Please pass the salt and pepper. I'm about to eat some crow. Last July, I wrote how nervous I was when the Red Sox were in first place at the All Star break. Looking back over 20 years' records, I was pessimistic that the home team could sustain the performance that found them in first …
Author: aronsbarron
Mayoral musings bring greater clarity
Boston's mayoral election is still up for grabs, but the selections may be crystalizing. Four days with no computer has left me grappling impressionistically with the 12-person field, but things are looking slightly more clear. Thanks to Davcoh Computer Services and a brand new computer, I can return to the task of sorting out this …
Moving off ambivalence on Syria
Like so many, I have been struggling with the Syrian dilemma of strike/no strike, reflected in my previous blog . Congressman John Tierney, speaking to the New England Council yesterday morning, spoke of his own struggle to "do the right thing." Sen. Ed Markey struggled, voted present in committee, and only today released a statement of opposition to …
Struggling with the Syria conundrum
Both writer George Santayana and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill have reminded us how those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. But, when it comes to chemical warfare in Syria, which history shall we remember and heed? Seventy-five years ago, civilized nations were deaf to early warning signs of the Holocaust, and the results …
End-of-summer blues darken musings
Don't tell me the end of summer isn't until the third week in September. Virtually everyone understands summer ends on Labor Day (or the Friday before for those who want to beat the rush.) The leaves are beginning to turn. Crickets are making a racket at night. Returning college students are clogging the streets with …
Boston’s mayoral mish-mash
The good news is that there are more than a few candidates running for mayor of Boston who are at least as credible as Hizzonah Mayor Menino 20 years ago. The bad news is that sorting them out is so difficult. For me, the differentiating factors in these late summer days are still impressionistic. A series of fragments.News …
Whitey withdrawal symptoms?
At first I thought a verdict in the trial of Boston gangster Whitey Bulger would spur profound withdrawal symptoms. I'd be missing the daily, nay, hourly updates on the grizzly testimony given about the murderous career of the Hub's most notorious and despicable psychopath. Despite having followed Whitey as a journalist, despite having covered his ever-loyal brother, …
Larry Summers for the Fed? Spare us.
The Federal Reserve may not be the center of the solar system, but it is a key inflection point in American politics and, through its interest rate policies, can have a profound impact on the nation's economy. The Fed chairman's pronouncements, for better or worse, affect the stock market and, quickly thereafter, the value of our …
John Henry gets new toy: Globe future still in question
I don't know John Henry. We've been introduced at fundraising events a couple of times; there was no extended conversation. He seems very nice, if shy. I have no reason to think he'll ruin the Boston Globe, which he has just purchased for $70 million from the NY Times, by running it into the ground. He seems a …
Continue reading John Henry gets new toy: Globe future still in question
“This Town” captures a place and time
Tom Wolfe's 1987 masterpiece Bonfire of the Vanities captured the greed, class, ambition, and politics of Reagan era New York City. So, too, does Mark Leibovich's This Town capture early 21st century Washington, D.C. Bonfire, however, is fiction and This Town is for real. Leibovich, who is the New York Times magazine national political reporter, …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 