It’s one of those gloomy December days–31 degrees, overcast.

The Ukraine war is still on; inflation is rampant; covid is again on the rise My book is out, sales are slow. Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is weeks away. My brothers are both ill in distant states

I decide to go for a run on the Charles.

The light is no good for photos, I’m thinking, as I cross a nearly deserted Memorial Drive.

But then a tree I’ve passed by hundreds of times reaches out to me. It’s decaying, but, I note, still strong.

I move closer; a new trunk seems to be growing inside it; young branches are reaching to the sky.

I pull my camera out of my pocket and take a few shots.

I amble along. Some trees look injured, dead; the bark is wearing off. I stop again, camera in hand.

Close in: abstract beauty

Back to my run…stopping frequently.

Many of the trees have amazing shapes

I wonder why they are so gnarly.

One holds a nest of leaves.

Another: a bird

An empty nest

There are milkweed…

Rusted weeds…

Bittersweet.

Reflections, shapes, colors in the water.

Later, when editing my photos, I discover a pair of ducks.

Black and white

More ducks;
a willow

A human touch.

Heading back: more stunning formations.

I return to the river path the next day, and the next, reassured to find changed light, new growth, life and hope as I–and nature– progress, slowly, with starts and stops, toward spring.

Anita M. Harris is a writer, photographer and communications consultant based in Cambridge, Mass.
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, also in Cambridge.

On June 12, I had the privilege of introducing the zoom happy hour for classmates who attended the 51st reunion of my graduating class. I touched on some of the incidents I wrote about in my 2015 book, Ithaca Diaries, which is about our four years 1966-1970. Sometimes, I call the book “Gidget Goes to the Revolution” which, in a way, sums up my college experience. But 51 years later, I thought it would be important to reflect on the past as it relates to the present and future–rather a handful for a 10-minute talk–but I think I managed to do it. Here’s a link to the video; the script, which I did not follow exactly, is inserted below.

Hi, I’m so glad to see everyone here, and especially that we’re all still here after this difficult year. I know that some of us are disappointed not to be in Ithaca—but the good part is that friends from far away can be with us.  One such friend said he would join in if I provided free drinks…which I am…in my living room.  CHEERS!

51^st ANNIVERSARY OF GRADUATION 1970
 I’m sure you know that this is the 51^st anniversary week of our crazy graduation. With those three walkouts, and the demonstration on stage where Morris Bishop, the distinguished historian and leader of the processional hit someone over the head with the baton he was carrying… Many people think that it was Dave Burack—my gov instructor—who got hit over the head …Burack swears it was his roommate…In any case, the demonstrators got hauled off stage and into a cop car…The bear at the top of the mace got bent and has never been the same—nor, I think,  have we.

 I remember that really well…which is amazing because people were  passing a JOINT when we were standing in the graduation processional…and I was definitely stoned.

I WROTE ABOUT THAT IN MY BOOK, ITHACA DIARIES which is based on the journals I kept as an undergraduate: it starts with me arriving at Cornell freshman year carrying the pink suitcase my uncle leon gave me for my bat mitzvah—goes through draft card burnings, demonstrations against the war,  the straight takeover,  MY LOVE LIFE, WHAT WAS I THINKING Kent State…and  ends on graduation day….when, to my amazement,  I even led a demonstration.

I WAS ORIGINALLY SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT ITHACA DIARIES LAST YEAR, AT OUR FIFTIETH but with the pandemic that really didn’t work out. So this year, Sally and Kathy asked me to introduce the social hour– they told me several times to be brief and to keep in mind that this is supposed to be a HAPPY hour. So I’m not going to reminisce a whole lot…I will just move the story ahead a little, wax a bit historical and philosophical, and then we’ll breakout out the drinks.  I mean..join the breakout sessions.

                                                                                    *

SINCE ITHACA DIARIES CAME OUT, I”VE BEEN WORKING ON TWO SEQUELS.

