This New England

"Mist on the River, Dawn,'' oil and canvas by SAM VOKEY, to appear in his show Dec. 3-27, at the Guild of Boston Artists, 162 Newbury St., Boston (617) 536-7660.

This, picture, presumably of the Charles River in Boston or Cambridge, is a nice reminder of better weather in about six months. Hang in there

The AP reports that the small, family-owned Manchester (Conn.) Journal Inquirer is suing The Hartford Courant for repeated plagiarism of J-I stories after cutting its own reporting staff to save money.

The Manchester paper accuses The Courant of "pirating" at least 11 local stories in August and September. It then published them as its own work under Courant reporters' bylines, says the suit.

Our colleague J-I managing editor Chris Powell put it well to the AP:

"Either hire reporters to cover these towns or don't.'' Sadly, the once very respectable if stodgy Courant is now part of the Tribune Co., which has been ravaged by Chicago real-estate developer Sam Zell's catastrophically debt-leveraged ownership.

I hope that the Connecticut case reflects a tougher attitude toward the cut-and-paste expropriation (euphemistically called "aggregation'') of intellectual property in the Internet world of journalism.

Whatever the details of The Courant case, it must be said that the relentless drive to grab something for nothing threatens to destroy serious journalism. What bother getting news at all if there's no payment?

Interestingly, the J-I charges non-subscribers for access to news on its Web site while The Courant offers access to its site for free.

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Tiny and elite Amherst College just got two huge anonymous gifts -- $100 million and $25 million -- and made a big announcement about it. New England's public institutions make a big announcement when they get a $2 million donation. (The anonymity in the case of the Amherst donors probably won't last for long; the amounts are too big.)

Such is the peculiar two-tier system in New England, where the old private colleges, which were here first, still rule the roost. Big givers exspecially like to give to colleges where they went or with whose social prestige they want to be identified. It's sexier for high rollers than institutions that most need the money -- public colleges and universities.

Amherst is a member of the " Little Ivy League,'' with arch-rival Williams, and Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Middlebury and maybe a couple of other places.

While New England's reputation as a place where people design and make things has declined there are still many fine craftspeople dreaming up and making beautiful things in the region, even in towns that are too small to even have been real mill towns.

Take this very unusual pendant, called "Delfina,'' made by a small company owned by designer (and veteran and distinguished snowboarder) Mathew DiSpagna.

He started his operation in Lennox, Mass., in the Berkshires, which still has its share of rich New York summer folks who buy jewelry, but he has since moved his shop to smaller Richmond and is now carefully entering the New York market with his gorgeous, internationalist and idiosyncratic stuff (and hoping that the recession is ending!).

He has already been selling nationally. Now will it be breakfast, lunch and dinner at Tiffany's?

(The exotic Delfina features an etched spessartine garnet, lavender scapolite, Nigerian tourmaline and 2 periwinkle indicolites set in gold and silver.)

His New England ingenuity and craftsmanship would have been appreciated by Norman Rockwell, much of whose work can be found down the road in Stockbridge, at the Norman Rockwell Museum, from which I will be pulling images soon (with their permission).

New England, especially Rhode Island, once had a major jewelry industry. Indeed, Providence called itself "the Jewelry Capital of the World.''

Now much of the manufacturing has been sent offshore in search of cheap labor, and though many designers remain, many have left.

How refreshing to see someone still designing and making. beautiful things in these parts, and sending them off the wider world to be enjoyed and passed down as heirlooms, such as the vest-pocket watch made by the Waltham Watch Co. (RIP) that I inherited from my father, whose initials were the same as mine so it looks like it was made for me (in 1934).

I treasure it but it's too precious to carry with me. But I suspect women will be free-spirited about wearing Mr. DiSpagna's very unusual work.

Next stop on my New England entrepreneurial tour: The upscale cherry-wood-puzzle-making company in Norwich, Vt., which sells to Queen Elizabeth II.

An untitled painting by MAXWELL MAYS owned by the Providence Art Club.

Mr Mays, who died at 91 this past Monday, had an avid following in New England for his happy and innocent-looking pictures of a New England that never existed. Many readers remember him for his Yankee magazine covers. As was Norman Rockwell with the old Saturday Evening Post, Mr. Mays seemed perfectly attuned to the sense of the publication in its heyday. It was a place to escape to the land of John Greenleaf Whittier.
No wonder it sold so well in California.

I have no idea what Congregational town is shown here, but it's not Peyton Place.
No sex, no booze, no drugs, no child labor! And that's fine -- they can all lead to an early death.

Massachusetts A.G. Martha Coakley

Providence Journal photo by Ruben Perez

We had Massachusetts Atty. Gen. Martha Coakley in last Friday to chat about her campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held for so long by Edward Kennedy. She is a very thoughtful, careful and calm person, with pleasant-sounding thoughts about which federal programs especially need money.

She seems more conventionally "senatorial'' than her leading rival, Congressman Michael Capuano, who is very smart but sometimes quite angry.

Of course, some controlled anger is sometimes a good thing if you want reform, and blandness can do a lot of damage, too.

But she, as with the other candidates, has presented no plausible ways of paying for these programs. No one dares say what should be said -- that the middle class will have to pay more taxes for the programs it wants and to prevent total budgetary meltdown.

Lest, among other things, the dollar collapse, whoever is in the next Senate will not be able to put off for long hard decisions about dealing with the deficit.

The fact is that just about every federal program has such strong advocates that it's practically immortal.

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While some groups contend that Maine is moving too fast and too big in developing wind power, especially on mountain ridges near ski areas, others, on the coast, are reveling in it.

The Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power is trying to get the state to reconsider statewide goals the group say will put turbines atop 360 miles of mountaintops. (Bit of a stretch, I'd say.) The Forest Ecology Network also raises issues about how big wind farms would hurt the ecology of Maine's vast woods.

But.residents on the beautiful Fox Islands on the Maine Coast are thrilled that they're getting a new and more reliable source of electricity because of a $15 million three-wind-turbine project.

Interestingly, the Fox Islands Electric Cooperative did the financing, which involves tax credits that the federal government gives to encourage renewable-energy projects. Such cooperatives, which evoke the '30s, may be increasingly important in the future for local electricity generation and distribution.

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Is this another sigh that public officials are growing concerned about the demise of newspapers? The State of New Hampshire is guaranteeing part of a loan to the new owner of the Claremont Eagle Times newspaper, in the western part of the state.

The newspaper ceased publishing on July 10, putting 95 people out of work. But then the Sample News Group of Pennsylvania bought it from the local owners and restarted publication -- but only rehired 25.

There is a growing sense that local newspapers are essential local utilities that need to be kept alive, even if in part with public money, which makes First Amendment purists nervous..

David Rohde, the New York Times correspondent kidnapped by the Taliban in Aghanistan, will speak today at 4 p.m. at the List Auditorium at Brown University.

He has a riveting tale and charismatic but humble persona.

What can happen when a city gives away the store to a big company? See what happened to New London: link: