WHEN IT COMES to civic engagement, a funny thing happened on the way to the pandemic shutdown. While all sorts of aspects of daily life ground to a halt as we hunkered down, as much as possible, at home, the in-person isolation seems to have produced a blossoming of civic connectedness. With hearings and other […]
Civic engagement
Loopy coverage says more about media than Legislature
THE STORYLINE OF loopy Massachusetts liberals going PC-crazy was apparently too good for right-leaning national outlets to resist. But they’re hardly alone, as mainstream Massachusetts media also decided to turn a nothing-burger into a jaw-dropping example of layabout lawmakers frittering away their time on absurd efforts to police free speech. The subject: A bill filed […]
Loopy coverage says more about media than Legislature
The storyline of loopy Massachusetts liberals going PC-crazy was apparently too good for right-leaning national outlets to resist. But they’re hardly alone, as mainstream Massachusetts media also decided to turn a nothing-burger into a jaw-dropping example of layabout lawmakers frittering away their time on absurd efforts to police free speech. The subject: A bill filed […]
Why free speech must be defended
ON SATURDAY – and earlier this month – students around the country organized marches and staged a nationwide walkout to honor the lives of the 17 people killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and to press lawmakers to pass stricter gun control laws. In doing so, they invoked one of the most powerful tools […]
A new start in Framingham, old faces elsewhere
If you’re starting with a fresh form of government, you might as well have a fresh face. At least that’s what Framingham voters thought after giving a convincing win to political newcomer Yvonne Spicer over former selectman and five-time legislator John Stefanini, a major force behind the charter question that turned Framingham into a city. […]
Boston’s embrace of political predictability
THE EAST BOSTON NEIGHBORHOOD I grew up in was abuzz that late summer evening in 1967. The Community Club was our neighborhood “men’s club,” a place for mid-century male camaraderie and (so I later came to suspect) serious gambling, a place forbidden to me except on July 4 when the club members put folding tables […]
Worcester power couple unplugged
Michael and Coreen Gaffney, the aspiring power couple of Worcester politics, pulled out of their races for City Council to pursue an “opportunity” they declined to talk about because “the local hate groups and media make it unwise to reveal our plans.” Michael Gaffney, the second-highest vote getter in the last municipal election, was running […]
Grateful for the generals
A hallmark of American democracy has always been that a civilian, the president, is the ultimate commander in chief of the armed forces. It is perhaps the strongest signal we send that ours is a system of laws and representative government, not a military-ruled regime. What, then, to make of the fact that many people […]
Smart money in Massachusetts
Back in 1990, during his run for governor, John Silber made the somewhat controversial observation that not everyone is college material and those folks would be better off focusing on a vocation like plumbing or construction. Apparently, that Silber Shocker from the well-educated college president didn’t do much to thwart the pursuit of higher education […]
How many white supremacists at rally?
An estimated 40,000 people turned out on Saturday to say no to hate, racism, and neo-Nazis, but it remains unclear how many of the 50 people at the free speech rally that spawned the massive protest fit that description. Shiva Ayyadurai, a Republican running for the seat of US Sen. Elizabeth Warren, produced a 12-minute […]