Not with a bang, but with a whimper?

Both sides are saying that any chance for a gambling bill to emerge from this legislative session is over. Gov. Patrick sent the bill back to the House and Senate with an amendment that strips out slot machines (and such an amended bill would, apparently, need a two-thirds majority, which I hadn't realized), and Speaker DeLeo is saying publicly that any such compromise is "doubtful." There is still time, but neither side looks like it's willing to budge.

While those of us against the idea are edging ever closer to victory, it seems like an unsatisfying win. Most of the state's elected officials were willing to dispense with even the simple step of commissioning an independent study of casino gambling and the benefits and negative consequences of bringing it to Massachusetts. Our own local officials were not interested in a real discussion of what slots or a casino at Suffolk Downs would mean to the people and business owners of East Boston.

Politicians are, too often, willing to go along with something because of the way it appears rather than because it is actually something good. The tax-free weekend (Aug 14-15) that the legislature recently passed is a case in point. It doesn't really help anyone. While consumers may save a few bucks here and there, those dollars are already spent in the state budget, so we're all going to have to fork them over sooner or later. As for businesses, studies show that almost all of the money spent on those weekends is for purchases that would have been made anyway. At best, it's a wash for businesses because they need to pay extra money to have more employees working during the busy weekend, but they are still paying for the regular shifts on other weekends when those customers aren't coming in.

Like the idea of bringing casinos and slot machines to this state, it's all glitter and no substance. Unfortunately, our legislators are like infants who get easily sidetracked by shiny things.

American companies starve people for profit

For most of the 20th century, DeBeers -- a company founded in South Africa by Europeans milking the benefits of colonialism -- controlled almost all of the world's diamond market and used it to great advantage. Diamonds aren't actually that rare, but by hording and locking up vast quantities, DeBeers realized that it was easy to keep the price artificially high. Once they were able to create the idea that diamonds are a symbol of love and that a man must present one to his future bride, billions of dollars began to pour in. "A diamond is forever," was a phrase cooked up by a marketing firm hired by DeBeers, and it was voted the best advertising slogan of the last century.

Wheat, on first glance, doesn't seem to have much in common with diamonds. The staple grain is grown by farmers around the world, and bread, in various forms, is basic of sustenance for people everywhere. One Wall Street firm apparently saw some similarities between the two. In a stunning article in this month's Harper's magazine titled "The Food Bubble," Frederick Kaufman writes about investment bank Goldman Sachs entrance into the grain futures market and how that led, in 2008, to huge price increases, food riots in more than 30 countries and tens of millions of starving people.

The irony is that, according to the story, "The wheat harvest of 2008 turned out to be the most bountiful the world has ever seen..." The bubble eventually burst, but not before Goldman made millions of dollars on the misery of desperate people around the world, and the price of wheat has never come back down to pre-bubble levels.

Diamonds are a luxury item, but people cannot survive without food, yet Goldman and other banks and investment companies are now buying and selling commodities futures to make themselves richer with no regard for the consequences to real people. I've often thought it outrageous that some people own vast swaths of land and multiple houses while others are homeless or live in shacks, but the manipulation of food prices for profit is even more clearly evil and should be unacceptable to everyone. However, it's happening right now -- in the name of free-market capitalism.

This land is NOT your land

Despite Woody Guthrie's wishful thinking, this land -- "from California to the New York island" -- is not mine and it's not yours. It belongs to giant multi-national corporations, who've used America's vast natural resources to make a tiny percentage of the population obscenely wealthy.

Everyone is justifiably outraged by the current spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the Obama Administration's frequently muddled response is deserving of criticism as well. Today's New York Times has a story that makes clear that "a hodgepodge of oversight agencies granted exceptions to rules, allowed risks to accumulate and made a disaster more likely on the rig." Most of these regulatory failures at the Deepwater Horizon rig -- owned by Transocean and leased by BP -- took place while Obama has been president, but these missteps are part of a much bigger issue: the overall weakening of government regulation over the past three decades.

While we should all be holding BP's feet to the fire -- insisting that they "make this right" as the company CEO says somberly in a new TV ad that's received widespread criticism -- this whole episode is just one example of the devastation that corporations have wrought upon the planet. Industry has been allowed to remove resources, destroy ecosystems and dump pollutants as governments colluded via campaign contributions and revolving-door jobs -- if not, in some cases, outright bribery. Air, water and land are all filled with the toxic byproducts of unbridled capitalism.

In some places -- the old Soviet Union or today's China, for example -- the average person can only stand by and watch, but in the United States we, the people, are culpable. Americans exercise their will at the ballot box locally, regionally and nationally, and we have a (theoretically) free press and now, the Internet, to provide vast quantities of information. Yet, we sit by and watch as corporations continue to level mountains, denude forests, poison waterways, darken the skies and render lifeless the oceans -- all for profit.

