Syrup prices jump

I've seen a number of stories lately about the rising cost of various foods because (a) the price of gasoline has skyrocketed, and (b) the opening of markets and increased demand in places like China and India. Today the Globe notes that maple syrup is cracking the $50 a gallon mark. That's more than ten times the price of a gallon of regular unleaded at your local filling station!

Pure maple syrup is wonderful stuff. It was first produced by Native Americans, who then taught early European settlers how to make the sweet, smoky, golden-brown goodness from the sap of maple trees. Soon it may be too expensive for the average Joe to buy. O, the tragedy of it all!

Looking anew at social ills

A piece in Sunday's Globe called "The Sting of Poverty" draws an analogy between the sometimes illogical choices of poor people and the decision of a person attacked by several bees to not bother treating any one of the stings because there will still be pain from the others. According to a book called The Persistence of Poverty, by the philosopher Charles Karelis, the issue can be looked at like this:

One doesn't have enough money to pay rent or car insurance or credit card bills or day care or sometimes even food. Even if one works hard enough to pay off half of those costs, some fairly imposing ones still remain, which creates a large disincentive to bestir oneself to work at all.

The analogy in the article that I like better is this: If I have a number of dents on my car and I don't have the money to get them all fixed, I am less likely to fix any one individual dent with the money that I do have. It makes sense to me and, in fact, I do have several dents in my car and have not had them fixed for that very reason. As Globe staff writer Drake Bennett points out,

Compared with the middle class or the wealthy, the poor are disproportionately likely to drop out of school, to have children while in their teens, to abuse drugs, to commit crimes, to not save when extra money comes their way, to not work.

Such behavior does seem irrational, the story says, but Karelis believes that the way most have viewed poverty is preventing us from fully understanding how it affects people.

A piece in The New York Times called "Race and the Social Contract" draws on various studies to conclude that an obstacle toward our country spending on public resources and social programs is America's diversity. People seem to be more willing to part with cash if they believe it's going to others of the same race, religion and/or ethnic background. The story goes on to say that,

Americans are not less generous than Europeans. When private charities are included, they probably spend more money for social purposes than Europeans do. But philanthropy allows them to target spending on those they personally believe are deserving, instead of allowing the government to choose.

I'm sure that some who consider themselves right-of-center will look at these two articles and dismiss them as excuses or whining or academic thumb-twiddling. Those of us on the left of the political spectrum who claim to have all the answers are incorrect, but both groups should be willing to examine the ills of our society with open eyes and to think in terms we might not have considered before.

New owners at Saigon Hut

In the mid-1990s I stumbled upon a hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Saigon Hut, at the corner of Meridian and Lexington streets. The small Vietnamese eatery seemed to pop up at a time when a number of families from Southeast Asia were moving into East Boston, and I enjoyed the inexpensive dishes and fresh ingredients.

Over the years I've been to Saigon Hut dozens of times, with my usual order including fresh spring rolls and pho -- Vietnamese noodle soup. Sometimes, if I didn't feel like soup, I'd get lo mein noodles with chicken and vegetables. At one point I was eating there frequently with a colleague from Savio High School, and the waitress -- sweet, though a bit clumsy -- knew our names and our orders.

Once I ordered the same dishes at Pho Pasteur, Boston's most well-known Vietnamese restaurant, and the food was more expensive and not as good.

My cousin, who I introduced to Saigon Hut, called me yesterday to say that the place was under new ownership, the prices had gone up and the food was not as good. I wasn't feeling well, and I wanted some soup to soothe me, so I got an order of pho to go (OK, and the lo mein noodles, too -- I was testing it all for this report!). I didn't notice much of a difference in the quality of the food. Any readers visit Saigon Hut recently?

Hearts in darkness

Today, at locations around the world, cities and citizens are shutting off lights from 8 to 9 p.m. local time to show support for energy conservation. Of course, Earth Hour is only a small gesture, but we have to start somewhere -- and we should have started long ago.

The event began last year in Sydney, Australia, and has now spread to a number of places around the world, including more than 100 cities in North America. Though Boston is not one of those, we can all do our part as individuals to take this symbolic action and to pledge that it will be the start of a serious effort to shrink the carbon footprint for each of us.

Bill Clinton as Jeff Gillooly?

There's growing sentiment that this protracted Democratic nomination process has become "a two-way Democrat suicide pact" that is making John McCain's chances of winning the White House significantly stronger.

Today's Globe mentions polls that show the GOP's presumptive nominee has grown even among voters nationally in a showdown against either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, and -- sadly -- that a chunk of either Democratic hopefuls' supporters would jump parties in November if their candidate loses. Party leaders, the story says, are concerned.

New York Times columnist David Brooks writes that developments over the last week have doomed Clinton's campaign, and he wonders whether she is capable of doing what is best for the party and stepping aside. Meanwhile, another Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, speculates that it may be in the New York senator's persona to take down everyone around her. Dowd makes reference to “'the Tonya Harding option' — if she can’t get the gold, kneecap her rival."

Gated community

In less than a month access to Logan Airport's "back door" will be restricted to East Boston residents who have electronic key cards. An automated gate is being installed at the end of Maverick Street, and it's scheduled to be up and running on April 15.

To get a key card, local residents can request a form by calling 617-568-3718 or the form can be printed out from here. The vehicle's registration and a utility bill of some sort are needed to prove residency.

It makes sense to restrict access to that entry point, but it seems to me that -- instead of another application and key card -- there must be a way to use the Mass. Turnpike's Fast Lane transponder to gain entry. Eastie residents already have a different transponder from everone else because of the reduced tunnel toll. Why can't it be reconfigured to open the gate?