THE FIRST SEQUEL IS ABOUT MY FIRST YEAR OUT OF CORNELL— and I imagine that many of us went through similar experiences.   After all the turmoil on campus, and changes in the late sixties, I had no idea what to do with myself. (And of course, I was an English major…need I say more?) But as a fledgling feminist, I wanted to prove that I could do things: that anything a guy could do, I could do, too.  I got a bunch of short-term jobs.

WEST VIRGINIA First I got a job with the ILR School that took me traveling around the country to several hospitals,; in West Birginia, I had my first look at coal miners with black lung disease.

I WORKED IN A  POLITICAL CAMPAIGN  where one of the pols spent his days pretending to read the newspaper while staring at my legs…

THEN I WENT ON A ROAD TRIP cross country with two Brits I didn’t know, whose names I found on a bulletin board. They were both named John John, John, and I  drove cross country in a big black buick =–u drive it—and picked up every derelict and druggie, all the way from Miami to San Francisco.

AFTER THAT, I WORKED WITH DISADVANTAGED TEENS IN THE PHILADELPHIA GHETTO…AND FINALLY, I WOUND UP IN HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA.  

That’s where the first sequel, which I’m CALLING PHILADELPHIA STORIES  ENDS.

HARRISBURG

SO, THEN, THE SEQUEL TO THE SEQUEL:  HARRISBURG
IT TURNED OUT THAT THREE OF OUR CLASSMATES, ED ZUCKERMAN, FRED SOLOWEY, AND VINCENT BLOCKER, WERE ALSO IN HARRISBURG, EACH FOR HIS OWN REASONS. WE AND SOME OTHER PEOPLE ENDED UP STARTING A NEWSPAPER THERE, IN CONNECTION TO A MAJOR POLITICAL TRIAL— IT WAS THE TRIAL OF THE HARRISBURG 8., WHICH HAD AN INTERESTING CORNELL CONNECTION. 

HARRISBURG 8 TRIAL
BERRIGAN: You may remember Dan Berrigan the anti war Priest, and poet who was deputy director of  Cornell United religious work. Anyway, while Dan Berrigan was in prison, Nixon’s FBI Director J EDGAR HOOVER ACCUSED DANIEL’s brother  Philip , who was also in prison, of conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger and blow up underground heating tunnels in Washington DC.  Also accused were  former ILR Professor Eqbal Ahmad, and six others—mostly nuns and priests. I’m not kidding, I’m not kidding.

So, Ed, Fred, Vincent and I started a newspaper called the Harrisburg Independent Press—or—HIP- around the trial of the Harrisburg 8. That was how I became a journalist, the paper was amazing.

And, for the last few years I’ve been working on a book on my experiences at HIP.

A FEW WEEKS AGO, I WAS WORKING ON THE CONCLUSION. And I started wondering what the heck am I doing, why am I time traveling, going back into the past all the time?  

ONE REASON IS PERSONAL : AS WITH Ithaca diaries, I needed to understand on a personal level, just what had gone down, to get things straight in my head, this was such a formative period, in order to figure out what to do next.  

BUT ANOTHER REASON IS HISTORICAL/SOCIETAL.

WHEN I FIRST STARTED WORKING ON THE HARRISBURG BOOK, TRUMP WAS JUST COMING INTO OFFICE, AND I FELT THE COUNTRY WAS DIVIDED, much as it was in the late 60s and early 70s.  I thought it might be interesting to draw some parallels between the present day divisiveness along the lines of  race, poverty, ethnicity, and corruption… and what was going on back then, under the Nixon administration, with race relations, the Vietnam War, dirty tricks and such.

SPIRALS: BROKEN PATTERNS:
 Then I thought about my first book, it’s called Broken patterns, and it’s about our generation of professional women in relation to our own mothers and grandmothers. It describes a spiral pattern in history—a spiral pattern that I think holds true for Individuals as well.