With apologies to Woody: This land is their land, from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters. This land is here to make them rich.

Welfare building plan moves forward

The Herald has a story on the sale and development of the Public Welfare building at 154 Maverick Street, a project that has been in the works for quite some time and which is still a while away from fruition.

John and Melissa Tyler's winning proposal would offer below-market rents to a number of businesses, which would operate out of the building's first and second floors. This would seem to be a boon to Maverick Square's development.

The Tylers plan to put more than a million dollars into the building, which the city would turn over them -- with a number of stipulations -- for $100.

Photo from The Boston Herald.

The tragedy at Bhopal

Another anniversary today: this one shameful. It was 25 years ago today that a Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, India, released a cloud of toxic gas that killed immediately about 4,000 people and another 10,000 to 20,000 people over time.

There's an op-ed piece in today's New York Times about the tragedy: how Dow Chemical -- which bought Union Carbide in 2001 -- disclaims any responsibility from the event; and how the CEO of UC at the time has never been extradited from the US despite the international arrest warrant in his name.

Of course, the poor and powerless of the world don't stand a chance when it comes to multi-national corporations and their relentless pillaging of the world's resources. The water, the air, the soil, the food, the social fabric of society -- whatever sits in the way of profit doesn't stand a chance.

Local business needs your help

Local entrepreneur Rob Pyles and his Audissey Guides are one of the finalists in Forbes Magazine's Boost Your Business Contest. Audissey offers downloadable podcasts of walking tours of cities, historic sites and more. Check out their web site here.

A group of 1,500 businesses has been whittled down to just five in the competition, with $100,000 going to the winner. The contest is partially decided by Internet voting, which can be done here. You can watch a video of Rob in New York City to pitch the idea to a panel of judges here.

Cheap AND dry

I stopped at Market Basket in Chelsea today during the deluge and, when I came out, there were a couple of store employees with umbrellas in the parking lot to escort customers to their cars. I've never seen that at a store of any kind.

Business update

I'm wondering about several commercial sites in East Boston:

***One comment on the previous post asks about 999 Saratoga Street, the former site of Zefferano's restaurant. The comment said that it looked like work was being done in at the site. Any readers have a scoop on this?

***I've noticed that the brick building at the corner of Saratoga and Curtis streets appears to be ready to open as a convenience store. Does anyone know the owners?

***Meanwhile a block away, at the corner of Saratoga and Harmony, the storefront there has been idle with brown paper in the windows following a sign posted a few months ago that the business was "coming soon." Is this another convenience store? Something else? Or did the owners decide to relocate to Curtis Street?

***The former Public Welfare Building in Maverick Square is supposed to open as a site for several small businesses. Does anyone know how that is coming along?

Any other new businesses that locals should know about?

A tale of two pharmacies

I'm not sure which is a better company when it comes to prices or customer satisfaction or environmental consciousness or work atmosphere, but I prefer CVS to Walgreens ... mostly, I'm sure, because I've been getting prescriptions -- for the occasional illness or to address the abundance of uric acid coursing through my system -- at the Liberty Plaza location for years (and at the Rix that was there previously). Today I had to pick up medication at that CVS and also at the Walgreens on Meridian Street -- and now I really hate the latter.

My mother was ill this morning, so I took a sick day and accompanied her to the health center, where we spent a wonderful three hours watching a saline drip address her apparent dehydration. Actually, there's nothing to complain about there: my mom was called rather quickly (it was 7:15 a.m. and just one person was sitting in the Urgent Care waiting area) and the nurse we dealt with was quite nice. In fact, she took care of my request to call in a prescription for my mom, who just turned 72 and uses Walgreens because it's a shorter walk from her Chelsea Street apartment.

After dropping my mother off, I ran an errand and then went to pick up her meds. There were already five people waiting at the Walgreens pick up window, but I was waited on fairly quickly. I had the prescription in my hand, but the employee (an assistant, not a pharmacist) said to me these exact words: "Wait just a second." I understood, of course, that "a second" in this instance is a metaphor that may mean one minute or even five minutes.

As other people came to the window and those waiting received their orders I backed up from the window until I was standing near the seats. I watched as the half-dozen employees raced around behind the counter, answering the phone, keying into the computer, grabbing pill bottles off the shelves and riffling through bins to find orders. Clearly, they are understaffed. After a while I decided that I was going to say something, but I continued to wait to find an opportune time. I am not a rude person; in fact, I generally go out of my way to be extremely civil.

Finally, after more than a half hour, the same young man said to me that there was no record of the call from the clinic nurse. I said, in an agitated tone, that I had the prescription in my hand and that he should have told me that sooner. "If you had said, 'Come back in an hour,' I would have, but you said, 'Wait a second.'" I handed him the prescription and he said, amazingly, "Wait a second." About 15 minutes later he called me to the register. When he asked the usual rushed, "Do you have any questions," I decided to vent a little. "Yes," I said, "why did you say, 'Just a second,' and let me stand here for 45 minutes?" I was not nasty, but a little belligerent. He argued back a little and then walked away. I might have made him cry.

