Deep in the heart of the vast, 175,000 square foot production floor at the Riverside Manufacturing Co. in New Bedford, where sewing machines clatter and pressing machines spew out steam, […]
Making it in Massachusetts
Southie Without Tears
All Souls: A Family Story from SouthieBy Michael Patrick MacDonaldBeacon Press, Boston, 1999, 266 pages.Myths, even as they are unravelling, can be hazardous to your health. Certainly, the varied myths […]
Taking back Braintree
BRAINTREE—It’s easy to get lost in the details of the 17-month political melodrama that rocked town hall here. There was, for instance, the town administrator secretly getting paid more than […]
Immigration in Massachusetts
Massachusetts has become increasingly dependent on foreign immigration for its labor force. The Changing Workforce: Immigrants and the New Economy in Massachusetts, a report by Northeastern University’s Center for Labor […]
Chemical Reaction
Machines stamp, whir, and grunt loudly in Plant B of the Acushnet Rubber Co. in New Bedford. The stench of rubber fills the vast space of the century-old factory, as […]
A new team
With this issue, we are pleased to announce several changes in the staffing of CommonWealth. First and foremost, we welcome Robert Keough as editor. A distinguished journalist and researcher, Bob […]
Dishing the dirt
Not quite a year ago, Eric Fehrnstrom wrote a remarkable mea culpa for Boston magazine. Entitled “The Other Side of the Hill,” the essay traced Fehrnstrom’s journey from political reporter […]
Make Way for Motherhood
I write this nearing my 36th week of pregnancy, when words like “sleep” or “concentration” or “breathing” can only be uttered with derisive little quotation marks around them. Forgive me, […]
Sissela Bok on Violence Entertainment and the Nations Youth
Is the American entertainment industry allergic to ethical reflection about its use of violent images? If so, what might the effects be on the nation’s youth? Such questions have become […]
Counterpoints
Ed Moscovitch’s proposal for a statewide property tax to fund the costs of a basic education in each community in the Commonwealth has two important policy objectives: to sustain the […]
Argument
There’s a debate brewing over whether to change the state’s school funding formula. Common wisdom (as reported in The Boston Globe) is that the aid formulas in the 1993 Education […]
Special Education
Massachusetts is no longer in a class by itself when it comes to special education. According to figures from the federal government, Massachusetts for the first time does not lead […]
Governors Proclamations
Nurses Hall in the State House is all decked out, chairs lined up before a podium, people milling around eyeing the spread of fruit, baked goods, and soft drinks for […]
Governors Digs
The question usually comes up when some out-of-towner discovers that Gov. Paul Cellucci drives home to his three-bedroom house in Hudson every night. In one recent instance, a Hollywood film […]
A Prescription for Literacy
Each year standardized tests reveal that thousands of Massachusetts schoolchildren can’t read at basic levels and each year educators are pressed for solutions. But a Boston-based, national literacy program suggests […]
A Visit With David Driscoll
The first day of September was looking pretty good for Education Commissioner David Driscoll. As he sat that afternoon in the conference room adjoining his office, he could see something […]
Executive Compensation
There’s a move afoot in the Legislature to hike the salaries of the state’s six constitutional officers, who are now laboring at pay rates set six years ago. So CommonWealth […]
The Case for AfterSchool Learning
In most ways, it looked like just another day at the new federal courthouse in downtown Boston. On a recent afternoon in one of the cavernous building’s wood-paneled courtrooms, Judge […]
A fond farewell
A little over four years ago, we set out to launch a new quarterly magazine about “politics, ideas and civic life in Massachusetts.” We had studied the publications of think […]
The Last Harrumph
PREFACE.This is my last issue as editor of CommonWealth. It was my intention, believe it or not, to go out with something light and lively in this space. I wanted […]
A Milltown Memoir
Five Thousand Days Like This One: An American Family History By Jane Brox Beacon Press, Boston, 1999, 174 pages. One hundred years ago, Lawrence, Massachusetts, was known as the worsted […]
West Springfield and Southampton
WEST SPRINGFIELD — Every town has one — the captious critic who angrily insists that local government is being run by a band of incompetents. Most often the gadfly is […]
The Street Ministers
LARRY MAYES IS pacing the hallway of Dorchester District Court like a man on a mission. Mayes is a youth outreach worker, more commonly known as a “streetworker,” who is […]
Looking backward at 2000
Utopia, from the Greek, means “not a place.” Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, in contrast, was his visualization of a real and better place, the society he thought Boston and the […]
