Five Star Fiction's Hero Gets Beaten Up - Again. I loved it!

North of Nowhere by Steve Hamilton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I gave each of the first three titles in this series four starts. It's time to be honest and admit, "It was amazing." His craft is such that his artistry is subtle and "off screen." Hamilton gets better and better. The satisfying conclusion left questions hanging about the fate of a couple of the characters. I find myself willing to live with that uncertainty, and curious if their fate will unfold in one of the future volumes. I can tell you this: I am leaving for the library after writing this, to return the book and get my hands on the next one in the series. This is an excellent series, one in which our hero continues to get the heck beat out of him, yet moves on because that is the least important (which is not to say the least painful) consideration as he chooses to do “the next right thing.” Steve Hamilton has given us, in Alex McKnight, a hero we can be proud to “know.”

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Risk and struggle frighten parents but enable children to GROW!

This short article makes me want to stand up and cheer - or maybe just go outside and play! As I said in my "Handwritten Notes vs. Laptops in Lectures: Ease vs. Effectiveness!" post, I will soon talk more about the disaster for a bird if you help it break out of its shell, or let it remain snug in its nest, or for a caterpillar if you interrupt its struggle to emerge.

the Boston Globe
OPINION | PETER GRAY
Let kids take risks when they play
By Peter Gray | JUNE 20, 2014

IT’S THE start of summer, and many parents are wondering: What will the children do? When I was a child in the 1950s, the answer was easy. The children would play. We played freely with other children, in our own chosen ways, away from adults. We got bored and overcame boredom. We embarked on adventures, took risks, sometimes hurt ourselves, got into trouble, and figured out how to get out of it. We played in ways that our parents never knew about or wanted to know about.

In such play we acquired knowledge and skills that cannot be taught in school. We learned how to take initiative, make our own decisions, solve our own problems, get along with peers as equals, experience fear and manage it, experience anger and overcome it. We also discovered our passionate interests, pursued them, and became skilled at them — interests that for many of us later became careers. In short, we learned the attitudes and skills essential to a satisfying adulthood.

Free play, without adult intervention, is nature’s way of teaching children how to be adults. Everywhere else children are directed and protected by adults, but in play children are the adults. That’s play’s primary purpose, but we undermine that purpose when we supervise or intervene.

Over the past 60 years, we’ve seen a huge decline in children’s freedom and opportunity to play on their own. Over this same period, we’ve also seen a dramatic increase in the rates of depression and anxiety disorders among young people — five to eight times what they were in the 1950s, based on standard clinical questionnaires given to normative groups over the decades.

Our children — and the young of other mammals — love to play in moderately risky ways. Through such play, they acquire the physical, social, and emotional capacities required for healthy development. They learn to get along with one another by playing socially, and they learn to deal with emergencies by playing in ways that entail risk. For example, young monkeys playfully swing from branch to branch, high enough up that a fall would hurt; goat kids run along cliffs and leap awkwardly into the air, so that landing is difficult. Young mammals of many species playfully fight and chase one another, and they occasionally get hurt in the process.

Why is such play so attractive? It can cause injury, so why hasn’t natural selection weeded out the innate desire for it? We have some clues from laboratory experiments.

Researchers have found that when young rats or monkeys are deprived of play during critical periods in their development, the animals grow up as emotional cripples. They are psychologically paralyzed when placed in novel, slightly frightening environments to which normally raised animals would adapt. They alternate between incapacitating fear and inappropriate aggression when placed with unfamiliar peers. So it is no surprise to me that play-deprived human children grow up lacking the social and emotional skills required to deal well with life’s inevitable stressors. They may also grow up deficient in the abilities to think creatively, take initiative, and assume responsibility.

We have deprived children of free, venturesome play, presumably for their own good, but in the process we have denied them the opportunity to learn how to be resilient by playing in risky, emotion-inducing ways.

Our children need more freedom, not more adult control.

Peter Gray is a research professor of psychology at Boston College and author of “Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life.’’

Who pays when nonprofits don't?

The article below, from the Globe South section of today's Boston Globe, raises thought-provoking questions. As Library Director for the "City of Champions," I watched the same men drink themselves to oblivion outside the library - on a daily basis - until they passed out. The EMTs and Firefighters were on a first name basis with them. Each incident, per this article, "cost about $1,000 a call." That's a lot of books and computer access!

