Lawrence P. Pangaro
Lawrence P. Pangaro of Center Harbor, N.H., and formerly of Englewood, Fla., a former advertising manager and editor and publisher at Massachusetts newspapers, died May 7 after a brief illness. He was 92.
He spent the first 20 years of his early career in New York City. The first eight of those years were in advertising, and the last 12 as promotion and research director of Story, Brooks and Finley Inc., a national newspaper representative business.
After leaving New York City, Pangaro became national advertising manager of The Standard-Times of New Bedford, Mass.
He resigned from that job to create his own advertising agency.
He co-founded the Southeastern Advertising Agency Inc.
Assisted by his wife, he also established the Sippican Sentinel, an award-winning weekly newspaper in Marion, Mass. He was editor and publisher of Sippican Publishing Co. Inc., which also had advertising and public relation divisions.
While he was at Tabor Academy in Marion, Mass., he helped publish the Tabor Log. He created a course in journalism for students working with the Tabor Log.
He leaves four children, David, Deidre, Dana and Diana; seven grandsons; two great-grandchildren.
Zena Doris Marguerite Harris Temkin
Zena Doris Marguerite Harris Temkin, 93, of Torrington, Conn., died May 8.
She wrote for several magazines and Connecticut newspapers during her career.
Temkin was elected a state representative in Connecticut in 1958, and served two terms. She wrote a weekly newspaper column about politics. She later became a political aide to Connecticut Gov. Abe Ribicoff, a Democrat, in two successful campaigns for U.S. Senate.
She owned a public relations consulting company that handled political accounts, and was national public relations director for the Van Wyck Brooks Memorial Library in Bridgewater, Conn. Temkin was a director of publicity and public relations for the Sharon (Conn.) Summer Theater in 1953.
She helped with Democrat Ella Grasso’s campaigns when she ran for Congress in 1970 and 1972, and for governor of Connecticut two years later. Temkin also helped in the first two successful campaigns of U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat.
Temkin was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention that nominated John F. Kennedy for president, and a delegate to the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco.
In 1995, she was a presidential delegate to the White House Conference of Aging.
From 1986 to 1989, Temkin was vice chairwoman of the Connecticut Judicial System Commission, which selected judicial candidates.
She founded the community radio station WAPJ in Torrington.
She leaves three children, Alan, Nan and Bruce; two grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; a brother.
Denise Lorraine (Croisetiere) Larrivee
Denise Lorraine (Croisetiere) Larrivee, 87, of Cromwell, Conn., died May 12 in Pilgrim Manor Care Center in Cromwell.
She was the Cromwell correspondent for the Middletown (Conn.) Press for 16 years.
She leaves two sons, Richard and Raymond; five daughters, Norma-Jeanne, Diane, Nancy, Pauline and Suzanne; 17 grandchildren; 17 great-grandchildren; a sister.
Michael Chetwin Richards
Michael Chetwin Richards, 74, of Windsor, Conn., died May 19 in Francis Hospital in Hartford, Conn., soon after being diagnosed with cancer.
He was employed by the former Hartford (Conn.) Times and Manchester (Conn.) Evening Herald.
Richards had been employed with the Guiana Chronicle until he came to the United States in 1969.
He leaves four children, Christopher, Nicola, Allison and James; four grandchildren, Nathaniel, Zari, Camryn and Abigail; two brothers; three sisters.
Everett Ratta
Everett Ratta, 87, of San Diego, Calif., died April 30.
He was employed at The Burlington (Vt.) Free Press and then at the San Diego Union Tribune later in his career.
He leaves his wife, Marcia; six children, Ralph, Stephen, Allen, Daniel, Andrew and Meg; a stepdaughter, Julie; 11 grandchildren; 13 great-grandchildren; two sisters.
John C. Mullin
John C. Mullin of Venice, Fla., died May 21.
He was employed by The Boston Globe for 37 years.
