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Science and Blind Conviction
Richard Kessin
Mar 11, 2026
One of the virtues of Science is to keep people from accepting a first thought that makes no sense. It says, “Let’s just think about that. Does it make sense? Are you sure?“ It says “No, Mr. Aristotle, eels do not form from the mud at the bottom ofrivers.”Authoritarianstend to hear what they want and decide that it is true. “Surely vaccines are dangerous.” is one such thought. The voice that proposes the first thought can be seductive; it is confident and speaks in a tone that says how can you not know this? People hearing the supposedly authoritative voice of RFK Jr., skipped their children’s measles vaccinations on the pretext that vaccines cause autism.
RFK Jr had been in American Samoa in June 2019 and spread the idea that measles vaccine begets autism. Low rates of vaccination declined further. A tourist with measles introduced the infection to the under-protected Samoan population and an epidemic ensued, introduced by a tourist, peaking in the Fall of 2019. Measles virus is exceptionally infectious. Thousands of people were infected, and the island closed down--schools, factories, markets, and tourism. Vaccinators from CDC and several countries, arrived went house to house, vaccinating the residents. The population was about 195,000, and 13,666 vaccinations were given to previously unvaccinated adults and 1,113 children. By Mid-December there were no new cases.
There were, nonetheless, 800 cases of measles in total and 83 deaths, most in children under 5. Eighty-three deaths is a horrendous number, when the vaccine could have prevented them.There is more to learn from these numbers. Of the vaccinated children who did not get measles, some, according to Mr. Kennedy’s theory, should have developed autism.I called the Samoan Health Authorities and asked if they were seeing more autism than usual. They were fighting filariasis, but not autism. Measles vaccination does not cause autism to increase, but something does, and Mr. Kennedy has no idea how to find out what that is.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr confessed to licking cocaine off toilet seats and then explained that’s why he doesn’t fear bacteria. That is hard to top, but perhaps God looks after fools and drunks, or perhaps someone had just swabbed the toilets with Clorox.Then he told us that mRNA vaccines are dangerous and should not even be considered by the FDA. He said they don’t work in the upper respiratory tract, but they do. That rookie error has been retracted. RFK Jr. should think first but does not.mRNA vaccines are part of the future, which does not guarantee that Moderna’s new influenza vaccine will be given a fair hearing at the next FDA meeting which has been seeded with vaccine skeptics.
The United States has withdrawn from the World Health Organization.After the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, more than a decade ago, an organization called CEPI (the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) formed. Their goal was to make vaccines for new pandemics and have them in the field in 100 days. That takes mRNA vaccines.Vaccines derived directly from the virus genome 9 which is usually made of mRNA, not DNA, can be made quickly. Later, chemists can make drugs as they did with Covid 19. CEPI is funded by the Norwegian Sovereign Welfare Fund, The Gates Foundation, and many others. But not the United States. They do not need our money but someday we may need their mRNA vaccines.
That we are set to discourage vaccines and better ways to make them means that we are ceding leadership in science and medicine that has been American for decades. European countries, Japan, China, Australia, Israel, India and others are now industrial powers, as good at advanced molecular genetics and vaccines as we are. We risk that they will collectively surpass us, a competitive deficit that we do not need.
The NIH and other research institutions work through study sections, which meet three times a year and go through about 100 grant applications, submitted by scientists in colleges and universities around the country. About 20 % are funded. The other 80 scientists can make changes and reapply. The judgmentdetermines the future of the applicant’s lab, including support for PhD students, so a lot is at stake.This process also faces disruption. I served on a study section forfour years and submitted applications to fund my own lab for nearly 30.The process was honest and apolitical. Now the Trump administration has decreed that applicants can have their grants moved up in rank if administrators think one meets the President’s priorities better than others. The system is now more open to political corruption. Is there to be a political officer at each study section?
There is good news. Congress has not cut the NIH budget by 40% as the Trump administration wanted.Let’s see if Universities and other research organizations can keep their Ph.D and MD fellowship programs going. That the number of students in them will be reduced, is a given.
Richard Kessin is Emeritus Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
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Great Again?