WHAT DO I MEANBY SPIRALS?  HERE I’d LIKE TO PONTIFICATE, A BIT, IF YOU WILL INDULGE ME…

Many of us—myself included—tend to think about progress in a linear way. That is, that to progress, we move forward in a straightforward path toward a goal.  But the older I get, the more I see that life sort of emerges in a series of starts and stops—that we get just so far, in moving toward a goal—maybe we reach it; maybe we get blocked… and then, as a society or as individuals, we tend to pull back to reassess, to reintegrate our own pasts, our country’s past, in order to move forward, once again.  

TODAY A TURNING POINT IN A SPIRAL
I think that now as a society we’re at a turning point in a spiral that’s kind of similar to where we were. 50 years ago. Now, as then, society is divided. Many have moved toward equality but others have been left behind.   As you know, there are issues of race, poverty, war, environment, how government should work, what kind of nation we want to be.  BUT despite all of the disruptions, the divisiveness, the protests,  the violence, I feel heartened that many of us are looking back historically, to understand how we got to this place so that we can regroup to find new ways of doing things.  I know that I’m painting with a rather broad brush—but I believe that==or I HOPE that– retreating a bit to reassess, will allow us move forward as individuals, and as a society, once again. END PONTIFICATION

COMING TOGETHER FOR OUR 51^st
 In the same way, coming together for our 50th, or 51^st reunion, gives us the chance to look back, to heal, to understand, to figure out where we’re at in order to find new ways to move forward in our own lives. I’m hoping that in our social… er happy hour, we’ll have a chance to catch up, figure out where we’ve been, where we are now, and  what adventures come  next as we enter this new phase in our lives.  TOAST WITH GLASS

One quick reminder—please use chat to catch up/share info or addresses with anyone you want to stay in touch with after the social.  

Now that Massachusetts has made it into phase 3 of the covid reopening, I’m pleased that our new cases are remaining low and that, perhaps in light of what’s happening elsewhere in the country, more folks seem to be wearing masks, outdoors.

I’m also pleased that, of late, no one has cursed me out (and vice versa) and that those who do call me names now use positive terms. Yesterday, someone actually called out “genius” and the day before, “creative! ” Sometimes, I hear people chuckling as they pass by.

That’s been true for a few weeks, now–ever since the Christmas Tree Shop reopened and I was able to buy a pool noodle which I sport to maintain social distance of almost six feet when running on Fresh Pond or the Charles.

It wasn’t really my idea (a friend told me he’d seen people doing that in New York’s Central Park) but, hey, I’m willing to take credit if this becomes a Cambridge fashion trend. (And I hope it does).

I’d also like to thank some folks and organizations for helping me through the pandemic—in what has not been an easy time:

Ranger Jean, of Fresh Pond, who listened and commiserated when I told her about the maskless covidiot who called me a motherFxxxr when I told him masks were required; she told me not to interact, that people should feel happy on Fresh Pond.

Heidi M. of Evolve Fitness of Cambridge and Framingham, whose Zoom Zumba class, smile and joy lifted my spirits on Saturday mornings before the covid reopening.

Jennifer Miles, whose City of Cambridge online yoga classes continue to provide me with peace, calm and a regular schedule. https://www.facebook.com/huronvillageyoga

Heather Cox Richardson, whose biweekly lectures on political history have taught me ever-so- much about the situations we are facing today .

-The good-natured helpful people at Trader Joe’s and CVS, and the nice older Star Market checkout clerk (I don’t know his name) who offered that he went to Boston College, not BU; and the Starbucks barista who wished me a good day as I walked out the door with my half -caf .

-Virginia and Maya (in the photo below)and Sheldon at the newly reopened Henrietta’s Cafe, at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, whose spirit, joy , encouragement and coffee (!) give me great energy to complete my book-in progress.

And Sarah, for taking the photo of me with the pool noodle, and for adding that cinnamon to my coffee!

–Anita Harris

Anita M. Harris is an author, photographer and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA.

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, also in Cambridge.

Spent an interesting Wednesday afternoon, last week,  visiting exhibitors at the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo –several of whom won “Best of Show” Awards later that day.

The judges, listed below,  named winners in six categories: Data Integration & Management; Analysis & Data Computing; Genomic Data Services; Data Visualization & Exploration; Storage Infrastructure & Hardware; and the Judges’ Prize.  Attendees also voted on the People’s Choice Award, selecting products that they believed measurably improve workflow or capacity, enabling better research.

