Bangor Daily News, Aug. 4

The latest measurement of Maine’s creative economy … gives the state a reasonable baseline from which to watch how this portion of the economy is performing. But before it gets too focused on the size of the creative sector … Maine should notice that all parts of the economy are potentially creative and that it would do well to encourage more creative thinking.

The new report is modest in scope. Part of the reason for this, according to Muskie School Professor Richard Barringer, a member of the research team that wrote the report, “The Creative Economy in Maine,” is that time limits forced the team to use existing data.

This was difficult, he said, because government sources have yet to shift from measuring a manufacturing-based economy. That makes economic categories “something of a misfit.” The team looked at four ways of measuring the economy, from a strictly art-based model to the expansive definition used by Richard Florida, an economics professor who got the country to start thinking about the economy in terms of its creative value.

The report … arrived at the conclusion that the creative economy workers here have more education but earn less money than average. The lower-income measure, however, is not true for New England, where incomes are about the same. This difference is worth more examination.

The report was conceived as a rural measuring stick for what is essentially an urban economic phenomenon, and it would be interesting to see whether the difference holds for other rural states. Another difference: In places such as Santa Fe, Dr. Barringer observes, the arts are drivers in the local economy; here, the Legislature told the re-searchers to include the economic effects of forestry and agriculture, which increasingly rely on the creativity of technology.

Dr. Florida regularly uses a timeline to demonstrate the sector’s growing importance. In 1900, he says, 10 percent of the economy worked in creative fields, which he defines as including scientists, engineers, artists, musicians, designers and knowledge-based professionals. A half century later, that number had crept up to 15 percent. It gained another five percentage points over the next 30 years, but between 1980 and 2000 grew an additional 10 to account for 30 percent of the economy.

This exponential rise not only makes the creative portion of the economy important now, but makes its potential the definition of success in the future. “Think for a moment,” Dr. Florida writes, “about the tremendous competitive edge Japanese manufacturers achieved by tapping the knowledge of shop-floor workers. Employing the creative talents of people whose jobs presently ask for none will dwarf this by comparison.”

That is the key to understanding the creative economy: It is not a fixed entity, made up of certain industries and excluding others. It is a way of doing all work that some fields have embraced and some have yet to grasp. The more of Maine’s businesses that can figure out how to use the creative talents of their employees to the greatest effect, the better off the state’s economy will become. …

Hecklers should apologize


Press-Republican, Plattsburgh, N.Y., Aug. 11

Teresa Heinz Kerry may not have reacted ideally to hecklers along the campaign trail, but it’s the hecklers who ought to be apologizing. Heinz Kerry, the billionaire wife of Democratic presidential John Kerry, was speaking at a rally recently, when pro-Bush spectators began interrupting her with shouts, “Four more years,” to which she responded: “Four more years of hell.” For that, she is being reviled by Republicans and excoriated by some in the media.

It’s hard to see why she should be either reviled or excoriated. She isn’t the one who started the row. She simply replied to it in candid fashion.

Each year, the campaign trail becomes littered more and more with examples of impoliteness and unabashedly rude behavior. The hecklers who shouted “Four more years” were interrupting a woman invited to deliver a message to an audience. How many people, talking face to face with someone, would drown out the conversation by chanting over the other person’s observations? That is plainly beyond tolerable. …

Whether Heinz Kerry will define for America once and for all the kind of person who will be the archetype of the presidential spouse will await history. But, surely, neither she nor any other candidate’s wife should have to abide such rudeness when stating her opinion.

Don’t limit access to medicine


Daily Nation, Nairobi, Kenya, Aug. 10

The lives of more than 40,000 people in East Africa hang in the balance, following removal of three generic antiretrovirals from the World Health Organization’s list of drugs.

This decision will have far-reaching implications for the control of HIV/AIDS in Africa, the continent that bears the brunt of this scourge.

While many will appreciate the need for antiretrovirals to conform to internationally accepted standards, it is equally important that HIV/AIDS patients should access these life-prolonging drug at reasonable cost.

The inclusion of nevirapine, the drug of choice for stopping mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS, is particularly disturbing, given the important role it plays in protecting children born of HIV-infected mothers.

In essence, it means countries that will benefit from the Bush funds have to put their AIDS patients on branded drugs, which are four times more expensive than the generics.