The Hubster

Where the Rose is Sown (Big Country)

2011-11-11T01:20:00.001-05:00

we're at war (all the papers say)
we will win (i read today)
we are strong (it wasn't us)
we are right (who started this?)
leave your work (i just left school)
leave your home (i am no fool)
take up arms (it left me strong)
sound alarms (the school bell rings)

sons of men who stand like gods
we give life to feed the cause
and run to ground our heathen foe
our name will never die
this time will be forever

join up here (i wave goodbye)
we need you (oh my breast sighs)
have no fear (i must try)
god will be (with braver men)
take the vow (i know its right)
praise the flag (the good fight)
we're at war (i'm on my way)
we will win (why do i pray?)

sons of men who stand like gods
we give life to feed the cause
and run to ground our heathen foe
our name will never die
this time will be forever

i wait here in this hole
playing poker with my soul
i hold the rifle close to me
it lights the way to keep me free
if i die in a combat zone
box me up and ship me home
if i die and still come home
lay me where the rose is sown

sons of men who stand like gods
we give life to feed the cause
and run to ground our heathen foe
our name will never die
this time will be forever

Worlds colliding

2011-10-10T12:26:00.001-04:00

According to Charles C. Mann, the 1492 journey of Christopher Columbus to the New World and the movement of plants, animals, diseases and ideas that followed -- know as the Columbian Exchange -- is "the greatest event in the history of life since the death of the dinosaurs." Everything changed for people of both sides of the Atlantic Ocean -- mostly for the worse for the millions who had been inhabiting what was eventually called the Americas.

Mann has written a book called 1493 -- referring to how the world changed after Columbus first made landfall -- and though I haven't read it I did hear him on NPR a few weeks ago and the interview was pretty interesting. (Link to interview here.) Mann notes that:

"There's absolutely nothing in my garden that originated within 1,000 miles of my house," he says. "Tomatoes originated in Mexico. Basil came from Italy. Onions came from Europe. I live in Massachusetts. There's absolutely nothing in there from New England."

The exchange of foods has been wonderful, but we cannot forget that somewhere "between two-thirds and 90 percent of the people in the Americas" were wiped out, mostly from diseases unknowingly introduced by the conquering Europeans.

On this holiday we remember the meeting, 519 years ago, of two different worlds, and all of the ramifications, good and bad, of that encounter.

Casino bill getting closer

2011-10-04T06:53:00.000-04:00

The Massachusetts State Senate is scheduled to again take up the casino gambling bill today, and that body will likely pass a bill slightly different from the House version pretty soon. A compromise wouldn't appear to require too much time and the final bill could be on the governor's desk within a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, a Globe story today looks at donations that Suffolk Downs owner Richard Fields has given to charities supported by local politicians, while the Herald reports that the racetrack is looking to pay for repairs to the Bradley School playground, which was torched on Sept. 24.

The ridiculous lead of the story is "Big-hearted Suffolk Downs owners are ponying up big dough..." First, this is less an act of charity than one of political calculation -- just like the funds donated to area charities -- and, second, $40,000, which Suffolk Downs is offering to help fix the playground, is not "big dough" to Fields, especially when a future casino at the track stands to make him hundreds of millions of dollars. Let's be truthful here.

Running to the beat

2011-09-18T11:37:00.000-04:00

The weather was nice and the turnout was strong at this morning's ZUMIX Run to the Beat 5K in East Boston. Here are some photos from the race.

Eastie resident Steve Holt prepares to ride the lead cycle.

The runners are off!

As she nears the finish, Cheryl Conte passes a group of ZUMIX members keeping the beat.

Runners cross the finish line.

After conquering the course, runners grab some fruit and water at Piers Park.

ZUMIX 5K Sunday at Piers Park

2011-09-18T00:28:00.001-04:00

Come experience the race hundreds raved about last year – the second annual ZUMIX Run to the Beat 5K. Once again, we’re running for ZUMIX, one of the city’s beloved music and arts nonprofits. We’ll start and finish in East Boston’s magnificent Piers Park, which offers expansive views of our city’s historic skyline and harbor that can only be described as … stunning. In between, enjoy our flat, fast course along Eastie’s wooded Greenway and two magnificent new parks. We’ve got prizes for the fastest runners, live music along the course, free food, and plenty of other goodies and giveaways. Whether you’re running for time, fitness, charity, or all of the above, you won’t want to miss this fun-filled event.

Do you hear the beat? Lace ’em up — let’s run.

Online Registration: https://www.signmeup.com/site/online-event-registration/77742

Where I was on 9/11

2011-09-11T02:06:00.001-04:00

Oddly enough, I was in Carlisle, a town about 25 miles northwest of Boston, during the 9/11 terror attacks. I had taken a new job that year and was getting ready for my last day of training at a beautiful facility off a rural road. When I pulled into the parking lot a young guy who was also being trained asked if I'd heard that a plane had flown into one of the Twin Towers. I hadn't. My radio must have been off during the drive, probably because it was such a beautiful day and I'd rolled the windows down to feel the fresh country air and didn't want any unnatural sounds to disturb the moment.

We went inside and were joined by the others, maybe seven trainees and our instructor. Moments later someone from the facility stuck their head in and told us about the second plane. Of course, everyone knew what that meant. I think we went back into the lobby to watch the news coverage for a bit, then went back to start our training. We stopped a couple times to decide whether or not to continue on -- especially after the towers fell -- but decided that we'd rush through and get out as soon as possible. A television was wheeled in for a bit and we kept tabs on what was happening, and we did break so that everybody could call their loved ones, and I knew I'd better call my mother or she'd be worried sick.

The training over, we went our separate ways, and I never saw any of those people again. We'd be working for the same organization, but at different facilities, and I've always felt it strange that I spent the most awful moments of my country's recent history in a place I didn't know very well with people I didn't know very well.

And stranger still, I drove back not to East Boston, but to Somerville, where I had moved just 11 days earlier. I had two roommates and one of them was sitting on the front stairs, crying, when I got home. I barely knew her, but Paula's fiance was scheduled to fly to Los Angeles from Logan Airport on business that morning. She had, just before I arrived, found out that he was not on either of the LA-bound planes that had been hijacked, but on a different flight and was, therefore, fine. I consoled her as best I could, and then went inside to put on the TV and my computer, so I could finally get connected to the information stream -- something I like to do during important events.

The next morning I went out early to get copies of The Globe, The Herald and The New York Times. I'd always saved historically significant newspapers and I needed to add editions from Sept. 12 to my collection.

Eastie remembers 9/11

2011-09-07T17:49:00.000-04:00

East Boston will commemorate the victims of 9/11 at Piers Park on Sunday afternoon, the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks. According to Boston.com, the event will include:

...appearances by local police and firefighters, presentation of the colors by the East Boston High School ROTC, patriotic songs sung by a women’s group from the East Boston YMCA, a poem read by a Meridian House resident, and an invocation and benediction by Brother Bob Metell...

(The memorial will be followed by Zumix's annual Harvest Festival, featuring music, games and food.)

American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 both took off from East Boston's Logan Airport on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, and each was hijacked and flown into one of the two towers of the World Trade Center a short while later. The Globe ran a story recently on how workers at the airport were affected by that horrific day.

Weather -- or not

2011-09-01T00:50:00.003-04:00

Cristoforo Colombo had heard about the powerful Caribbean storms that the Taino Indians called "huracan" on his early voyages, and when, on his fourth trip to the New World in 1502, the natives told him that one such storm was approaching Hispaniola, he strategically moved the ships he commanded to the opposite side of the island, saving the small fleet when the rain and wind struck the following day.

Today, of course, we have much more warning and information on hurricanes than Christopher Columbus, as he is now known, did. There is radar and satellite images and computer projections -- and we have the broadcast media, which seems to go berserk when any type of extraordinary weather event unfolds. The flashy graphics and dramatic music bursts from the screen as if America were going to war again, meteorologists and anchors repeat warnings and narrate video with hyperbolic commentary, and reporters in the field -- those poor souls -- are made to stand in outlandish conditions so we can see the worst of the weather without going out there ourselves.

I know that all this drives some people crazy, and I admit that much of it is over-the-top, but I am a weather junkie and when noteworthy storms strike -- as was the case with Hurricane Irene -- I get excited, flip channels, scroll through news items on the Internet, and post updates on Twitter as if the outside world were getting their only information from me. And with Irene, as with other storms of all types, I heard a chorus of voices before, during and after dismissing the hurricane as a "dud." For most people in the Boston area, the storm entailed some wind and rain, leaving them feeling that the projections and the coverage were all hype. However, even in the city limits of Boston, several thousand people lost electricity and 500 calls came in to City Hall about downed trees.

The bigger picture is awe-inspiring -- especially because Irene made landfall as weakening Category 1 hurricane and did significant damage after being downgraded to a lowly tropical storm. Fourteen states, plus Washington, DC, Puerto Rico and a number of other Caribbean Islands were affected; more than seven million people lost power on the US East Coast; damage at this early point is estimated at $10 billion; and, sadly, the death toll now stands at 54. The state of Vermont, far from landfall and coastal surges, is experiencing the worst flooding in a century due to Irene's downpours; at one point 11 towns were isolated as a result of rising rivers and washed-out roads.

Maybe you didn't need that bottled water and flashlight that you ran out and fought crowds to get, but some people did. The information and warnings from the National Weather Service should not be confused with the melodrama that broadcast news -- especially the local TV stations -- foments to go along with it. Local TV is over-the-top every night on virtually every story, so it's annoying, but no surprise, when they do the same every time a storm is on the way. The have to fill their time and they have to keep viewers on edge, and when they go live all day, as they did Sunday with Irene, there are a lot of hours to fill. At one point an anchor narrated a piece of video that showed a roof with two tiles fluttering gently in the breeze. "Look at that," she said. "Roof tiles are being torn off by Irene." Um....no.

The larger point I want to make is that, despite decades of cliches about their unreliability, meteorologists are terrifically accurate, especially these days. We were told, for example, at the end of last week that the weather in Boston after Irene passed would be upper 70s/low 80s all week and there might be a quick midweek shower but the next chance of a storm would be the weekend. Right on. I hear people complain when a snow forecast is a few inches off, not seeming to grasp that -- despite all the variables of weather and the complexities of predicting what will happen at any moment -- we were told several days in advance that a particular type of precipitation would fall from the sky for a predicted amount of time. Sorry if the forecast eight inches fell in the town next to you and only seven fell on your house.

Someone I know complained out loud one day last spring when it started to rain and I reminded her that the forecast had said there was a 20% chance of showers. "Yeah," she said. "That means it's not supposed to rain." I started to explain and then just threw up my hands.

Road trip

2011-08-21T12:09:00.005-04:00

The endless cornfields of southern Illinois.

Something that I learned in the last ten days: Much of Illinois is populated by corn. Something else: The quality of rest areas varies from state to state.

Between August 11th and 18th I put 3,000 miles on my car -- and flattened countless insects on my windshield, front grill and side mirrors. I visited the cities of Buffalo, South Bend, Chicago, Memphis, Knoxville and Asheville on a road trip that was fun, interesting and exhausting.

I have friends in Chicago and decided in the spring that I would drive out to see them this summer. I also decided that I didn't want to make the entire trip in one day, as I had with a friend, eight years earlier. Finally, I wanted to take a different route home to see some places I hadn't seen before. After a while I roughed out the route in my head, though I didn't make preparations until the day before leaving -- and only for the first half of the trip.

I-90 begins in East Boston and it would be my home for the first few days. The 450 miles from here to Buffalo is fairly scenic the entire way, with trees and rolling hills. It took me seven hours to complete that first leg, including stops at rest areas. Generally, I chose places to stay based on their proximity to places I wanted to eat. In Buffalo I wanted to visit a Belgian-style pub called Blue Monk, in the vibrant Elmwood Avenue section of the city. There was a fantastic beer selection and I had a charcuterie plate (cured meats) and some poutine, a dish of French Canadian influence that I was introduced to years ago in Maine. Dinner was followed by a cup of "sipping chocolate" at Chow Chocolat. I spent the night at a nearby bed and breakfast called Beau Fleuve, which was delightful.

A rest area off I-90 in Ohio.

After a light breakfast and good conversation with other guests, I went to visit an old church that was converted a few years ago into the headquarters of Righteous Babe Records, the label of Ani DiFranco, a singer-songwriter who is a favorite of mine. I just walked in and an employee was nice enough to show me the offices, performance space and art gallery that are now part of the building. From there I was off and back on I-90. The rest area that I stopped at in Ohio is big, bright, clean and modern -- possibly the nicest I've ever seen. I fueled up on Starbucks espresso and continued westward. As the road passes through Cleveland, the number of cars and exits increases and the route twists and turns. Driving through big cities is where things get a little anxious for a driver in new surroundings, but soon I was beyond the suburbs and the road straightens and thins out. There had been some small farms and vineyards in upstate New York, but west of Cleveland is where the agriculture really begins: miles of cornfields on each side. Ahead , in the distance, a farmhouse or a barn and a few trees and, once beyond that, more corn.

This continues to a lesser degree in Indiana, where the road is noticeably less well-kept and the rest areas are smaller and less modern. After about seven hours and 460 miles I was in South Bend, home of Notre Dame. I got a bit lost on local streets, but eventually found the Jameson Inn, which had been right next to my exit all along. This was my most mediocre lodging as well as my most mediocre dining experience. A friend who graduated from ND suggested I eat at the Fiddler's Hearth, so I made my way over there. The Irish pub was crowded and loud. I stood by the doorway for quite a while as the waitstaff walked past me, and eventually I had to approach one of them. I asked to sit outside where it was quieter. The bangers and mash that I ordered was OK.