One of my favorites was Nanome, which won best in show for Data Visualization and Exploration.
Nanome uses virtual reality to improve the drug discovery process, according to its award application. The company offers applications for experimentation, collaborattion, and learning at the nano-scale– leveraging  VR hardware such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive to create immersive virtual workspaces allowing users to visualize, design, and simulate molecules, proteins, and more.

At  Nanom’se i BIO–IT World booth, Marketing Director Jarrell James handed me a pair of VR goggles and two joysticks (?) with which  I could explore within a molecule–by seeming to make components larger, smaller or revolve.

A more sophisticated user might be able to:

• -Import molecular structures from a local machine or an online database such as RCSB or DrugBank.
• – Manipulate molecular structures by literally grabbing, rotating, or enlarging the area of interest with their hands.
• – Apply different representations to their selection of Atoms, Residues, Chains, or Proteins such as Stick, Wire, Ball & Stick, or Van der Waals.
• – Measure distances and angles between atoms.
• – Mutate amino acids and cycle through rotamer libraries.
• – Design small molecules by building with any element from the periodic table.
• – Minimize manipulated molecules to prevent clashes and provide a local energy minimum conformation.
• – Duplicate or Split any selected area of your structure to modify or export independently.
• – Export your molecular structures to PDB.
• – Join a virtual reality session as a guest with or without virtual reality hardware.

• – Present and collaborate in the same virtual environment with colleagues to demonstrate proposals or compare before and after results.

Nanome plans next to enter the education space. The company’s VR technology wil help high school and college students , likely already proficient in gaming technology,  better understqand biologic processes, James said.

The Hyve 

I also spent some time with the folks at Hyve…whose fake robot ( that is, a “robot inhabited” by a human) did make me  curious about Hyve’s work.

RADAR-base
radar-cns.org

As described in the company’s award submission,  the company’s RADAR-base, developed in the framework of the IMI RADAR-CNS project, is an open source platform designed to securely collect, store and share readings from wearable devices and smartphone sensors to enable remote monitoring. The RADAR-base platform consists of three major categories of components:

• Data ingestion: Recognizing and registering data-sources (including smartphones and wearable devices), collecting the data via a direct Bluetooth connection or through a 3rd party API and streaming in near real time to the server (green box in the figure). Using Apache Kafka, the collected data is streamed to dedicated topics in real-time where the data is optimally schematized using Apache Avro;
• Data storage and management: Consists of two centralized storage systems behind an authorized security layer. A cold-storage based on HDFS that is scalable and fault-tolerant focusing on storing large volumes of high frequency raw-data, and a hot-storage based on MongoDB storing aggregated data to provide a near real-time overview of the raw-data. (blue box in the figure);
• Data sharing: Visualizing aggregated data in a live dashboard and exporting raw data for further analyses in various formats including AVRO, JSON and CSV (yellow box in the figure).

The platform is highly secured by a centralized management system of users and their authorities, participants, allowed devices and their specifications. RADAR-Base platform is distributed as Docker containers with associated scripts and configuration files to enable easy installation.

 In addition, I  visited Sinequa, which took the prize in the Analysis & Data Computing category. 

Sinequa ES v10
sinequa.com

The Sinequa Cognitive Search and Analytics platform handles all structured and unstructured data sources and uses Natural Language Processing (NLP), statistical analysis and Machine Learning (ML) in order to create an enriched “Logical Data Warehouse” (LDW). This LDW is optimized for performance in delivering rapid responses to users’ information needs. Users can ask questions in their native language or ask that relevant information be “pushed” to them in a timely fashion when it emerges.

More than 180 connectors ready for use “out of the box” make the process of connecting multiple data sources fast and seamless. Company and industry-specific dictionaries and ontologies can be easily integrated, putting specific knowledge “under the hood” of the Sinequa platform, making it an intelligent partner for anyone in search of relevant subject information.

