2020. Among the goals of the Green Communities Act passed last year is to clarify rules and regulations pertaining to renewable energy projects and to assure that there is local input and that needless red tape doesn't hinder good proposals. Hence, the reform act.

Wind turbine opponents bristle at being called NIMBYs, but their opposition to the 30 MW Hoosac Wind project in Florida and Monroe leaves them wide open to this charge. The success they have enjoyed in hamstringing the project since 2001 through a variety of appeals is a major reason why the Reform Act must be passed. This project will not violate any gorgeous vistas. Although opponents pay lip service to local input into these projects, town officials in Florida and Monroe support the project that the self-appointed defenders of the mountaintops oppose. The Department of Environmental Protection and Berkshire Superior Court have determined that the project meets wetland standards, yet foes continue to make cynical use of a well-meaning appeals process to stop a project they are against simply because it involves wind power.

The Reform Act requires that statewide wind siting standards be drawn up that will "protect residential neighborhoods, significant scenic and recreational resources, and environmentally sensitive areas." Local conditions can be imposed, but not if they are imposed without merit simply to restrict or stop the project. As such, the Act is not designed to restrict local control of wind projects, as foes claim, but to restrict the ability of opponents to tie these projects in knots for years. It was the unreasonably rabid opposition of foes of Hoosac Wind, and more infamously, the Cape Cod wind project, that led to the Reform Act.

No true environmentalist should be content with America's addiction to fossil fuels as an energy source, which not only pollutes the atmosphere but leaves the United States at the mercy of Middle Eastern potentates and greedy domestic oil producers. We must develop more alternative energy sources, and happily we have a governor and a president who support this effort. That means wind energy. That means solar energy. That means nuclear power and biomass. Every bit of energy produced by these alternatives, no matter how small, reduces our reliance on foreign oil. Every energy source has drawbacks, but none more severe than those of gas, oil and coal.

There are several wind turbine projects proposed for the Berkshires, and not every one of them should pass muster. With approval of the Reform Act, criteria will be established for developers to meet and local residents and officials will have a role in the development process. The Act threatens only the anti-wind ideologues who don't want to be deprived of monkey wrenches to toss into the works. We urge the Berkshire legislative delegation to advocate passage of the Wind Siting Reform Act.

The Berkshire Eagle, June 27, 2009.http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_12693449?source=most_emailed

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Enough already with the Michael Jackson distortions

Jackson is the last example for America's media to extoll and eulogize

   The Apollo theater in Harlem yesterday was swarming with idol-worshipers. Photo by Pat Brooks.

By Walter Brooks

    The infamous interview

Michael Jackson had all but disappeared from America's media since he escaped conviction as a pedophile, and for good reason.

Anyone who watched the disturbing three day interview with a British journalist who spent eight months with Jackson almost a decade ago where he explained his love for sleeping with little boys, must feel disgusted at the non-stop coverage today of this disturbed fifty-year old ex-star.

During that 2003 BBC interview by Martin Bashir, it emerged that children still slept overnight at Jackson's house, despite allegations of abuse, which the singer has always denied, which were made a decade earlier in 1993.

If that isn't enough, the baby dangling incident later with one of the babies he bought, should and did remove him from any rational fan's attention.

He's been secluded in Arab hideaways ever since.

Love his music, but distain the man.

24 comments »

The Boston Globe's Business Realities Should be Totten's Focus

The Newspaper Guild president is not serving his members well
What anyone should know before commenting on this issue

by Lou Phelps

Dan Totten, Boston Newspaper Guild president at The Boston Globe, is not serving his members well. His letter to New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. this week should serve to demonstrate to the newspaper's readers that this particular union's leadership is unwilling to publicly acknowledge the core issues of the business model of The Boston Globe, and the changing newspaper industry that The New York Times company must face.

New York Times Co. is publicly traded. Anyone can read the company's financial data.