Wind across the flags at Chicago's Navy Pier.

On Saturday morning I made the 90 minute drive into Chicago. Though I had been close the night before, my hosts in the Windy City pointed out that traffic during rush hour the night before would have been terrible, so pulling in mid-morning on the weekend was the way to go. My friends live in the northern suburb of Northbrook, which is nice and quiet -- though the straightness of every road out there was freaking me out a bit. That night we went into the city to meet another friend at Cafe Iberico, a downtown tapas bar. The food and sangria were excellent, and afterwards we walked around, seeing the only structures not burned down by the famous 1871 fire. On Sunday my friends took their kids and we went to the Navy Pier, a redeveloped pedestrian mall with eateries and attractions on Lake Michigan. The wind was blowing furiously, but we had a nice afternoon, including lunch at the Billy Goat Tavern -- famous for the "Cheeseburger, cheeseburger" SNL skit. We also visited a piece of public art officially called Cloud Gate, but known to locals as The Bean. It's a good spot to take photos.

Sunset over the Mississippi River in Memphis.

From Chicago I drove the length of Illinois -- and it is really just cornfields for hours, with some soybeans sprinkled in -- and slipped into Missouri and then Arkansas for a bit before arriving in Memphis, at the west end of Tennessee. This was the most difficult drive, not only because it was nearly ten hours and 550 miles, but because the road was generally straight and the scenery was unchanging for much of the trip. The Holiday Inn in Memphis, however, was the nicest room -- more generic than the two non-chain places I stayed, but it was a roomy suite. The hotel is in a quiet neighborhood directly across the street from the University of Memphis. The place I wanted to visit for dinner happened to be closed on Monday, but in Memphis there are many options for barbecue -- and that is why I was in that city. I went to Central BBQ, and while the food (ribs and pulled pork) was good, it wasn't amazing and the staff was a bit indifferent. After eating, I went down to the shoreline of the Mississippi River and watched the sun set from a riverside park area.

On my way out of town I decided to stop by Graceland. I confess that I have never been much of an Elvis fan, but it happened that I was in Memphis on the anniversary of his death, so I thought I'd take a look. The expected big crowd wasn't there -- at least not at 9 a.m. A sign said it was $10 to park and I wasn't about to pay that, so I took a self-portrait by the big sign off the road, and as I was doing so a passerby volunteered to take my photo, which was even better. I then hopped on I-40 east. I wasn't sure if I was going all the way to Asheville, NC -- a small city in the Blue Ridge Mountains that has a reputation as a hotbed of art and culture -- or if I would stop at Knoxville, the largest city in eastern Tennessee. I decided not to push myself and to opt for Knoxville, and it was an excellent decision.

Market Square in Knoxville.

While western Tennessee retains the character of the Mississippi River valley, the eastern part of the state is in the Appalachians. The foothills and then the mountains roll away from the road in all directions. After six hours and 400 miles I pulled into downtown Knoxville -- for the first time showing up in a city without a place to stay. I quickly found the local visitors' center, which not only provided friendly information, but had a little cafe so I could sit, have a beverage and figure out a game plan. I quickly found that the Oliver Hotel, a quirky, newly renovated place, was right next to Market Square, the pedestrian mall that was the center of the reborn Knoxville. I booked a room and got cleaned up. I had dinner at the Downtown Grill and Brewery, and I spent some time wandering around the city center.

One of my favorite novels, Cormac McCarthy's Suttree, is set in Knoxville, which was the main reason I wanted to stop there. I walked over the Gay Street Bridge, which crosses the Tennessee River, to look down at the spot from which the body of a suicide is pulled from the river in the book's opening pages and, further down, to the presumed area where the title character, Cornelius Suttree, docks his houseboat. Afterwards, I grabbed an excellent espresso at Coffee and Chocolate while chatting with the friendly barista. Over in Market Square there was a jazz trio playing on a stage at one end and a street musician playing cello at the other. One of the most inspiring sights of my entire trip was a child, perhaps three years old, playing in a small public fountain in the middle of the square. She approached the water, which came up from ground level and made a small but graceful arc, with curiosity and excitement each time, put her hands or head or torso into the spray, and then laughed with pure joy as she toddled back to her mother, who was right behind her. This went on for ten minutes and the girl never tired or lost her enthusiasm.

Public art in Asheville.

The next day brought the most beautiful stretch of driving, as I wound my way through the Great Smoky Mountains into North Carolina on I-40. After about 120 miles and two hours -- which was, by that part of my journey, a quick side trip -- I was in Asheville, a city of 80,000 that has recently been voted one of the best places to live in the US and one of the world's must-see destinations. In recent years it has developed a reputation as a center of Appalachian culture, music and art. I walked around the city's downtown and had lunch at the highly regarded Tupelo Honey Cafe. The made-from-scratch black bean burger was very good, and the complimentary biscuit, with jam, was incredibly delicious.

I wanted to see more of Asheville, but I also needed to think about getting back to Boston. I had 15 hours separating me from home, and I didn't want to do that all in one day, so I got back on the road with the goal of getting as far north as I could before dark, thereby making the next day's final journey as reasonable as possible. I took I-26 to I-81 north and made it to Harrisonburg, Virginia, by twilight, knocking about five hours off the rest of my trip. There was a Holiday Inn at the end of the off-ramp and later I found a small sandwich place to hold me over.

At 6 a.m. the next morning, AC/DC woke me up. The previous guest in my room had apparently set the alarm clock using the radio feature. My first reaction was confusion -- What is happening right now? -- which was followed by annoyance. When the radio began blaring again in five minutes I realized I had only hit the snooze button the first time. Now I veered toward anger, jumping up and pulling the plug out of the wall. Later, I growled at the hotel staff, but getting an early start on the long drive home was actually a good idea. I followed I-81 through the rest of Virginia, into West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. In Scranton I switched to I-84 and continued on through New York State and Connecticut, and then in Massachusetts I picked up the Mass Pike. The final leg was, with stops, more than 11 hours, but driving home adds extra motivation to keep going.

It's a big country out there, and I've still only seen a small slice of it. The distances and time spent on the road might seem overwhelming, but driving can be enjoyable as well. When hitting the road solo there is plenty of time for reflection; plus, NPR was a constant companion everywhere I went. Also, it is amazing how much religious radio there is in this country. I listened to it for a stretch here and there, and I have to report that some of it is completely insane. Another thing you'll find outside New England: large amounts of shredded tire on the road shoulders.

We can sometimes fall into cynicism and worse when confronted by the world's problems -- or even our own little struggles to survive and find satisfaction in this sometimes complex, often frustrating world. However, we are surrounded by great beauty, and if we fail to seek it out and embrace it, we alone are to blame. I think of that child in the fountain in Knoxville and how, after seeking reassurance from her mom, she walked back toward the cool and refreshing arc of water, each time allowing herself to be surprised, excited and filled with joy at something so wonderful, yet so simple.

Asleep at the wheel

2011-08-06T23:55:00.003-04:00

It was 10 years ago today that President George W. Bush was handed a morning security briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US." Bill Clinton's transition team later reported that the Bush Administration never seemed too concerned about terrorism, and 36 days after that aptly titled briefing, four planes were hijacked and, well, we all know the rest.

Bush managed to deflect most of the criticism on this issue, but can you imagine if Al Gore was in the White House when 9/11 happened? I am positive that he would have been impeached by Republicans in Congress.

The awful debt-ceiling deal

2011-08-02T08:24:00.002-04:00

The tunnel named after the late Tip O'Neill is apparently leaking quite a bit these days, but the legacy of the former Massachusetts Congressman is more impressive to me than ever in the current political landscape. O'Neill served 10 years as Speaker of the House, much of it when Ronald Reagan ("the most ignorant man who had ever occupied the White House," according to O'Neill, who died before George W. Bush came on the national scene) was president. Reagan, and other Republicans elected in 1980, went to Washington to "make government smaller" -- GOP-speak for lowering taxes on the wealthy and dismantling the New Deal safety net. O'Neill, ridiculed publicly by arrogant conservatives as being old and overweight, used strength and charm to stand up against Reagan and his cohorts, virtually single-handedly absorbing the blows and holding the line.

Alas, O'Neill is gone and the Democrats seem to have no one like him in a leadership role. (Nancy Pelosi, House majority leader, is probably closest, but she doesn't run the House any more.) President Obama appears to get his clock cleaned by Republicans on every contentious issue. His natural inclination to compromise has been repeatedly taken advantage of by an opposition that is virtually unwilling to give any ground -- and therefore all "agreements" give the far right almost everything they want. It's discouraging.

The debt-ceiling agreement that leaders on both sides are touting today -- and which passed the House last night and will likely get Senate approval today -- is a complete capitulation to a group of elected officials who were willing to sacrifice the stability of the nation and the global economy to make sure that the rich in American don't have to pay a single penny more in taxes. Joe Nocera in The New York Times calls them "terrorists" who are "waging jihad on the American people." This group of Tea Partiers and their enablers in Congress -- only several dozen members -- give the impression that they will go to any length, including national crisis, to get what they want. It's like playing chicken against a crazy person: you have to get out of the way because he will take you both down.

This all reminds me of the story in the Old Testament where two women come to King Solomon, both claiming that they are the mother of a particular child, and the wise king declares that the child will be split in two. Of course, the strategy was that the child's actual mother wouldn't want to see any harm come to the boy, and so when one of the women cries out, "No! Let her have him!" the king knows she is the true mother. The Democrats keep flinching and crying out. They are not willing to let the country default in its fiscal obligations as of midnight tonight, and so they gave in. The Republicans, whose reasonable elements are shouted down by the far right, are willing to burn the entire Republic to the ground. As a result, the deal voted on today requires sacrifices from the poor, the elderly, the young, the sick and the hard working, while those at the top of the economic pyramid have to give up nothing.

Despite the political rhetoric, the deal will hurt the economy. In the meantime, our biggest national crisis -- millions of unemployed -- goes unaddressed. In times like this government needs to spend more, not less. The stimulus back in Obama's first year needed to be two or three times bigger, but he gave in to the right. Now the economy will suffer more, and the GOP will pin it on Democrats in 2012. It's hard to see an upside here.

Getting serious

2011-07-28T06:14:00.000-04:00

For weeks the word was that Wall Street was not panicking about Washington's inability to raise the debt ceiling because it was understood that, in the end, some kind of deal would be reached. After all, the thinking went, the leadership of both parties knows how potentially serious and far-reaching the consequences would be of default. In the past few days, however, markets around the world have started to drop and there is now a real feeling that "these guys could screw this thing up." We are, indeed, in interesting times.

One article that most still cling to is that the US will not default -- in other words, miss payments on the debt to creditors. Because of what would certainly be the cataclysmic results of the world's safest asset suddenly unable to pay its obligations, the widely held view is that even if no agreement is reached the Treasury would first pay the $90 billion due to bondholders. After that, the government would need to prioritize, as incoming tax dollars only cover 40% of outlays. More than half of government would not be funded: Social Security or homeland security or troop salaries or Medicare, etc. Some essential programs would be on hold.

This assumes that, absent a Congressional vote, President Obama doesn't invoke the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which some Democrats are publicly pushing him to do. Obama, a Constitutional law professor, has said that his Administration's lawyers have reviewed the 14th Amendment -- part of which reads, "The validity of the public debt of the United States ... shall not be questioned." -- and concluded that it is not "a winning argument." Using such a tactic spuriously, some say, could lead to impeachment.

What has many analysts concerned is that even if an agreement is reached and the debt ceiling is raised this entire dramatic and drawn-out episode has already done its damage. Though the mounting total of US government debt -- currently $14.3 trillion -- has always been in plain sight, investing in that debt through US Treasury bonds was still considered the safest bet in the financial world. Now, the spotlight is on and some may start to second guess the wisdom of such an investment, for even if obligations are met this time the idea that there could come a time when this is not so is beginning to creep into worldwide financial markets. And the idea that the Tea Party segment of the political spectrum is actually playing chicken with America's financial affairs and that this most unstable and irresponsible movement may grow in power and is even looking to take the White House -- well, such a possibility could, right now, cause investors to panic and ratings agencies to lower the AAA rating of American debt.

Coupled with the current flat recovery from the Great Recession, it seems that we are forging new economic ground. The Tea Party and its lackeys in Congress think they know what they're doing, but we have seen how their conception of reality is not fact-based. We can only hope that saner heads step in and quickly fix this mess.

Library gets go-ahead

2011-07-21T22:45:00.001-04:00

The city has announced that it will go ahead with the construction of East Boston's new library branch despite a failure to receive state funding this year. Though it appeared for a bit that the project would have to wait an extra year, Mayor Menino said, "Under no condition are we going to stop on this project," according to Boston.com.

The library, which will be located at one end of Bremen Street Park, will be nearly 15,000 square feet. Construction is scheduled to begin next spring and the library could be open by the fall of 2013.

Photo courtesy of Boston.com.

DC snub could be Bay State gain

2011-07-18T19:39:00.001-04:00

President Obama today announced his nomination to head-up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- and it isn't, unfortunately, the woman who had the original idea for the agency and has been overseeing its set-up. Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor, is smart and tough, with unquestionable integrity, and you would think that these qualities would make her a no-brainer for the top spot in the CFPB, which is supposed to provide information to consumers and to keep an eye on banks, credit-card companies and other financial institutions -- all with the goal of protecting all of us from lies, schemes and predatory practices.