It just so happens that I had called into CVS to refill my prescription this morning and so I went across Central Square to pick it up. The whole transaction took about 45 seconds. Granted, the circumstances were different and CVS wasn't as busy, but I won't set foot in Walgreens for myself. Of course, that's where my mom's prescriptions are filled, so if she needs me to get them I will get them.

Heights notes

***The sign is up today that indicates that street cleaning starts on my block in the spring. Actually, the street cleaner has been coming by regularly during the warmer months, but up here on Bennington Street we didn't have to move our cars at a certain day and time, which worked out fine because most of the street was empty with people off at work. I know I am whining about an insignificant matter, but now I have to worry about where I park the night before, which is annoying.

***I've seen some men recently picketing the bank construction sight at the intersection of Bennington, Saratoga and Swift streets. Their placards, I believe, said something about non-union labor at that job. Anyone have any details?

***One block from there, at the corner of Bennington and Harmony, is a one story building with brown paper covering all the windows and the door. A couple months ago I saw a sign in one of the windows that said a convenience store was coming soon, but that sign is gone and I haven't seen any activity there.

***Finally, there is a nice-looking storefront one block over at the corner of Saratoga and Curtis. Someone did some work there to make the building attractive, but the "For rent" signs have been sitting in the windows for a while. I'm not sure what kind of business would succeed there.

Senate Republicans to Big 3: Drop Dead

Last night the US Senate gave up trying to pass a bill that would funnel cash to the Big Three auto makers, which are apparently on the brink of bankruptcy. There was not enough support from Republicans in the upper house -- specifically those senators whose states have auto plants from companies headquartered overseas.

The Honda, Toyota and other factories in Alabama, Tennessee and other southern and western states use non-union labor, and the GOP wants to bust the United Auto Workers, whose members work for General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. Senate Republicans circulated an email with instructions to "stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor."

Republicans in the Senate insisted that the UAW would offer concessions or there would be no deal. The average union auto worker, as we've noted, makes $28 an hour, not an exorbitant amount for skilled, monotonous labor, yet Republican leaders begrudge them this salary. I don't recall anyone asking that banks and other financial giants pay their brokers, accountants and lawyers less as a condition for receiving their $700 billion bailout.

Amazingly, it is the White House that seems to be on the more responsible, less ideological side of this issue.

The truth on auto workers

Last evening during a story on the proposed auto industry bailout, CBS reported that workers for the Big Three make more than $70 an hour. Having read a story two days earlier that explained that this figure is not true, I started shouting at the TV. (I do that sometimes.)

This morning I tried to remember where I saw the story that actually broke down what auto workers get paid, and I searched on Google. There are many web sites that are running the story, including the CBS web site! Are these people morons?

The average salary for a worker at GM, Ford and Chrysler is $28 an hour, and the benefits they receive work out to less than $10. The $70 figure is taken from including all medical and retirements benefits that those companies pay to all former employees as well as current ones and then diving them by the number of current employees. That isn't fair and it isn't truthful.

I'm not quite sure what to do with the auto industry, but vilifying blue-collar workers is certainly not a solution.

I'm buying nothing today

While some have been out since before sunrise to scoop up bargains and begin their holiday shopping, I am going to adhere to a small but growing movement that has taken Black Friday and turned it into something smarter and less stressful: Buy Nothing Day.

In the Western World, especially in the Unites States, we consume and throw away an obscene amount of stuff. The Internet video called "The Story of Stuff" does a nice job demonstrating how unsustainable our current path is. Buy Nothing Day attempts to ween us from our corporate-marketing driven impulse to collect more stuff -- of at least the day symbolically highlights the issue at a time when Americans are hitting the malls and commercial sites online.

One of the problems that is currently facing our financial system is that many people in this country are in debt. With our SUVs, plasma TVs, iPods, cell phones and all kinds of other gadgets, we are eating up the planet's resources, poisoning our environment and burying ourselves in debt. On top of that, some people went out and bought houses that they couldn't afford.

As I said, today is symbolic -- so don't shoot me if you see me out getting an espresso (I will not, however, be at any mall, big-box retailer, chain store, etc., for now or the foreseeable future) -- but it's what we do day-to-day and throughout the year that matters. I personally have a number of things I do to live a less throwaway life, but I will let today serve as motivation to do even more.

Update: On Long Island a Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death by the savage crowd that entered the store at 5 a.m. Meanwhile, in Southern California, two men killed each other when a gun battle broke out in a Toys R Us. Looks like the holiday spirit is upon us.

