It’s not just the bow ties they had in common; it’s the air of civility. Yesterday U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens announced that he will retire from the nation’s highest bench. Within the same 24-hour period, former Massachusetts House Minority Leader Frank Hatch passed away. Both left an imprint on the institutions with …
Continue reading Stevens and Hatch: Two events mark the passing of civility
Back in the 1992 Presidential campaign, then-candidate Senator Paul Tsongas (D-Lowell) gave the first-ever “pander bear” award to then-candidate Bill Clinton, Governor of Arkansas. The symbolism has been used by both parties to attack candidates who bend over backwards to ingratiate themselves with certain people or groups of people, irrespective of the merits of the …
Continue reading Give Tim Cahill the Paul Tsongas Pander Bear Award
With the passage of health insurance reform behind us, look for the President to sign financial services reform by Memorial Day, give or take. That, according to Congressman Barney Frank at this morning’s Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce breakfast. “The public is overwhelmingly in favor of financial services reform, so the banks can’t expect too …
Continue reading Barney: Speaking Frankly on financial services reform and Pentagon budgets
Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker’s main issue differentiating himself from Governor Deval Patrick has for weeks been his emphasis on cutting state spending, including eliminating 5000 jobs. But he hasn’t been specific about where those jobs are, so his criticism of the Patrick administration has lacked clarity, credibility and clout, easily dismissible as campaign rhetoric …
Continue reading Charlie Baker: Right on Municipal Workers’ Health Insurance
Name a position on health reform, and Scott Brown has taken it. As a state senator, he voted for the Massachusetts health reform law, which became the model for the federal law. Yet he rode to Washington on a pledge to be the 41st (and decisive) vote against health insurance reform legislation in the U.S. …
Continue reading Scott Brown – All squirrely on health reform
The course leading to the House vote on health insurance reform was clearly a case of winning ugly. We’ve all had an overdose of exposure to legislative sausage-making. But, in the end, the 219-to-212 vote was a huge step forward, an historic moment in the history of this country. More than 30 million uninsured people …
Continue reading Health Insurance Reform: The End of the Beginning
National Grid seems to have joined the ranks of such scam artists as vinyl siding salesmen and certain car mechanics. Judge for yourself, based on this experience of one of our neighbors, without heat and hot water for five days due to the storm. When Alison and Hal got the basement dry enough to attempt …
We are fond of saying we live a block from the Charles River......most of the time. This is the rest of the time. Ten inches of rain in 72 hours! The Charles is over its banks, with water coming up and onto the two-lane road we walk on nearly every day. The ducks and geese …
Governor Patrick is said to be planning a visit to Newton this Saturday. His campaign will be giving out bumper stickers and signing up supporters. Here’s what I hope he talks about: the cost of health insurance to cover city workers. It’s a case study in what ails local communities these days.Newton faces an $11 …
Continue reading Governor Patrick: Lead Communities to Health Insurance Savings
The Hit. For anyone who grew up in Boston, yesterday’s reopening of the Paramount Theatre on Washington Street downtown was both a trip down memory lane and an invitation to an exciting future. The theater opened in 1932 but decrepitude forced its closing in 1976. Emerson College has taken it over, invested a fortune (more …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 