Other awards, as descrbed in company literature: :

Genomic Data Services

Diploid
Moon 1.0
diploid.com/moon

Moon is the first software to autonomously diagnose rare diseases from WES/WGS data. By applying AI to the domain of rare disease diagnostics, Moon brings speed and scalability to the genome interpretation process.

The software only requires the patient’s gender, age of onset and his/her symptoms – in addition to the genetic data. Moon then goes from whole genome variant data (VCF) to pinpointing the causal variant in less than 5 minutes.

The software highlights one or a few variants that could explain the patient’s phenotype. For every variant, Moon displays an extensive list of annotations that it mined from the literature, allowing geneticists to easily verify decisions from the AI algorithms. Moon’s speed does not only save a lot of time and money, it also saves lives: Moon has already proven its utility in the NICU at Rady Children’s Hospital (San Diego): https://goo.gl/7TDrQD.

Unfortunately, about 50% of rare disease patients remain undiagnosed, even after whole genome sequencing and expert interpretation. Most hospitals don’t have the resources to keep analyzing negative cases even though new correlations between genes and disorders are published every day. Moon changes all this: as the software autonomously mines the literature and analyses samples, it can reanalyze older, negative cases in the background. Only when new information that might lead to a diagnosis becomes available, the assigned geneticist is notified. That way, hospitals can frequently reanalyze thousands of cases with minimal labor, providing a perspective to undiagnosed patients.

Storage Infrastructure & Hardware

PetaGene
PetaSuite Cloud Edition – Version 1.2
petagene.com

Launching at Bio-IT World 2018, PetaSuite Cloud Edition (CE) combines two innovations: (i) the ability for a user’s software tools and pipelines to seamlessly integrate with a wide variety of cloud platforms without modification, and (ii) significantly improved, high-performance, scalable PetaSuite genomic compression technology. 

For example, users can now directly run, without modification, their custom BWA-mem, GATK, Python, Java, shell scripts, and other POSIX-based software/pipelines streaming directly to/from AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, and private cloud storage, as though they were local filestores. PetaSuite CE supports each platform’s object encryption during transfer and at rest. User applications can connect to multiple cloud platforms, buckets and regions as desired, transparently, and on demand, in user-mode, without needing to modify their pipelines, setup mounts, or have administrator privileges.

Whether running on bare-metal, in VMs, or within Docker containers, for public, private or hybrid cloud, PetaSuite CE enables organizations to unlock the power of distributed object storage seamlessly from their POSIX-compliant tools and pipelines.

PetaSuite CE is built from the ground-up for the extremely high performance streaming and random-access workloads demanded by genomics applications. The integrated, transparent PetaGene compression has been significantly improved to deliver even faster compression and greater reductions of up to 6x of both BAM and FASTQ.GZ files, enabling large costs savings in cloud storage and data transfer times. Moreover, PetaGene compression can also preserve the MD5 checksum of the original BAM or FASTQ.GZ file and not just the internal raw SAM/FASTQ data.

The Judges’ Prize went to 

 Linguamatics and its iScite 2.0 (iscite.com) provide a Software-as-a-Service search application that puts the power of text analytics directly into scientists’ hands, according to the company writeup.

Using Linguamatics’ Award-winning Natural Language Processing
Researchers can extract and analyze relevant data to rapidly answer business-critical questions. iScite utilizes Linguamatics’ award-winning Natural Language  L(NLP) based blend of analytical methods. By understanding the semantics and structure of text, iScite handles the variety of ways people express the same information, ensuring searches are comprehensive and accurate.

Easy to use on any device
iScite’s intuitive HTML interface includes a simple search box and auto-complete suggestions. The innovative answer-routing engine lets users answer simple or complex questions using puzzle-piece building blocks – simplifying access to powerful queries that extract concepts, relationships, numerical data such as drug dosages, mutations and more.