Update: The Globe reports that some Eastie residents feel that the gate is a waste of time.

Archdiocese threatens punishment in afterlife for locals

Bishop Robert Hennessey's visit to Mount Carmel Church for Easter Mass drew some media attention, with a story in The Globe and a report on NECN. The newspaper article says that hundreds filled the pews at the East Boston church, which was closed by the archdiocese in October 2004 and has been occupied by parishioners since then.

Hennessey surely squandered a good bit of the good will his visit generated when -- referring to weekly services that Mount Carmel's faithful hold using lay ministers -- he said, "It is my firm belief that what happens here on most Sundays is not a good thing, that it could even put your souls in peril."

Yikes. Sounds a lot like, "Stop your occupation or you're all going to hell." I guess we've learned to expect that from an institution that still treats its followers like it's the Dark Ages.

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.

Procession marks holy day

Today I crossed paths with a Good Friday procession of perhaps 300 or so marching down Chelsea Street at about 11 a.m. The group had a police escort and was reciting the "Hail Mary."

"Oh My Golly!"

It was 20 years ago today that one of the coolest and most influential albums in modern rock music was first released. Founded by a couple of UMass/Amherst dropouts, the Pixies coalesced in Boston in 1985. Two years later they released an EP titled Come On Pilgrim, and then in March 1988 a collection of 13 songs was released on an album called Surfer Rosa. The lo-fi sound and the offbeat subject matter would influence many bands in the future, including Nirvana. Rock 'n' roll has rarely been this cool.

Casino bill voted down in House

The Massachusetts House of Representatives voted to send the bill that would legalize casino gambling in the state to a "study committee," effectively killing the proposal for this year. The vote -- which followed yesterday's marathon hearing on the issue before a joint legislative committee on economic development -- was 108-46.

It's 60 for number 4

Today is the 60th birthday of Boston sports legend Bobby Orr, who helped the Bruins to a pair of Stanley Cups and permanently changed the game of hockey.

Orr was signed by the Bruins when he was just 12 years old and came to town six years later as the golden boy who would change the fortunes of the lowly B's, and he delivered. Boston won titles in the 1969-70 season -- capped by Orr's winning goal that is immortalized in the photo -- and again in 1971-72.

Orr won eight straight Norris trophies as the league's best defenseman and set records for scoring from that position, but bad knees in the pre-arthroscopic surgery era meant that his career was eventually cut short.

Back in the early 1970s the Bruins were the team in Boston. Orr was, in the words of Globe columnist Bob Ryan, "a rock star," as were teammates Phil Esposito, Derek Sanderson, Gerry Cheevers, John Bucyk, Wayne Cashman, John McKenzie and Ken Hodge. The most popular game that we played back then was street hockey, with an orange "Espo ball" and a cheap hockey stick (just as the kids are in the flashback scene, filmed in East Boston, from the movie Mystic River).

The Bruins may be overshadowed now by the Red Sox, the Patriots and the Celtics, but for a while this was their town and it started with Bobby Orr.

Nothing accomplished

There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. The world has not become a safer place. Hell, the price of gas hasn't even gone down. So why did US forces invade and occupy Iraq, and why are they still there?

Five years ago the American military launched an attack on Iraq that began with "shock and awe" and was followed by a quick, successful ground campaign. Less than three weeks later the world saw images of US soldiers pulling down the statue of Saddam in Baghdad's Firdos Square.

However, it seemed that no one in the Bush Administration had given much thought about what to do after that. On May 1 -- the day that the president landed on an aircraft carrier and spoke before a banner that declared "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" -- the US had suffered just 139 deaths in Iraq. Today that total is about to reach 4,000, and thousands of others have been badly injured.

The Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein was brutal, and no one weeps about his fate, but there are brutal governments in Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. What justified this action more than attacks against those countries? And what justified breaking with historic policy and common sense to launch a preemptive war?

Incompetence and dishonesty at the very highest levels of our government have brought us to where we are now: stuck after five years without a viable plan to extricate ourselves. The fact that these people -- Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice -- are able, presumably, to sleep at night is stunning.

Lights, camera, Eastie!

Location scout Raine Hall was in East Boston a couple weeks ago, working out the logistics for the Martin Scorcese film Ashecliffe, which is shooting some scenes in the neighborhood. She asked around and found that a good place for crew members to park would be the lot at the Boys & Girls Club (which has moved operations to Savio Hall) on Paris Street.

The production is in Eastie this week, shooting near the water off New Street, behind industrial buildings that are next to the Maverick housing development. There are a number of 18-wheelers and vans parked all around there. The photo is from a sign posted at the end of Sumner Street to direct the film's crew members.

The movie is based on the novel Shutter Island, by local novelist Dennis Lehane, who wrote the book Mystic River, which was also made into a film that had some scenes shot in East Boston. Ashecliffe features Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams and Max von Sydow. It's scheduled to be released in the fall of 2009.

Update: Winds cause trouble on the set, according to the Herald.

Fact checking

In the most recent issue of the Post-Gazette newspaper, there is -- as in every issue -- an article under the byline of Mayor Menino, though the weekly column is almost certainly written by someone on the mayor's staff. At the end of the first paragraph the piece says, "On March 17, 1776 the British Army finally left 'the colonies,' by way of Boston Harbor after being beaten in the American Revolutionary War."

Actually, the war was in its early stages and would go on for more than five years. The British didn't again threaten Boston, but they did attack New York, Philadelphia and many other places throughout the fledgling nation. The last enemy troops didn't leave until Nov. 25, 1783. We all make mistakes, but if it's a front-page story with the mayor's name on it, somebody has got to check the facts.