The New York Times Co. is publicly traded. Anyone can read the company's financial data at www.sec.gov. Large companies operate with certain levels of borrowing. The New York Times Company is carrying $760 million in long-term debt, which is frankly not high compared to the debt of many other news companies.

Those loans require maintaining cash-to-debt ratios, and those ratios are getting tougher to adhere to. If you have $760 million in long-term debt, the banks want ratios today of 8 to 1, or even better. That would mean that The New York Times Co. must make $95 million in profit. Instead, it lost money in the first quarter of 2009.

In better times, banks were allowing newspaper companies to operate with 10 to 1 or even 11 to 1 cash-to-debt ratios, but those days are gone. And, running at low cash-to-debt ratios causes banks to increase interest rates on those loans...chewing up cash that could be used to pay for reporters.

Totten's Guild needs to stop its knee-jerk rhetoric about jobs and acknowledge that technology has provided a change in the required number of reporters needed.

More importantly, Totten's Guild needs to stop its knee-jerk rhetoric about jobs and acknowledge that technology has provided a change in the required number of reporters needed, and embrace the opportunities of "e-Journalism."

I define "e-Journalism" as the facilitation of access to our news sources we now have - the opportunities afforded us in the newsroom of hyper-connectivity through e-mail, cell phones and Blackberrys - to reach our news sources in record time.

No longer are we wandering through City Hall hoping to find a city councilor for a quote, or trying to catch a news source in the parking lot. Congressmen and their staffs are texting us their thoughts after a controversial vote from their Blackberrys, still sitting in the session. All good journalists have the cell phone numbers of all their sources. We're gathering news at record speeds. A reporter can produce more stories per week than in the past.

Additionally, news is pushed out to us 24 hours a day by local police departments, school administrations, municipalities and the public, all of whom are feeding us news tips in unprecedented fashion. We're overwhelmed by incoming news, and the online news sources are literally endless.

The Web allows a journalist to do background research on a topic or individual before they even talk to the interviewee, dramatically cutting down the news-gathering process and actually enhancing our ability to write better stories.

These are facts. And those facts mean that a daily newspaper can do a great job with less reporters.

For the Guild to ignore these realities and suggest that its members should not alter their pay scales as part of the new landscape of our industry, serves no one.

Newspaper editors who are embracing these opportunities through training of seasoned journalists and positive attitudes in the newsroom will help their companies survive. Those seasoned journalists, such as in the newsroom of The Boston Globe, are critical; they bring context about their communities and critical news sources to the reporting process. Hand-wringing about how management doesn't understand or care about quality journalism, achieves nothing.

Advertising and revenue models for our industry are changing. The New York Times Company's total revenues were down 28.9% in the first quarter 2009 versus in the same period of 2008. The NYT's or Boston Globe's advertising staffs are not failing to do their jobs; rather, technology is allowing national, regional and local businesses to have their own web sites and use various outbound e-marketing techniques to reach customers - and they have less need for print advertising. There is less advertising revenue coming in.

For the Guild to ignore these realities and suggest that its members should not alter their pay scales as part of the new landscape of our industry, serves no one.

Never has there been a more heightened level of news readership by the public, even by the youngest readers. Our industry has only to evolve our staffs to embrace and get excited about providing combined print, online and mobile delivery systems of the news.

And if a staff member won't evolve... they need to get out of the boat... so it can continue to float.

Editor's Note: Lou Phelps is the president of Phelps, Cutler & Associates, Savannah, GA., the former co-owner and co-publisher of The Mariner Newspapers on Boston's South Shore, the historic community newspaper group now owned by Gatehouse. In the 1990's Phelps, Cutler & Associates were media consultants to The Boston Globe, and she was on-site at The Globe the day the sale to The New York Times was announced.
   Ms. Phelps is Chair of the Finance Committee of the Board of Directors of KPC Media Group, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and is also currently the publisher of Savannah Daily News and a group of niche, print publications in the Savannah, GA. metro area.

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