I saw a woman who had been waiting outside a store since Thursday afternoon the Newshour last night, and she said that her family was angry with her for missing Thanksgiving dinner, but she felt that shopping for bargains was more important. Consumerism has robbed many of us of our humanity.

Quality pet products

Dog and cat owners might want to check out Lucky Dog Organics, a locally-owned Internet business that sells quality pet foods, toys and other items. My favorite toy on the site? The big, spooky eye -- stuffed with catnip!

Development in Maverick

I've heard that Melissa Tyler, owner of a small jewelry outfit called Tummy Toys, is purchasing the old public welfare building in Maverick Square, which has been vacant for many years.

Word is that Tyler hopes to transform the building into retail and office space, especially for the development of small, locally-owned ventures. Tyler lives and works on Marginal Street.

Track team?

Suffolk Downs is in negotiations to partner with, or buy outright, Wonderland Greyhound Park, according to stories in the Globe and Herald today. Wonderland apparently owes nearly $800,000 in back taxes, and "Revere officials recently began foreclosure proceedings against the track."

Speculation in the stories is that combining forces gives the tracks more leverage in their bid to bring casino gambling to the region. Wonderland, the thinking goes, may be able to keep dog racing if it has slot machines. However, there is also the November ballot question that would outlaw greyhound racing in the state to consider.

I'd like to see an end to dog racing. I also believe that it's a bad idea to bring casinos to this state and, more specifically, to East Boston. As we can see, Suffolk's principal owner Richard Fields is spending a good deal of money and expending a good deal of effort to put himself in a better position to get what he wants.

Update: It seems that Suffolk Downs and Wonderland have reached an agreement. In the statement released today (8/13), Wonderland principal owner Charles Sarkis says, "“All along during discussions with Suffolk Downs, we had one big goal in mind: protect the jobs of nearby residents..." Ha! That crock is the same line business owners always use. In reality it translates as, "I am going to get as much cash out of this deal as possible."

Winthrop stalls on Dunkin'

The Globe takes a look at conflict between the town of Winthrop and the Dunkin' Donuts on Main Street of that community. Some in the DD camp blame the Orient Heights traffic lights 3/4 of a mile away at the intersection of Bennington and Saratoga streets in East Boston. Traffic guru John Vitagliano, however, has used videotape -- some available to see with the story -- that points the finger at cars entering and exiting DD.

I'm not sure that I quite understand Winthrop's reluctance to enforce an order passed by its zoning board that says the drive-through window cannot open between 7 and 10 a.m. The article implies that it is not specifically that the decision is under appeal in state court that prohibits officials from following up on it. "We're a legislative branch; we're not executive, we can't enforce anything," the town council president said. Can't they tell the police to do so?

Eastie notes

*The Donald McKay School is lauded in the Globe for the achievement scores of its Latino students. The 675-student school is located on Cottage Street.

*East Boston Savings Bank is looking for a new president, as Robert Verdonck retired earlier this month. The blurb on Boston.com reminds us that the bank relocated its headquarters to Peabody in 1999. Those bank executives apparently tired of mixing it up with the riff-raff of the neighborhood that graces the company's name.

*Ecco, on the site of the former Sablone's Veal n' Vintage, is scheduled to open in July. Meanwhile, Jessica Sablone-Maffeo and her husband chef have opened an eatery in Marblehead called Trattoria Sablone's.

Life without bananas?

Within a generation the banana may disappear from American homes. Certainly they will get more expensive -- something that is already happening.

Dan Koeppel, author of the book Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, writes in today's New York Times about a disease that once wiped out the variety of banana that our grandparents ate and is now turning its sights on the Cavendish, the type of banana that we are all familiar with.

In the piece Koeppel notes that the banana is the most popular fruit in America and has generally sold for half the price of apples despite the fact that it comes from thousands of miles away while apples are grown much closer to markets. In addition, apples can keep for months while bananas bruise easily and don't last for more than two weeks.

Despite their being more than a thousand varieties of banana, most Americans only know the Cavendish, which apparently does not taste nearly as good as the varietal that was wiped out in the 1960s by Panama disease. Will Chiquita -- formerly called United Fruit, a US conglomerate that used violence against workers and overthrew governments to keep its business flowing smoothly -- diversify its banana crops in Latin America or are bananas on their way to becoming "an exotic tropical fruit" that most of us can no longer afford.

In the news

*The Globe has a piece today saying that the casino proposal was always a tough sell in East Boston.

*The sagging economy hasn't slowed growth along Route 1 in Saugus. A Globe article lists new development projects and businesses that'll soon be popping up on the venerable stretch of highway, including Trader Joe's, which would be cool.

*Our friends at EastBoston.com have a story on East Boston resident Anthony Fiorino, recently honored for his 50 years of service to the city's Emergency Medical Services department.