Charles River: Propaganda “meeting” on Mass. Pike (I90) proposals

1. Introduction.
2. The developers’ meeting, general.
3. The access to Cambridge being destroyed.
4. Destruction of the Charles.
5. Commuter rail.
6. “Protective” Organizations.
A. General.
A-1. The organization kept out of the propaganda machine.
B. Starvation Wall at Magazine Beach.
C. Starvation skillfully created at Hyatt Regency Hotel.
D. Starvation at the Destroyed Nesting Area.
E. The Wild Area.
F. The “Good” “Protective” Organization on the agenda.
7. The Real Issue: A Private Mass Pike Off Ramp for MIT.
8. Thanks to MassDOT.



1. Introduction.

Last night, March 30, 2017, the fake group which is fighting for massive destruction on the Cambridge side of the Charles River expanded its scope to the Boston side as well.

These “meetings” have been de rigour on the Boston side a week or so before presentations by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation on Mass. Pike (I90) plans.  As is the custom, the announcements neglected to mention that the meetings were from the development community to talk folks into all the lovely development they want to add to an ALMOST totally responsible MassDOT proposal.

A key factor omitted was that the real public meeting on the Mass. Pike  will be conducted on April 13, 2017, 6:30 pm at the Morse School opposite Magazine Beach in Cambridge.  By contrast, this meeting started at 7 pm in a venue which they knew would have a mandatory closing of 9 pm, all the better to prevent inconvenient comments by responsible people.  The fake group fighting for destruction on the Cambridge side has used repeatedly used this tactic since they started fighting for the destruction of those 150 trees.

I have been aware of these development sector organizational meetings in the Allston neighborhood of Boston.  This time, in Cambridge, was the first time I attended one.


2. The developers’ meeting, general.

The meeting started with a brief description of the proposed MassDOT plans.  Here is a map of the proposal passed out by MassDOT who had their key person present, but he said very little.

The meeting followed the fake groups’ mantra in Cambridge, MA, USA to an incredible extent:

“Don’t look at what I am destroying.  Look at what I am telling you to look at."

A bunch of highly destructive proposals were sweetly described by their advocates, who proceeded to tell nearly nothing about what they were fighting for.


3. The access to Cambridge being destroyed.

The public comment session was outstanding for the large number of people who objected to MassDOT’s only known defect:  killing the existing off ramp to Cambridge from the boulevard on th Boston side of the Charles River, by a right turn off a ramp from that boulevard (Soldiers Field Road also known as Storrow Drive) to the River Street Bridge.

On the map, that no longer existing off ramp would go to the bridge at the top of the map crossing the Charles River.

Here is a close up of the River Street Bridge.  The green area to its left and down is where MassDOT proposes to kill the off ramp.

The reality is that MassDOT is the adult in the room with Cambridge and the state bureaucrats from the Department of Conservation and Recreation.  They are constantly bombarded with outrageous demands.  Every so often a bad idea slips through.


4. Destruction of the Charles.

The meeting trotted out a list of development professionals who sounded oh, so sweet.

One of the more notable comments came from a developer type who wants to dump fill into the Charles River on a large scale.  This would come in the lower right of the project map, second above.

At this point, the Mass. Pike is on a raised highway.  It proceeds to the left where it would be moved to a nearly east west configuration instead of the current configuration which pretty much fills the upper part of the triangle which is the subject of the proposal.  Those yellow lines are streets which would function as Mass. Pike exits and give the framework to Harvard’s planned Medical School plus.

The developer with his lovely fill bragged that he would not destroy 90% of the Charles River between that diagonal portion of the Mass. Pike and Cambridge.

English translation:   He wants to destroy 10% of the Charles at this point.

Surprisingly, since next to nothing was said about these various destructive proposals, next to nothing was said about the supposedly planned bike paths.

The key area of destruction is at the far right end of the map.  Here is a MassDOT aerial or satellite photo of the BU Bridge / Grand Junction Bridge area.

The 10% of the Charles River destruction is on the left bank of the Charles River, at this point and further up.  The 10% destruction piggy backs on a proposal from an architect's group with the usual lovely name, A Better Boston or something like that.

"A Better Boston" or whatever wants to build up pretty much all the Boston side at the raised "throat" of the Mass. Pike which has not been built upon.  They would destroy the riverbank which has supported a DCR bike / pedestrian highway.  They would destroy the active animal habitat in that embankment, replacing nature with a concrete supporting wall.  They would build above the Charles River as well.  They VERBALLY minimize the portion of the Charles River they would destroy.

After the closeup, I am providing another copy of the project plan.  The area being destroyed is the riverbank and the Charles River next to the narrow portion of the project on the right.

Here is a closer photo of the key Grand Junction railroad bridge, taken from the BU Bridge looking toward Boston.  The Grand Junction bridge divides the animal habitat on the Cambridge side, the goose meadow and the thick woods, both of which would be destroyed by the developer professionals.  At the bottom right of the area photo above is the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese.