The Republican Party, of course, has a problem with any tactic that prevents their friends, and themselves, from getting richer. GOP senators made clear that Warren would not pass confirmation, so the president nominated an underling, Richard Cordray (whose nomination, it appears, will also be held up). While, again, I wish that Obama would fight back against the morons in Congress, there may be a bright side to this for those of us who live in Massachusetts. Warren's name has been tossed around as a possible Democratic challenger to Senator Scott Brown in the 2012 election. Warren said today that, with her work in DC done, she is returning to Massachusetts "to do more thinking" about a possible Senate run.

Warren would be an excellent candidate, and she would immediately have my support. I'm hoping she throws her hat in the ring.

Good time for a good cause

2011-07-16T13:48:00.000-04:00

I had a nice time last night at the DeVeau Family and Friends Summer Beach Party at the Orient Heights Yacht Club. The annual event raised more than $20,000 for the Jimmy Fund. Ed DeVeau is a former Savio student of mine and there were a number of other former Savio students on hand, including guitar hero Joe Maraio, who played a set for the crowd.

Car accident

2011-07-06T15:38:00.000-04:00

I came across the scene of a two-car accident moments ago at the corner of Bennington and Moore streets in East Boston. No one appeared to be hurt badly, though I saw a young woman with a scratched face. One car had smashed into a pole outside Carlo's Market while the other was splayed across the median strip. I took the photos above.

In Congress, July 4, 1776

2011-07-04T01:06:00.001-04:00

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

The sounds of summer

2011-06-28T17:35:00.001-04:00

ZUMIX kicks off its Summer Concert Series on Sunday with the Seaport Festival, "a free afternoon of music, arts, crafts, games and prizes," this Sunday, July 3, at Piers Park. The event runs from 3 to 6 p.m. and will feature Smokin' Joe and the Henchmen, a classic-rock and soul band. Also on the bill are the ZUMIX Jazz All-Stars, a group of young people I saw play a few weeks ago.

The Summer Concert Series will offer live music every Tuesday and Sunday throughout the summer at Piers Park and Bremen Street Park. For information on the schedule, check out the ZUMIX web site.

Sound and fury

2011-06-07T22:23:00.004-04:00

It happens every spring. The storm windows go up, the screens comes down and the air conditioner goes in -- and, as a result, the outside world once again seeps into my apartment. What had been a buttoned-up fortress, with double-pane windows plus the storms, is now a porous divider between me and everything going on outside along Bennington Street.

By "everything," I mostly mean the noise: the planes, the sirens, the motorcycles, yes....but also every car that wooshes past, the screeches of children playing, and even people just talking in normal voices as they walk past my windows. I hear every bit.

And then there are the car horns. I hear quite a few of those in any given stretch. Sometimes it's from impatient drivers at the nearby red light, but more often there are people arriving to pick someone up and they lay into the horn without a moment of thought about how that act can disturb everyone else. At the top of the pyramid, for me, is a horn that regularly beeps around 4 a.m. directly across the street from me. Once the nice weather comes the obnoxious beeper frequently wakes me up -- as happened this morning. I tried valiantly, but was unable to fall back to sleep.

This has actually been going on for three years. On some occasions I have gone outside to yell at the beeper. Once I ran over and began screaming at him. The beeping, however, continues. Maybe it is a different person, or various people. Why anyone thinks it is OK to disturb everyone on a city block in the wee hours is beyond me. Doesn't the driver own a cell phone? Can't the passenger be ready at the appointed time?

I spoke to an officer at the East Boston police station and he suggested I get the license plate of the vehicle, so that is what I will attempt to do, though rousing oneself from bed and running outside is tough to do at 4 a.m. We'll see how it goes.

Update (6/8): Well, the horn woke me up again. At 3:50 a.m. I immediately dragged myself out of bed, threw on my sandals, grabbed paper and pen, and marched outside. I took down the license plate of a big SUV as it sat running, and then I walked up to the front of the vehicle. The driver rolled down the window, and I told him he woke me all the time with his horn and that I had his license-plate number. He was around 30, looked to be heading to work and he apologized. If this happens again I will call in his plate to the police.

30 years later

2011-06-04T23:46:00.000-04:00

I'm just back from my 30th high school reunion and it was a good night. I graduated from Savio in 1981 in a class of 89 guys. Only 20 showed up tonight, but after 30 years people are living all over the place and have family obligations. It was good to see those who did come out.

As I was telling some of the guys tonight, I was a dorky kid from East Boston, but among my classmates I always felt like I could wander form group to group -- the athletes, the rock music rebels. the guys that came from East Boston Central Catholic with me, the guys from Revere, and everyone else -- and I was always accepted. Those were good days at Savio -- and I got a good education.

It's strange to see people virtually every day for four years and then to never see them again. That often happens after high school. At least tonight I got to touch base one time with some of the guys who -- no matter where we go or what we do -- will always be my friends.

Transportation notes

2011-05-31T21:28:00.001-04:00

*The construction of the new Chelsea Street Bridge begins the next stage tomorrow "with demolition of the existing bridge and construction of the remaining portions of the new lift structure," according to the state's Department of Transportation blog. This necessitates the closing of the bridge for six months, beginning tomorrow. The site says that, "The project is scheduled to be completed in spring 2012."

*City Hall is reminding cab drivers that people headed into East Boston, with the exception of those getting off at the airport, cannot be charged the tunnel fair. I rarely use taxis in Boston, but the last time I took one to come home, the driver attempted to tack on a few bucks for the toll. He didn't argue with me when I told him that doing so was illegal, but he would have got me if I didn't know better. The City asks that people report if cabbies attempt to charge the extra fee.

Photo of Chelsea Street Bridge courtesy Massachusetts DOT blog.

Glory and remembrance

2011-05-30T16:53:00.000-04:00

On Memorial Day in 1897, a work of art was unveiled to the public at the edge of the Boston Common, across from the State House. It was a bronze bas-relief by the American master Augustus Saint-Gaudens commemorating the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment and its leader, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. The 54th was one of the first units composed of black soldiers to fight in the Civil War, and Shaw was from a Boston abolitionist family.

Considered by many to be the finest piece of public art in Boston, as well as one of Saint-Gaudens' masterpieces, the work depicts the 54th on May 28, 1863, marching down Beacon Street and off to war, with Shaw on horseback and an angel floating above. Shaw and 29 of his men died in South Carolina less than two months later, but throughout the war, the 54th fought with distinction. The regiment was portrayed in the Oscar-winning 1989 film Glory.

Choosing our own future

2011-05-03T22:27:00.001-04:00

Osama Bin Laden is dead. Good riddance. Don't believe Joe Scarborough or other moronic pundits who claim that President Obama went against his supporters on the left by taking out the head of Al-Qaeda. None of us are shedding a tear for Bin Laden. He got what he deserved.

Bin Laden was evil -- but he wasn't stupid. A realistic assessment of his actions suggest that he accomplished some of what he set out to do. The goal was to entice the US into a protracted ground war in Afghanistan in order to bankrupt America and to radicalize the Muslim world against the West. And the result? The US military is approaching a decade in Afghanistan, plus eight years in Iraq, and together those campaigns have cost two or three trillion dollars. Meanwhile, there has been some radicalization of small groups of Muslims.

We're still here, of course, and we can ensure that Bin Laden's goals are not fully accomplished if we wrap things up in Iraq and Afghanistan, and if we use our military a bit more sparingly in the future. This is not a call for demilitarization or isolationism, but only for wisdom and foresight. America cannot go on spending as much as all other countries combined on the military, and America cannot go on deploying its forces all over the world.

Let us regroup at home and lead by example so that the US once again occupies the moral high ground. If America had invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 with a smart plan and an exit strategy and if the country hadn't taken its eye off the ball by getting wrapped up in Iraq, then thousands of lives and trillions of dollars might have been saved. We might have had to wait for a small team of soldiers to take out Bin Laden 10 years after the fact, but that is what happened any way.

Legislature looks to sacrifice health for profit

2011-04-28T16:21:00.001-04:00

State Rep. James Miceli, Democrat of Wilmington, came off as an idiot moments ago on the radio when he discussed the House vote, earlier this week, to repeal medical ethics law that went into effect less than two years ago. The Massachusetts Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Manufacturer Code of Conduct outlawed free meals and gifts that salesman and lobbyists for Big Pharma and medical-equipment makers were showering on doctors. Rep. Miceli voted for the law, but earlier this week he voted to repeal the law, one of the nation's toughest in this area. His rationale? The restaurant industry was hurting from the ban.

Now, the first thing that comes to mind is that this segment of the restaurant business cannot be more than tiny, and the drop-off that the industry is feeling must be do to the economic slowdown. However, even if it were true, how can we change a law designed to ensure more honest medical care for our citizens because of some rinky-dink dollars-and-sense byproduct? Rep. Miceli, speaking on WBUR's Radio Boston program, went on to explain the rationale for his original vote, but again talked about the impact on the restaurant industry.

Now maybe there are more legitimate reasons for adjusting, not repealing, the law (and some of them are listed in this article) but Rep. Miceli's comments -- in tandem with other recent actions by our state legislature -- leave me feeling like ignorant fools are running the show on Beacon Hill.

Trouble on Sumner Street

2011-04-25T19:26:00.000-04:00

East Boston's 303 Cafe sent a long, at times confusing, email today about their difficulties with Sysco, a giant foodservice corporation. According to the email:

On April 1, 2011 ... Sysco Boston LLC legally seized our Beer and Wine/CV license.

Owner Melinda Jones goes on to tell the story of 303's opening and the hobbling debt -- more than $30,000 -- owed to Sysco, and she asks for the community's help. She's asking for any ideas and also, our business. I know I can help with the latter.

Good Times

2011-04-20T18:02:00.000-04:00

Bravo to the East Boston Times for reconfiguring its web site so that stories from the past are accessible and comments can be left after the stories. I'm not sure when these changes were made, but I just noticed them today. I know the Times will appreciate when I take the time to comment, which I hope to do frequently.

Caesars crosses the Rubicon

2011-04-14T16:43:00.000-04:00

Suffolk Downs is partnering with the world's largest gaming company to bring a $600 million casino to the East Boston/Revere racetrack. Suffolk lead owner Richard Fields announced today a "strategic alliance" with Caesars Entertainment, which "owns or manages casino resorts on four continents."

Of course, the state legislature has yet to legalize casinos in the Bay State, and right now a bill filed by East Boston state Sen. Anthony Petruccelli that would authorize three resort casinos is sitting idly, but speculation is that the legislature will take up the matter this summer.

Those opposed to bringing casinos to Massachusetts are looking for a comprehensive, independent study of the effects, positive and negative, that such a move will bring to our state. So far, no such study has been authorized, and some feel that this is an attempt to downplay or hide the actual consequences of expanded gaming.

Neighbors of Suffolk Downs will be hosting "A Forum on Expanded Gambling" at the Winthrop Middle School on Wednesday, May 4.

Early closing at Fast Lane screws customers

2011-04-04T20:13:00.000-04:00

Both the state web site and the sign on the door say that the Fast Lane Service Center at 145 Havre Street in East Boston is open until 4:30 p.m. on Mondays, but I got there around 4:23 and found the door locked. At least three other people drove up and were angered by the early closing. I had driven home from work early just to go there to renew my resident status and got shut out. These are the small things that make people cynical about state government.

"Unfortunate circumstances" a poor excuse

2011-04-03T10:44:00.002-04:00

Carmen Guzman wants justice in the death of her daughter, Julissa Brisman, at the hands of Philip Markoff, the so-called "Craigslist killer." Of course, Markoff killed himself last year while awaiting trial, but Guzman believes that the gun store where Markoff purchased a 9mm pistol should be held accountable -- and she's right.

The story, in today's Globe, has a pair of quotes that leave me shaking my head. First, the owner of the State Line Gun Shop -- located about 3,000 feet over the border into New Hampshire -- said, "There really is nothing to say at all." Nothing to say about an establishment in a mostly rural state that sets up shop on the fringe of a major urban center and sells weapons to people from a neighboring state, where the gun laws are more restrictive? More than 100 guns that were purchased in New Hampshire were used to commit crimes in Massachusetts in 2009.

The next quote, even more disturbing, comes from the assistant US Attorney, who said, "It’s an unfortunate set of circumstances, but there doesn’t appear to be any intentional conduct on the part of the dealer." The "intentional conduct" of the dealer is to sell as many guns as possible and, therefore, not to worry about the details, which is this case involved a fake ID with an unconvincing photo and the name of the fake identity misspelled.

Sure, Markoff might have obtained a gun elsewhere, or he might have killed Julissa Brisman by some other means -- but wasn't her life worth just a little bit of effort on somebody's part?

Community heard on buffer

2011-03-29T21:36:00.001-04:00

The Boston Conservation Commission is asking Massport to meet with East Boston residents regarding a buffer that would be a key link in a greenway that would span the length of the neighborhood. The agency is pushing forward plans on two projects -- the East Boston-Chelsea Bypass road and the Green Bus Depot at Logan Airport -- and local residents told the Commission that this is the time to include "a path through the depot site to help connect Bremen Street Park with Constitution Beach."

