Another hearing, another round of mea culpas from Bay State transportation officials. This past winter’s commuter rail problems set the stage for Transportation Secretary Jeffrey Mullan to put a new […]
Current Affairs
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The Download: Heralding Patrick’s new book
As the Boston Herald hits the midway point in its tour through Gov. Deval Patrick’s wobbly early years in office, the governor is showing he’s now a far different politician […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Environment, Politics, The Download
The Download: Boston’s innovative, antiquated City Hall
Saturday’s Boston Herald carried a story that is the kind Mayor Tom Menino loves to see. It chronicled how the city’s new digital constituent service effort, which lets residents file […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The Download: Cracking down on gambling
As everyone knows, slot machines and casino gambling haven’t been approved by the Massachusetts Legislature. But what most people don’t know is that devices that closely resemble slot machines have […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics, The Download
The Download: Talking the talk
It’s never too early to speculate. Has conservatism run its course? Is the middle the new “silent majority?” Will the left start gaining some traction? And who will take over […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Environment, Politics, The Download
Download: Driscoll goes down but not out
Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll is the first of the Democratic water-testers to wisely pass on taking on US Sen. Scott Brown. By way of explanation, Driscoll pledged her fealty to […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Health Care, The Download
The Download: The circus is coming
It’s a running joke on Beacon Hill that this current incarnation of the Governor’s Council may finally be the one that takes the whole institution down. That theory should be […]
Posted inEducation, Politics, The Download, Transportation
The Download: Schoolyard rumble
A new study on schooling in America, a new round of charges and counter-charges about overblown claims of charter school success, skewed data sets, and incomplete analyses. Put it all […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The Download: Brown tome wrecker
The Boston Globe, in its review of US Sen. Scott Brown’s new book, Against All Odds, described it as “an incredible life story, told in the safest and most surface-level […]
Posted inEducation, Health Care, The Download
The Download: It’s all about perspective
Libya, budget stalemates, government shutdowns. Earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear meltdowns. Fleeing jobs, local aid cuts, spiraling health care. And yet another snow storm is expected to hit the region tonight and […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The Download: What Times is it?
Information may want to be free, but journalists and publishers want to get paid. Since the Internet destroyed the advertising model that fueled newspaper profits, finding a new online profit […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics, The Download
The Download: Veterans’ services quagmire
Veterans deserve our gratitude and all the benefits to which they are entitled. They do not deserve duplicative, unaccountable bureaucracies that dole our services with no oversight. But that appears […]
Posted inEducation, Environment, Politics, The Download
The Download: On the web, traffic still rules
The recent sale of the Huffington Post to AOL and the New York Times’s implementation look like very different moves by very different media entities. But scratch below the surface […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The Download: Killing them softly
It hasn’t appeared on the Federal Election Commission filings yet, but it can’t be long before President Obama and his aides send campaign contributions to Mitt Romney. It would only […]
Posted inEducation, Politics, The Download
The Download: Census data, race, and advertising
Robert Groves, the director of the US Census Bureau, is a man in demand. While state demographers mull over why people are fleeing Lincoln, Stockbridge, and Provincetown, advertisers are trying […]
Posted inEducation, Environment, Politics, The Download, Transportation
The Download: Sen. Warren? (Elizabeth, that is)
Up until now, the nascent movement to draft Elizabeth Warren to challenge Sen. Scott Brown has had one glaring deficiency – a willing participant. After all, why would Warren willingly […]
Posted inEducation, Politics, The Download
The Download: March madness
The NCAA men’s basketball tournament carries the right nickname, but not because of the excitement it generates. The madness is the big-money pursuit of top basketball talent by colleges and […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics, The Download
The Download: An early toast
Who could have guessed the third week in March would be a bad one for alcohol sales in Boston? In a city effort to keep things family friendly for the […]
Posted inEconomy, Environment, State House News Service, The Download
The Download: Payback
Maybe it’s the defensiveness engendered by the decades-long moniker of Taxachusetts or the relentless hammering by Republicans and corporations about the inhospitable business atmosphere in the state, old perceptions that […]
Posted inEconomy, Environment, Politics, The Download
The Download: Nuclear fear factors
Fears about nuclear power increase with each new, catastrophic development in Japan. In Germany, people took to the streets after last week’s earthquake to protest against nuclear power. Not needing […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics, The Download
The Download: DeLeo’s GIC ultimatum
Two years ago, when House Speaker Robert DeLeo made his first address to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, he distanced himself from his embattled predecessor and burnished his reputation […]
Posted inEnvironment, Health Care, The Download
The Download: Clear as mud
The Department of Public Utilities ruling yesterday on the proposed NStar-Northeast Utilities merger is about as clear as mud. For 60 years, the DPU has approved mergers if they cause […]
Posted inEnvironment, Health Care, Politics, The Download
The Download: Gotcha Nation
Once the purview of shock jocks, 10-year-olds with a phone and time on their hands and MSNBC, prank calls, punks, and set-ups are now becoming the de rigueur method to […]
Posted inEnvironment, Health Care, Politics, The Download
The Download: The solar advantage
Over time, solar will trump wind. So says James Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy, one of the country’s largest electric power utilities. During a question-and-answer session after his keynote […]