Here is a photo of the thick woods the development community wants to destroy.  To the left is the Grand Junction bridge.  To the right is the BU Boathouse.  Looming over the BU Boathouse is the Hyatt Regency Cambridge hotel.

To the far left is a large tree in the Destroyed Nesting Area which would probably be destroyed, with other excellent trees, and, of course, habitat in the Destroyed Nesting Area as part of the many projects floating.

Here is a photo of the Destroyed Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese.  Another common mantra is “Do not look at our heartless animal abuse.  We won’t discuss it if you won’t."  Or simply an indignant shout down as was inflicted by the "A Better City" architect during the propaganda meeting.

The tree at the far left in the preceding photo is to the right of this area and above.  The railroad bridge is to the far right of the photo.

Clearly the most dramatic point in the propaganda meeting was when I was shouted down trying to get details of the destruction on the Boston side.  I had the nerve to mention that the edge of the Charles River is animal habitat.


5. Commuter rail.

The noisiest pitch by the developer types was for commuter rail on the Grand Junction under whatever euphemism will work.  This was previously killed by MassDOT.  The Cambridge Machine ran around last time yelling, “You can’t win.  You can’t win.  BUT HAVE WE GOT A DEAL FOR YOU.”

Not mentioned during the propaganda session was the large number of major city highways which would be interrupted by commuter trains going though busy intersections closed for the trains.

The arrows indicate the MANY city highways crossed and regularly blocked by this nonsense.

But, as usual, they sounded so sweet, and since the meeting was skillfully stacked to be developers, developers, developers, you did not hear much else.  And naturally, they omitted the large ground swell against their, yet again, sneaked in proposals.


6. “Protective” Organizations.


A. General.

Properly controlled “protective” organizations were included in the meeting which, in reality are as controlled as the fake group which sponsored the meeting.


A-1. The organization kept out of the propaganda machine.

To give you a sample of the reality which was censored from the propaganda  in favor of influenced “activists”, Friends of the White Geese has been an Attorney General recognized charitable (but taxable) organization for more than 15 years.  I am the chair.

During August 2000, the local State Representative went on Cambridge Cable and proclaimed that I had advocated his assassination.  He was responding to a flier distributed by Friends of the White Geese which, in turn, responded to a letter by him in the Cambridge Chronicle.  We quoted his advocacy of “humane treatment” for the Charles River White Geese.  The letter and the words sounded so beautiful.  We sarcastically replied by advocating “humane treatment” for him within the contents of damning his hypocrisy.  Clearly the lovely words of the State Representative were not as beautiful as they were presented in his letter.

I have been actively working as a meaningful environmental protector in the City of Cambridge since 1974.  In my first major meaningful action, I obtained a preliminary injunction against the destruction of a key park in Mid Cambridge.  I obtained the preliminary injunction ON APPEAL, which is next to impossible.  

Assisting meaningful environmentally protective groups, and by vote of the Cambridge City Council, I have been involved in more changes of the Cambridge zoning ordinance than any other person not employed by the City of Cambridge.  My achieved changes, were often subject to the objections / dirty tricks of the Cambridge City Manager and influenced individuals.  My changes include approximately 85% of Massachusetts Avenue (Cambridge’s main street) between Harvard and Central Squares, and environs.  One of my changes is the only citizen achieved change in the Alewife district of Cambridge.  Our changed resulted in the  returning of a large parking lot to the environment between Alewife Station, the rapid transit Red Line terminus, and the super highway Route 2.

I personally saved a 19th Century building on the eastern edge of Harvard Square from demolition, through vote of the then Cambridge Rent Control Board.  I personally caused the reversal of the City Manager’s destruction of a park in East Harvard Square, with the help of a lot of people responding to my leafleting next to a suddenly vacant lot.

The City Manager destroyed that little park for expansion of a business which could not legally expand under my east Harvard Square Downzoning WHICH PASSED 10 DAYS BEFORE THE DESTRUCTION over the City Manager objections.

He created a magnificent little gem as an obvious apology to the City Council.  Arrow and Mass. just east of the then Inn at Harvard.

Our censorship in the supposedly responsible presentation and the shouting down of a key question by me shows exactly how objective the propaganda meeting was.

B. Starvation Wall at Magazine Beach.

Notable was the falsely named “Charles River Conservancy.  This group conducted a “swim in” on the destruction at Magazine Beach in the 2000s which prevented access to and from Magazine Beach to the Charles River to starve the Charles River White Geese and which turn a river abutting playing field into an entity which might as well be ten miles from the Charles River.

But they are doing the important stuff.  They are working to fulfill the goal of the Department of Conservation and Recreation to kill off or drive away all resident animals.

Here is are photos of the wall, first from the Magazine Beach side.

Then from the Boston side.

This is an adult woman standing in the only opening.