The buffer and greenway connection had been agreed to by Massport years ago, but as usual the agency cannot be trusted to keep its word. The Conservation Commission meets again on April 4.

Image courtesy of Massport via Boston.com.

The sacrifice of workers

2011-03-25T10:02:00.003-04:00

As conservatives attempt to vilify working people across America, it's important to remember what happened 100 years ago today. On that day, at around 4:45 p.m., fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in Lower Manhattan. Workers, mostly young Jewish and Italian immigrant women, were trapped because the doors were locked.

Burns and smoke inhalation killed those who couldn't escape; blunt force killed others who jumped from the ninth floor. The death toll was 146.

The event spurred the enactment of workplace laws and the inspection of other death traps. The owners of the building were found not guilty of second-degree manslaughter, though one of them was fined $20 for locking the doors.

This would be a good time to consider Bertolt Brecht's poem "A Worker Reads History":

Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
 The books are filled with names of kings.
 Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
 And Babylon, so many times destroyed.
 Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima's houses,
 That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
 In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
 Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
 Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom
 Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song.
 Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the legend
 The night the seas rushed in,
 The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.

 Young Alexander conquered India.
 He alone?
 Caesar beat the Gauls.
 Was there not even a cook in his army?
 Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet
 was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
 Frederick the Greek triumphed in the Seven Years War.
 Who triumphed with him?

 Each page a victory
 At whose expense the victory ball?
 Every ten years a great man,
 Who paid the piper?

 So many particulars.
 So many questions.

Remembering an Eastie childhood

2011-03-22T22:26:00.000-04:00

A woman who grew up in the Maverick projects has just published a book that reflects on the experience. Memories of Maverick: Growing Up Poor & Catholic in East Boston was written by Teri Borseti and received a positive review in the MetroWest Daily News. The book can be purchased for $13 here.

Image courtesy of the MetroWest Daily News.

Stepping out

2011-03-21T21:17:00.000-04:00

On Sunday I went over to Scup's, the eatery inside the shipyard, to check out the tag sale that was held to benefit Harbor City School, which describes itself as "a not for profit preschool being developed by a group of committed East Boston parents and educators." It was a beautiful afternoon, and when I got there some folks were dancing outside.

Demanding the truth

2011-03-16T22:36:00.002-04:00

There's a bill in the state legislature that calls for an independent and comprehensive cost/benefit analysis of expanded gambling in Massachusetts, and John Ribeiro is leading the charge locally for passage of the bill. S.150 was filed by Sen. Stephen Brewer, a Democrat from Barre, back in January. It's currently before the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies, as is a bill that would authorize three casinos in the state.

It's inconceivable that a proposal with the impact of legalized casino gambling would go forward without the public -- and the elected officials who are voting on it -- knowing exactly what the pros and cons would be, but that is what the pro-gambling forces tried last year, and it's what they will try again. Of course, the gambling lobby and their supporters on Beacon Hill understand that a truly honest study will include much to be concerned about, and that don't want you and me to see that.

East Boston will be negatively impacted by a casino at Suffolk Downs. We demand a legitimate study in order to fully understand exactly what we're getting ourselves into.

Turning up the heat

2011-03-07T21:53:00.000-05:00

Three sitting Congressman and one former House member will hold a news conference tomorrow in East Boston to coincide with President Obama's visit to a local school, but the event is being held to protest the Administration's proposed cut to a program that helps people pay their heating bills.

Obama will visit TechBoston Academy in Dorchester tomorrow afternoon before a Democratic fundraiser at the Museum of Fine Arts. The news conference is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. at the home of Joe and Katherine Oliveri, whose heating benefit was cut this year.

The president's budget proposes cutting the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program by about 50%.

Celebrating the neighborhood's history

2011-02-28T21:08:00.001-05:00

Local historian Anthony Sammarco will speak Wednesday evening on the history of East Boston in the lecture hall at East Boston High School. The talk is part of a series called "East Boston: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow," which is sponsored by the Eagle Hill Civic Association. The program is free to all and begins at 7 p.m.

There is a story on the event at Boston.com.

Image of Anthony Sammarco's book on East Boston courtesy of openlibrary.org.

Supporting workers in the Midwest

2011-02-22T16:15:00.001-05:00

We like to say that America is a classless society, but that simply is not true. It's always been to the benefit of the wealthy in this country to dismiss the idea of class while rigging the system to keep them and their heirs on top. The current attempts of state governments in the Midwest to undo the progress that working people have made in the past 150 years in the US are the latest battle on this front, and it is a blatant and outrageous attack.

Wisconsin's Republican governor, Scott Walker, is using his state's budget shortfall to take away the right of collective bargaining from most public-sector unions -- a right that Americans fought, and died, to establish. This is completely unacceptable. What is a union if not a group of workers who have the ability to bargain as a unit?

Wisconsin and Ohio -- the second state to declare war on unions -- have real fiscal issues, and so do most states, but these have been caused by a decrease in revenue due to the deep recession that the country was plunged into by Wall Street and by insufficient tax rates on millionaires. In both instances, the wealthy have benefited greatly and now those gains are going to be solidified on the backs of teachers, firefighters, police officers, garbage men and other state and municipal workers -- middle-class Americans who, as George Bailey says in It's A Wonderful Life, "do most of the working and paying and living and dying" in this country.

These are not desperate maneuvers in a time of fiscal emergency, but it is rather a strategy by the wealthy to increase the gold in their overflowing coffers: cut taxes for the rich; cut programs for the needy because there is suddenly less money to pay for them; and vilify public-sector unions.

The wealthy have fought labor unions as long as they have existed, using massive amounts of violence that is left out of the textbooks we use in our history classes. Many people were intimidated, fired, beaten and killed, but it was the courage of working men and women that won every battle against the more powerful forces that tried to keep them down. That struggle never ended; it only changed forms, so that companies like Wal-Mart are much more sophisticated in their anti-unions actions.

With the loss of most of America's manufacturing jobs and with the ever-present animosity of big business and the wealthy, private-sector unions are a much smaller player today. Of course, corruption is a part of that story, but so is a string of successes that includes not only a multitude of codified rights, but a national economy that outgrew all others even as union workers made decent wages, making the US economy the envy of others in the 20th century.

People in public-sector jobs deserve respect and a decent wage. They also deserve the right to bargain collectively with their employers. Taking away that right would be antithetical to everything America stands for. All working people should be aligned with the workers in Wisconsin and Ohio as they fight the latest battle in America's class war.

Photo courtesy of csmonitor.com.

Three of a kind

2011-02-21T17:01:00.001-05:00

***I remember the day that Jorge Torres was shot. The rookie cop, who was friends with people I knew in East Boston, was hit with three bullets while chasing a bank robber. Officer Roy Sergei was killed by the gunman. After two years of recuperation, Torres tried to return to the job, but he says, "I just wasn't any good any more." Michelle McPhee writes in today's Herald that Torres -- pictured, courtesy of the Herald web site, from 1988 -- is trying to track down his partner that fateful day, Chris Rogers, who is apparently living on the streets.

***When Louis DeSanctis died three years ago, he had assets in East Boston worth $32 million. His extended family is surprised to find out that they get none of it, as the secret daughter appeared from nowhere.

***A web site names the best pizza places in Massachusetts. Can you guess who they mention first?

Eastie in the news

2011-02-16T15:30:00.003-05:00

***An article on The Daily Beast web site talks about the role of East Boston resident Gene Sharp in the recent overthrow of Egypt's prime minister, as well as other non-violent revolutions. Sharp runs the Albert Einstein Institute out of his house in the neighborhood, and his books and pamphlets are read and passed around throughout the world. Update: BBC online also profiles Gene Sharp.

***The Boston Preservation Alliance released a report on places in East Boston that are historically notable and should be preserved, including the First Presbyterian Church on London Street and the Temple Ohabei Shalom Chapel on Wordsworth Street.

***Boston.com notes that the Boston Police of Station 7 in East Boston have been recognized for their work fighting underage tobacco use.

***Ryan Lee, the Eastie resident who found a bag of money and returned it to the rightful owner, was honored today by the Boston City Council.

Photo of the Temple Ohabei Shalom Chapel courtesy of Wikipedia.

Bro. Anthony Ambrogio, RIP

2011-02-13T22:46:00.001-05:00

Early in my junior year of high school I was opening my American literature textbook to the proscribed page when I was jolted by a shriek that came from the front of the room. Everyone looked up and the teacher, Bro. Anthony Ambrogio, was staring at a pair of students who'd slid their desks together so one could "look on" with the other. This was not allowed in Bro. Anthony's class, and needless to say no one in my class ever forgot his book again.

Bro. Anthony passed away a week ago at age 76. At Savio, he was easily the most feared teacher in the school. Everyone dreaded junior year, and his class was the most orderly and intense I ever had. We had to write a many-paged paper titled "The Evolution of American Thought," which was the longest and most important assignment I had in high school..

Bro. Anthony was always intense and he wore a black suit, white shirt and black tie to class every day, but the strangest thing about him was that he was a completely different person when you saw him outside of school. I was a Boys & Girls Club member at the time and, being that both Savio and the Club were run by the Salesian order, Bro. Anthony popped in a few times while I was there. He joked and laughed, which he never did in class, and at first that caught me off-guard.

I got a letter last week from a Savio classmate of mine. There are plans for a 30th reunion in the works, and I'm sure we'll tell some Bro. Anthony stories when we get together. My, how the time does fly.

Photo courtesy EastBoston.com.

Doing the right thing

2011-02-11T06:17:00.001-05:00

What would you do if you found a bag of money by the side of the road? Ryan Lee of East Boston picked it up and brought it to the police station, where it was then returned to the rightful owner. Lee was all over the TV last night and today there's a Globe story on his choice to do the right thing.

The bag contained $2,500 that belonged to the owner of the Shell gas station on Meridian Street, across from Station 7 and not far from where the money was found. Mayor Menino has proclaimed today Ryan Lee Day.

Lee, 32, is from Maine, and he met his wife while in the Peace Corps. He's currently working for Project Bread, recruiting people to take part in the Walk for Hunger. The news is filled with people every day who do the wrong thing, but there are many more who do the right thing. Let us all remember that as we go forward today. You may not find a bag of money in your travels, but you will certainly discover a moment where a small action on your part -- mine, too -- will make the world a better place.

Photo courtesy of Boston.com.

Evaluating Reagan

2011-02-06T12:34:00.002-05:00

A couple years ago I saw a documentary on PBS on George H. W. Bush, who served as 41st President of the United States and was also vice-president under Ronald Reagan. Someone interviewed for the program made the point that, while Reagan played the roles of star athlete and war hero on film, the elder Bush had really lived that life. Reagan is often cited as "The Great Communicator," and justifiably so, but much of what he communicated was a sham.

Across the country the 100th anniversary of Reagan's birth is being marked today. He has become larger than life and an icon of the conservative movement. Some even want to add him to Mount Rushmore. The facts, however, belie this tale of hero worship. While he was in office I remember thinking that Reagan was the worst president the nation had ever seen. Of course, I couldn't conceive of George W. Bush then, and in comparison Reagan seems only mildly bad, but from his backing of murderous militias in Latin America to his foolish "trickle-down" ideas in economics to his refusal to fight AIDS to Iran-Contra and more, Reagan was a disaster for America. Now we read in his son's memoir that the old man had likely begun to suffer from Alzheimer's while still in office. What was the difference from how he behaved before that?

Reagan's legacy may have done the most damage of all: a revived conservative movement. The country suffered through eight years of Bush Jr. and we are still trying to clean up that mess. Reagan's best acting job was as president, and today he has more people fooled than ever.

A short stack on a winter morning

2011-02-03T10:33:00.000-05:00

There's something about midwinter cold and snow that awakens in me a desire for pancakes. Maybe it's some primeval urge to pack on carbs and fat to survive the frigid months, or perhaps it's that I have more time to cook in general because I'm indoors more. Regardless, I rarely eat any breakfast -- I know, that's bad -- but I made pancakes yesterday and today, and they were quite enjoyable.

Of course, I made them from scratch. You won't find any box mix in my cupboard. As with most of my cooking, I don't measure anything. I use intuition (which sometimes can lead to problems, but more often than not works fine) and sometimes I use substitution as well. Because I don't drink milk, I avoid using any dairy when making pancakes. Instead, I use apple cider. Laugh if you wish, but the texture and the taste are quite enjoyable.

Finally, one must use maple syrup -- the genuine article -- to top the fluffy stack of flapjacks. In fact, one may go so far as to label pancakes as "a maple syrup delivery system." If I had a banana I would have sliced it up to pile on the plate, but as it was, the pancakes were perfect -- and my body has the necessary insulation to combat the winter's chill.

The only solution to the debt

2011-01-30T00:58:00.001-05:00

During his State of the Union address last week President Obama called for a five-year freeze of non-security discretionary spending in the federal budget. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress proposed that spending be returned to 2008 levels. It's possible that one of those plans will be enacted, or something similar, but it's also possible that the two parties won't come to an agreement on the matter. What is certainly true is that either move would have, at best, a tiny effect on the country's incomprehensible $14 trillion national debt. In fact, despite the alarm bells being struck by Democrats and Republicans alike, no one appears anywhere near ready to take action that will actually begin to reduce the ocean of red ink the US finds itself in.

