Up on Long Hill We Opine on AOC and Her Big Deal

Below is my column as submitted to the Sturbridge Times Town & Country Living Magazine for the March, 2019 issue.

We’ll Need a Lot of Green For This Deal

By Richard Morchoe

The young congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez popularly known as AOC has made quite a splash in the new Congress.  She and others aligned with her have come up with a set of proposals called The Green New Deal.

Her program could be termed secular millenarian as she wants to stop the world from ending while solving all our problems from healthcare to unemployment.

How bad is the situation?  According to AOC: “...we're like, 'The world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate change...?"

That her words display the usual illiteracy of generations after mine (“we’re like” might mean “we think” or “we believe,” but who knows?) should be expected.  

To be brutally bipartisan, the President will often use similarly ridiculous locutions.  

But, we digress.  The question is, who believes the dire prediction and the necessity of her program?  The agenda she is proposing consists of the following:

1. Upgrade all existing buildings
2. 100% clean power
3. Support family farms
4. Universal access to healthy food
5. Zero-emission vehicle infrastructure
6. Remove greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere
7. Eliminate unfair competition
8. Affordable access to electricity
9. Create high-quality union jobs that pay prevailing wages
10. Guaranteeing a job with a family sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations and retirement

There was one part not mentioned above that I was completely behind.  A line on her website called for supporting "economic security to all those who are unable or unwilling to work."  The Congresswoman had me at “unwilling.”  As soon as the bill was signed, your columnist would be in sloth mode for good.  Unfortunately, when people noticed that, her team did not so much walk as run it back.

It is an ambitious agenda that will take more than 12 years.  If one truly believes we have only that dozen, the reasonable course of action would be to borrow as much money as possible for the short duration left and party like it’s 2031 (i.e. 12 years hence).

The question is, is she right?  Are we really on the way to the end of existence?  We referred the question to our official think tank, The Long Hill Institute for the Study of Climate Change (LHIftSoCC for short).  After a brief deliberation, followed by a well-earned siesta, they announced a finding as follows, “Heck if we know.”

Clearly, this was not satisfactory and it was necessary to insist on some elaboration.  The institute told us that almost everyone who opines about climate change is utilizing “argument from authority.”  What that means is that just about all the partisans of human caused climate change are using the writings or publications of experts.  The opponents do the same thing.

The appeal to experts depends on both the intelligence and honesty of the savants if it is to be trusted.  AOC got the 12-year number from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which the Guardian called the world’s leading climate scientists.  Their names and credentials were not listed, but we can give them the benefit of the doubt and agree they are not dropouts from East Overshoe Junior College.

I was then stung by an accusation from the Long Hill Institute that I too used argument from authority.  Of course, they were correct. Your columnist has little access to the scholarly data and his ability to understand it limited in the sense of being non-existent.

Because the coverage of climate change is so one sided in the mainstream media, one has to search to find people who disagree with the accepted narrative.  Some of them are a bit sketchy with dubious credentials.  Thus, we have Richard Lindzen.  Lindzen is a distinguished senior fellow in the Center for the Study of Science. He is also emeritus professor of meteorology at MIT, where he was the Alfred P. Sloan Professor, beginning in 1983. Prior to that he was the Robert P. Burden Professor of Dynamic Meteorology at Harvard University.

He has other achievements, but once you know he taught at a diploma mill like MIT, who cares?

Lindzen is attacked by the proponents of the idea of human caused climate change mercilessly for disagreeing.  No matter, he is fun to listen to.  When he gets into the science, he loses me the same way his opponents do.

What’s your average walking around citizen to do, or rather believe?

Again, I must emphasize the science escapes me, but as mentioned above, it also does not adhere to almost everyone else.  I do suspect those who must use ad hominems and call their opponents names such as “deniers.”

The former Boston Globe writer Ellen Goodman started the ball rolling in 2007: “Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.”

In that Globe column, there was no science from the lady.  She, like the rest of us, utilized the work of others.  Goodman did make one statement that did seem original, “The certainty of the human role is now somewhere over 90 percent. Which is about as certain as scientists ever get.”

That is a bit embarrassing.  Scientists agree on the certainty of scientific laws 100%, always.  They don’t meet at conferences and say, “ya know, I’m gonna give the law of gravity a 75% today and if I’m feeling real good, a 90% tomorrow.”  Now being a generous soul, I’m not going to call Ellen out as a denier.