And here is the blockade on the Cambridge side should the Charles River White Geese have the nerve to go through that opening to try to feed where they have fed for most of the last 27 years.

The fraudulently named “Conservancy” has never explained how walling off the Charles River and the Magazine Beach playing fields would help swimming in the Charles.  But lovely sales pitches do not worry about reality.

I have mentioned the Charles River White Ducks who have spent most of their lives on the Cambridge side.  The first year they lived on the Charles River was spent in the area which so many lovely “plans” would grievously destroy.  This is the location the Boston shot was taken from.

The falsely named “Charles River Conservancy” has regularly fought for destruction of nature on the Charles River, making the word “Conservancy” in their name a flat out and blatant fraud.  But developer types create such lovely names.

This fake "Conservancy" aggressively supported the just completed destruction of hundreds of trees between the BU and Longfellow Bridge, and bragged about maneuvering legislation to that effect, reading through the euphemisms.


C. Starvation skillfully created at Hyatt Regency Hotel.

This outrage includes introduction of a barrier to keep the Charles River White Geese from another established feeding grounds at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.  This photo is from last Saturday, March 26, 2017.

In the distance is the BU Boathouse which is at the eastern end of the threatened thick woods.

Here are photos in the opposite direction from last December.

An independently produced video of the Charles River White Geese feeding in this location may be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2-xSIYrB5o.  Thousands of views.


D. Starvation at the Destroyed Nesting Area.

And I passed the entrance to the destroyed nesting area before the propaganda "meeting."  The lie was that this is a public park.  So they block the entrance.  Why?  The Charles River White Geese feed off the grass across the on ramp.  And the state bureaucrats are doing the best they can to kill or drive away resident animals, particularly the most visible victims of their destructiveness.

And a photo of the gaggle eking out their deliberately starved life in the area where the DCR has already done such massive harm, and all these lovely developers want to destroy.





The dirt which dominates this area has been deliberately created by the DCR and its friends.  Gravel has been dumped in the middle of the dirt.

These photos are from taken just before the developer dominated meeting of March 30, 2017.


E. The Wild Area.

Plus, of course, the thick woods omitted from last nights plans which the developers are drooling to destroy.

This photo is before the destruction of 2016.


F. The “Good” “Protective” Organization on the agenda.

The “good” protective organization which was included in the developer package was deafeningly silent about the destruction of all this habitat and trees, but it loudly claims that it is defending the Charles River watershed.


7. The Real Issue: A Private Mass Pike Off Ramp for MIT.

The Elephant in the Room very clearly associated with so many of these development types is the fact that, in the early 1970's, Cambridge activists killed a super highway a block east of the Grand Junction and, as a result saved the Boston area from a lot of super highway destruction which has befallen so many cities.

In 2003, the local transit authority, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority studied the Grand Junction Railroad Bridge in connection with the nearby Mass. Pike (I90) and determined that it was full feasible to run a highway off the Mass. Pike over the Grand Junction Bridge into the turf of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, right up the Grand Junction.

Following is a photo of the Grand Junction Bridge heading toward Boston from a different angle than the prior photo. For your convenience I am repeating the prior photo.

Note the green HIGHWAY sign straight ahead and to the right. That is over the westbound side of the Mass. Pike. Note the macadam and snow almost straight ahead. That is a support area just off the westbound side.

The photo is taken, again from the BU Bridge. The railing and concrete strip to the left on the photo is the sidewalk on the western side of the BU Bridge.

Directly below, with the 07 marked on it, is the Grand Junction Bridge. You will notice that the Grand Junction Bridge is divided to hold tracks in two directions. The near side is not in current use, but is readily available.

The concrete building straight ahead is owned by Boston University. The bridge decking seen below that building is Commonwealth Avenue, Boston which goes over the Mass. Pike on this bridge. Following the decking to the right, you see where the decking gets narrower. That is the bridge by which Commonwealth Avenue runs over the Mass. Pike (I90). The silver line going under the near part of that overpass is the near edge of the Mass. Pike.

 As can be seen in this photo, the Grand Junction is aimed at the Mass. Pike and turns.

Without going into a massive proof here, the MBTA demonstrated that it is feasible to run an off ramp for eastbound (going left) traffic on the far side of the Mass. Pike over the Mass. Pike to connect to the Grand Junction Bridge. Connection to west bound traffic (going right) on this side is quite direct.

Here is a photo from overhead showing the relationship of the Mass. Pike. and the Grand Junction (to the right behind the tree).

The macadam area shown in the prior photo is straight ahead. Above it is the green highway sign. Westbound traffic is in the near half of the Mass. Pike. Eastbound traffic is on the far half. Obviously a connection to the westbound traffic would be simple.

 Here is a very clear view of the macadam area taken from over the eastbound side.

Here is a photo of the area of the Mass. Pike eastbound taken a bit further away, with the macadam area and the Grand Junction still visible.. Note all the empty room.