Every day on TV and in print elected officials bemoan the unfair burden that is being handed down to our children and our children's children, but the reality is that no one is ever going to make cuts and adjustments in the budget of the magnitude that would make meaningful reductions in the debt. No one. Ever. Not now, not soon, never. Neither party possesses the political courage to do what really has to be done: decrease defense spending and reform Social Security and Medicare. The non-security discretionary spending that the US government does, while the target for symbolic cuts, is not the problem. It is the areas that both sides are leery of confronting that are the problem.

So let's be honest, then. If we really want to get our financial house in order, if we really want to spare future generations from paying for our spending, then there is only one logical and effective thing to do: raise taxes. As I say, drastic decreases in spending are never going to happen, so the US government must increase tax revenues. It's got to happen at some point and, therefore, if we refuse to do it now we really are passing on the costs of today to our children.

Let me say this plainly: If we accept that major cuts in entitlement programs and defense spending are not going to happen (whether you are for or against them) -- and, based on everything we know about how Washington works THEY ARE NOT -- then those of us who do not advocate for tax increases are accepting that we will hand off a debt of some $15 trillion or $20 trillion to the next generation. I'm tired of hearing about the unfair burden we are passing on. Let's take the only course open to us and stop the melodramatic whining.

Time's winged chariot rolls on

2011-01-27T09:40:00.000-05:00

Jan. 31 will mark one year since our friend Wally Bowe passed away. Wally was one of the good guys, and everyone who knew him still feels the pain of his absence. There will be a Mass in his memory this Sunday at 10 a.m. at Sacred Heart Church in East Boston.

The big chill

2011-01-24T06:27:00.003-05:00

I have a sweater -- an LL Bean Norwegian fisherman's sweater -- that is so warm I only wear it on days that are below zero (or quick trips outside in blizzards). I think I'll bust it out today.

It's currently -1 in Boston (wind chill -22) and may drop another degree or two before the sun rises enough to pull us toward 10 or 12 degrees -- the day's forecast high in Boston. Out in Orange, a town on Route 2 that is often the coldest spot in the state, the air temperature is -20 right now.

I remember Christmas Day, 1980, as being the coldest day in Boston in my lifetime. It was -7, and when I walked the short distance from my apartment to my aunt's house, carrying some dish my mother made for dinner later that day, I inhaled and felt the chill in my lungs. A half-dozen years ago I was out in central Massachusetts when the forecast called for extreme cold. It was -13 that morning, and I went outside to feel what that was like.

There is something I find intriguing about the cold, something alluring, spellbinding. Of course, that's only the case when one has somewhere warm to retreat to. Otherwise, the cold can be painful and dangerous pretty quickly. When I was growing up on Chelsea Street in East Boston I remember crowding up against the side of our kitchen stove, the main heat source in our apartment, on cold winter mornings. Do they still make stoves that are also heaters?

Our cold snap won't last long, but there's an icy mix forecast for midweek. The weather always has the power to get our attention.

Glaring inequality

2011-01-21T13:54:00.001-05:00

I've generally stayed away from blogging about John Forbes because I've known him and his family for years. John was a student in my senior honors English class at Savio back in 1997-98, and even before that, when I worked at the Boys & Girls Club, John had been a Club member and coached little kids in our wiffle ball league. I followed the news like everyone else and waited to see the sentence that was handed down in federal court earlier this week, and now I'm happy for John and his family.

I glanced today at the Eastie Watch piece in this week's East Boston Times about Forbes and that spurred me to pull together some thoughts I had on the matter. I agree with the author's (though, for some reason, this weekly feature is unsigned I believe it's written by Times reporter John Lynds) contention that the Boston Herald's story on letters of support for Forbes -- specifically from City Councilor Sal LaMattina and former State Sen. Robert Travaglini -- is a bit snarky and off-base. These guys have both known the Forbes family forever, and if they had sacrificed that friendship in order to protect their political reputations, then that would have been a less-than-noble act. We're not talking about a backroom conversation with the DA or the judge to influence an outcome; this is the normal process of writing letters of support. People, including politicians, do this all the time.

What the Times doesn't confront -- and what I've only seen passing reference to in any local media in light of Forbes' sentence of probation -- is the broader picture, which this case has made even more clear: In America, the justice system is skewed by socioeconomic class. This isn't a novel or groundbreaking conclusion, but I can't help but think about it in these circumstances. Let's put aside the specifics of Forbes case because, as I said, I am pulling for him, and I want him to get on with his life. Speaking in objective terms of no one in particular, in the US, if one is white, middle class and is connected to the infrastructure of a community, one has a huge advantage in the criminal justice system. Conversely, if none of those are true, one has none of those advantages and is treating much differently in the courts.

Currently in the US there are more than 250,000 people in federal prisons and local jails for drug offenses. It's likely that many of them didn't have structured childhoods, good schools and connections to community organizations, and as a result they were locked up, often for years. Human Rights Watch has concluded that "blacks are 10.1 times more likely than whites to be sent to prison for drug offenses." I'm not, however, fixated on race, but class is a different story. OJ Simpson is black, but he got away with murder because of his money.

America has spent more than a trillion dollars on the so-called War on Drugs in the past 30 years. We don't seem to have received a good return on that investment. It's time to revamp drug laws so that everyone is able to receive treatment and everybody is able to get on living their lives with strong support structures in place. It's good economic policy, but it's also the right -- and fair -- thing to do.

From doctor to artist

2011-01-20T10:15:00.002-05:00

If you were a pediatric patient at the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center from the 1970s into the 2000s you know Dr. Peter Stringham. The good doctor retired three years ago and now he's creating graphic novels. The story is here.

Photo courtesy of WickedLocal.com.

Meetings

2011-01-18T06:36:00.000-05:00

***Tonight there is a meeting on plans by Excel Academy to renovate and move to the building formerly housing the St. Mary's Star if the Sea School, at the corner of Saratoga and Moore streets. The meeting is at the Salesian Boys & Girls Club on Byron Street and begins at 6 p.m.

***On Wednesday there's a meeting on the redesign of Central Square hosted by the city's Transportation Department at the East Boston Social Center in Central Square. That meeting also begins at 6 p.m.

Taking Ike's warning seriously

2011-01-17T11:52:00.000-05:00

Three days before leaving the White House in 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered a farewell speech to the American public. That was 50 years ago today, and part of the one-time five-star general's remarks warned future generations of the dangers of the immense defense and weapons corporations that had been created after World War II:

    This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
    In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
    We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Today, the United States spends almost as much on defense as every other country in the world combined, and there are somewhere around 1,000 US military bases OUTSIDE American soil. Defense contractors like Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics and others have raked in hundreds of billions of dollars since Eisenhower's speech -- and they play no small role in beating the drum when opportunities arise for the use of their weapons systems.

Aside of all other geopolitical concerns, just the cost of this military behemoth is going to end up leading to America's downfall if left unchecked. The US government needs to get it under control, and the people need to insist on it. As Ike said, the only remedy is "an alert and knowledgeable citizenry." Are we ready yet to heed his words?

Wikipedia turns 10

2011-01-15T22:06:00.001-05:00

Wikipedia is 10 years ago today, and though some criticize the site for inaccuracies, there was a study that showed the site to be roughly on par with Encyclopedia Britannica, the industry standard for many years. Few today would think of plopping down dollars to buy a huge set of books when the all of that information and more is available on the Internet.

I've written the first drafts for about a dozen articles on Wikipedia, but the nature of the site means that all of them have been revised and extended since I first introduced the topics. I'm most proud, of course, of the entry I wrote on East Boston. It's much longer now than when I first broached the subject in the fall of 2003, but I will forever be the person who was there first.

I refer to Wikipedia almost every day, often several times a day. It's good for a quick check of some bit of information or as a starting point for research. It seems like one of the natural uses of the Web and it often forces me to ask the question, What did I do before the Internet?

This and that

2011-01-13T19:39:00.001-05:00

***An East Boston cat has been called for jury duty, according to a story on the WHDH web site. Sal Esposito is expected to report to Suffolk Superior Court on March 23. I wouldn't expect Sal to get on a case, however, as he has exhibited bigotry toward mice. (Photo of Sal the cat from WHDH.com.)

***Nail salons in Boston will now be inspected by the city, mostly to protect the young women who often work there from the dangerous chemicals on hand.

***There will be a meeting next Wednesday on the impending redesign of Eastie's Central Square. The meeting runs from 6 to 8 p.m. and will be at the East Boston Social Center.

Gas pedal blues

2011-01-13T10:40:00.000-05:00

In mid-December I received a citation from a Revere police officer for going 42 mph in a 30 mph zone while approaching the Beachmont School. About one minute earlier, as I took the curve that leads into the straightaway that passes the marsh I thought to myself, "Slow down. There are often speed traps here." And seconds after slowing down, the thought drifted from my head until I saw the cop standing in the middle of the road waving me over. He grumbled at me, walked away and came back with a ticket.

Of course, it's not the heat that gets you, it's the humidity. In this case, the $120 are less troublesome than the insurance surcharge. (Is it still on my record for six year?) While my experience has been that hearings for speeding tickets result in a lower fine, the surcharge still sticks like a bur, and therefore taking a day off from work to save $60 or so doesn't seem worth it.

Today I went online to pay the infraction, and after going through all the motions I got an email that said the ticket information I entered was not on file and therefore I should call or go to the Registry. Now this is the stuff that makes one annoyed. I called and then waited 28 minutes on hold until someone handled my ticket. The Registry has made great strides in recent years, but there's no reason why the automated system can't tell me how long the average wait is. I would have called back another time if I knew I was going to spend half an hour listening to passionless music interrupted by a voice every minute thanking me for patience that I didn't have.

The officer, apparently, hasn't turned in the ticket yet. Maybe it should become void if he doesn't enter the information in a certain amount of time. Anyway, I know the moral: Don't speed. Yeah, but was a sunny day, the road was empty and it's a nice, open straightaway. I never felt like I was going too fast. I certainly wasn't driving dangerously. I do slow down on that stretch now, which I guess is the point, right?

Fun in the storm

2011-01-12T12:39:00.000-05:00

My neighbor's kids know how to enjoy the snow.

Something wicked this way comes

2011-01-09T01:07:00.001-05:00

Even before Saturday's shooting in Arizona I was going to comment on the disturbing direction of the political discourse in the country in recent years. I'd seen that a woman was removed from the House chambers when she shouted negative comments about Barack Obama while the Constitution was being read. As Rep. Frank Pellone read Article II, Section 1 of the document -- the part that says the president must be a "natural-born citizen" -- Teresa Cao yelled out, "Except Obama! Except Obama! Save us, Jesus!"

It turns out that Ms. Cao is a well-known "birther" crackpot who isn't dissuaded by legal documents from the state of Hawaii and, therefore, is never going to be convinced of Obama's legitimacy, and so my first reaction was that her outburst was disrespectful and reprehensible. However, I had to admit that if someone shouted out comments that criticized Republicans for their theatrical embracing of the Constitution while they seek to trample on it legislatively, or even if there was your basic chanting that the wars should be ended and the troops brought home, I would have applauded the actions.

While her ignorance is disturbing, it's not Teresa Cao's actions that give me concern. It is the fact that there are some people who want to go farther than she did. Whatever TV she watches (presumably Fox), radio she listens to, blogs she reads, and whatever other media she consumes -- and believes -- if, in the end, it only inspired her to yell out some foolishness, then so be it. There is, however, a certain percentage of the population that listen to, watch and read similar rants and diatribes, and who then decide that violence is the proper course. Those people are being incited by Beck, Palin, Rush, Coulter, O'Reilly and the rest of the moronic right-wing instigators, and some of them are bound to be dangerous.

That's what I was thinking Saturday morning, and then came the news that Jared Loughner, 22, walked up to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords with a gun and shot her in the head. Six others were killed, a dozen wounded and Giffords clings to life. In a press conference hours after the shooting the Pima County sheriff, Clarence Dupnik, looking exasperated at the day's events, said that he believes the political bitterness has gone too far. Calling Arizona "a mecca for racism and bigotry," Dupnik added:

...people tend to pooh-pooh this business about all the vitriol that we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that. That may be free speech, but it’s not without consequences.

We can live with Teresa Cao. Heck, she's even a little entertaining, but somewhere out there are delusional souls filled with ignorance and rage, and they are willing to take things into their own hands.

Photo of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and House Speaker John Boehner courtesy of the Associated Press.

Going once...

2011-01-08T08:56:00.000-05:00

Image courtesy of networkedblogs.com

Two properties in East Boston will be auctioned off to the highest bidder on Jan. 24, per order of the state's Division of Capital Asset Management. The bigger lot is 20 Addison Street -- 1.4 acres along the Chelsea Creek; the smaller is less than a quarter acre and it's at 600 Chelsea Street.

Property tours are scheduled for Thursday. Individuals may bid online. For more information check out this listing.

To save or not to save

2011-01-03T06:37:00.002-05:00

The Globe reports on the demolition of the East Boston Immigration Station, located on the harbor waterfront. The site was open from 1920 to 1959 to process and detain immigrants, but was relegated to use as storage by various entities after that. Massport now owns the structure, which was denied protection by the city's landmarks commission.

A couple weeks ago the Globe had a story on historic sites in the neighborhood that would be protected. The groups involved will release a report this month "intended to provide a roadmap for future redevelopment." One site recommended for preservation is the First Presbyterian Church (in photo, courtesy of Boston.com).

Update (7:15 p.m.): A Boston.com blog post advocates preservation of the immigration station.

Auld Lang Syne

2010-12-31T23:27:00.000-05:00

By Robert Burns, 1788

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and days of auld lang syne ?