Again, let me emphasize that I am not a denier, I’m a don’t knower.  I trust Professor Lindzen more than others, but it is only a hunch.  As to climate change itself, I should be shocked if it did not happen, just the causes might be in question.

There is an area of the environment where I feel confidence in my opinion.  As a beekeeper, I’ve seen the struggle to keep our little friends become more difficult every year.

The link between the Monsanto pesticide glysophate and declining bee health is convincing, but here I am still taking my stand based on science promulgated by others, with the addition of personal experience.

So, I have to cut AOC some slack, though her program is impossible.

Your columnist, is however brave enough to offer AOC a bet in a sly way and is willing to wager a significant sum that we will not be dead due to environmental causes by the end of 12 years.

If I win she has to pay.  If I lose, she won’t be around to collect.

The High Life-Gambling in Western Massachusetts

Below is the column for the February, 2019 issue of the Sturbridge Times Town & Country Living Magazine.

We don't make as much stuff in New England as we used to so some believe a casino is the ticket for jobs and urban revitalization.  We are not so sure.

Betting on Springfield

By Richard Morchoe

The Game, shown on Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre (1965), starred Cliff Robertson and his then wife, Dina Merrill.  He was someone who wandered into the wrong place. Robertson played Quincey Parke who came upon a high stakes game of baccarat at a casino frequented by society.

Parke was a fish out of water in a place of glamour.  Merrill plays Maralise who takes Robertson’s character under her wing.  Parke is on a winning streak, but to stay in the game, must dress the part and wear formal clothing.

Eventually, the high life is too much for him and Parke expires.    It takes a lot to keep up the pretense of being upper class.  Monaco is not for everyone.

During the late 60s when I was pretending to be a college student, a friend and I hitchhiked to Daytona for Spring Week.  Someone told us it was better and cheaper in Nassau and the flight was in our budget.

It was a great time and we were able to stay in a rooming house for $2.50 a night each.   Not the Ritz, it was easier to rough it at that age.

There was a lot going on.  Aristotle Onassis and Jacqueline Kennedy had arrived on his yacht.  Yacht was an understatement.  The vessel was a converted corvette.  No, that was not a Chevy sports car, but a class of small warships used by many navies, though not ours.  Nassau was a place frequented by the wealthy, as well as near derelict collegians on vacation.

Nassau also had a casino in what was known as Paradise Island.  True, it was unlike the grand spots on the Riviera, but it was not without class.  To be admitted, one had to wear at least a jacket and tie.  We put on blazers and our only cravats and went over.

That evening, if we weren’t the least best dressed, it was by accident.  The dealers and croupiers were all formally attired and the guests, though not as well accoutered as Monte Carlo, were making an effort to look good.

We played the slots and I made one pass at roulette.  Even at that age, the realization that all was in favor of the house led us to put a quick end to our participation.  There was enough debauchery going on elsewhere that coming home sunburnt and broke was easily achievable.

Around that time, our nation was still somewhat puritanical.  Here in New England, that is our settlers’ legacy. When New Hampshire instituted its first in the nation lottery in 1964, it was a big break with the past.  Supposedly, our governor, Endicott “Chub” Peabody, had warned the Granite State’s John King not to sign the sweepstakes bill.

Though known as a liberal, Chub was a direct descendant of the stern Puritans who settled the region.  There is only so much one can deviate from ancestry.

Eventually, the Bay State would give over and why not?  In urban areas we already had the lottery. It was just not a government run enterprise.  The logic was inescapable, besides the Commonwealth has never seen a money raising impost it didn’t like and this one would fleece a willing populace.

Still, casinos were nowhere in sight other than in that land of sin, Nevada.  That’s a place anything goes.  The Mustang Ranch, after all, had no wild horses.

That would change.  Tribes of the indigenous nations began fighting back against Caucasian oppressors by taking them to the cleaners at the gaming tables.  Their reservations being at least semi-sovereign, it was difficult to tell them what not to do on their own land.

Tribal nations opening gaming halls were mostly in western states.  Here in Nova Anglia, the descendants of the natives have been much assimilated and in our neighbor, Connecticut, there was no federally recognized tribe.  