And here is a view of the empty area, train tracks. All that is necessary is to build an off ramp above the train tracks from Mass. Pike eastbound and swing it over the Mass. Pike to the Grand Junction for direct connection of eastbound traffic to the Grand Junction. PLENTY OF ROOM.

The MBTA did engineering evaluation and demonstrated that a third lane can be cantilevered off the far side of the Grand Junction Bridge so that the Grand Junction Bridge will hold two auto lanes and one railroad lane.

And here is an MIT satellite photo showing the connection of the Grand Junction bridge (under the BU Bridge on the left) to the Grand Junction (right to left in the middle of the photo), with MIT all over the place. MIT is massively developing.

But part of the “bike path” nonsense includes massive destruction of habitat and environment in Cambridge, the Wild Area woods to the east of the Grand Junction and the Goose Meadow to the west of the Grand Junction, and, by the way, here is a map from the files of the Cambridge City Council in the key 2006 report, showing the bike highway construction in the Destroyed Nesting Area.

The “path” to the right goes under Memorial Drive. It proceeds to further destroy the Destroyed Nesting Area. The “path” to the left goes up to the sidewalk of the Memorial Drive on ramp. A STEEP SLOPE currently holding a staircase illegally constructed by Boston University in 1999.

And so many of those great sounding people yelling for a bike path smell of MIT.

A bike path widening of the Grand Junction Bridge is politically correct. A defeated Super Highway widening is not politically correct.

Let us not be stupid.

Of course, the “bike path” nonsense is a stalking horse for a private off ramp to MIT from the Mass. Pike. 8.

8.  Thanks to MassDOT.

This meeting is part of a series which did not seem to be intended when MassDOT made its December 2016 presentation of the apparently final package for environmental review, in Union Square, Allston, Brighton.

The December 2016 meeting was notable for my objection to killing the right turn off Soldiers Field Road to the River Street Bridge to Cambridge.  That comment put on record the reality that the package includes very real harm to Cambridge.

That one comment was apparently replied to by this series of meetings in Cambridge, including the development professionals’ addition of this stacked developers’ meeting which said next to nothing about real plans but sounded so sweet.  A lot of people talking sweetly including controlled “protectors” of the environment.

I have attended as many meetings of their working group when the details are discussed as I have been aware of.

Although I have repeatedly asked to be placed on the mailing list, I still do not get notices of meetings, another concession to the development community.  Reality is offensive to the development community.  MassDOT can only go so far in standing up to such aggressive destroyers.

Deer at Alewife, Cambridge, MA, USA

Deer at Alewife, Cambridge, MA, USA

1. Phil Barber Reports.
2. Alewife in Context.


1. Phil Barber Reports.

I saw these three about a month ago at Alewife. Doe and two nearly grown fawns. Hard to photograph in the fading light & they were well camouflaged

All three are in this shot, two almost invisible to the left of the obvious one

Best,
Phil

2. Alewife in Context.

Alewife is at the opposite end of Cambridge from the Charles River, but it is very much the same problem.  It has been a pristine woodland, the Silver Maple Forest.

Alewife abuts State Route 2 on one side (a super highway), the public transit subway “Red Line” Alewife Terminal on another, a commuter rail line on another, and a residential neighborhood mostly in Belmont on the fourth side.

The outer portions are privately owned.  The privately owned parts are zoned by the municipality for massive development.  The core is government owned and pristine, except for government destruction.

Alewife has their own fake group.  The leader / creator of the group has spent decades telling concerned folks to yell at private developers obeying municipally created zoning and

● ignore yelling at the municipalities which created the irresponsible zoning about the irresponsible zoning, but yell at developers obeying the municipally created zoning; and

● totally ignore governmental destructiveness of the governmentally owned area.

Exactly one victory has existed to protect the environment at Alewife, a zoning petition written by me and organized by Sheila Cook.  That zoning petition has resulted in the return to nature of a privately developed large parking lot located between Route 2 and Alewife Station.

Exactly one victory has been bragged about by the woman who created the fake group: the destruction of 3.4 acres or more of the pristine Alewife Reservation by Cambridge and the same state agency fighting to destroy the Charles River.

Here is a photo which originated in the City of Cambridge bragging about the destruction at Alewife.  It was distributed by a press release from the City of Cambridge.

Private media was too smart to print this photo.  The private media is telling the lie that the fake protective group is protecting Alewife.  The private media did not want to report that Cambridge was bragging about destroying 3.4 acres plus of this previously pristine Silver Maple Forest.

Reporting this would be the same as reporting that the private media had been passing on a lie that the fake protective group was protective, especially since the ‘leader” bragged about the destruction in the Cambridge Chronicle and ran around the city bragging about her achievement to whomever would listen.

This photo came from a website controlled by a very visible activist in the Cambridge machine.

The trees outside the cleared area formerly occupied the ENTIRE area which has been cleared.