Ward 2 City Councilor Tom Monahan calls Brockton “the social services capital of the state." Perspective is important in this discussion. People helping others may feel, "We are doing The Lord's work" or "this is not for ourselves," and thus should be exempt from the burden of taxation. However, the particular mission does not reduce the burden, or lessen the cost to the municipality, of ambulance calls, police and fire protection, water and sewer and other public services. Americans continue to be among the most generous people on our planet, and the working poor and disappearing lower middle class, who can barely get by, give most generously. This does not liberate them from paying their taxes and supporting the "general welfare," and the same standard needs to be applied fairly, to all of our enterprises, public and private, for-profit and nonprofit.

The Boston Globe
Brockton mayor wants nonprofits to pay
By Michele Morgan Bolton | GLOBE CORRESPONDENT | JUNE 15, 2014

Sticking to a campaign promise not to raise taxes, Brockton Mayor Bill Carpenter released a $375 million budget last week that omits a 2.5 percent increase allowed under the tax limits of Proposition 2½.

Instead, the new mayor said he is on a quest for new revenue to fill in gaps, and in addition to selling about $700,000 worth of municipally owned properties in recent weeks, he has asked 21 of the city’s major nonprofit organizations to forge voluntary payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreements with the city.

In negotiating such agreements, Brockton would join a number of other area communities, including Easton and Bridgewater, that receive similar annual payments.

Brockton has $5.4 billion in total property values, according to John Condon, the city’s finance director. Of that, about $1.01 billion is tax-exempt, he said.

Carpenter said he is only looking for “a piece of a piece” of what an organization would pay if it was not tax-exempt. Agencies on Carpenter’s list own at least $500,000 each in real property and do not include churches and small groups that are struggling.

Under the plan, said Bob Buckley, Carpenter’s chief of staff, the nonprofits would contribute 10 percent of what they would normally be assessed in taxes the first year, 20 percent the second year, and 30 percent from then on.

“We need to generate revenue; it’s as simple as that,’’ Buckley said. “You are seeing a budget crisis in full swing.”

Still, it is unclear how much of a difference such payments would make. According to a 2012 study by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a Cambridge-based think tank, only a fraction of the state’s 32,000-plus nonprofits make such payments and the average amount collected is less than one-quarter of 1 percent of their general revenue.

In Brockton, targeted agencies include Father Bill’s & MainSpring, a homeless shelter and housing advocacy group; Signature Healthcare Brockton Hospital; High Point Treatment Centers Inc.; and the Old Colony YMCA.

Ward 2 City Councilor Tom Monahan said nonprofits make meaningful contributions in Brockton but they also drain public resources at a time that fire and emergency services cost about $1,000 a call.

Brockton’s Fire Department, for example, answered 294 calls from the Father Bill’s & MainSpring shelter last year, he said.

“At $1,000 a call, that’s almost $300,000 right there,’’ Monahan said.

There were also 143 calls from High Point and 104 calls from the Neighborhood Health Center, Monahan said. Some nonprofits like Brockton Hospital make money but opt to reinvest in themselves, he said.

“We are the social services capital of the state,’’ Monahan said, “and we aren’t getting anything in return.’’

A hospital spokeswoman did not return a request for comment, nor did executives at High Point or the YMCA.

Father Bill’s & MainSpring executive director John Yazwinski said part of the organization’s mission has been to reduce the number of people sleeping outside on city streets.

And while the agency shelters 255 people a night, the state has not raised its reimbursement rate in 14 years, Yazwinski said, adding that he fields ongoing requests for more services and beds in Plymouth and Wareham.

Father Bill’s does not make payments for its North Main Street shelter, but it does pay $10,000 a year in lieu of taxes on a 32-unit housing facility on Spring Street, officials said, and another $2,710 annual payment goes to the town of Hingham for the six-unit Commander Anderson House for veterans.

“Eighty-seven cents of every dollar goes right to the people we assist,’’ Yazwinski said. “We feel we are helping the community.”

Bridgewater Town Manager Michael Dutton said the town has received a $51,000 gift the past three years from Bridgewater State University, and last year the institution offered another $115,000 to be split among highway, police, and fire needs.

