John Winthrop Sears would have been 84 years old last Thursday. He died November 4th. As far as I can tell, he was the last of a breed. Family and friends gathered the evening of his birthday at Christ Church Longwood in Brookline. The event was a musical remembrance, a magnificent program he had planned …
Continue reading John Winthrop Sears – they don’t make ’em that way any more
Hmm, the country has an authoritarian regime, a Communist credo, a record of human rights violations, no open elections or free press, and we're liberalizing relations with it? How can we do that? Well, it worked with China, Richard Nixon's legacy foreign policy initiative. And Vietnam too. Why not with Cuba? To paraphrase President Obama, …
Yesterday, the city of Rome included itself among the potential hosts for the 2024 summer Olympics. Now, where would you rather be that August - Boston or Rome? Italian Premier Matteo Renzi said, "it's unacceptable not to try." Boston's self-appointed elite apparently feel that way. Today, Boston's bid boosters are in San Francisco to persuade the United States Olympic Committee to choose Boston over San …
Continue reading Boston 2024 Olympic bid: we could – but should we?
It's hard for millennials to imagine that not so long ago, blacks, who Constitutionally had the right to vote since 1870, were routinely blocked from exercising that right. But antagonistic county commissioners and viciously contrived regulatory barriers in the South routinely denied even the ability to register. In Selma, Alabama, a majority of the people were black, …
It's not the same story as Steve "Hot Buns" Gobie undermining the reputation of Congressman Barney Frank. That 1985 scandal involved Gobie's illegal prostitution activity based in Frank's apartment, of which the Congressman was ignorant. But it was also a liaison just before the politician's coming out and it also called into question the public figure's judgment. The …
Continue reading Rosenberg’s partner makes mess for incoming Senate president
Governor-elect Charlie Baker said in no uncertain terms that "now is not the time to be talking about pay increases on Beacon Hill." No doubt a majority of the public agrees with him. The trouble is: There's never a good time to be talking about pay increases for politicians - not even, or perhaps especially …
Continue reading Pay hikes for top state officials no laughing matter
Where has all the outcry gone? Last April, when the radical jihadist group Boko Haram kidnapped 200 Nigerian schoolgirls, politicians and celebrities here and abroad protested their treacherous act. "Where are our girls?" became the social media cause de jour, but this wasn't the first time children had been abducted in reprisal for the Nigerian government's attempt to …
Continue reading Boko Haram: social media gimmicks not enough
Michael Brown is dead. Darren Wilson's career as a police officer is over. What remains are doubts that, absent a trial, we'll ever know the truth about Ferguson, and the certainty that this nation's racial divide in this country is as unremitting as ever. So what to make of the disappointing grand jury decision not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren …
Most of us probably find ourselves somewhere around the center of contemporary political thought, whether it's to the right of center or left of center. Our movement in elections often determine outcomes, and we're usually out of touch with outliers in both parties. We are unsettled by a Congress now with an increasingly hollowed out center, …
Continue reading Ideological purity no help to the body politic
This fall marks the 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement at U.C. Berkeley, a pivotal moment in the history of student activism and political organizing that laid the groundwork for the antiwar movement and other social causes. At that time, students and faculty across the entire spectrum of political views joined together to protest …
Continue reading Berkeley students make mockery of Free Speech Movement
Marjorie Arons-Barron 