For auld lang syne, my jo,for auld lang syne,we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,for auld lang syne.

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp !
and surely I’ll be mine !
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my jo,for auld lang syne,we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,for auld lang syne.

We twa hae run about the braes,
and pu’d the gowans fine ;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
sin auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my jo,for auld lang syne,we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,for auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl’d i' the burn,
frae morning sun till dine ;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
sin auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my jo,for auld lang syne,we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,for auld lang syne.

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere !
and gie's a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll tak a right gude-willy waught,
for auld lang syne.

Storm furor unfair?

2010-12-30T10:59:00.000-05:00

I was returning from Italy in the summer of 2009 when the second leg of my flight, from New York to Boston, was delayed due to weather and I was forced to spend seven hours at JFK, wandering around the airport and trying to nap on the dingy carpet. What most frustrated me during that episode was not the fact that my airline was not willing to send a jetliner into thunderstorms, but the lack of information I was getting from the company's employees.

Still, looking back, the airline's first job is to convey me to and from my destination safely, which of course they've done every time I've flown. The monotonous delay is now just a slightly funny anecdote, a footnote on the story of my fantastic trip to Europe. I don't fly that often, so I've been lucky enough to avoid horror stories about sitting for hours on the tarmac, which would be understandably terrible. This week tens of thousands of travelers will have their own horror stories about trying to get somewhere for the holidays when the recent snowstorm struck.

I do think, however, that the furor people are expressing is a bit unfair. I am not one to defend giant corporations, but imagine how incredibly complex the air travel system is and then add to it a weather event that cripples a number of important transportation hubs, including the New York metro area's three airports. This was, I read, the Big Apple's sixth-largest snowfall on record and it struck during the height of the post-Christmas travel period. Do people really expect that the planes, pilots, personnel and passengers can all be swiftly repositioned so that everyone is where they want to be?

Of course, if I missed a long-planned trip or the funeral of a relative or a holiday dinner I would be understandably upset, but the weather answers to no one.

Maybe people really were not irrationally angry about air travel delays; maybe it was just the media coverage that created hysteria where there was little. In New York City, however, people seemed genuinely upset by the municipal response to the two-foot snowfall, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg eventually accepting responsibility for the shortcomings of the response. Not being there, I'm not sure how well or poorly the city tackled the storm, but I again feel like the fickle feelings of the public were on display here. The nation is emerging from an economic crisis, people want governments to spend less, but when services -- from border security to trash pick-up -- are scaled back the citizenry goes beserk.

Today, Americans seem to want to have their cake and to eat it, too -- and then to have another piece while complaining about the price of the cake. It cannot go on like this forever. Another old but relevant proverb comes to mind: If we want to dance, we have to pay the piper.

Coming to America

2010-12-28T17:40:00.000-05:00

There's some controversy surrounding comments made on a blog by the Phantom Gourmet, the secretive restaurant critic:

I’m sorry to tell everyone, but without illegal aliens, there is no restaurant business.

Is it true? What about the hospitality field? Agriculture? Unskilled labor? If so, what should be public policy regarding immigration? Should there be stricter enforcement of employers?

The number of undocumented immigrants has decreased in the past two years, with estimates are that there are a million fewer than the high of 12 million in 2007. Much of that is in response to the weakened economy, but it has been under-reported that deportation of illegal workers has increased under President Obama and audits of employers have quadrupled.

Immigration is down in Arizona as well, and all of the rhetoric about waves of murderers streaming across the border was completely political -- a cynical, but common, tactic to scare voters to the right. The current Congress is unlikely to pass any immigration legislation, as it helps the Republican Party to continually vilify immigrants.

I discovered recently that there were limits placed on the number of Italians allowed to come to the US from 1921 to 1965. The Emergency Quota Act, signed by President Warren G. Harding, drastically reduced the immigration from southern and eastern Europe, principally Italy, while allowing larger numbers from western and northern Europe.

About five million Italians came to America seeking a better life for themselves and their children, and I am here and living comfortably because of several of those people. At the height of the influx, a number of Americans looked around and decided that they didn't like these newcomers, with their large families, different language and smelly foods, and they passed laws to keep us out. Shame on them, and shame on us if we turn around and look down upon the latest groups to set foot on these shores.

Eastie storm photos

2010-12-27T00:52:00.003-05:00

Holiday plants along Bennington Street look even more appropriate.

No one is waiting at the bus stop at Bennington and Byron streets, though I did see a bus pull up and let off one passenger.

This house remains in the holiday spirit despite the storm.

Bennington Street looking north. Green lights, but no cars.

Cars along Byron Street are already covered pretty well.

The winds drive the snow.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T08:47:00.000-05:00

***On Christmas morning the Herald gives us a story of holiday cheer spread by a pair of East Boston cops. The duo (in the photo from bostonherald.com) turn a domestic call into an attempt to make one little girl's Christmas a little brighter.

***The Globe has reporter Joseph Kahn's year-end review of news and pop culture in verse.

***Salon.com wonders whether "It's A Wonderful Life" is the scariest movie ever.

***The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik took a look at a recent spate of books exploring the historical Jesus earlier this year.

Tension on Korean peninsula

2010-12-21T06:46:00.000-05:00

South Korea, with encouragement from the US, carried out military drills with live fire right next to the border with North Korea, further stressing the relationship with its unpredictable communist neighbor. This morning the South is on standby in case of attack.

The North has frequently taken aggressive action in the 57 years since the armistice brought an end to the war that killed 350,000 Korean soldiers and 2.5 million Korean civilians, as well as 36,000 Americans, at least 200,000 Chinese and several thousand from other countries. The leadership of the communist state is irrational and no one wants to see them get away with the recent attack on the South's Yeonpyeong Island or last spring's attack on a naval ship.

However, instigating a nuclear war is certainly in no one's interest, and so the US and South Korea need to think long and hard before they provoke the North. The entire world has a stake in what happens there.

Image courtesy socioecohistory.wordpress.com.

Assessing Obama

2010-12-19T21:58:00.002-05:00

On his widely read blog, The Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan argues that Barack Obama is not a weak liberal, but rather a tactical and cautious president who reads the country's mood and compromises to get what he can. Then he lists what Obama has accomplished in his first two years:

...universal health insurance, the rescue of Detroit, the avoidance of a Second Great Depression, big gains in private sector growth and productivity, three stimulus packages (if you count QE2), big public investments in transport and green infrastructure, the near-complete isolation of Iran, the very public exposure of Israeli intransigence and extremism, a reset with Russia (plus a new START), big drops in illegal immigration and major gains in enforcement, a South Korea free trade pact, the end of torture, and a debt commission that has put fiscal reform squarely back on the national agenda. Oh, and of yesterday, the signature civil rights achievement of ending the military's ban on openly gay service members.

It certainly is an impressive list, and though I was hoping for more bold legislation with a Democrat in the White House and large majorities in both houses of Congress, I do understand that political logistics must be taken into account when hashing out domestic policy.

As I've said before, it is in other areas that I have significant problems with Obama's leadership: the wars, the secrecy, the assault on privacy and civil rights, and Guantanamo Bay. In these areas the change in White House residents has given us little if any modification in policy. That is disturbing.

Fun with maps

2010-12-18T21:26:00.002-05:00


Illustration courtesy of The Daily Kos.

It seems likely that Massachusetts will lose yet another Congressional district based on the numbers from this year's census. The state's population is somewhere around 6.5 million, which is a jump of about 4% from the 2000 census; however, the nation grew at around 9%. The trend of people moving from the population centers of the Northeast and Midwest to the South and Far West, though slowed a little, continues. (The housing crisis has been worst in Florida, Arizona, Nevada and California, which has lessened growth there recently.)

The latest official census figures will be released Tuesday and those numbers will determine if the Bay State keeps 10 seats in the House of Representatives or slides down to nine. From 1913 to 1933 Massachusetts had 16 members in the House and since then we've lost one every one or two decades. Whenever such adjustments happen it usually leaves two sitting House members running against each other.

One web site surmises that this time the 1st and 2nd Congressional districts will be combined, pitting John Olver against Richard Neal, and it'd be likely that Olver, who will be 76 at the time of the 2012 election, would just retire. Whatever the revised map looks like, we can be sure it will be a contorted mess of districts, drawn to protect constituencies. The US should depoliticize redistricting by removing it from state legislatures (as a few states have done) and turning it over to independent boards that use software to draw cohesive districts.

Books with a view

2010-12-17T21:05:00.000-05:00

The plans to build a new branch library in East Boston are moving forward. The 14,600-foot, $11.3 million facility will be built at the Day Square end of the Bremen Street Park, at what is officially 365 Prescott Street, with a tentative opening date of fall 2013.

The project architects revealed their preliminary plans at a meeting at the Meridian Street Branch this week, and input from the BPL trustees and the public will be adapted into the project. To see sketches of the site, check the BPL site here. This seems like a fantastic location, and the building is rumored to have large windows and a deck that look out onto the park.

Taking advantage of generosity

2010-12-15T17:27:00.000-05:00

Charitable giving is important, but one should always be aware of where his or her money is actually going. AG Martha Coakley released a report today on charitable giving campaigns conducted in Massachusetts in 2009, and the numbers show that just 43% of the money collected goes to the causes represented. The rest goes to companies that carry out the campaigns.

These are most often, I believe, the mail or phone solicitations that ask for contributions in the name of the cause -- frequently police or firefighter associations -- without ever mentioning that the caller works for a firm or that most of the money will not benefit those the contributor would like to support. I think it's good advice to never commit any cash to such callers; instead, give directly if you can.

Following the links on the report reveals how much charities actually receive and how much goes to the fund-raising company.

Bush league decision

2010-12-12T18:47:00.000-05:00

It was 10 years ago that the Supreme Court rendered a decision that has and will continue to have lasting implications on the nation. By a 5-4 margin the justices brought to an end the recount of Florida's ballots in the presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. The GOP ticket was awarded Florida's 25 electoral votes despite the questionable result and Bush -- who had 550,000 fewer votes nationally -- became the 43rd president.

It is a mystery to me why the Court would not allow the recount to continue, but the five conservative justices would seem to have interceded in the political process, and as a result the US had eight years of Bush/Cheney. It may take us eight decades to dig ourselves out from that foolish and tragic period.

Ron Paul tells it like it is

2010-12-11T10:21:00.000-05:00

Ron Paul deserves credit. No matter how much I disagree with many of the Texas Congressman's positions, mostly on domestic policy, there is much overlap in his libertarian ideology and the uber-liberal viewpoint that I come from -- and he is never afraid to stand up and say what he thinks.

Yesterday Rep. Paul was on the floor of the House offering a vastly different assessment of WikiLeaks than most other Republicans, who are calling for the web site's public face, Julian Assange, to be either prosecuted for espionage or taken out like a terrorist.

"Is this not an example of killing the messenger for bad news?" asked Paul. He also had nine questions that we should be asking ourselves:

Number 1: Do the America People deserve know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?
Number 2: Could a larger question be how can an army private access so much secret information?
Number 3: Why is the hostility directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our governments failure to protect classified information?
Number 4: Are we getting our moneys worth of the 80 billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering?
Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?
Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?
Number 7: Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?
Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?
Number 9: Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?

Jailed dissident presented Nobel

2010-12-10T22:30:00.000-05:00

The Nobel Peace Prize was presented today to an empty chair. Or, rather, to the man who couldn't be in that chair because he has been sentenced to 11 years in jail in China. Liu Xiaobo, who participated in the 1989 Tienanmen Square protests, has been sent to prison four times -- the latest for co-writing an appeal that advocates democracy for China.

The Chinese government is furious that the Nobel Committee went through with the ceremony and blocked media and internet reports of the story. They did report the event on state news, calling it a Western conspiracy against China.

Photo courtesy of Radio Free Europe web site.

Fouling the air

2010-12-10T06:29:00.001-05:00

Glad to see that the GOP has its priorities straight. Yesterday, Senate Republicans refused to allow a vote on a bill that ensures emergency personnel who responded to the 9/11 attacks get proper medical care. Their reasoning? Nothing gets done until the wealthy get their tax cuts.

This is even worse than not believing it's a worthy bill, as Republicans apparently feel that such items can be used as bargaining chips. Nothing is more important to the GOP than the rich getting richer.

Photo of 9/11 responder from care.com.

It was 30 years ago today...

2010-12-08T19:16:00.004-05:00

At Savio High School I wrote my senior thesis on The Beatles and their influence on culture and society. I got an A. I'd been a fan of the group since freshman year -- so much so that on the day after John Lennon was shot there were students who offered condolences to me.

Like many artists and celebrities who die young, Lennon is not encumbered by widespread images of his "fat phase" or sad commercials for life insurance. He'll always be the rebel -- including his surprising choice to ditch fame to be a homebody dad.

Thirty years have passed since a madman murdered Lennon and we've all gotten that much older. I'm not longer the high school kid who has the records and the bootlegs and who knows the release dates and other arcane information. I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round...

The reluctant president

2010-12-05T01:28:00.005-05:00

In the last week a trio of liberal newspaper columnists expressed disappointment in Barack Obama's presidency -- a feeling that the left has been tormented by for months. Paul Krugman and Frank Rich of The New York Times and The Washington Post's EJ Dionne call out the president for his seeming reluctance to take a stand and fight the Republicans -- who use bellicosity as a strategy, no matter the issue and the lack of connection to reality of their position.