The town also receives about $279,000 from the Bridgewater Correctional Complex, he said.

“These efforts greatly depend on how good an agreement the town can make,’’ Dutton said.

Nearby, Stonehill College contributes about $40,000 a year to the town of Easton, according to college spokesman Martin McGovern.

It is appropriate for nonprofits to make payments to their host communities but it has to be within reason, said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Association, a business-backed organization focused on state and local fiscal, tax, and economic policies.

“If you can raise a little more money it’s helpful, especially if you’re not going to raise taxes at all,’’ he said. “But some of these groups are barely holding on.”

Carpenter is doing the right thing by setting the bar at properties valued at $500,000 and up, he said. But seeking 30 percent of that worth is ambitious, Widmer said.

Michele Morgan Bolton can be reached at michelebolton@live.com.

How wonderful to see an author succeed in these traditional ways!

Laurie Cavanaugh's interview in today's Brockton Enterprise gives author Patry Francis a chance to praise Brockton pizza and Brockton Public Library, where she is speaking this afternoon. If not for already having tickets for this afternoon's Red Sox game, I would be there. I plan to "check out" (library pun intended) her books. Her second novel, “The Orphans of Race Point,” has been selected by The Boston Globe as a summer read and by the Literary Guild and the Book of the Month Club as a featured alternate. How wonderful to see an author succeed in these traditional ways!

The Enterprise

Author mines Brockton roots in new novel
'The Orphans of Race Point' author Patry Francis to speak Saturday at Brockton library
By [sic] Interview with Brockton resident Laurie Cavanaugh
Posted Jun. 14, 2014 @ 12:01 am

Author and Brockton native Patry Francis says the city has influenced her writings in many instances. Francis, who is scheduled to speak Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Brockton Public Library, discusses her recently released novel, “The Orphans of Race Point” and her Brockton ties:

QUESTION: Your second novel, “The Orphans of Race Point,” came out on May 6 and has already been selected by The Boston Globe as a summer read and by the Literary Guild and the Book of the Month Club as a featured alternate. How surprised were you by the book's reception?

ANSWER: It has been so fantastic to see the response. My editor told me the novel had been selected for Literary Guild and Book of the Month before it was announced, but the Globe pick was completely unexpected. My aunt, who lives in Bridgewater, was the first to spot it as she was perusing her Sunday paper. It was a thrill for both of us. The best part, though, is hearing from readers who are moved enough to respond personally.

QUESTION: Author George F. Higgins, who wrote “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” (published in 1970), was also from Brockton originally. What are your Brockton connections?

ANSWER: I was born in Brockton, attended the old Shaw School, East Junior High, and graduated from BHS when it still had double sessions. After graduation, I left the city for college, but my parents, Richard and Eleanor (Heney) Doody, stayed in our house on a little dead-end road off Crescent Street until they retired. It has always been home.

QUESTION: What part do your Brockton years play in your writing?

ANSWER: The tight-knit Portuguese fishing community I write about in “The Orphans of Race Point” reminds me of the hardworking people I knew in Brockton, which is probably one reason I was drawn to them. When I was growing up, most of my extended family lived in the city or nearby; and until my grandmother’s health failed, there were usually a group of cousins running around my grandparents’ house on Belcher Avenue on Sundays. My parents were active in their church and community; they loved to entertain and they taught by example what it meant to be there when others needed you. In that way, they weren’t different from many people I knew as a child – or the characters who appear in my novels.

QUESTION: The trade paperback edition of your first novel, “The Liar’s Diary” (Dutton, 2007), came out in January 2008, just as you were facing a serious health challenge. How has the experience of writing, publishing and promoting “The Orphans of Race Point” been different?

ANSWER: 2007 was one of the most exciting years of my life and one of the most challenging. When the novel came out in hardcover in February, my publisher sent me on a national book tour. It was particularly wonderful because neither my husband nor I had ever been to the West coast. Then, in late November, just as I was gearing up to promote the paperback, I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. Once again, community, like the kind I’d known in Brockton, stepped in to help, but this time, it was a group of writers and bloggers I’d met online. They put aside their own work to organize, promote and write about my work on publication day. With “The Orphans of Race Point,” I’m keenly aware of what a privilege it is to get out and speak to readers. It may sound like a cliche, but every day is a gift.