The Pequots had been thoroughly defeated in an early colonial war.  Over the centuries they had only held on to their tiny reservation by a thread. Yet, in the 20th Skip Hayward, a one-eighth Pequot would revitalize them, secure federal recognition and, wait for it, get a casino.

That casino, known as Foxwoods, is quite a complex and might compare to those of Europe, except for who they let in.  That would be you and me, folks.  Yup, the great unwashed are welcomed with open arms.  In our family’s only foray into the Southern Connecticut pleasure palace, we encountered a complex to cater to every legal (at least) sybaritic taste imaginable when not gambling.

We had not come to take a flyer on augmenting our meager fortune.  The Peguots have put up a wonderful museum that documents their existence going back to before they arrived and that was our destination.  After, we went to the buffet, traipsing through the gambling areas enroute.  No one was exquisitely attired, but it did look like the tribe was raking it in.

If one New England casino worked, why not more?  That idea had occurred to others.  The Mohegan Tribe, who allied with the Brits to beat up the Pequots in the 17th Century, wanted and got Mohegan Sun.  It looked like the Town of Palmer to the west of Sturbridge would get one, but the voters could not be swayed by the full court public relations press of the backers.

Springfield, though, would succumb.

There is Industrial Revolution history in Springfield.  The famous Armory produced guns for many wars. The gasoline engine was invented there and it was home to the still iconic Indian Motorcycle.  In the prior two centuries it was known as “The City of Progress.”  Less so now.

Would Springfield be nothing without gaming?  The city did work hard to get it.  Maybe there were other businesses that might have served as well.   It would seem a casino is an idea that arises when there is not a better one.

Last spring, with much hoopla, MGM Springfield, opened its doors and has been operating since.  There have been claims that it is meeting expectations while a morning radio commentator said the several gambling dens now available are sharing a market that has not increased.

Though not feeling overly drawn to the experience, my wife and I found ourselves in Springfield on a Sunday afternoon and easily got a parking space on State Street close to the doors.  Upon entering the din of machines was inescapable.  As one got nearer, there were blinking lights to accompany the sound as players poked and prodded buttons.  Everything on the machines that flashed on and off was of bright, garish colors.

Interestingly, for a weekend afternoon, it did not seem even half full.  Among the blackjack tables, not as suffused with the sensory overload elsewhere, there were a few dealers unoccupied and looking bored.

The gamblers at machines were intense.  They seemed to see nothing else other than the banging and ringing going on in front of them.  My wife noticed that none of them, as well as people walking around were smiling.  Unlike Disney World, it was not the “Happiest Place on Earth.”

Of course, there are dining options.  Cal Mare seemed Italian seafood themed, but also had pizza and meat.  It looked appealing and almost empty.  The Chandler Steakhouse was closed up tight.

One spot doing a roaring business was TAP Sports Bar.   The clientele were there to watch football.  Beer, pub food, and sports on TV packed the house.  If there was any deeper meaning than an abiding love for the Patriots, it was beyond us.

The poker room was active, but even there a big table was empty.  As you entered that room, there was a bureau with pamphlets on it.  One read “Anything You Need To Know About Gambling?  The other would tell you to “Know when to step away.”  The positioning was not obtrusive.  No one was looking for the literature anyway, and I was the only customer.

As not to the manor born, it is impossible for me to say why the upper classes would want to while away their time at the tables in Southern France.  Paradise Island was more understandable.  People were away for vacation and escape and would go home remembering that part as well as the beaches and nightlife.

MGM Springfield was no fun.  One supposes it might be, maybe once a year and taking in a show.  The players looked like they were working harder than at a job.  All this despite the management’s efforts to give it some allure. 

In the Twilight Zone Episode, “A Nice Place to Visit,” a man arrives in a casino and wins everything and can have all he wants.  He thinks himself in heaven.  Soon, however, he is bored and tells his guide he would rather go to hell.  The guide tells him he is in hell. 

Tanglewood-Near Heaven in Lenox

Cabin Fever in Massachusetts during the winter months can be bleak and drury.  A trip to summer in the mind's eye might ameliorate that somewhat.  Below is my Sturbridge Times Town & Country Living Magazine column from September, 2018about a wonderful place to spend a day.

