This New England

That great New England institution The Christian Science Monitor, owned by the Church of Christ, Scientist, is becoming the first national newspaper to drop its daily print edition and focus on publishing online. Thus the Boston-based paper (see the Mother Church's grand Back Bay complex) is surrendering to the financial pressures associated with putting words on paper and shipping the sheets around by truck and plane. It has had a readership of many rich -- and almost entirely well-educated -- people but that's not enough in these dreadful days for what are claimed to be dinosaurs.

It will, I am happy to say, print a weekend-only edition. Reading on paper is neurologically different (much more pleasant!) than reading on a screen, but printing is expensive -- too expensive for many publicly held media companies seeking high profit margins and even too dear for papers like the Monitor that are owned and subsidized by nonprofits. And a lot of ads have left newspapers -- some for online (though the Internet is not all that good a place to put ads, which are often irritating when assaulting you from a screen; in a newspaper or magazine, they are a comfortable part of the landscape) -- and some for such new-fangled venues as electronic billboards.

Sad lobster tales, except for lobsters
In other troubled industries: Maine Gov. John Baldacci has signed an order establishing a task force to examine the state's lobster industry and recommend how to maintain its long-term viability. The economic crash has cut into lobster sales and prices big time. But it's hard to foresee when the beasts might again be used as fertilizer, as they were in colonial days. Or to see buying "chicken lobsters'' for about 50 cents, as in the '50s.
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Over-rated R.I. jobless rate?
Rhode Island's jobless rate has surged to 8.8 percent, America's highest. But given the preposterous size of the state, how representative is that of anything? The area covered is so tiny that volatility of its economic data is extreme. And there's nothing quite as bad as, say, Flint, Mich., in the Ocean State. But another reason to merge into Mass. or Conn. ,or both of 'em?

Roberta's Woods
For a sense of what we might look like in New England in a energy crisis a few years from now, read Betty Cotter's Roberta's Woods, a novel about Swamp Yankees under duress, and, of course, self-discovery. It's pretty place-evocative, though the dialogue makes these rural Rhode Islanders sound a bit more West Virginia hay seed than you might find plausible these days in hill country between New London and Providence. But the central characters pop out at you, and you can smell the leaves.

Architectural triumphs
The Redwood Library, in Newport, is just about the most beautiful building, other than a residence, that I have seen in America. Exterior and interior. Trinity Church in Boston and the chapel of St. George's School, in Middletown, are right up there, too. Residences? Well, I'd put the Carrington House, on Providence's College Hill, on the list, along with that glowing temple to voyeurism and exhibitionism, the Glass House, in New Canaan, Conn.

 Tags  Christian Science Monitor lobsters Redwood Library Rhode Island jobless Roberta's Woods

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