I have a friend involved in the fake group.  I strongly advised him to expel the member AND CREATOR who had been bragging about the government destruction.  I argued that her behavior destroyed their credibility.

He rejected my advice, and so his group continues to yell at private developers obeying zoning and ignore the very high probability that the publicly owned portion could very readily be destroyed by the government.

The area is a flood zone.  The initial explanation for the governmental destruction was flood protection.  The trouble is that the destruction provided but a fraction of the storage needed.  The only way to get the flood storage needed without destroying the untouched government portion is for the government to join with private developers in providing flood storage under new construction.

The legal term would be to take an easement under all developable land and to pay private developers for storage under their property.

But the fake group is obeying orders from their creator: “Do not look at what I am destroying.  Look at what I tell you to look at.”  THE EXACT SAME MANTRA COMES FROM THE FAKE GROUP DESTROYING THE CHARLES RIVER.  So the fake Alewife Protective Group yells at the private developers.

Needless to say, this fake protective group was created after the creator had had meaningful discussions with the Cambridge Development Department.

The Cambridge Machine strongly likes this sort of activism.  Tilting at windmills keeps trouble makers out of trouble.  If these activists were not tilting at windmills, they might get involved in a winnable fight, saving the government owned portion of Alewife and getting MUNICIPAL flood storage included in new development.

Instead, the real impact of the fight of that fake protective group is to fight for TOTAL destruction of the Silver Maple Forest while loudly yelling exactly the opposite.

But they mean well.  And the Cambridge Machine tells them how great they are.

Charles River, Cambridge, MA, USA: Wild Turkey Finds New Perch

Charles River, Cambridge, MA, USA: Wild Turkey Finds New Perch

1. Introduction.
2. Wild Turkey Finds New Perch.
3. Analysis.
4. Cambridge, MA, USA, brags of heartless animal abuse.
5. Trump City USA.
6. “A Charles River Vision” – to be presented by Dr. Robin Pope on Cambridge, MA, USA Cable on March 26.


1. Introduction.

We have provided multiple reports on the environmental destruction and heartless animal abuse on the Charles River by Cambridge, MA and its friends.

Our video on the destruction of hundreds of trees may be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTplCCEJP7o.

During the middle of this outrage, after months of receiving multiple emails with photos per week and during receipt of muliple emails with photos of the ongoing destruction, the Cambridge City Council “took action.”  They yelled at circuses passing through town on the public roads.

Here is a photo of the most visible victims, the Charles River White Geese, admiring the Charles River.

A few weeks ago, I provided photos by Phil Barber of displaced wild turkeys wandering the streets of the very densely populated Cambridge, MA, USA, during the heart of winter.  Phil has provided another report.


2. Wild Turkey Finds New Perch.

Phil Barber reports:

* * * *

A new perch on Franklin Street.

And a close-up.

* * * *


3. Analysis.

I recall seeing a wild turkey being stalked by a cat in the exurbs.

The turkey ignored his stalker, calmly walking over an exurban lawn.  The cat followed and followed and followed, as cats will.

Finally, the cat gave up.

The turkey looked back, gave a look of disgust, and flew off into a tree across the street.

I very seriously doubt that this wild turkey wound up on the top of this car in response to a being stalked by a cat.  Being chased by a big dog is not at all unlikely, or perhaps it was in the middle of the street and an oblivious car got too close.


4. Cambridge, MA, USA, brags of heartless animal abuse.

The fake protective group which was the most visible fighter at the end for the destruction of those hundreds of trees on the Charles River put on a show in the Cambridge City Hall Annex lying about their own sainthood on the Charles River and that of the City of Cambridge and its friends.

The show featured the following plaque:

Now the fake protectors are openly fighting for the destruction of the trees of Magazine Beach, which was the topic of their fake show.  54 mostly excellent trees are to be destroyed in total this time, including 30 to be destroyed surrounding the abandoned building which the fake protectors claim to love.  Their “explanation:”

“Don’t look at the most important things we are doing.  Look at what we tell you to look at.”

And here are the most visible victims of the fake protectors.

In Cambridge, MA, USA, the Cambridge Machine lies of saintliness out of one side of its mouth and brags of heartless animal abuse out of the other.


5. Trump City USA.

Need I say more about Cambridge, MA, USA?

This outrage dates back to 1974 when the first City Manager of the Cambridge City Manager Machine was rehired.  He promised to create a system of “neighborhood associations.”  Over the years, that Machine has grown around a succession of related City Managers.

Even with the seating of a possibly responsible new City Manager in 2016, the Cambridge Machine lives and fights for its outrageous, destructive causes.

The most appropriate reaction to so many outrageous lies from the core activists with their wild, fraudulent claims of sainthood, has always been:

“You can’t possibly be that stupid!!!!”


6. “A Charles River Vision” – to be presented by Dr. Robin Pope on Cambridge, MA, USA Cable on March 26.

On Sunday, March 26, 2017, at 6:30 pm, US Eastern Daylight Savings Time, on Cambridge, MA, USA Cable Channel 9,  2017, at 6:30 pm The Cambridge Environment, hosted by  Robert J. La Trémouille, will present a special appearance of Dr. Robin E. Pope.  Dr. Pope is guest of Prof Leopold-Wildburger, Graz University, Austria.

Most of the readers of this blog are not available for direct cable connection.  People who would like to watch may link to the show live  from the home page at www.cctvcambridge.org.  Just click on Channel 9 in the box.

On The Cambridge Environment, Dr. Pope will detail accelerated global warming, destruction of health, nature, recreation in Cambridge perpetrated by Harvard, MIT & government agencies, followed by glimpses of her vision from steps to know, love, enjoy nature, so transform Charles River regions into inclusive, world heritage beauty, sustainable non-commuter nodules.

A lot more detail is on the blog at:  http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2017/03/a-charles-river-vision-to-be-presented.html

“A Charles River Vision” – to be presented by Dr. Robin Pope on Cambridge, MA, USA Cable on March 26.

1.       General.

2.       Topics for show.

3.       Contacts.

4.       Particulars on The Cambridge Environment and Mr. La Trémouille.

5.       Particulars on some projects of Robin Pope (PhD University of New South Wales Australia)

1.       General.

On Sunday, March 26, 2017, at 6:30 pm on Cambridge, MA, USA Cable Channel 9,  2017, at 6:30 pm The Cambridge Environment, hosted by  Robert J. La Trémouille, will present a special appearance of Dr. Robin E. Pope.  Dr. Pope is guest of Prof Leopold-Wildburger Graz University, Austria. 

Most of the readers of this blog are not available for direct cable connection.  People who would like to watch may link to the show live  from the home page at www.cctvcambridge.org.  Just click on Channel 9 in the box.

2.       Topics for show.

On The Cambridge Environment, Dr. Pope will detail accelerated global warming, destruction of health, nature, recreation in Cambridge perpetrated by Harvard, MIT & government agencies, followed by glimpses of her vision from steps to know, love, enjoy nature, so transform Charles River regions into inclusive, world heritage beauty, sustainable non-commuter nodules.  Some of the topic she will discuss include:

Erosion: Dr Pope will describe the soil erosion and shoddy paths on the Memorial Drive Charles river bank, and how this has been exacerbated some 10-fold by the the DCR, Department of Conservation and Recreation’s $7 million “Demonstration Project” that demolished some 150 mature trees, ripped out undergrowth, then ripped out new varied wild flower undergrowth that arrived.

Slope unreality: Proper surveying and terracing are fundamental to avoiding increased erosion when ripping out foliage. Robin Pope will describe how the DCR’s expensive new paths were so badly surveyed that they are under water some ten-fold of the time more often than those they replace, and the MIT-CCC (Cambridge City Council)’s surveying dyslexia is such as to plan denudation of the only sizable urban wild in this Charles River area to install a bike path steeper than an events stunts person could handle, and at a cost of about $3 million.

People’s views & wildlife blocked: Dr Pope will illustrate how the DCR “Demonstration Project” blocks views treasured by people, and ended access of the white geese, so beloved that when their gold chicks came, every passing local and tourist photographed.  Dr Pope will point to like DCR destruction (with more planned) of aesthetics & blockage of people delights & wildlife needs in adjacent upstream Charles segment, Magazine Park.

Reversal and Non-Repetition: The executed trees, shrubs and flowers cannot be resurrected, but Robin Pope will identify acts that would reverse many of the other damages, some at a tiny cost, plus ways to end the imminent danger of more destruction planned on the Charles river. 

Nature&Health Ignorance: Robin Pope will document how displacement of whole plant/animal studies by genetics, biomed & unrealistic evolutionary models rob seeing where many Harvard/MIT mini-city features and DCR/CCC projects accord with climate change denial – with misperceiving conservation, personal/communal recreation as executing trees & longer car commutes by a boring sanitised riverbank.  Help is needed.

Imagination: Robin Pope will present an implementable vision of transformed physical&mental health, sustainability, inclusiveness & natural beauty on the lower Charles regions & Harvard/MIT mini city features.

The Torch&Nature Stewardship: Robin Pope will pay tribute to Bob La Trémouille, white geese feeders, Wen Stephenson, Lesley University's Science&Mathematics Division, Caroline Bird’s 2014 MIT Boston’s Urban Wilds.

3.   Contacts.

Robert J. La Trémouille 
Post Office Box 391412
Cambridge, MA 02139

boblat@yahoo.com

phone 617-283-7649

Dr Robin E Pope, Room 1438

Hyatt Regency, 575 Memorial Drive

Cambridge, MA 02139

robin.el.pope@gmail.com

phone 929-365-3345

Dr Robin E Pope
Guest of Prof Dr Leopold-Wildburger

Department of Statistics and Operations Research

Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Austria

4.   Particulars on The Cambridge Environment and Mr. La Trémouille.

The Cambridge Environment is the longest running of the Live shows on Cambridge Community Television, running for more than 21 years.

