medfield When it opened in 1897, the Medfield Insane Asylum represented the latest thinking in psychiatric care. Huge institutional buildings had been the norm for state psychiatric hospitals, but the […]
Treatment discontinued
Posted inUncategorized
New states for newcomers
Massachusetts has long been losing native-born citizens to New Hampshire. Are we about to start losing immigrants to our northern neighbor too?To be sure, the immigrant population in the Bay […]
Posted inPolitics
New media guru Dan Gillmor wants to reinvent traditional journalism
BLOGGERS IN ONE corner, journalists in the other. Or is it bloggers versus journalists? Perhaps this is a false dichotomy, or an outdated one. After all, it was nearly two […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Two startups try to make consultants affordable for nonprofits
most nonprofit organizations run lean, if not mean, operations, with only the largest able to afford luxuries like contracting out a new database design to private management consultants. But even […]
Posted inEducation
Advancing degrees
compared with k-12 education, which has been under the microscope since (at least) the publication of A Nation At Risk in 1983, higher education has had it easy. Here in […]
Posted inUncategorized
A downanddirty look at negative campaigning
Do democracy and mudslinging go together like ice cream and apple pie? this spring in California, a candidate for a legislative seat attacked his Republican-primary opponent for having had a […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion
Scams and job loss make reforming unemployment insurance an imperative
meet john doe.He earns about $70,000 a year running his own design firm. He’s also been collecting unemployment insurance for 24 years running-and it’s all legal. John Doe is a […]
Posted inUncategorized
Letters
I don’t know Christopher Lydon personally, though I know of him pretty well, I think, from my own experiences with editors who thought highly of him and his work and […]
Posted inEconomy
COUNTERPOINT
support for working families is a worthy cause-one that, as Senate President Travaglini notes, is important to employers. His specific proposals, however, are a mixed bag. Although Associated Industries of […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Towns get steamed over water rules
INTRO TEXT the soggiest spring on record may have given Quabbin Reservoir a two-year supply of water, but the rushing rains did little to replenish the groundwater that towns outside […]
Posted inEconomy
Springfield gets relatively good news
INTRO TEXT compared with 11 other older industrial cities in the state, Springfield has valuable things to offer businesses looking for a home: low commercial rents, high-skilled older workers, and […]
Posted inEconomy, State House News Service
Racetracks bet it all on slots
INTRO TEXT bob o’malley’s voice sounds as old and tired as the racetrack he is trying to save. Or perhaps it’s the thoroughbred industry itself that has the 68-year-old chief […]
Posted inHealth Care
Health care reform faces a critical test
INTRO TEXT now for the hard part. With headlines fading from the passage in April of landmark health care legislation aimed at extending insurance to nearly every Massachusetts resident, the […]
Posted inEconomy
A smartgrowth law gets its legs
INTRO TEXT Two years after Massachusetts passed a law to spur housing construction while avoiding sprawl-style subdivisions, some communities are starting to get with the program. In recent months, six […]
Posted inPolitics
Millionaires Ball
After the Clean Elections fiasco, campaign finance laws leave politics to the rich and the long in office Summer 2006 gentlemen (and women), check your wallets. On your marks. Get […]
Posted inEconomy
Labor Pains
Daquane Mitchell, Wilkerson Catule, and Steve Dufrene, working at Fenway Park, got a break not shared by many other black teenagers. AS DIRECTOR OF the city of Boston’s job training […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics, State House News Service
Flirting with Disaster
Route 1, in Saugus, took a dipduring this May’s floods.Photo by Nancy Lane/Boston Heraldwhen disaster strikes, the planning that happened ahead of time means everything. With that in mind, shortly […]
Posted inPolitics, Transportation
Second-Guesswork
> technically, there was a Big Dig before Fred Salvucci. The idea of putting the elevated Central Artery underground first surfaced, as it were, in the Boston Transportation Planning Review—Gov. […]
Posted inPolitics, Transportation
Learning from the Big Dig
Photograph by David L. Ryan,The Boston Globemore than three months after a ceiling panel collapse took a life and further besmirched the new roadways’ already tarnished image, traffic should be […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Bright Lights, Little Cities
New Bedford’s cobblestonedhistoric district has beenspruced up, but the citystill has serious economic problems.to understand where the South Coast cities of Fall River and New Bedford fit into the picture […]
Posted inPolitics
Maynard Highs radio station lives to broadcast another day
sometime around the middle of September a switch will be flicked, and the airwaves of Maynard will once again be filled with local music shows, community announcements, high school football […]
Posted inUncategorized
No brakes
if you thought the Bay State’s flat population growth meant more room for parking, forget it. According to the state Department of Revenue, the number of registered passenger vehicles in […]