Tour of Duty at Tanglewood

By Richard Morchoe

When this issue of the Sturbridge Times Town & Country Magazine is mailed out and on newsstands, your columnist will have completed his third summer as a volunteer for the season of music at Tanglewood.  

People volunteer for many reasons.  Some might say they want to “give back.”  Moi, I get much more out of my time in the Berkshires than I give.

It may seem odd that a man with no musical ability would want to travel down the Pike to the far western town of Lenox several times a summer to help people find their seats.  Just because one can’t make music doesn’t mean they cannot listen with immense pleasure while helping out.

I never had much interest in classical music until college.  A sound coming from a classmate’s dorm room more than caught my attention and I borrowed the album.

It was Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, popularly known as “The Emperor Concerto” with Leopold Stokowski conducting and Glenn Gould as piano soloist.  Such a rich sound meant it was love at first listen.

Graduation was approaching and we students were all getting ready to go to our separate lives.  Wanting to keep the album, I wrestled with my conscience and lost, Sadly, it was returned.

Though it was back in the ancient days of vinyl, the cost was not prohibitive and not long after, a version with Leonard Bernstein conducting and Rudolf Serkin as pianist began my album collection.

It would be many years before I would experience Tanglewood, and when it happened, it was immediate infatuation.  When you go there, the grounds are so beautiful that you would love it even if you did not come for the music.  That is, if you take the time to explore.

As time went on, the feeling of wanting to be more a part of it took hold.  Obviously, anything to do with the music was beyond me.  While exploring the Tanglewood website in winter, I came across a line that had the word, Volunteer.  Following the links led me to a page that told one how to apply. 

I filled out the application and waited.  Invited in, I found myself with another hopeful undergoing a pleasant interview with Erin Asbury, Manager of Volunteer services.  Notification of acceptance came and with it the requirement for training.  They were not going to unleash us on an unsuspecting public without some knowledge of the basics.

Next was the welcome back event and issuance of badges in a packet of information.  Mine came with the first-year red lanyard.  I was now official.

The protocol is to arrive an hour before the concert and have a meeting, usually with Tammy Lynch Director of Front of House Management.  Tammy will apprise us if there is anything out of the ordinary we need to know.  Then it is off to our posts as ushers.  Our job is to guide those who need help to their seats, and also be aware if anyone is having a problem

My first working concert was on a July, 2016 evening in the Koussevitzky shed. when the Boston Pops brass and percussion sections performed with world class drum corps including the Boston Crusaders. You may ask yourself why drum corps?  It turns out many orchestra brass musicians start out there.

The last piece they all played that night was the 1812 Overture, which you know if you’ve watched the pops on July 4th.  To give people an idea what they were in for, ear plugs were handed out. I don’t know if Tchaikovsky meant it to be played with this much brass, but it was loud.

In my three years of volunteering, there has been a performance that has stood out each summer.  In 2016, it was Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.  As a first-year usher, they pair one with an experienced veteran.  After, the man watching me related that someone had complained to him that the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) had played it too fast.  Hey, as a dilettante, what do I know?  We both thought it excellent.  If that was too fast, I hope the BSO never slows down.

In 2017, there would be a wonderful surprise in Ozawa Hall, a lovely space named after the former BSO Music Director. On a Wednesday in July as the evening light declined, Apollo’s Fire, a small Baroque orchestra under the direction of Jeannette Sorrell took the stage. They were there to play Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, but began with a piece called La Bergamasca by the Italian Baroque composer, Marco Uccellini.  I had never heard it before, but I shall never forget it. 

The energy Ms. Sorrell and her ensemble brought to the stage was memorable.  Violinist Olivier Brault was superb as were the other soloists and performers.  If you don’t believe me, it was recorded on Youtube.  Entering “Apollo’s Fire Bergamasca” in the Youtube search window should get you there.

This Summer is the Centennial of a famous man who had a huge connection to Tanglewood.  Much was planned to celebrate the life in music of Leonard Bernstein.  Saturday, July 28, on screens at the Shed, they showed the movie West Side Story and the BSO played Bernstein’s music as the film ran.  Everyone in the audience was thrilled, including this usher.

The last Sunday in August, the BSO plays Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.  People who never listen to classical music have heard the Ode to Joy.  Though one might never tire of it, The Ninth on recording does not compare to hearing it live at Tanglewood.  Every summer, I look forward to seeing The Tanglewood Festival Chorus rise as one to sing Beethoven’s adaption of Schiller’s words. It will never grow old.