The host, Robert J. La Trémouille, has had major environmental victories in Cambridge, repeatedly reversing the staff of the Cambridge City Manager. Victories include areas at Alewife, in East Harvard Square and on and near Mass. Ave. extending from Harvard Square to City Hall. La Trémouille saved Guffey Park in East Harvard Square and the 19^th century building at 10 Mt. Auburn Street. Harvard wanted the now renamed Inn at Harvard building at Mass. Ave. and Harvard Street to be 72% larger.

 La Trémouille, a professional, union movie actor has appeared in more than 100 works. 

La Trémoujille was the 2015 winner of New England Actors’ Dramatic Monologues Award for his performance as a Physics Professor in Artemis Burning.   It may be viewed on line at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrXmKrZn9wM.

La Trémouille’s 2016 video on Charles River governmental destruction, The Destruction of Memorial Drive, Charles River, Cambridge, MA, USA, January – February 2016, Final Cut, appeared several times on CCTV.  It is on line at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTplCCEJP7o.

5.   Particulars on some projects of Robin Pope (PhD University of New South Wales Australia)

In her Charles River Vision to be imparted on TV 26^th March 2017, will be practical suggestions towards its implementation.  In addition, she has other projects on which some in White Geese community may find ways to join and move forward in science, in research, and policy to foster our own wellbeing and as stewards of others in the human and wider natural community of planet earth.  On these other projects she has had Australian Research Council, Australian and US government agencies, the German National Science Foundation, the German Federal Government Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices and the North Rhine Westfalian State Psychiatric Clinic, Robin Pope has economics, finance, botany, zoology, physics, psychology and mental health projects that apply her new depreciations framework or her new risky choice framework, to which eventually in 2006 she gave the name SKAT, short hand for, Stages of Knowledge Ahead Theory of chance/risk/uncertainty. 

Laying out the sequential (SKAT) stages of our emotional, material and financial experiences under a risk, Robin Pope demonstrates an anticipated evolution in our stages of knowledge ahead (knowledge of the future) – that risks are a deep matter because they 1) are brain events, not events “out there in the world”, and 2) involve anticipating new knowledge later compared to knowledge now (no risk if nothing bad could happen later).  Once laid out, this deep matter of risk entailing anticipated knowledge evolution stages becomes commonsense a child can grasp, but had eluded 17^th century Pascal (the father of risky choice theory) and his successors over the centuries.  Eg in 1947 game theorists von Neumann and Morgenstern reported a complementarity paradox when they tried to include risk experiences in their algebraic axioms, and their inability to find the higher level to resolve it.  The anticipated new knowledge stages that Robin Pope eventually named SKAT, is the discovery of the higher level to resolve that Neumann-Morgenstern complementarity paradox. 

Robin Pope has also used her SKAT framework to delineate timing (events) contradictions in the Newtonian algebraic calculus treatment of movement used still today in physics and other disciplines. These un-noticed timing contradictions have contributed in biology, to an over-emphasis on genetic, molecular biology research and underfunding of how whole plants and animals survive, adapt or go extinct in nature that is required to notice and track human environmental and climate damage.  These un-noticed timing contradictions have contributed to Nobelists in economics advocating the bombing of Vietnam, violent territorial extension of Israel, demolition of Bretton Woods and much of the mixed economy, austerity policies after crises, and global laissez-faire without realizing that their models exclude pre-requisites for survival of the person-made and human plus non-human natural capital stocks. 

The Scientifically Enriched Sudoku Path

Help is needed to disseminate knowledge of these timing contradictions.  One path can be from those who get fun from Sudokus (mathematical crossword puzzles) to start getting joy from scientifically enriched Sudokus – and enticing these to be constructed. The symbol (sets) in an ordinary Sudokus are just symbols.  By contrast those in a scientifically enriched Sudokus have event interpretations.  The solution a scientifically enriched Sudoku avoids implying timing events contradictions. 

Events are normally specified/defined in words (or picturegrams).  This means that solving a scientifically enriched Sudokus is a multi-skill process requiring logic in (a) algebra, (b) words (picturegrams); and (c) combining contradiction-free a) and b) so a better brain exercise as it employs more brain functions.  It can also entice team collaboration between people good at algebraic deduction and people good at verbal reasoning, as a means of team members improving their overall logical capacities since verbal and algebraic implications must be jointly consistent. This can be a fun hobby that has an exceedingly serious side.  It can contribute to wiser policy from an informed public able to comment on where some models currently used in policy should be discarded because of their timing (events) contradictions. The shame of the Sudoku-playing general public spotting and talking about the contradictions would destroy some elite academics’ claims to be rigorous in their teaching, research and policy advice when in fact the contradictions they have dodged facing connect to them impairing scientific understanding and restoration and renewal of life on planet earth. 