Kathy Herald-Marlowe
Mar 11, 2026
Six American soldiers this Saturday were transported to Dover from Kuwait where they perished in drone strikes in their makeshift tent/trailer center. 40,000 to 50,000 US soldiers are based across the Middle East – 11 of 18 of their bases are air unprotected, makeshift facilities.“Great Again”? Loss of life in the Middle East commenced last Friday, February 27, in a war without Congressional approval or any prior communication with the people of this nation. Is this “Great Again”?
Regardless of the lightened descriptors of hostilities, conflict, in Iran there rages a war – called such by Trump, by his Secretary of Defense.At least in 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorizing President Johnson to use “all necessary measures” to repel attacks, serving as a functional, though not a formal authorization of war. 58,000 Americans lost their lives in the Vietnam War lasting from 1964 to 1973, through Presidents Johnson and Nixon. Is this – unsanctioned war – 6,000 miles out of range - with an unclear purpose an example of “Great Again”? Making America Great Again?
500,000 to a million Americas live and work in the Middle East as engineers, consultants, technologists in energy, in defense, in business development. 10’s of thousands of Americans are traveling in the Middle East at any given time.These Americans, at risk with the avalanche of missiles and drones, were given no advanced or real-time communications, initially offered no assistance beyond “move out.” Eight of the key embassies in the region are without an ambassador, have stood vacant for years. Is this “Great Again?”
In his brilliant best-selling “1929,” economist Andrew› Sorkin draws parallels of 2025 to the extreme excesses of the 1920’s that led to a stock market crash, a decade of depression. Income inequality in the US is currently the greatest since the Gilded Age.The wealthiest 1% of Americans hold about $55 trillion in assets – roughly equal to the combined wealth held by the bottom 90% of Americans.The “big, beautiful bill,” passing the GOP-dominated Congress in the summer of 2025, gave tax breaks to corporations and billionaires while removing health care for millions.White House doors, White House favors, White House pardons, and access to White House related moneys are wide open to those who give millions to Trump campaigns, to reconstruction of partially demolished sections of the White House, to the naming/renaming of landmarks. “Great Again”- is it the redistribution of wealth back to the levels of the corrupt 1920’s?Is it demolishing sections of the White House.Great Again?
1936 was the last time the US experienced net negative migration – more Americans migrating out of the US to other countries than in. The only other US instance of negative migration was in 1936, with the migration during the depression of Americans to Russia. In 2026, migration of Americans out is to Mexico, Canada and to Europe -a diversity of Americans representing a range of ages, families with and without kids, and the young choosing international colleges and universities over American.American migrants are leaving to counter lessening incomes, to expand social coverage, to access lifestyle advantages, and some to just be away from Trump.According to the Wall Street Journal, 180,000 + Americans left in 2024 – more in 2025 with more expected in 2026. Migration out comes with the increased demand for locating alternative places to live outside the US, international relocation companies burgeon.Americans leaving the US - Great Again? The loss of population, the loss of students. Great Again?
The demographics of the US was enviable just a year ago to Japan, Russia, Greece and numerous others nations whose populations are in decline. The US did not have a declining population when it welcomed immigration – a long-extended welcome.Yet today in the US there is a reframing of immigration to a negative concept.Immigrants legal, illegal, a few criminals are relentlessly pursued by ICE while other immigrants are self-deporting leaving a needy work force depleted in services and agriculture in particular.Great Again?
Additionally, the US birthrate is in decline – the needed 2.1 birth per woman for population replacement is down to 1.6. Birthing in the US has become riskier as women are not protected from pregnancy complications, from life-endangering situations with doctors who are reticent to intercede for the life of the mother, the life of the child. Fear and questionable restrictions came with the repeal of Roe vs Wade.Is this progress, is this Great Again?
1,000 children have been infected, died from long eradicated measles. Vaccines are villainized by a questionable lead as Secretary of Health and Human Services.An unhealthy nation isthat Great Again?