As the last notes fade away, so is summer on the wane.  Life goes on and there are other tasks and pleasures, but be assured your columnist is anticipating the posting of the schedule for the 2019 season.  That is my favorite harbinger of summer.  Symphony Hall is wonderful, but there is nothing like beautiful music on a lovely day in the Berkshires.

Feeling the bern for Sanders' Education plan - My column in the April 2016 Sturbridge Times Magazine

He shows some promise

“Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.”

The words of H.L. Mencken must resonate with anyone paying attention this election season. Whether it's the open ended promise to “Make America Great Again” or the laundry list of Bernie Sanders.

At least Senator Sanders has also provided the electorate with a method of payment for his promises. His litany of programs each has a tax, tax increase or closed loophole that will do the trick. That is if, as the song goes, “the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars.”

Still, one should not get too excited about what is proffered during campaign season. If you've been around a bit, there is the perennial favorite, “middle class tax cut.” If everyone who made that pledge had fulfilled it, we would by now have negative tax rates.

The man from Vermont also wants to give the American worker a $15 an hour minimum wage. On the surface, that sounds like a winner. It does beg the question, why is $15 the magic number? Why not $20 or $50? I'll let the candidate's fans handle that one.

There is one of the Senator's proposals that does almost warm my heart. I say almost as I used to have a dog in the fight, but no longer. Several years ago, the looming tuition that was staring us in the face would have meant an eager embrace of one of the signature features of the man's campaign.

Bernie Sanders has proposed that public colleges and universities be tuition free. His rationale appears reasonable.

This is not a radical idea. Last year, Germany eliminated tuition because they believed that charging students $1,300 per year was discouraging Germans from going to college. Next year, Chile will do the same. Finland, Norway, Sweden and many other countries around the world also offer free college to all of their citizens. If other countries can take this action, so can the United States of America.

Well, if the Europe can do it, why not us? After all, does not public education benefit everyone?

So can it work? To look at the problem, we again turn to our official think tank, the Long Hill Institute of Educational Policy or LHIoEP for short. After their usual dillettantish investigation they were able to forthrightly come to the conclusion, maybe.

The countries that the Senator cites do have free tuition. How do they do it? In the case of Norway, there is a simple answer. Like most Scandinavian nations, there is a belief in equality so everyone can attain a post-secondary degree if they want it. It works maybe because not everyone wants it.

In spite of the near costless education, if your parents didn't attend college, you probably won't either. So why wouldn't people take advantage of it? One reason from an Hechinger Report article of last June notes that blue collar jobs pay well enough that everyone is more or less middle class. Kind of like when this country had no dearth of such work.

So if the whole country does not go, it is affordable. Of course, the Sanders plan claims that his system of paying for it will allow everyone to attend. His plan should appeal to all.

Whether or not the American people were saved by the bailout in 2008 is arguable. There was however one class that was, the bankers. The candidate wants to levy a fraction of a percent tax on “Wall Street speculators who nearly destroyed the economy seven years ago.” Certainly, we all want to see them pay, but if periodically we have to bail them out, we may have to figure something else out.

There is another problem. In theory if you tax something you get less of it and if you subsidize it, you get more. Some young people might have done a cost benefit analysis and decided that the debt made it not worth it. They might not come to that conclusion if it is near free. Some may go through school and come out with a career and a life. Many will major in fields lacking rigor and prospects. It will have been a pleasant four years at winter camp, but for naught.

That this is already happening is evident from the lampooning of grads who can't get jobs in their field as is heard on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion. His retinue will occasionally do a sketch about The Professional Organization of English Majors or P.O.E. M. The words, “Do you want fries with that” have been uttered.

Another consequence is the non-public colleges that will go out of business because competing with free is too much of a disadvantage. Places like Harvard, which is a hedge fund with courses, need not worry. Some small yet solid institutions may go to the wall.

Norway like the other Scandinavian countries is not huge. Even with its North Sea oil, it has to adjust means to ends realistically. In this country, reality rarely rears its ugly head in primary season.

the Long Hill Institute of Educational Policy has pinpointed one group that is passionately supporting Bernie 's plan. College administrators are audibly salivating.