QUESTION: For readers wondering whether to read it, how would you describe “The Orphans of Race Point?”

ANSWER: The novel connects two savage crimes, separated by 20 years, and explores the lifelong affect on the children involved. There’s a strong element of mystery and suspense, but at its heart, it’s a tribute to family, a powerful love story that evolves in unexpected ways, and a journey of forgiveness.

QUESTION: “The Liar’s Diary” was recently optioned for film. Any details yet?

ANSWER: The last I heard a well-known actress had read the novel and was considering the lead, but I’m not allowed to say more until she signs on. It’s an exciting prospect, though I try not to think about it too much. These things tend to happen very slowly.

QUESTION: You will be talking about “The Orphans of Race Point” at the Brockton Public Library on Saturday. Any memories of the library or Brockton to share?

ANSWER: My mother was a great reader and from the time I was very small, we visited the library regularly. I have vivid memories of her putting her finger to her lips before taking my hand and opening the heavy door. It was like entering a church. When I was older, I often spent overnights at my cousins’ house on Winthrop Street, and after we walked downtown on Saturdays, we would stop at the library on the way home. In my novel, the young protagonist is seen reading a biography of Amelia Earhart. I can still remember taking that book home from the Brockton Public Library.

QUESTION: How is the pizza in Provincetown?

ANSWER: We have many terrific restaurants on the Cape and in Provincetown, but there’s nothing like The Cape Cod Cafe for pizza. I used to love Christo’s, too. Before they closed their doors, we came up for one last Greek salad and pizza. I hope the rumors that they’re planning to open a small take-out place are true.

About the interviewer: Brockton resident Laurie Cavanaugh is director of the Holmes Public Library in Halifax. She blogs about books at Bay State Reader’s Advisory (baystatera.com).

Bank on YOURSELF? Not Exactly...

The Bank On Yourself Revolution: Fire Your Banker, Bypass Wall Street, and Take Control of Your Own Financial Future by Pamela Yellen
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I found the title captivating and brought it home from the library. It is on its way back now. I have made several attempts to read it, starting with my usual from-the-beginning endeavor, then jumping around chapters, particularly "Bank on yourself for Seniors." I could not get excited or even interested enough to find out what policies are recommended. This plan is based on using dividend-paying whole life insurance policies, but you have to contact her representatives to get any actual recommendations. No thank you.

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Complicated and rewarding - this novel is the total package!

The Hunting Wind by Steve Hamilton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Complicated and rewarding. (Series) protagonist Alex McKnight is complicated (though not so much as some of the characters he encounters) and so is the plot, but letting Steve Hamilton lead us through its convolutions is a rewarding experience. It has love, treachery, gore and violence, pain and suffering, a bit of hope and a very down-to-earth hero to root for - it's the total package. Within a day of finishing it I tracked down a copy of North Of Nowhere, the next title in this wonderful series.

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A Million Donated to Public Libraries and Millions worth of Publicity!

Thanks to The Boston Globe for today's article in which Alec Baldwin spoke about the enduring role of libraries. “Even though the technology has changed how we consume material . . . libraries are still very important in the life of the community,” he said. “Me, I still like to carry a book around.”

Plagued by publicity in which "you are measured by who you are on your worst day... he lamented that such acts carry no weight in the public profile drawn by the media." His acts included donating well over a million dollars to public libraries. Thank you Alec Baldwin!

Alec Baldwin travels to Central Falls for library
Actor draws raves in struggling town
By Jenna Russell | GLOBE STAFF | JUNE 09, 2014

CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. — They would seem, at first glance, to have nothing in common: the small, struggling Rhode Island city of Central Falls and A-list Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin.

Central Falls is the city that declared bankruptcy three years ago, watched its mayor plead guilty to corruption, and became a symbol of government gone wrong. Baldwin is the actor who issued a dramatic “goodbye to public life” earlier this year, after his escalating conflicts with aggressive tabloid photographers led him to be accused of homophobia.

Somewhere in the midst of their own very public ordeals, the actor and the municipality found each other — and found common ground — in a quest to protect a public library from shutdown.

