It’s an early Thursday morning in mid-March, and 11 floors below Ron Preston’s Ashburton Place office a group of Latino and black teenagers holding signs that read marriage = 1 […]
Being Ron Preston
Posted inHealth Care
To your health
Health care is the elephant in the room. For individuals, nothing is more intensely personal, more urgent, and more closely linked to self-esteem and dignity than the ability to get […]
Posted inEconomy, Health Care
Anticipation and anxiety in our health care economy
When the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce installed Dr. James Mongan, president and chief executive of Partners HealthCare, as chairman of the board in May, the symbolism did not go […]
Posted inUncategorized
How the marketing beast is taking away childhood in America
Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of ChildhoodBy Susan LinnNew York, New Press, 304 pages. In 1984, the Reagan administration deregulated advertising on children’s television, allowing networks to create programming for […]
Posted inHealth Care
A century of healthy bestsellers the skinny on childbirth trends east versus west in the Bay State emulating Popeye stress and depression in Boston and New Bedford
Big sales for light readsIn any given week, as many as half of the nonfiction bestsellers in the US are health-related–with diet books the most common subgenre. That wasn’t always […]
Posted inEducation, Health Care
Insurance coverage in the workplace the spread of community health care centers college education and exercise heart disease cancer and asthma rates
Under coverage Massachusetts has one of the lowest percentages of people without health insurance, but it might do even better if more private employers picked up the tab. According to […]
Posted inHealth Care
Scare stories about health issues leave us worse for the wear
Several days after the first mad cow was found in America, when the fresh news was gone and the follow-up stories started, the Wall Street Journal carried an article headlined […]
Posted inHealth Care
Its Maines turn to try being the first state with health coverage for everyone
There is an old Yankee expression: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” A corollary might be: “If it is broke, fix it right.” There’s not much doubt that the […]
Posted inUncategorized
Bed scores
Unlike Dunkin’ Donuts outlets, hospitals don’t necessarily mirror population trends. According to the most current figures provided by Bay State hospitals to the American Hospital Directory, staffed beds are relatively […]
Posted inUncategorized
The Bay State is falling behind in targeted research dollars
It is no secret that Massachusetts, with its powerhouse universities and academic medical centers, gets more than its share of federal funding for scientific and medical research. The Bay State […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion, Politics
Civil service hiring rules promote mediocrity among public safety workers
There is a public safety crisis in Massachusetts, a crisis of our own making. The quality of our workforce is not what it should be, and it’s our own fault. […]
Posted inUncategorized
Letters
We may be tucked away in West Cambridge, but Sky & Telescope is the oldest, most successful consumer astronomy magazine on the planet! But surprisingly, there was no mention of […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Sociologist Thomas Shapiro says that a lack of assets, not income, is holding African-Americans back
On the issue of economic inequality, Americans are of two minds. On the one hand, we value opportunity over security, balancing a meager safety net (compared with other developed countries) […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
The state budget should focus on outcomes not allocations
Since 2001, Gov. Mitt Romney and the Legislature have cut spending by almost $3 billion. While also raising taxes and fees, the state has reduced Medicaid services, eliminated health insurance […]
Posted inEconomy
Downtown Bostons Greenway is still up in the air
INTRO TEXT By the time this article appears, an agreement may finally be in place about how to govern and maintain the 27 acres of downtown land now opening up […]
Posted inPolitics
Charles Euchner leaves big shoes to fill at the Rappaport Institute
It may have been a native son of Cambridge who proclaimed all politics is local, but that has not always seemed the guiding principle at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. […]
Posted inEconomy
Cape Cod’s tourism industry shudders at a cap on worker visas
INTRO TEXT Every summer, Chuck Rigg, owner of The Commons, in Provincetown, counts on an influx of Jamaican workers to staff the 19th-century hotel and bistro he operates with partner […]
Posted inPolitics
Beavers get the upper hand after wildlife traps become taboo
INTRO TEXT Damned if they do–and dammed if they don’t. That’s how lawmakers feel about their attempts to modify a voter-approved ban on wildlife traps, even though a burgeoning beaver […]
Posted inEducation
Worcester’s Wonder
When it comes to guessing the communities with the highest MCAS scores in the state, a lot of towns beginning with the letter “W” might come to mind–Wellesley, Weston, Winchester. […]
Posted inEconomy
Blue collar blues
Economist Paul Harrington has lots of data about manufacturing employment in Massachusetts, and all of it is ugly. In 1984, about 670,000 people were employed in making things, or about […]
Posted inPolitics
Rhode Island’s secretary of state takes an expanded view of civics
One early November morning last year, when the rest of their Woonsocket High schoolmates were sleeping late or otherwise enjoying a cherished day off for teacher conferences, 17 students from […]
Posted inUncategorized
Without a hitch
Unmarried couples remain a relative rarity in Massachusetts, according to the 2000 US Census. Of the 1.33 million households headed by self-described couples, only 130,919 are headed by unmarried partners. […]
Posted inPolitics
A Boston Globe summer series was narrative journalism at its best
Editor’s note: This article has been updated since the print (and pdf) version went to press.When the Pulitzer Prizes were announced April 5, the folks on Morrissey Boulevard had reason […]
Posted inEducation
A hard look at education accountability in the wake of No Child Left Behind
No Child Left Behind? The Politics and Practice of School AccountabilityPaul E. Peterson and Martin R. West, editorsWashington, DC, Brookings Institution Press, 340 pages. In January 2002, President Bush signed […]