It would be good for newspapers and periodicals, especially those from higher education organizations such as the MIT Tech, to add onto their multi-page Sudoku sections each issue one or two so scientifically enriched Sudokus.  In due course, ability to solve scientifically enriched Sudokus applied to their own discipline might fruitfully become a graduation prerequisite in the many using algebra, and so needing to avoid timing contradictions in how they have formally modelled risk. Such a pre-requisite may alleviate the problem of algebraic facility outstripping many students, teachers and researchers’ ability to understand what their algebraic models imply about the real world. 

In turn the pre-requisite to construct or solve such scientifically enriched Sudokus involving a risky choice, is to get to that commonsense level of what a risk implies about the SKAT stages of anticipating when our knowledge will evolve.

Some Hard Copy Resources on SKAT

For those with hard copy library access, there is an exceedingly simple illustration, suitable in gist to be imparted even to elementary school children, tracing how we anticipate our knowledge ahead to evolve after encountering a risk, eg an evolution to learning that the outcome is good, or bad, but not knowing earlier which fork that knowledge evolution will take.  It is in Robin Pope’s 1989 Vienna Institute volume paper, 'Attractions to and Repulsions from Chance', in Werner Leinfellner and Eckehart Köhler eds, Game Theory, Experience, Rationality, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 95-107. 

About a project that we are considering whether to undertake, SKAT allows us to identify and lay out how our risk experiences may be beneficial such as yielding us pleasurable thrills – but also where our risk experiences may be very negative often in the form of worry, inability to borrow, inability to commit and inability to plan.  Too much of these negative risk experiences paralyses and kills humans, non-human animals and plants as individuals and as members of bigger communities (ecological groupings) so that deciding to insure (ie adopt policies that make some dire outcomes very unlikely or impossible) is often sensible.  Under the initiative of Ulrike Leopold-Wildburger, SKAT was explored and tested experimentally 2003 to 2006 in the insurance context, and written up by Robin Pope in a book co-authored with her splendid Graz University experimenters Johannes Leitner and Ulrike Leopold-Wildburger in the Springer Lecture Note Series titled The Knowledge Ahead Approach to Risk: Theory and Experimental Evidence. 

Some Online Free Resources on SKAT

There are SKAT resources online to read or download free as PDFs.  Using the SKAT framework Robin Pope has explored with Nobel Laureate Reinhard Selten in complex laboratory experiments and other forms of empirical and theoretical analysis the exchange rate uncertainty and speculation costs of abandoning the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rate system.  Two of these are open access: their 2011 “Managed Floats to Damp World-Wide Managed Floats to Damp World-Wide Exchange Rate Liquidity Shocks Like 1982-5, 2006-9: Field and Laboratory Evidence for the Benefits of a Single World Currency: Field and  Laboratory Evidence for the Benefits of a Single World Currency” in Open Economics Journal’s at  https://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOECONSJ/TOECONSJ-4-1.pdf and their sequel 2012 paper “Public debt tipping point studies ignore how exchange rate changes may create a financial meltdown”, at, http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue59/PopeSelten59.pdf that uses the lens of SKAT to lay out damages from massive ongoing private sector bubbles in international finance and pharmaceuticals.

In mental health, prescription drugs have largely failed beyond for the severest cases where they replace asylum chains with emotion-damping, brain vegetating, liver killing tablets as the medical model of mental ill health focuses in a static knowledge ahead perspective on chemically rebalancing the brain.  Robin Pope has used SKAT to generate an epistemically dynamic understanding of the brain as evolved to process risks into adequate decisions.  In turn this illuminates that adequate mental health cannot be primarily attained by pill popping but from developing from birth adequate decision making through the natural socio-economic environment affording the appropriate varieties and frequencies of small risks to learn which are wise, which foolish decisions.  The seven main risk varieties needed are for the seven varieties of human tasks with the first sensual risk processing (stimuli) from nature each millisecond and the 7^th episodic ethical spiritual chances and challenges (including how to act under those from environmental pollution and human-induced climate change).  Societal changes including from pollution and climate warming deprive some groups of some of these varieties of these risk/chance challenges to develop or maintain their brains and thus adequate mental health.  Robin Pope has used SKAT to identify some of these problems and suggest remedies, including in “Attention deficit hyperactivity disorders, panic attacks, epileptic fits, depressions and dementias from missing out on appropriate fears and hopes” Mind & Society (2015), readable free online at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11299-015-0165-0.  Robin Pope seeks assistance in spreading mental health understandings and applications of SKAT, including in achieving societal experiments indicated in this 2015 and other articles for overcoming some prescription drug wrong turns especially alarming in the matter of 10% of US children now on ADHD drugs for which on the only clean experiment, this puts their school graduation grades 10 standard deviations below those of children ADHD diagnosed but not treated with drugs.