Baldwin, who donated $15,000 to the Central Falls library in 2011 and 2012, stood on the front steps of the small brick building Saturday afternoon and accepted the key to the city from Mayor James Diossa. “You believed in us, Alec, and we appreciate it,” Diossa told him.

A native of Amityville, N.Y., and the son of a social studies teacher, Baldwin, 55, spoke about the enduring role of libraries. “Even though the technology has changed how we consume material . . . libraries are still very important in the life of the community,” he said. “Me, I still like to carry a book around.”

Then he headed inside for a VIP reception with Rhode Island’s governor, Lincoln Chafee, and about 100 library supporters who had donated between $500 and $5,000 each.

The main walkway outside the building was decked out with a swath of bright red carpet, while inside, the library’s checkout counter was transformed into a wine bar for the occasion. A French restaurant in Providence, Chez Pascal, provided fancy hors d’oeuvres including asparagus panna cotta with bacon jam and rhubarb compote and marinated beets with smoked bluefin mousse.

The festive atmosphere was a far cry from the mood three years ago, when a state receiver took control of the city’s ruined finances and swiftly shut down the library to save money. It remained closed for just one month: A determined coalition of supporters refused to let it go quietly, and took over running the place on a purely volunteer basis.

They hung a banner outside, proudly declaring, “Welcome to YOUR library.” A loophole made the residents’ takeover possible; the Adams Memorial Library building is held by a private trust, not owned by the city.

When a story about the library’s plight appeared in The New York Times, Baldwin read it and sent $10,000 to help. He sent $5,000 the next year, and also helped out the highly ranked chess team at Central Falls High School. (Hollywood actress Viola Davis, who grew up in Central Falls, has also supported local schools, and persuaded Meryl Streep to do the same, said city officials.)

The high-profile help drew headlines, which spurred other donations. In time, the library was able to rehire a few paid staff members. It is still a lean operation, but it opens six days a week.

Joel Pettit, the library’s director, wrote a letter to Baldwin to ask if he would headline a library fund-raiser this year, and he agreed. The city hoped to raise $100,000 over the weekend with the reception and a larger event, a program of dramatic readings, in Providence, and has tentative plans to transform an unused Victorian house on the library property into a modern media center.

It is an example of a confident, creative new way of thinking about the future here, an approach that city leaders — many of them, including the mayor, still in their 20s — describe as “Government 2.0.”

Baldwin, coincidentally, played a working-class father in the movie “Outside Providence.” His attempt at a Rhode Island accent was unconvincing, and his battles with the tabloids have fired controversy, but in this blue-collar spot, population 19,000, he has won residents’ respect.

“You would think he would go to Newport, but instead he comes here, to the tiniest, poorest place in the state,” said Andrew Shotts, 44, owner of Garrison Confections in Central Falls. “That says a lot.”

Shotts also approves of Baldwin’s feisty attitude, when dealing with critics on Twitter or with the NYPD, which arrested him last month for riding his bike the wrong way down Fifth Avenue.

“I’m like, ‘You go, man,’” said the local candy maker, whose handcrafted chocolate bonbons, filled with fruit-infused ganache, were among the delicacies served at the library reception.

Stephen Larrick, the city’s youthful planning director, said Baldwin’s visit inspired particular glee “among women of a certain age.”

Around town, many were aware that he was there, even if they weren’t sure exactly why. “I don’t remember what movies he’s in, but I think he’s handsome,” said April Castonguay, 37, sitting on the steps of the group home where she lives, across the street from the library.

Brian Perez, 24, was walking his dogs, Nino and Diamond, when he noticed police cars blocking the street and a TV truck parked near the library. He figured something bad had happened.

Surprised to learn it was something good instead, he lingered to watch, keeping a safe distance in case the dogs started barking. (They did.)

Baldwin gave $250,000 to four libraries on Long Island in 2012, and recently donated $1 million more to build a new children’s wing at one of them. But in an essay in New York magazine in February, he lamented that such acts carry no weight in the public profile drawn by the media.

“In the New Media culture, anything good you do is tossed in a pit, and you are measured by who you are on your worst day,” he said in the essay.

Still, a pack of photographers showed up at the library to capture his good deed.

Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @jrussglobe.