Get answers to questions, not just documents
Data sources include Linguamatics’ cloud-hosted content. MEDLINE, Clinical Trials.gov, FDA Drug Labels, PubMed Central, and Patent Abstracts are annotated with curated terminologies for diseases, drugs, genes and organizations. Scientists can answer questions such as:

• What genes are involved in breast cancer?
• What protocol designs have been used for immuno-oncology trials?
• What are the adverse events for kinase inhibitors?

Actionable results
Results are presented in structured form, with bar chart facets for dynamic, visual results-filtering, a document viewer that highlights key terms and relationships, and relevant link-outs. Users can curate, save, and export their results.

iScite allows users across drug discovery and development to cut through the vast information landscape and discover the most valuable insights.

The People’s Choice award went to 

OnRamp BioInformatics, Inc. and itsROSALIND™ platform:  the first-ever genomics analysis platform specifically designed for life science researchers to  analyze and interpret datasets, while freeing up more time for bioinformaticians.

Named in honor of pioneering researcher Rosalind Franklin, who made a major contribution to the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA with her famous photograph 51, OnRamp’s ROSALIND platform aims to simplify the practice of genomic data interpretation. According to the company’s writeup,  ROSALIND puts the researcher into the driver’s seat of data analysis and democratizes bioinformatics by broadly expanding access to genomic and proteomic technologies for cancer research, precision medicine and sustainable agriculture.

While many open-source tools remain the lifeline of genomic analysis, a simplified and innovative user experience for the biologist can empower them to run their own analyses, while utilizing these tools without the need for typing any command-line instructions.

ROSALIND is powered in partnership with Google Cloud and features scalable compute power and economical cloud-based storage. ROSALIND is a swarming docker-based genomic analysis solution incorporating the industry’s most trusted open-source tools and algorithms, with an angular front-end and secure RESTful API. ROSALIND is also deployable on-premise.

On Ramp technololgists believe that empowering biologists with “an intuitive and comprehensive platform” to explore their data and collaborate with colleagues and bioinformaticians, they  can help accelerate their industry and the widespread adoption of genomic technologies by dramatically lowering costs, reducing  complexity and, ultimately, focus more on what what to do with results, rather than on how to get to them.

In the words of Allison Profitt, BIO-IT World’s editor,” The awards program recognizes the best of the innovative product solutions for the life sciences industry on display at the conference,

“It’s always a treat to explore what’s new in our industry.

” The innovation on display by Bio-IT World exhibitors never disappoints, and we are excited to shine a spotlight on the best life sciences has to offer.”

Judges
“The Best of Show program relies on a panel of expert judges from academia and industry who screen eligible new products and hear presentations from a list of finalists on site. This year our judges considered 46 new products and viewed presentations on site from 18 finalists.”

The 2018 judging panel included Joe Cerro, BostonCIO; Chris Dwan, Bridgeplate; Richard Holland, New Forest Ventures; Eleanor Howe, Diamond Age Data Science; Phillips Kuhl, Cambridge Healthtech Institute; Steve Marshall, Marshall Data Solutions; Michael Miller, Genentech; Art Morales, Analgesic Solutions; Nanguneri Nirmala, Tufts University School of Medicine; Alexander Sherman, Massachusetts General Hospital; Subi Subramanian, Vertex Pharmaceuticals; Bill Van Etten, BioTeam; and Proffitt.

–Anita M. Harris
Anita Harris is a science writer based in Cambridge, MA. 
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Commmunications Group, also in Cambridge, ma.  

Had a great time at this year’s women’s march…Much good cheer; great signage, and a wide range of participants. At about 2 pm, half-way through, a police officer told me that the crowd estimate was 4000…but he believed the number of participants was twice that, and I’d guess even a few more. (Given that there were only about 10 porta-potties, I’d also guess that was many more than the organizers expected). The sound system left something to be desired (from my perch on a monument, I could see the speaker but not hear an understandable word) but I much enjoyed the creativity of the signage and enthusiasm of the attendees.

–Anita Harris
Anita M. Harris is a writer and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA. She is the author of Broken Patterns, Professional Women and the Quest for a New Feminine Identity  

and Ithaca Diaries, Coming of Age in the 1960s. 

