Two-term Democratic Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana is quitting. He won’t run for re-election and says the main reason is that there’s too much partisanship in Washington today. As Captain Renault said in Casablanca, “I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” So Bayh is walking away from Washington, and his …
Continue reading Bye, Bayh: “Things fall apart: the center cannot hold”*
On Valentine’s Day, I must confess a new love in my life. I have fallen head over heels for my Kindle. So I read with more than passing interest a piece in the New York Times about a developing controversy over plans by Amazon and others under pressure from publishers to raise the price on …
Joe Dwinell’s coverage in today’s Boston Herald of public workers cashing in unused vacation days and sick time makes the blood boil. The perk cost the city of Boston $17 million last year. And at the state level, the paper has documented how workers cashed in over $1 million in unused vacation days at Massport …
Continue reading Making Dollars and Sense out of Salaries and Perks
Governor Deval Patrick’s speech this morning to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce was a home run, not a grand slam perhaps, but a home run nonetheless. He made a compelling presentation of his administration’s accomplishments in “the worse economy in living memory” and laid out a six-point plan for boosting the state’s economy, with …
Boston City Clerk Rosaria Salerno is earning$68,000 in cash, over and above her roughly $100,000 salary, by performing as a Justice of the Peace at City Hall during her normal working hours. As the Boston Herald points out, that may be legal, but what she earns could hire a teacher or a firefighter for the …
Continue reading Wedding Bells are Ca-chings for City Clerks
The thing about viewing the world from between your toes, seeing naught but silky white sand and turquoise water, is that it clears your mind. Re-entry is problematic. I note, for example, that save for the child abduction story, Haiti has disappeared from the headlines here. Is the ongoing human misery no longer a concern? …
The rules of the game have changed, and technology once again is ahead of policy. Take the case of new legislative proposals to confront bullying. My first reaction is to mock them. Waaaah! Toughen up. Learn to take it. How are you going to get along in the grown-up world if you don’t learn to …
Even as a First Amendment virtual absolutist (with the usual crying-fire-in-a-crowded-theater exceptions), I find it hard to believe there won’t be a flood of bad results from the recent Supreme Court decision lifting limits on corporate spending on behalf of political candidates. Before McCain-Feingold and other post-Watergate restrictions on corporate spending, we have images of …
The largest personage in the House chamber for Governor Deval Patrick’s state-of-the-state address wasn’t there at all. It was, of course, Scott Brown. The address, the Governor’s first chance to turn around an outraged electorate and rally his partisans in his reelection bid, was an opportunity to tout his accomplishments – and they are many …
Continue reading Patrick Speech: the To-Do’s not the How-to’s
If Congress tries to ram the Senate health bill through the House to avoid another Senate vote, there will be blood that will stain the rest of the Obama agenda and spill over into the congressional elections. President Obama said that the people of Massachusetts have spoken, and about-to-be Senator Scott Brown should be heard …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 