When two-term Massachusetts Senator Ed Brooke woke at 3:30 in the morning on November 7, 1978 the election was already over. And just after 8 p.m. that evening, as the first votes trickled in, his long-time aide Roger Woodworth knew that the sad outcome was confirmed. "I'm afraid it's not going to work tonight, kids," he …
Category: Politics
Glass more than half full on New Year’s Day
If a clean slate is a time for optimism, then Day One of the New Year should be a time to anticipate the coming year with a sense of the glass more than half full. On the political scene, Governor-elect Charlie Baker seems to be making all the right moves. His cabinet appointees are a …
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Sizing up Deval Patrick’s legacy
I confess to being seduced by Governor Deval Patrick. Not literally, of course, but almost always being won over by his charm. It happened the very first time I met him at a house party, nine years ago, when he promised to use the power of the state to reduce property taxes. That didn't quite work …
John Winthrop Sears – they don’t make ’em that way any more
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 …
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Cuba: Obama’s push for legacy
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, …
Boston 2024 Olympic bid: we could – but should we?
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 …
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From Selma to Ferguson to Boston
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, …
Rosenberg’s partner makes mess for incoming Senate president
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 …
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Pay hikes for top state officials no laughing matter
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 …
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Boko Haram: social media gimmicks not enough
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 …
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Marjorie Arons-Barron 