All three presidential candidates are pandering to voters on trade rather than educating them to the complexity of the issue. Demagoguing it, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders simplistically blame trade pacts for disappearing jobs and dimmed future prospects. Back in 2012, Hillary Clinton, an early advocate of NAFTA. said the Transpacific Partnership was "the gold standard of trade …
Normalizing relations with Cuba: not so fast
Polls make it clear that the American public is way ahead of Congress in supporting normalization of relations and reopening trade with Cuba. But positive numbers from several polls don't mean that the normalization process will be easy or fast. That was unequivocally confirmed by Gonzalo Gallegos, Deputy Assistant for Western Affairs, at a State Department briefing Monday for 30 members …
Continue reading Normalizing relations with Cuba: not so fast
Sanders risks undoing his contribution
Bernie Sanders deserves credit for putting issues of economic inequities, Wall Street greed, Citizens United distortions, and the self-serving Washington establishment on the front burner. His cranky old man persona was even mildly endearing when he was railing against the rigged system, helping give voice to the unbridled aspirations of young people and the frustrations of the struggling middle …
Anyone but Trump?
Donald Trump will be the Republican Presidential nominee unless the sun over Cleveland rises from the West on July 18th. So what's a newly defined "reasonable" Republican to do? People like the Bushes 41 and 43, Mitt Romney, Charlie Baker, former Mass. GOP Chair Jennifer Nassour, Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain, and scores of other …
Some advice for Clintonites: lay off Sanders
If I feel sick to my stomach at the thought that Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee of the Grand Old Party, I can't fathom how I will feel on the morning of November 9 if he is the President-elect of the United States. This just can't be. How can so many millions of people …
Continue reading Some advice for Clintonites: lay off Sanders
Anteing up for the arts
Massachusetts is a world-class laggard when it comes to public support of the arts, and things could get even worse. The Massachusetts House just cut funding for the Mass. Cultural Council (MCC) by $2 million, to $12.2 million. (Originally, House Ways & Means had tried to cut twice than amount.) There's still time for the Senate to restore the MCC to …
Bathroom bill looms in Massachusetts
I have a friend. Let's call her Suzannah. She is over six feet tall, blue-eyed, platinum hair in a page boy. Terrific set of gams, as my father would say. She's married to a smart and talented guy. But here's a problem. It's the bathroom law, currently in effect in North Carolina and Georgia and under consideration …
Rocky road to electronic medical records
Have you ever wondered if the doctor who saw you in his office would recognize you if you met at the grocery? He or she might not, and it's not just because you're in street clothes. It might be that, with new health care regulations for computerized data gathering, he spent most of your annual checkup facing the computer …
Campaign 2016: Jousting in the Jungle
Storm clouds gathered over Serengeti, New York. The weaver birds and bee-eaters stopped their day’s work and gathered nervously in the limbs of the acacia trees. Even the flamingos out on Lake Nakuru stopped their soaring flight and gathered in the shallows, intensifying the pink of the mudflats and the lagoons. All around, the grebes …
Red Sox: hope springs eternal
There's a 4" x 3" piece of paper held by magnet on my refrigerator door. The paper is yellow. It's the American League standing from the first days of the 2015 season. Boston was at the top of the East division, with an .800 record. It had won four and lost one game. The scrap was …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 