Dionne:

And what will Obama do about all this? Ronald Reagan ... found a way to stand strong, to fight back and to win. We will soon know whether our current president has this in him.

Krugman:

It’s hard to escape the impression that Republicans have taken Mr. Obama’s measure — that they’re calling his bluff in the belief that he can be counted on to fold. And it’s also hard to escape the impression that they’re right.

Rich:

The cliché criticisms of Obama are (from the left) that he is a naïve centrist, not the audacious liberal that Democrats thought they were getting, and (from the right) that he is a socialist out to impose government on every corner of American life. But the real problem is that he’s so indistinct no one across the entire political spectrum knows who he is. A chief executive who repeatedly presents himself as a conciliator, forever searching for the “good side” of all adversaries and convening summits, in the end comes across as weightless, if not AWOL.

They're right. Two years ago Democrats won in grand fashion, but they've struggled since then to control the agenda and to communicate with the public. Most of the responsibility for that falls on Obama's shoulders. There have been some gains, some important legislation -- health care and financial reform, for example -- but in each of those cases, and in others, the policies that became law were much weaker than we'd hoped. The Democrats emerged from those battles bruised and limping, checking their pockets with the strange feeling that their wallets had just been lifted.

This reminds me of a scene from the TV show The West Wing -- in fact, it's almost exactly where we find ourselves. Look at the episode's summary from Wikipedia:

The staff begin to realize that the Bartlet administration has been ineffective because it has been too timid to make bold decisions, focusing instead on the exigencies of politics.

If only the Obama administration were to reach the conclusion that the fictional administration reaches:

Finally, Leo confronts President Bartlet with his own timidity, challenging him to be himself and to take the staff "off the leash." -- in other words, he seeks to "Let Bartlet be Bartlet." The President and his staff resolve to act boldly and "raise the level of public debate" in America.

Please ... let life imitate art.

Truth as treason

2010-12-03T22:12:00.001-05:00

I may not be a First Amendment absolutist, but I'm pretty close. I will allow that there are a few limited areas where national security trumps press freedom, but those should be quite narrow. Democracy depends on the citizenry having access to information, and few concerns should ever be allowed to top that principle.

In the four years of its existence, WikiLeaks has risen from nowhere to be a prominent shaper of news and information. Such is the way that technology affects us these days: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and now WikiLeaks begin as an idea or a few lines of code and soon the way we see and understand the world is changed permanently.

Julian Assange, the force behind the site, is a wanted man these days. In the wake of WikiLeaks latest revelation -- 250,000 cables of US State Department reports -- a number of governments are investigating the Australian nomad, while Swedish authorities want to talk to him about sexual assault charges he has called phony. It's hard to see how this guy survives unless he takes cover underground for a very long time.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul tweeted this today: "Re: Wikileaks - In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble." While Paul -- a hardcore libertarian -- and I would disagree on many issues, on this one we share similar views. The US government has too many secrets. I am for a default position of openness and transparency in all branches and at all levels of government. WikiLeaks may have embarrassed the US and some of its allies this week, but exposing some of the workings of the State Department is, overall, a good thing.

When US missiles hit targets in Yemen one year ago, for example, it is the right of Americans AND Yemenis to know where those weapons came from, especially when many of those killed in these attacks were civilians -- including 14 women and 21 children. WikiLeaks is not the institution that illegally invaded Iraq and that has been occupying Afghanistan for nine years. That would be the US government.

News that Amazon.com dropped WikiLeaks from its servers yesterday and that today a New Hampshire company killed the domain WikiLeaks.org (find the site here, at WikiLeaks.ch) after Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman made some threatening comments is quite disturbing. This is not the way we treat information in the United States -- with the government actively seeking to prevent Americans from reading the truth. We're moving -- if we haven't been there since the passage of the PATRIOT Act -- toward 1984 territory. In that prophetic novel, one of the dystopian government's slogans would seem to be one that the US is now embracing: "Ignorance is strength."

Hubster new and improved!

2010-12-01T22:27:00.003-05:00

Well, for the first time since starting this blog I changed the design and added some features in the right-hand column, including my Twitter feed, which I seem to be using more and more. Also, note the slide-show of photos top right. I think the whole thing looks snappier.

Korea, China and the 21st Century

2010-11-28T09:31:00.003-05:00

US Navy ships are in the Yellow Sea today for exercises with the South Korean Navy. I hope this has been thought out. What will happen if North Korea fires on American vessels? Will the US retaliate? And after that? We certainly cannot be girding up for another war, this one against a country that does indeed have nuclear weapons -- most of which are pointed at the South Korean capital of Seoul and its 10 million residents.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il is unpredictable -- possibly even crazy. In addition, that country's military leaders may make decisions on their own, and it's hard to say if that is better or worse. It's also relevant to take note that the South Korean military was already engaged in exercises that pressed right up against the border of the two Koreas, which the North has said provoked their shelling. As one web site points out, this fact has been buried by the American media.

However, the key to this entire situation -- and we are hearing this more and more often these days -- is China. North Korea's only ally, the Chinese government could be quite helpful right now, but it's been hesitant to chasten Pyongyang in the past -- at least publicly. If China were to embrace its growing importance on the world stage by stepping up to play key roles in geopolitical disputes, economic crises and environmental concerns, that would seem to make life easier for everyone, but Beijing continues to work at its own pace.

I saw an interesting statistic last week: In 2009 China used twice as much steel as the US, the European Union and Japan COMBINED. Beijing's economic growth is surging at a level the world has never before seen. China recently became the world's second-largest economy, passing Japan, and China is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. If the 1900s were the American Century, this is quickly becoming the Chinese Century.

The stuff that nightmares are made of

2010-11-26T21:22:00.003-05:00

Materialism and consumption are factors in America's economic downturn, our dependence on foreign oil, global climate change and other environmental issues -- and yet, millions of people rushed out this morning, or last night, to go out and buy more stuff. I join with those who marked Buy Nothing Day today, and in that spirit I suggest that everyone watch this video: The Story of Stuff.

'...we entertained and feasted...'

2010-11-25T11:15:00.004-05:00

From 1622's Journal of the Beginning and Proceeding of the English Plantation settled at Plymouth in New England, by Edward Winslow, who journeyed to the New World on the Mayflower and was later the three-time governor of Plymouth Colony:

...our harvest being gotten in, our governour sent foure men on fowling, that so we might after a speciall manner rejoyce together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labours ; they foure in one day killed as much fowle, as with a little helpe beside, served the Company almost a weeke, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Armes, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoyt, with some ninetie men, whom for three dayes we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five Deere, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our Governour, and upon the Captaine and others. And although it be not always so plentifull, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so farre from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plentie.

Getting the word out

2010-11-22T23:02:00.003-05:00

Eastie resident and freelance writer Steve Holt had a couple of pieces published in recent days about his favorite neighborhood:

**In Sunday's Globe, Steve wrote that the East Pier project may be ready to come to life again as the housing market starts to rebound.

**In a story in Edible Boston, Steve says that the best mole sauce in Boston can be found at Angela's on Lexington Street. He counts more than 50 ingredients in the recipe.

Revealing "the devils" behind the financial crisis

2010-11-19T06:02:00.005-05:00

A fascinating interview with the authors of a new book about the recent financial crisis sheds some light on who is the blame for the economic turmoil that the US and the rest of the world are still struggling to overcome (see Ireland's bank takeover plan). Bethany McLean, who co-wrote The Smartest Guys in the Room about the Enron debacle, teamed up with New York Times business columnist Joe Nocero to write All the Devils are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis.

McLean and Nocero were on the PBS NewsHour last night to talk about the roots of the crisis, and they said that -- to no one's surprise -- both Democrats and Republicans were culpable for the lack of regulation and foresight that led to the housing crash. They also said a number of other interesting things, including that the ratings agencies (Moody's and Standard & Poor's, among others) were at the top of their list of culprits most responsible for the crisis.

McLean also said that she "started this book with a bias toward personal responsibility," but found out the extent to which:

...these loans were sold; they weren't bought. And one of the most telling moments were these internal documents from Washington Mutual, one of the big subprime lenders, around 2003 talking about how to get consumers who really wanted safe 30-year fixed-rate mortgages to take out these dangerous option [adjustable rate mortgages] instead ... how to sell those to people, and how to confront a consumer who said, "But it doesn't feel right to me. I want to pay back my mortgage every month." ... How do you get these people to take out a risky mortgage instead? You told them that home prices could only go up. And the reason Washington Mutual wanted to sell these option ARMs, instead of the 30-year fixed rate mortgages, is that Washington Mutual could turn around and sell these to Wall Street for a lot more money than it could sell the old 30-year fixed-rate loans.

Nocero adds, "I was stunned, in the reporting of this book, how much subprime was about predatory lending." He notes, also, that most of these transactions weren't for new homes, but for "cash-out refinancing" -- people remortgaging their homes in order to use the money the could get. "And that," said McLean, "enabled consumer spending through the 1990s and through the early part of -- of this decade."

Maybe the most telling, and most disturbing points, the writers make are at the end of the interview, when McLean says that Wall Street and corporate America saw that cash-out refinancing was a way for them to reap billions:

...in order to keep the U.S. economy going, you had to keep consumer spending strong. In order to keep consumer spending strong, you had to have consumers whose income otherwise wasn't keeping up have a ready source of cash. That was cash-out refinancing, by using their homes as piggy banks, and no one wanted to stop that party.

The party may be over for American homeowners and consumers, but big business and the financial sector are still laughing all the way to the money trough.

Turkey time

2010-11-16T21:16:00.004-05:00

State Rep. Carlo Basile will once again host a Thanksgiving Dinner at the Sacred Heart Church on the holiday from 11 am to 1:30 pm. Those in need of transportation can call Celeste at 617-913-3332 no later than Monday. Those who'd like to contribute to the event should email basilethanksgiving@gmail.com.

Walk on

2010-11-13T17:28:00.005-05:00

I first learned about Aung San Suu Kyi when U2's album All That You Can't Leave Behind included a song, "Walk On," that was about her. The courage and tenacity she's shown in the face of Burma's military dictatorship has gone above and beyond what most of us could bear, and she has spent 15 of the last 21 years under house arrest for leading the pro-democracy movement in her country.

Today Aung San Suu Kyi was set free, but that is just the first step toward freedom for the people of Burma. Her life is likely in danger and she could be imprisoned again, but she has never backed down and has said that she will resume her political activities. Though she is but one of many people around the world oppressed and imprisoned for expressing their political views, she is a symbol of the struggle against governments that would silence their citizens. Tonight we remember their struggles and admire their strength and selflessness.

Fired up

2010-11-12T22:10:00.005-05:00

Thanks to EastBoston.com for pointing us to a story on the City of Boston web site about the Luongo Restaurant fire that occurred in November of 1942. I'd never heard of the catastrophe, which took the lives of six firefighters as they battled a blaze in Maverick Square.

Five alarms were eventually sounded, but the conflagrations was knocked off the front pages by the Cocoanut Grove fire, which killed 492 people just two weeks later.

Photo courtesy of cityofboston.gov.

The old lie

2010-11-11T09:38:00.001-05:00

Dulce et Decorum Est

By Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime ...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Blue Line closures

2010-11-06T09:14:00.002-04:00

This weekend and next Maverick, Aquarium, State and Government Center T stations will be closed for construction. Buses will be running instead.

Double play

2010-11-03T17:27:00.002-04:00

A pair of stories mentioning East Boston from today's Globe:

***The East Boston Neighborhood Health Center wants to open a facility in Winthrop.

***Former Chicago Cubs shortstop Lennie Merullo, 93, who grew up in Eastie, looks back at his career.

Election Day 2010

2010-11-02T06:15:00.002-04:00

***Boston.com has a nice feature where you can type in your address and see information on every race and question that will appear on your ballot. It's on the right side of their election coverage page here.

***The Globe's endorsement of Deval Patrick. The Herald's endorsement of Charlie Baker.

***Most signs indicate that Republicans will take control of the House, while it appears Democrats will keep control of the Senate. The New York Times has cool interactive graphics in its national political coverage section.

***The only House race that is tightly contested is the 10th District, where William Delahunt is retiring. Democrat William Keating leads Republican Jeff Perry by a small margin in the latest polls. It would be a disgrace if Perry, who watched and did nothing as two teenage girls were improperly strip-searched by a police officer under his command when he was on the Wareham force AND THEN lied about it to investigators, were to win the seat.

***It would also be a travesty if Tea Party nut job Sharron Angle were to beat Majority Leader Harry Reid in the battle for his Nevada Senate seat.

All Hallows' Eve

2010-10-31T16:30:00.002-04:00

I wrote this when I was in high school. Corny, but what the heck:

All Hallows’ Eve

As darkness falls across the land,

Crowds disperse from streets and

Kids conspire, scheme and plan

As wind blows the fallen leaves.

The sun now gone, it gets quite cold

And timid souls become more bold.

At least that's what I was told

About All Hallows' Eve.

In darkness, spirits do arise,

Camouflaged by the blackened sky,

Hidden from the naked eye;

But they are there, I do believe.

They wander about, aimlessly.

They glide along, effortlessly.

The world is theirs, briefly,

On All Hallows' Eve.