Make America Great Again fits and looks good on a baseball cap.It is worn with intensity this ball cap.But what is its meaning? What is America Great Again?What is the essence of this slogan:a billionaire President unbound for his and his family’s wealth, billionaires tax free, common folk precluded from health care, Americans leaving “the shiny city on the hill”, Americans deployed willy-nilly in Venezuela, Greenland, Iran, or America reneging on its promises of support to Ukraine, its NATO partners?Tell us please what is “Great Again”? How do we know it when we see it? Is it Constitutional?
Kathy Herald-Marlowe lives in Sharon.
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Turning Back the Pages - March 12, 2026
Norma Bosworth
Mar 11, 2026
125 years ago — March 1901
FALLS VILLAGE — Mr. and Mrs. Wallace Dickinson spent Sunday in New Haven. Wallace, in his inimitable way describes the New Haven fire department responding to an alarm on Chapel Street and during the excitement he got caught in the surging crowd and was carried four blocks out of his way.
FALLS VILLAGE — Mr. Miles Blodgett is busy getting out timber for their new house which they expect to erect in the spring on the hill near the barn between the two roads.
Mr. D. Moore went to New London Wednesday, taking his pet spaniel with him.
A very enjoyable poverty social was given by the scholars of the High Grade school at the home of Miss Julia Traver on Thursday evening and a goodly number were present. Everybody was dressed in clothes suitable to a state of poverty. All jewelry, fine clothes “biled shirts, dood kollers” and clean shaves were tabooed, and many amusing fines were imposed on different ones for being too well dressed. Altogether the social was amusing and pleasant.
LIME ROCK — Ten days ago there were good prospects that the Borden Milk Co. would establish a bottling works here at the railroad station. The farmers felt good. The company has decided, however, to set up in Canaan.
100 years ago — March 1926
LIME ROCK — Perry Loucks is not quite so well.
The first public ski meet ever held in the Town of Salisbury will be staged in Salisbury Village, near the Library, at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 14th, weather permitting. There will be a jumping contest and cross-country run. Handsome silver cups will be given the winners in each event.
LIME ROCK — Repairs are being made to the Belter home, which was damaged by fire recently.
TACONIC — Mr. Elmer Knipmeyer has severed his connection with Hilltop Farm, but is remaining at the cottage till his plans for the future are completed.
50 years ago — March 1976
Nancy Van Doren this week was selected as Hugh O’Brien Youth Foundation Connecticut state representative to attend a seminar in Washington D.C. in April. Nancy, a sophomore, is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Van Doren of Cornwall. She was picked as one of 70 students to participate in the 1976 Leadership Seminar.
Promoters of revived rail service for the Housatonic Valley won a victory Monday as Connecticut legislators moved forward a bill extending the charter of the proposed Berkshire Railroad. The General Assembly’s transportation committee approved a bill which would extend operating rights for the railroad to South Norwalk on the Boston- New York Shore Line route.
The Lakeville Journal is acquiring a new web offset newspaper press. An erector from the Goss Division of MGD Graphic Systems this week began installing a new three-unit Goss Community press, which arrived from Chicago Monday in four components on a large trailer truck. Forklifts from Community Service helped unload the units. The new press will replace the used Cottrell web offset press on which The Lakeville Journal, The Millerton News and other newspapers have been printed since mid-1973.
Steven Jackson, regional wildlife biologist in charge of a program to re-establish the eastern wild turkey in the state, would like to hear from anyone who sights a wild turkey in Litchfield County. Some 22 hens and toms were released last year in the Norfolk- Canaan area. These were wild birds, trapped in New York state and donated by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. Other turkeys were released on the New York side of the border near Kent and Salisbury.
CANAAN — The portable classrooms have completed their 500-foot trek from the North Canaan Elementary School grounds to their new position adjacent to the Canaan Town Hall. The 25- by 65-foot building was moved into position last week and is now awaiting the interior electrical and plumbing changes that will make it possible to use the building for additional town office space.
25 years ago — March 2001
Reggie the Robot rocked ‘em at the First 2001 Robotics New England Regional Competition in Hartford last weekend. The diminutive motorized machine was named the contest’s outstanding rookie and he, along with the team of Housatonic Valley Regional High School students that created him, is headed for the national competition in Florida next month.
