Counterpoint

A Giant Step Toward Competition The new Massachusetts Electric Utility Restructuring Act is a national pace-setter in creating a competitive energy market and providing choice to all consumers, while guaranteeing […]

Bailing out the utilities is no way to bring competition to the electric industry Picture this: a forum in downtown Boston on the major economic development issue of the decade. […]

Every few years, debates about the need for regional government kick up in Massachusetts like a sudden gust of wind, and then quietly die down again. Boston saw a push […]

When the federal government decided to close Fort Devens in 1991, it opened a $350 million hole in the Massachusetts economy. The Army base was the state’s second largest employer, […]

The shark in “Jaws” terrorizes tourists at an Edgartown beach… Jack Nicholson resides at an Ipswich mansion in “The Witches of Eastwick”… Richard Dreyfuss frequents an Arlington rotary in “Once […]

The first time John Janeczek was laid off — from a marketing job at Pittsfield giant General Electric — he scoured the want ads, fired off resumes and landed a […]

For someone who calls himself an “evangelist,” Ken Granderson looks little like the local preacher. Wearing a pressed white shirt, paisley tie and round tortoise-shell glasses, he clicks away at […]

The mystique starts with her name. Orit Gadiesh. How do you pronounce it anyway? Is she Arab? Israeli, then. Almost six feet tall in four-inch heels. Rumored to have been […]

Pat Cusick, a longtime fighter for the low-income residents of Boston’s South End, ought to know better than to get his hopes up. As executive director of the South End […]

The sign has been gone for a while. Route 128: AMERICA’S HIGH-TECH HIGHWAY, it boasted — the waymark of a boom that went bust almost a decade ago. Today, if […]

In the eyes of the political partisan, the world is made up of (1) the enemy, (2) crusaders against the enemy, and (3) compromisers, middle-of-the-roaders, and weak-kneed trimmers who defer […]

The Witch Doctors: Making Sense of the Management GurusBy John Micklethwait & Adrian WooldridgeTimes Books, New York, 1996, 369 pages. Dangerous Company: The Consulting Powerhouses and the Businesses They Save […]

A curious corollary to the anti-politics of the 1980s and 1990s — to the pervasive desire to throw the bums out — has been the wish to replace them with […]

There are any number of nightmares that disturb the average developer’s sleep: an environmentalist with a lawsuit; an unscrupulous partner with connections to the Cayman Islands; a crash-course familiarity with […]

Massachusetts has become, in some ways, a more affordable place to do business, according to research by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. In 1993, when MTF released its first report on […]

Gina Gonzalez was struggling to raise two children on welfare, food stamps and a loan from her sister when the flier arrived at her Lowell apartment last summer. A new […]

Term limits are a solution that cannot work, to a problem we do not have. Enacted by the voters in 1994, under prodding from the anti-government crowd, the law has […]

Congressman Barney Frank is one of our most able and progressive legislators. I usually agree with him, but this time he has it wrong–a New Bedford casino will not bring […]

The case in favor of a gambling casino in New Bedford run by the Wampanoag Indians is straightforward. This is a proposal to let adults do what they wish to […]

Not long ago, getting a license plate for your car was a simple matter of standing in a long line at the Registry of Motor Vehicles, and then exchanging a […]

You can’t buy a lottery ticket in Leverett, a tiny town about 10 miles north of Amherst, but the people there still come up winners. Leverett’s town treasury took in […]

Changing times: Citizens for Limited Taxation, a group that has been a factor in Massachusetts politics since the 1970s, has expanded its mission. Executive Director Barbara Anderson has merged her […]

Designed especially for policy wonks, activists, and civic-minded cyberspace cruisers, the following is a special CommonWealth Guide to the World Wide Web. Not all information is created equal; herewith are […]

Dian Chaisson knows what it’s like to lose a job–several jobs, in fact. The Gardner native was laid off three times in two years: once from her secretarial job at […]