Midterm madness

2010-10-30T10:42:00.003-04:00

The midterm elections are just a few days away and the overwhelming plot thread is that the electorate is angry -- most notably, about the state of the American economy. Well, we should be angry -- we should be furious, in fact -- but voting for Republicans to express that anger would seem to be an antithetical response to the situation. I believe that, just two years ago, we swept Democrats into office mostly because of the GOP's mishandling of the economy. It appears that Americans are ready to cast their lot with Republicans again. How soon we forget!

Several points to keep in mind:

1. TARP -- the bank bailout -- was a Bush Administration program. Yes, it was passed by the Democratic Congress, but only after Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson actually got down on one knee to beg House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her support, telling the Democratic leadership that the entire economy would collapse if the bill wasn't passed.

2. Despite GOP rhetoric, every analysis I've seen of Obama's stimulus bill indicates that it did save a significant amount of jobs and helped the economy begin its recovery. Now, we all agree that this recovery is moving too slowly and that an unemployment rate of 9.6 percent is unacceptable. However, many economists at the time said that the stimulus needed to be larger than the $787 billion, but considering the political mood, that was the best that Obama could get from Congress.

3. More than one-third of the stimulus ($288 billion) took the form of tax cuts. Again, the misinformation that Republicans are running on is that taxes have been increased under Obama.

4. While a recent poll showed that a small majority of Americans were not in favor of the health care reform bill that Obama and the Democrats passed this year, the survey noted that when asked about the major provisions individually people overwhelmingly supported the reforms! As usual, the right has done a better job framing the issues to their advantage -- with little concern for the truth.

5. Though it isn't as tough as many would have liked, the Democratic Congress did pass a bill that toughened regulation on Wall Street and created the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, which will in theory advocate and regulate with the citizenry's interests paramount.

Make no mistake: The recession that the US is still pulling itself out from is the result of Republican policies -- tax cuts for the wealthy, a financial sector operating like the Wild West, regulatory agencies controlled by Bush-appointed former lobbyists, expensive and poorly planned military forays, and, more broadly, an abiding belief in unfettered capitalism as the answer to every question.

Democratics have their weaknesses, and I am never at a loss to point them out, but it was Republicans who put us in the hole. Do we really want to hand them shovels again?

Jury duty

2010-10-27T12:40:00.002-04:00

For the third time in my life I was on a jury, this trial lasting for parts of two days, and for the second time I was the jury foreman. This was a fairly simple case of domestic assault and our verdict was "not guilty." It seemed to be a family squabble that should never have reached the courthouse, but the other jurors and I deliberated thoughtfully and patiently to arrive at our decision.

I know that people generally try to avoid jury duty, but I've always enjoyed it. I like seeing the justice system from the inside, and I've been reassured by the seriousness and intelligence of those who've sat on juries with me -- and this time was no different. I've been called to serve four times, but only once did I not get on a case. On that occasion I knew the young victim, who was from East Boston, and had met the accused stepfather, so I had to remove myself from the jury pool.

I arrived at the courthouse in Roxbury (pictured above) yesterday at 8:30 a.m. and was pointed to a small room where 14 others sat quietly, some reading, others looking blankly forward. The room was quite warm, and one guy was sweating profusely. The court officer made a call to maintenance, but the heat was not on. He opened all the windows for some relief, and it was unseasonably nice outside.

One young woman who sat across a narrow aisle from me appeared to have walked off of the video shoot of Olivia Newton-John's 1981 hit "Let's Get Physical." She must have been 18 or so, and she wore black spandex, a white T-shirt, sneakers with neon pink socks, and a headband with her hair up. Was this a ploy to appear so unserious that she'd never be chosen for a jury, or did she really believe it was alright to decide the fate of another person looking like that?

There was a young man with a big beard, slouchy jeans and a T-shirt, tattoos on his arms and a ring through his nose. The prosecutor seemed to have him removed from the jury. I couldn't hear the bench discussion too well from across the room, but it appeared that he'd had some brush with the law fairly recently. Either that, or the fear was that the guy was just generally anti-authority and wouldn't believe the cop who was scheduled to testify.

The judge in the case was Kenneth Fiandaca, and right away the name rang a bell as familiar in East Boston. It turns out that he grew up here and was three years ahead of me at Savio High School, graduating in 1978, according to this story in the Winthrop Transcript. Fiandaca did a fine job presiding at the brief trial, and he stopped by the jury room just before we left to thank us and answer questions. If I knew we were both sons of Eastie I would have mentioned it.

So my civic duty is done for a few years. I don't mind playing my part to ensure the rule of law in our system. Those of us, especially, who like to complain, disagree, actively dissent and argue against policies of our government have, I think, an obligation to participate in the levers of democracy, and voting and serving on a jury are two small ways to do so.

The truth on Iraq

2010-10-24T19:36:00.004-04:00

The pile of documents from the Iraq war that was released by WikiLeaks seems to add evidence to the argument that the supposed success of the so-called Surge touted by the Bush Administration and Sen. John McCain is a myth. Other factors had already come together to slow the violence in Iraq even before the first extra troops arrived and the political reconciliation -- for which the Surge was intended to create breathing room -- has never happened.

Speaking of Iraq, a new book by Gen. Hugh Shelton, the former chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, says that George W. Bush was dead set against invading that country when Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld came to him not long after 9/11. Bush, according to Shelton, wanted to deal only with Afghanistan, but Rumsfeld went ahead and had the Pentagon draw up plans to invade Iraq and kept beating the drum -- presumably with Dick Cheney at his side -- until Bush agreed.

As blogger Andrew Sullivan writes of Iraq:

This whole enterprise designed to rid the world of danger has increased danger in the world; an attempt to end a torture regime led to widespread torture by Iraqi government forces, and, of course, by the US itself; a bid to encourage democracy will in all likelihood lead to either chaos or a Shiite strongman; an endeavor seeking to weaken Iran has ended in empowering it.

Election nears

2010-10-21T23:56:00.005-04:00

Election day is about a week and a half away, and nationally the story is that Republicans have a good chance of taking control of the House. Just two years ago the big question was, How can the GOP ever recover? Well, it's the economy, stupid. Plus, Republicans have always been better at crafting their message for public consumption because -- let's face it -- they'll say anything, no matter how far removed from reality it might be. (Death panels, anyone?)

Locally, it's shocking to see Jeff Perry in a close race with William Keating in the 10th Congressional District. Perry, a former Wareham police officer and current state rep., was on the scene in two separate incidents in the early 1990s when a fellow cop illegally strip searched teenage girls. Perry did nothing at the time and later lied about the cases. The other officer eventually pleaded guilty to civil rights violations and indecent assault of a child.

As for my ballot, no candidate who backs bringing casino gambling to Suffolk Downs will be getting my vote.

Why we still need newspapers

2010-10-17T19:29:00.005-04:00

***The Globe has a wrenching article about the night five months ago that two men jumped into the Charles River from the Mass Ave. bridge:

Put yourself in this horror for a minute. Despite your best efforts, your closest friend has just jumped off a bridge, right before your eyes. What do you do? Call 911? Scream into the night for help? Collapse in a heap of despair?

Vilgrain Richemond, a 27-year-old father of two, chose a different option: He jumped in to try to save his friend. The Globe's Neil Swidey tells the harrowing story.

***Today's Globe also has the first of two parts on improvements to athletic programs in the Boston schools, a response to a Globe series last year that chronicled the woes of athletics programming in the city's public school system.

***Eastie freelance writer Steve Holt has a piece on being married in his 20s in today's Globe. Steve and his wife are also in the process of adopting.

For art's sake

2010-10-12T05:52:00.002-04:00

The front of the Metro section in today's Globe has a story with the sub-head, "East Boston blossoming into arts community of note." One local artist says that the neighborhood "is really accepting of the artists from other neighborhoods." Another says that Eastie is "the last unspoiled bastion of Boston for artists."

The real Columbus

2010-10-11T22:47:00.003-04:00

From "Examining the Reputation of Columbus," an essay by Jack Weatherford, a professor at Macalaster College in St. Paul, Minnesota:

After he failed to contact the emperor of China, the traders of India, or the merchants of Japan, Columbus decided to pay for his voyage in the one important commodity he had found in ample supply -- human lives. He seized 1,200 Taino Indians from the island of Hispaniola, crammed as many onto his ships as would fit, and sent them to Spain, where they were paraded naked through the streets of Seville and sold as slaves in 1495. Columbus tore children from their parents, husbands from wives. On board Columbus' slave ships, hundreds died; the sailors tossed the Indian bodies into the Atlantic.

Because Columbus captured more Indian slaves than he could transport to Spain in his small ships, he put them to work in mines and plantations which he, his family, and followers created throughout the Caribbean. His marauding band hunted Indians for sport and profit -- beating, raping, torturing, killing, and then using the Indian bodies as food for their hunting dogs. Within four years of Columbus' arrival on Hispaniola, his men had killed or exported one-third of the original Indian population of 300,000.

This was the great cultural encounter initiated by Christopher Columbus. This is the event celebrated each year on Columbus Day. The United States honors only two men with federal holidays bearing their names. In January we commemorate the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., who struggled to lift the blinders of racial prejudice and to cut the remaining bonds of slavery in America. In October, we honor Christopher Columbus, who opened the Atlantic slave trade and launched one of the greatest waves of genocide known in history.

Parade photos

2010-10-10T23:14:00.001-04:00

For more of my parade photos on Facebook click here.

Columbus Day weekend

2010-10-08T22:23:00.005-04:00

***The late John White, brigadier general and a son of East Boston, will be honored with a plaque in Maverick Square on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. Details here at EastBoston.com.

***Columbus Day breakfast at Spinelli's on Sunday morning.

***East Boston hosts this year's Columbus Day parade, which leaves from the Suffolk Downs parking lot at 1 p.m., moves along Bennington Street to Day Square, then along Chelsea Street to Maverick Square and, finally, along Meridian Street to Central Square.

Eastie notes

2010-10-04T20:00:00.005-04:00

***A Globe editorial today advocates for development of the former Hess tank-farm site along the Chelsea Creek, which a local community organization is seeking to have converted to wetlands. The Chelsea Creek Action Group is attempting to secure funding to restore the seven-acre parcel to salt marsh and bird habitat. The Globe, however, feels that the spot would be better used for economic development.

***Boston.com notes that the new Santarpio's on Route 1 in Peabody is regularly mobbed. The new place has the same limited menu -- pizza, lamb, sausage -- as the East Boston landmark. The piece touches on the history of the place and mentions the longtime pizza maker who I knew as "Joe Fat" and who always wore what seemed to be the same stained T-shirt.

If we want to dance...

2010-10-03T00:43:00.004-04:00

No one wants to pay taxes, but unless we're willing to return to an earlier form of civilization, taxes would seem to be here to stay. A think tank called Third Way has a logical idea about how to inform taxpayers about the ways in which our money is being spent: give us a receipt. I think it makes perfect sense.

In the example given, the median American taxpayer in 2009 made $34,140 and paid the US government $5,400 (including payments into the Social Security and Medicare systems). More than $1,000 of the pay-out went to Social Security benefits and nearly another $1,000 went to Medicare and Medicaid. Defense spending, fighting wars and veterans' benefits totaled around $500, and interest on the national debt was $287.

Nothing else costs the average taxpayer more than $70 a year, including highways ($63.89), NASA ($28.09), the FBI ($11.21), the EPA ($11.67), the DEA ($3.14), the national park system ($4.27) and funding for the arts (24 cents). Recent polling shows that about half of those surveyed believe that the US government spends more on foreign aid than Social Security; in reality, of course, we spend more than 20 times on Social Security than the $46.08 that goes to foreign aid.

The Republican Party loves to tell us that they want to lower our taxes and cut spending, but in reality the discretionary elements in the federal budget are relatively small and most pay for important programs. The GOP's pronouncements are a charade and they know it. There's no denying that there is waste in the federal bureaucracy and some things -- subsidies to agribusiness and the oil industry, for example -- should be cut. However, stripping out all of the excess spending is likely impossible in a country this size.

What we really need to do in America -- as unpopular an idea as it is to all of us -- is to raise taxes. Someone once said that if the citizens of this country were truly patriotic they'd celebrate April 15 as a national holiday. I won't go that far, but I do want to see the Bush tax cuts expire and the marginal tax rate raised to pre-1980 levels (70%).

Thinking outside the homeless box

2010-09-30T06:26:00.004-04:00

Four years ago I read a story in The New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell that raised questions about how we deal with homelessness in America. The story was titled "Million-Dollar Murray" and begins with a discussion of an alcoholic homeless veteran in Reno -- Murray -- who was well known by police and local hospitals because they'd been dealing with him for years. At one point someone adds up the cost of the medical and substance-abuse care that taxpayers had shelled out for Murray and reached this conclusion: "It cost us one million dollars not to do something about Murray."

The article goes on to discuss programs that tried a different approach to addressing homelessness: putting the most chronically homeless people -- generally those who suffer from mental illness and/or substance-abuse issues -- into permanent housing. While it isn't a perfect program, it seems to work.

Yesterday, I heard a story on WBUR that said Boston's Pine Street Inn shut down one satellite unit and closed 100 beds in another. Homelessness in Boston during this time of economic difficulty is actually down. Why? Pine Street also runs more than 500 units of permanent housing and they are putting people into those units with an approach called Housing First. Instead of requiring that a person's substance-abuse or other issues be dealt with before they can be eligible for the housing, the opposite occurs. It turns out to be somewhat easier to deal with issues once the homelessness problem has been addressed.

Some people will be critical of the use of resources, but if an approach helps to solve a problem AND is less expensive, it seems like the way to go.