He leaves his wife, Mary; seven children, Thomas, J. Charles, Joseph, William, James, Anne and Patricia; nine grandchildren; 12 great-grandchildren; a brothers.
Phonto is a simple application that allows users to add text to pictures on their smartphones. Kim Shepherd of Delhi, N.Y., wrote that she used Phonto for weather updates online. She was even nice enough to send a couple of samples.
Snapseed might be the best photo editing application for phones. Many of the tools available in Photoshop, Lightroom and other editing applications are available within Snapseed.
For our freedoms, is a ‘C+’ grade good enough?
Gene Policinski, inside the First Amendment
Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institute’s First Amendment Center. He can be reached at gpolicinski@newseum.org.
Follow him on Twitter:
@genefac
When it comes to our core freedoms, is a “C+” grade good enough?
A new First Amendment Report Card, released by the First Amendment Center of the Newseum Institute, gives our First Amendment freedoms — religion, speech, press, assembly and petition — a composite grade of C+.
The grades were assigned by 15 panelists from across the political spectrum, some of them experts on First Amendment issues overall, and some who focus on specific areas such as religion or press.
Assembly and petition — the rights to gather peaceably with like-minded people without government restriction or prosecution, and ask the government for changes in policies and practices — received the highest marks, at a “B-.” Religion and speech were graded at a “C+,” while press was given a “C.”
On press, for example, panelists pointed to President Trump’s campaign threat to “open up” libel laws to sue media outlets more easily; the administration blocking certain news organizations from attending White House briefings; the “fake news” phenomenon; and the president’s general enmity for the press.
Assembly and petition received the highest grades, with panelists noting that recent protests and political marches were classic demonstrations of both freedoms, and that the government took no action to crack down on them or the resulting press coverage.
Perhaps you — or I, since I didn’t participate in the grading — might have rated the freedoms differently. Good. That would mean we were thinking critically about those basic freedoms, which define us as citizens and enable our democracy to function as such.
And no doubt some people will say that in a contentious world, and with an electorate split straight down the middle on most issues, it would be too much to expect a more favorable assessment of the First Amendment.
But I’ll admit that a “C+” leaves me uneasy.
For too long, too many of us have either taken those freedoms for granted, assuming that they will always be there, or considered them in narrow ways (believing, for example, that freedom of speech is not for those with whom we disagree, or that so-called fringe faiths are not really covered by freedom of religion).
Many more of us live in ignorance of the freedoms that were so dearly won. Each year, when results of the First Amendment Center’s State of the First Amendment survey are released, the survey consistently finds that large numbers of Americans — sometimes more than one-third — cannot name a single freedom provided by the 225-year old amendment.
The report card, titled “The First Amendment in the Age of Trump,” nonetheless reflects issues that are not limited to the president’s first 100 days, or to the time he spends in office.
Some of those issues have been simmering for years. The Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements raised issues around speech, assembly and petition to new levels of awareness. The “culture wars” around matters of faith — from the silly, such as whether to call them “Christmas” or “holiday” trees, to the very serious, such as federal policies that might discriminate against Muslims — have raged for decades, and show no signs of abating.
Surveys dating well back into the 1990s chart a growing public apprehension about the credibility, motives and bias of the news media, and a worrisome erosion of support for the press’s role as a “watchdog on government.” Amid worsening public opinion, journalists have also had to contend with shrinking resources as they attempt to track government officials’ performance and measure government effectiveness.
The quarterly report card is not intended, and could not be, the final word on our First Amendment freedoms — the issues are too complex and the disputes too numerous, and filled with far too many twists and turns.
But the grading system will serve to call our attention, particularly over time, to a need to defend one or more freedoms from momentary threats and longer-term assaults on our free expression and religious liberty rights.
Stay tuned — a new First Amendment Report Card will be issued each quarter, prompting us all to take a closer look at how we understand, defend and practice our First Amendment freedoms.
And maybe one day we’ll get to add another grading area — one where you and I and our fellow citizens get an “A” for effort.