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, a pr and content marketing firm  in Cambridge.

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Fresh Pond, Cambridge
Credit: Anita M. Harris

I often run at Fresh Pond. True,  I have a “running” debate with my exercise app, which sometimes  calls what I do “walking”  but be that as it may… I have struck up a number of very cordial relationships, there, with the dogs and their humans.

Ordinarily,  everyone is quite friendly (though I can get a bit ferocious when a human attached to three dogs on leashes blocks the entire width of running path).

But a  few weeks ago,  I ran into a spate of ungracious humans who yelled at me that I was running on the wrong side of the road, gave me the finger (to be honest, I responded in kind)  and one who even tried to force me off the dirt path. I asked Ranger Jean Rodgers if there are right-of-way rules for the Pond. 

Here’s her response.

Dear Anita,

Thank you for taking the time to write and share your experiences here at Fresh Pond Reservation.  I’m sorry to hear you are having some less than civil interactions with other users.  Soft running surfaces are in short supply here at Fresh Pond.  No one has a right to them to the exclusion of others. As with all public spaces, sharing and civility are required however frustrating.   If most people keep to the right as they are able, travel on the Perimeter Road would have a level of predictability.  

The behavior of others as you have reported it is unacceptable for any reason.  I will post some signs in our information boards, the ranger station and at entrances excerpted from the street code booklet that help visitors know that sharing and civil interactions are  expected.

The City has just issued “Street Code, Rules and Etiquette for Getting There Together” to address the need for safe and civil behavior when people are moving about the City’s Public Spaces.  Shared Path Etiquette is addressed on page 16. I plan to post it around the Reservation.  http://bit.ly/CambridgeStreetCode  

Here’s a summary and some links to our Shared Use Plan that was developed a while ago with the public to encourage civil interactions and use of Fresh Pond Reservation:

https://www.cambridgema.gov/Water/freshpondreservation/aboutfreshpond/shareduse

Shared Use Plan 

As the terminal reservoir in the water system that provides drinking water to the City of Cambridge, Fresh Pond Reservation serves as in important buffer to protect the health and water quality of Fresh Pond.  The Reservation is also an important open space for Cambridge residents and visitors. Due to limited space on paths, trails, and open areas, as well as increasing popularity due to restoration efforts, occasional conflicts among users can arise. To address these conflicts, the City sought to engage the public in order to develop a shared vision for future use and a clear implementable plan between the Summer 2010 and Spring 2011. The result of this process was the Shared Use Plan with the intent to accomplish the following objectives (in no particular order):
*Protect the flora, fauna, and overall ecosystem and water supply, 
*Promote a welcoming and safe place, 
*Provide for a multitude of recreational activities, 
*Promote mutual respect and civility among users, 
*Improve communication among users and with those managing the Reservation, 
*Provide for additional education and opportunities to participate in stewardship, 
*Enhance user safety and enforcement through rules that are easy to understand, posted, and enforceable, 
*Provide for enjoyment by current and future generations. 

Please feel free to put the ranger phone number (617 349-xxxx) in your phone contact list and call me to come out and assist if you if people don’t settle down and share the space with you.   I do my best to answer the phone whether I’m on or off duty.   If someone threatens you or puts a hand on you, call the police for immediate assistance (911 or at their business number 617 349-3300).

We all matter and we all make a difference.

Jean Rogers
Chief Ranger
Fresh Pond Reservation

Anita Harris is a writer and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA.
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, also in Cambridge.

Having made calls and canvassed for Hillary Clinton over the weekend (and joked about her seeming a bit stiff –like cardboard–in the photo to the left),  I’m saddened, confused and a bit shocked by her loss to Donald Trump. I’ll be writing more about this in days to come, but for now, thought I’d share her concession speech, which I received in an email from her campaign, so that you could read it in its entirety. I found it eloquent and inspirational.

–Anita M. Harris

Thank you.

Last night, I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country. I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans.

This is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for, and I’m sorry we did not win this election for the values we share and the vision we hold for our country.