Two weeks before the start of spring, the Northwest Corner found itself digging out from yet another snowstorm. Predicted to be a record-breaking nor’easter, in the end the storm dropped between 12 to 14 inches on the area and despite minute-by-minute updates on the Weather Channel, it turned out to be more or less like any other snow day.
These items were taken from The Lakeville Journal archives at Salisbury’s Scoville Memorial Library, keeping the original wording intact as possible.
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Artist Donald Bracken’s layers of representation
L. Tomaino
Mar 11, 2026
Cornwall artist Don Bracken in front of his 48” x 60” work in polymerized clay and acrylic on canvas.
L. Tomaino
CORNWALL — Artist Don Bracken’s work explores the relationship between nature and a changing world, drawing inspiration from the forests where he grew up and the environmental and social shifts he observes today.
His exhibition, Points of View: Landscapes by Don Bracken, is on display at the Cornwall Library through April 23.
Standing before a large forest scene rendered with cracked polymer clay, Bracken explained that the piece, titled White Dawn, reflects his reaction to the political climate when Donald Trump became president.
“[It] is partly about when Trump became president. That’s why it’s White Dawn, it’s like everything is going to change. He’s such an anti-environmentalist and I wanted to do a picture that appears bucolic, that is like our reality being fractured,” Bracken said.
In the beauty of his forest scenes, these concerns might not at first be apparent without the counterpoint of an explanation.
“I tend to be pretty political in general. I try to be subtle about it,” he said.
“I was an artist in residence in the World Trade Center in ‘97,” which, Bracken says, has informed his work since then.
“I wanted to do something for the 10-year anniversary,” of the Sept. 11 attack, “and I started using clay. I was doing these giant wall pieces on panels that were the size of the windows in the World Trade Center.”
They were displayed in the New York State Museum in Albany. For the 20th anniversary he and another artist curated a show in a 10,000 square foot space on the 91st floor of the new World Trade Center.
Bracken has been awarded many residencies and grants. His work has been exhibited in museums that include the Mattatuck, Katonah, and New Britain Museums.
Bracken’s colored canvases, too, are subtle: tonally rich, bright paintings suggesting delicate, ephemeral beauty, a quality shared with his work in earth tones using natural materials that change, like the clay cracking. He also works with large, swirling strokes, in three dimensions: “I do a lot of massive sculptures. I have a 15 x 15 foot installation in my studio made of vines and branches. I love sculpture.”
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‘Mary Poppins Jr.’ visits Falls Village
Patrick L. Sullivan
Mar 11, 2026
Darcy Boynton, right, works with the cast March 7.
Patrick L. Sullivan
FALLS VILLAGE — Rehearsals for the Falls Village Children’s Theater production of “Mary Poppins Jr.” were in full swing Saturday afternoon, March 7.
Jean Bronson and Mark Alexander were busy adjusting the costume of Roan Jack, trying to take into account the character’s need to move about and gesticulate.
Alexander also devoted considerable time to the formal costume of Lev Sadeh, who plays Mr. Banks, paying particular attention to the proper adjustment of bow tie and wing collar.
Over at the piano, Alec Sisco was putting Scarlett O’Connor, Ruby Cameron and Lois Musgrove through their paces on “Cherry Tree Lane — Reprise.”
Then director Darcy Boynton took over, “Mr. Banks” joined the company and the group worked on the combination of song and dance.
Meanwhile, production manager Tracy Flynn bustled around doing several things at once.
The production has some 30 children involved, from Region One towns and several towns across New York state.
The show opens at the Center on Main, 103 Main St. in Falls Village, on Friday, March 27, 6 p.m., with additional shows Saturday, March 28 at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.
Tickets may be purchased at the door.
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Honoring a lifelong scout
Lakeville Journal
Mar 11, 2026
Honoring a lifelong scout
Submitted
Sandy Rhoades of Falls Village will be honored for his decades in Scouting on Sunday, March 15 at the Elks Lodge in Torrington. Rhoades said on Friday, March 6 that the announcement caught him by surprise. Asked how long he’s been involved with the Scouts, he said “80-something years.”
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