Yesterday five Democratic candidates (Obama, Edwards, Richardson, Biden, Kucinich) pulled their name off the ballot for the January 15 presidential primary in Michigan, leaving Christopher Dodd as the only obstacle […]
Dems diss Michigan
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Indefensible political statement of the week
"Voters have a very strange way of not listening to the pundits." — Gary Hart, to the Boston Globe’s Scot Lehigh in an October 5 column titled "Clinton is far […]
Posted inThe Download, Transportation
Transit stats: MBTA ridership is southbound
Public transit fans (not to be confused with foamers) should head over to the American Public Transportation Association to get ridership stats for the first six months of 2007. The […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Neighborhood anchors face extinction
Entrepreneur.com has an interesting list of the 10 Businesses Facing Extinction in 10 Years. No surprise that newspapers and pay phones are on there, but a few may be worrisome […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The solidifying South
Over the next few months, I’ll be posting maps to set up the geographical context of the 2008 presidential election, and to explain how I came up with the 10 […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Megabucks
The Sunday New York Times has a story and interactive map on state lotteries. Massachusetts is singled out as having "the highest lottery spending per resident, at $699, and the […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
History of the Wal-Mart Empire
I offer no opinion on the merits of shopping at Wal-Mart, but I feel compelled to point out this cool video from the Wall Street Journal. "The Diffusion of Wal-Mart" […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The unbearable oddness of the Iowa caucuses
Friday, October 5, 2007 Blue Mass. Group has a great post (and subsequent discussion) about the Iowa caucuses and how different they are from any kind of election most of […]
Posted inHealth Care, The Download
Expensive shrinks cost Massachusetts billions in lost productivity
The Milken Institute reported on Tuesday that the US economy took a hit of more than $1 trillion in 2003, all from lost workdays and lower productivity due to chronic […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Wonder condos in Natick
Last week the New York Times reported on the 215 luxury condos going up next to a Natick mall, on the site of an old Wonder Bread factory:Applying the lifestyle-center […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
More heads need more roofs
Housing has become scarcer in the dark-colored states on the above map, with new residents moving in (or being born) faster than contractors can put up houses. (Click […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Obama’s geography lesson
We wanted to launch this blog in time to cover the 2008 presidential primaries, but we can’t guarantee that those primaries will be at all exciting. Things on the Republican […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
On the value of national polls before the Iowa caucuses
There is a school of thought that national polls don’t matter when it comes to presidential nominations, and that upsets in the early contests of Iowa and New Hampshire can […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
America’s 10 political regions redefined
UPDATE: November 2008 results. Also see my pre-election preview in America magazine. UPDATE: See charts on the voting history of each of the regions from 1948 through 2004 here. There […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
America’s 10 political regions redefined
UPDATE: November 2008 results. Also see my pre-election preview in America magazine. UPDATE: See charts on the voting history of each of the regions from 1948 through 2004 here. There […]
Posted inArts and Culture, Uncategorized
Made in Massachusetts
nowadays we expect to see actors, athletes, and other celebrities used to sell products. Things were much different a century ago, when goods got their props from doe-eyed, rosy-cheeked boys […]
Posted inEconomy, Education
AN OPPORTUNE TIME FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Once I got past the inflammatory cover headline (“College Try: Why Aren’t Mass. Community Colleges Making the Grade?” CW, Spring ’07), I was glad to see CommonWealth present such a […]
Posted inEducation
MCAS is a national model for accountability
the anti-mcas activists may not want to hear this, but the MCAS graduation requirement is here to stay. The data does not lie: Our children are learning more, achieving more, […]
Posted inEducation
Ed reform must move beyond MCAS
the education reform Act of 1993 established curriculum frameworks for our public schools and mandated a way “to measure outcomes and results regarding student performance, and to improve the effectiveness […]
Posted inEducation, State House News Service
Falling membership doesn’t affect PTA’s political clout
INTRO TEXT gov. deval patrick’s selection of Ruth Kaplan, a Brookline School Committee member and longtime MCAS critic, as his first pick for a seat on the Massachusetts Board of […]
Posted inEconomy, State House News Service
Study says CPA steers money to wealthy towns
INTRO TEXT when the community Preservation Act emerged from a tortuous legislative process to become law in 2000, state officials heralded it as the most significant land-use bill passed in […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Closed meetings carry a cost
INTRO TEXT Municipal officials could be in for a rude—and costly—awakening if they don’t follow the letter of the law. The Open Meeting Law, that is. Under bills now pending […]
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
Still working on the railroad: funding fuzzy for South Coast rail
INTRO TEXT “it’s easy to say, ‘Give me this, give me that,’” said Rep. Joseph Wagner, the Chicopee Democrat who co-chairs the Joint Committee on Transportation, during testimony on a […]