But I feel pride and gratitude for this wonderful campaign that we built together –- this vast, diverse, creative, unruly, energized campaign. You represent the best of America, and being your candidate has been one of the greatest honors of my life.

I know how disappointed you feel, because I feel it too. And so do tens of millions of Americans who invested their hopes and dreams in this effort. This is painful, and it will be for a long time. But I want you to remember this: Our campaign was never about one person or even one election. It was about the country we love — and about building an America that’s hopeful, inclusive, and big-hearted.

We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought. But I still believe in America –- and I always will. And if you do, too, then we must accept this result -– and then look to the future.

Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.

Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power, and we don’t just respect that, we cherish it. It also enshrines other things –- the rule of law, the principle that we’re all equal in rights and dignity, and the freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these things too — and we must defend them.

And let me add: Our constitutional democracy demands our participation, not just every four years, but all the time. So let’s do all we can to keep advancing the causes and values we all hold dear: making our economy work for everyone, not just those at the top; protecting our country and protecting our planet; and breaking down all the barriers that hold anyone back from achieving their dreams.

We’ve spent a year and a half bringing together millions of people from every corner of our country to say with one voice that we believe that the American Dream is big enough for everyone — for people of all races and religions, for men and women, for immigrants, for LGBT people, and people with disabilities.

Our responsibility as citizens is to keep doing our part to build that better, stronger, fairer America we seek. And I know you will.

I am so grateful to stand with all of you.

I want to thank Tim Kaine and Anne Holton for being our partners on this journey. It gives me great hope and comfort to know that Tim will remain on the front-lines of our democracy, representing Virginia in the Senate.

To Barack and Michelle Obama: Our country owes you an enormous debt of gratitude for your graceful, determined leadership, and so do I.

To Bill, Chelsea, Marc, Charlotte, Aidan, our brothers, and our entire family, my love for you means more than I can ever express.

You crisscrossed this country on my behalf and lifted me up when I needed it most –- even four-month old Aidan traveling with his mom.

I will always be grateful to the creative, talented, dedicated men and women at our headquarters in Brooklyn and across our country who poured their hearts into this campaign. For you veterans, this was a campaign after a campaign — for some of you, this was your first campaign ever. I want each of you to know that you were the best campaign anyone has had.

To all the volunteers, community leaders, activists, and union organizers who knocked on doors, talked to neighbors, posted on Facebook – even in secret or in private: Thank you.

To everyone who sent in contributions as small as $5 and kept us going, thank you.

And to all the young people in particular, I want you to hear this. I’ve spent my entire adult life fighting for what I believe in. I’ve had successes and I’ve had setbacks -– sometimes really painful ones. Many of you are at the beginning of your careers. You will have successes and setbacks, too.

This loss hurts. But please, please never stop believing that fighting for what’s right is worth it. It’s always worth it. And we need you keep up these fights now and for the rest of your lives.

To all the women, and especially the young women, who put their faith in this campaign and in me, I want you to know that nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion.

I know that we still have not shattered that highest glass ceiling. But some day someone will -– hopefully sooner than we might think right now.

And to all the little girls watching right now, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world.

Finally, I am grateful to our country for all it has given me.

I count my blessings every day that I am an American. And I still believe, as deeply as I ever have, that if we stand together and work together, with respect for our differences, strength in our convictions, and love for this nation -– our best days are still ahead of us.

You know I believe we are stronger together and will go forward together. And you should never be sorry that you fought for that.

Scripture tells us: “Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season, we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.”

My friends, let us have faith in each other. Let us not grow weary. Let us not lose heart. For there are more seasons to come and there is more work to do.

I am incredibly honored and grateful to have had this chance to represent all of you in this consequential election. May God bless you and god bless the United States of America.

Hillary

Anita M. Harris, a writer and communications consultant, is the author of Broken Patterns, Professional Women and the Quest for a New Feminine Identity. Broken Patterns is about women of the baby-boom generation in relation to their mothers and grandmothers. It presents a spiral theory of change, which, Harris believes, goes far in explaining the current election results.

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, based in Cambridge, MA.