At about 3:30 Thursday afternoon, a group of boys, older teenagers, on bicycles road swooped down Cambridge Street toward Charles Circle in Boston. Rather than riding single file in one lane, they simply rode ten abreast with little care about the danger they presented, both to drivers and especially to themselves. Note, I said, ten …
Continue reading Recent encounter shows barriers to biker/driver peaceful coexistence
Ken Burns, historian, film maker, story teller and recorder of people and events, has become something of an institution himself. His highly acclaimed body of work is gargantuan in scope and impact: The Civil War, Baseball, The War, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea; The West; Lewis & Clark. His films are sought out by …
Stockholm syndrome describes what happens when someone taken hostage develops positive feelings for his captors. Barack Obama has been held hostage by the Republicans in Congress and in some ways is beginning to emulate them. Cut the deficit, slash fuel assistance for low-income people, shrink community health centers, eliminate community development block grants. This isn’t …
Continue reading Obama held hostage on the budget, displaying Stockholm syndrome?
As a kid in the early 1950’s, I remember coming down to breakfast and having my father point out to me the Boston Globe headline that Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy had published a list of Harvard University professors who were Communists or known sympathizers. I was too young to know if I was supposed to …
Continue reading Wisconsin probe assaults academic freedom: what’s next?
We love movies set in locations we know: witness The Fighter, set in Lowell, and The Town, set in Charlestown. The appeal of the familiar works in print as well, notably Andre Dubus’ powerful memoir Townie, set in Haverhill, Newburyport and other parts of the Merrimack Valley, and Bone Blind, a mystery novel set in …
President Obama this week laid out a plan to cut dependence on foreign oil by 2025. Forty years ago, Richard Nixon also promised to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. At the time about 34 percent of our oil was imported. A decade later it was 45 percent, and Jimmy Carter was making the same …
Continue reading Obama’s energy speech: time to walk the walk
If Ronald Reagan was the great communicator, Barack Obama is the great synthesizer. In an artfully designed presentation, he pulled together all the disparate themes that have been raised in the last three weeks regarding our Libyan involvement and wove them into a (superficially) coherent tapestry of history, policy, philosophy, critical analysis and doctrine. It …
Continue reading Obama speech: still more questions than answers
I listen to Cong. Michael Capuano and Niki Tsongas criticize President Obama for not taking the Libyan military action to Congress and, as an old anti-Vietnam War activist, I applaud their stance. It’s hard not to be concerned that what starts out as a police action may suck us into something more prolonged, costing American …
The public can derive enormous satisfaction from taking action against public worker misfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance or just plain nuisance, but that visceral satisfaction can be short-lived, whether you’re talking about ending “hack holidays” or even voting to recall public officials.Sure, it was delicious when Beacon Hill eliminated irritating Suffolk County holidays like Evacuation Day (really …
Continue reading Getting mad and getting even don’t always sync
Today’s college students are reading less and partying more. So says New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, based on a new book entitled “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses.”Authors Richard Arum of New York University and Joseph Roksa of the University of Virginia surveyed 2300 students at 24 colleges over a two-year period and …
Continue reading Judging today’s college students by yesterday’s standards
Marjorie Arons-Barron 