Scott Brown drew a huge crowd to a New England Council breakfast this week. His speech was a reminder of the regular-guy appeal that won him the seat last January and the power he is currently relishing as the 41st vote in the U.S. Senate, a guy who can stop a filibuster or put a …
Continue reading Scott Brown is at once appealing, appalling and even a cause for optimism
Sometimes you just have to pile on, which is why I feel compelled to weigh in on the firing and potential rehiring of Shirley Sherrod by the U. S. Department of Agriculture. The executing arm may have been that of Secretary Tom Vilsack, but the Obama administration is on the hook for this unprofessional and …
Continue reading Shirley Sherrod incident shows race in U.S. remains touchy subject
Question 1: What has shed more heat than light? Select from: a) Massachusetts politicians b) Massachusetts media c) the public debate about replacing Massachusetts testing standards with new national ones. Answer: all of the above.Massachusetts’ education standards and testing achievements, first adopted in the Education Reform Act of 1993, have helped place the Commonwealth at …
Continue reading Pols and Media confuse the public on new education standards
The following people are just some of the reasons that safe driving advocates like State Senator Brian Joyce must be so frustrated. The owner of a blue Toyota, MA license 693HG8, on June 25 swinging onto Morrissey Bouldvard, swerving in front of us because talking on her cell phone prevented her even being aware that she …
Continue reading Hand-held cell phones: driving to distraction
Something is happening with John Kerry. The state’s senior senator seems to be finding his real voice. He is coming across as authentic, not usually a word traditionally associated with him. Maybe losing the Presidency in 2004 has freed him to speak out without seeming to weigh the political consequences of each and every word …
For some observers, Don Chiofaro is a character out of Ayn Rand, the larger-than-life developer who muscles aside naysayers to create huge and exciting structures that fulfill his vision. For others, he is simply a bulldog, who insists on doing things his way, a person who, as WBUR radio put it yesterday, sees “development as …
Continue reading Don Chiofaro going at it again: building on the Greenway?
The case of Eric Balderas would make a great movie. The child brought to the United States by his Mexican mother, fleeing an abusive father, when he was just four years old. She struggles as a factory worker to care for him. He studies hard, becomes valedictorian of his high school class, and miraculously gets …
Continue reading Harvard illegal puts face on immigration problem
President Obama said many of the right things last night in his speech on the Gulf oil spill, but there was no sense of satisfaction, much less elation. There was nothing soaring, not even reassuring. It had the feel of an after-school conference with your guidance counsellor. As Joan Walsh points out in Salon, the …
At 64 years old, an affluent and successful businessman and philanthropist, Steve Grossman could hardly be faulted if he wanted to play golf and winter in Palm Beach rather than subject himself to media scrutiny and today’s increasingly acerbic political environment. Instead, he is running for MA Treasurer. He says he takes his inspiration from …
Continue reading Steve Grossman a Solid Stand-out for Treasurer
Marjorie Arons-Barron 