I didn’t follow the news much this weekend, and what I caught was wall-to-wall Mel Gibson, so I missed the whole Romney “tar baby” comment and reaction. Dan Kennedy catches me up, fortunately. He’s measured in his judgment, giving Romney benefit of the doubt, but adding, “I don’t know whether Romney was speaking off the […]
It’s reared its ugly head in the terrain of Northern Spain. Now Comic Sans is making an appearance at Gabrielli HQ. Can nothing stop the horror?
The inset picture from his latest Education ad.
A couple of analysis pieces on the Big Dig are particularly worthwhile. First is a Globe Ideas piece by Commonwealth Inc. editor Robert Keough. (Hat tip: Dan Kennedy). “There’s no evidence-yet-that the leaking water, falling debris, and plunging panels can be linked to the revolving door of transportation secretaries and Turnpike Authority chairmen,” he writes. […]
LIke I say, I wasn’t around here when most of the Big Dig stuff was going on, so I’ll profess my ignorance. I certainly have a narrative about what was involved with the runaway project, but I don’t have the details. Charley offers a list of those who should answer for their involvement (or lack […]
It’s funny, just this week, my friends and I were musing about the rate of gay divorce in Massachusetts in the couple of years since the Goodridge decision. Oddly enough, we hadn’t seen the news coverage on gay divorce that we’d predicted.
Well, via Adam Reilly, I see that Bay Windows is reporting that the Goodridges […]
Adrian finds the worst in stock photography. Be A Design Group also points out a great list of stock photo cliches. Interestingly, the photo cliches seem to touch on the deeper advertising cliches - and dare I add the cliches in business discourse - contained in televisual advertising as well as print.
David Pimentel has been on my reading list for a while. Amazingly for a book that seems to be influencing a whole line of public argument, this book hasn’t gotten that prominent of a publication venue.
Tyler Cowen, as usual, has some interesting objections to the energy cost approach.
Jason presents his contrarian contention that Yoko Ono is of greater importance than John Lennon. I’ll just say I think he highly underestimates the value of popular culture, whether it takes a commodity form or not. Besides, the artistic field in the 1960s only made sense as an engagement with popular forms previously outside the […]
Sometimes the conventional wisdom from pundits is right on the nose. Here’s one thing I disagree with, though: that Romney is a fully formidable candidate for the national stage, only aversion to his Mormonism is holding him back among fundie voters. See Jon Keller for the latest iteration of this idea. Keller’s onto something though […]
I had a similar reaction that sco did to Eileen McNamara’s call for public transit. She writes,
Maybe now we could begin talking seriously again about mass transit in Massachusetts.
If nothing else, the problems with the Big Dig tunnels should put state transportation policy, or the lack of it, back on the public agenda.
Look, I’m as […]
I have a crazy idea: Big Dig spending was a major contributor to the boom and bust business cycle we’ve gone through in the last decade and a half. On the upswing, construction spending boosted local employment - as Tyler Cowen notes, multiplier effects are easily overstated but for something this large, some multiplier effect seems possible. More […]
Dan Kennedy is asking similar questions to those that I’ve been wondering.
I can’t help but think about the Callahan and Sumner tunnels, and all those century-old tunnels used by the subway system. They’ve worked from the day they opened, and I can’t think of a structural disaster that’s ever befallen any of them.
So why is […]
Charlie has a great post on the Big Dig fiasco. He’s right: it’s the biggest issue in this 2006 governor’s race and subtends so many other debates about taxation and government service. I can’t imagine any candidates will be stupid enough to ignore it, but they could easily approach it the wrong way.
There seems to […]
Whether or not Matt Amorello has legal precedent to stay as Turnpike head or not, after Monday night’s tragedy and yesteday’s performance I don’t see him staying on much longer. I have some sympathy: clearly the shoddy construction is not Amorello’s fault and he’s trying to do what he thinks is his job, coming out […]
John Daley looks at the front page of today’s Globe and asks, “Has the Globe site been hacked? Is this a parody?” Indeed, it is flabbergasting. I mean, the SJC decision is mildly important, but the gay marriage amendment will be with us at least through the ConCon. And then there’s the page-size cactus.
The only […]