IF CIGAR FLIES, YOU SHOULD TOO. Garrett Bradley, the
longtime Hingham rep who has resigned from the legislature, effective August 1,
to take on larger role at his law firm, was giving his farewell speech to the
House on Saturday afternoon, July 30, when he offered a tip on the Speaker, Bob
DeLeo, to the newer members of the House.
“The Speaker never smokes a cigar, he just chews on them,” Bradley
related. “If he’s just chewing, that’s
good, but if he breaks it in half or throws it across the office, it’s time to
go.” Bradley, age 46, has been one of
DeLeo’s favored lieutenants. His
departure creates a vacancy in the second assistant majority leader slot.
BIG ZAP MIGHT BE GOOD FOR SENATE. In an interview published August 4 in
Bloomberg Businessweek, reporter Joshua Green asked Elizabeth Warren, the Bay
State’s senior U.S. Senator, “I know you have grandchildren. I don’t know if they watch Saturday morning
cartoons. But a banker I spoke to at the
Democratic convention said he worried (that) you and Bernie Sanders would
become the liberal Wonder Twins if Democrats take over the Senate. How will you and Bernie work together next
year?” She responded, “We will touch
our rings together and use the lightning bolts to energize all of our
colleagues.”
CITY OF BROTHERLY LIBERTARIANS. I’m still trying to figure
out what our lovable former Republican governor, Bill Weld, was up to on the
floor of the Democratic Convention that second night in Philadelphia. Asked why he was there by a
reporter/cameraman for a web news site whose name escapes me, Weld basically
said he was an old friend of Hillary Clinton (true) and just wanted to be there
for her at this biggest moment in her political life. Weld has raised unconventionality to an art
form, as we were reminded several weeks ago when he joined the ticket of
Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson as vice presidential
nominee, so there was probably no better way for Weld to keep that unconventionality
streak going than by going to an opposing party’s convention. Maybe he was on a secret mission from Johnson
to enlist Bernie’s bitter-enders? Or
maybe he was just bored and wanted to have some fun in Philly.
PROGRESS CAN ASK TOO MUCH OF US. The Boston-based Pioneer
Institute wants the state “to embrace transponder technology for a wider
variety of applications, such as parking and retail services. A newly published institute report “explores transponder
use in other states and encourages cooperation between public agencies and
private industry to simplify and rethink customers’ transportation
experience.” Said Pioneer Executive
Director Jim Stergios, “Whether it’s dealing with a parking lot ticket machine
or sitting in line at a drive-thru window, Massachusetts commuters face a
number of unnecessary hurdles.
Transponder technology has the capacity to consolidate these different
services and extend their use, to make life easier for millions of people.” Time
and trouble will doubtless be saved when transponders can pay for coffee, burgers,
ice cream, dry cleaning, etc., at the drive-thru windows of our lives, but
we’ll be sacrificing those special moments with the window clerks as they hand
us our change. Are you really prepared
to see “Have a good one” vanish from the land…whatever “one” might be?
DANGER LURKING ON PATIO, PART 1: Speaking of summer fun, a
la videos of fish on Cape Cod, consider these facts next time you go to throw a
fillet on the barbie: according to the
State Fire Marshal, there were 431 fires involving grills, hibachis and
barbecues reported to the Massachusetts Fire Incident Reporting System between
2011 and 2014, all of which resulted in 20 civilian injuries, three firefighter
injuries and $3.5 million in property damage.
BETTER WHEN I DIDN’T KNOW. I have been going up to the Massachusetts
State House for decades. I love the
State House for its classical architecture and for how it uniquely blends the
qualities of a good museum with the flavors of a normal, busy office building:
the profound and the prosaic all rolled into one big beautiful Bullfinch
masterpiece. But, if pressed, I could
not tell you which portrait of a former governor hangs where, nor would I be
able to give you any details on the lives and work of most of those long-gone
guvs. So, I was caught by surprise this
past Monday when education and religious advocates associated with the Center
for School Reform at the Pioneer Institute publicly asked for the relocation of
a portrait of Gov. Henry Gardner, which now hangs to the right of an entrance
to the House chamber, in the center of the third floor. This spot is much too prominent, these folks
assert, and thereby accords Gardner a degree of undeserved honor and respect. They
find in Gardner, a member of the Know Nothing Party who served as governor from
1855 through 1858, an abhorrent figure, “a symbol of bigotry.” The Gardner portrait “belongs in the State
House,” allows Jamie Gass, director of the Center for School Reform, but not in
a “position of prominence.” Before
Monday, I knew nothing of this Know Nothing exec; now, when I avert my eyes
from his portrait, I shall know the seductive sensation of self-righteous
symbolism.
NEWS FLASH! TEACHER UNIONS HEART HILLARY. This had to be the most unnecessary press
release in the history of Massachusetts.
On Wednesday, the Massachusetts Teachers Association put it in writing
that its board of directors had voted “to concur with the National Education
Association’s recommendation of Hillary Clinton for president. The MTA is the state affiliate of the
NEA. Was anyone expecting the teachers
to embrace The Donald?
TRY CALLING HARVARD GUYS LOSERS, “SAD.” Speaking of Trump, the Harvard University
Republican Club late yesterday sent a letter to its members and alumni
informing them that, for the first time in its 128-year existence, it would not
be endorsing the Republican nominee for president. The Harvard group is the oldest chapter of
the College Republicans in the nation.
“Donald Trump is a threat to the survival of the Republic,” it
declared. Read the letter in its
marvelous entirety at: https://www.facebook.com/HarvardGOP/posts/1190758900944693
TYCOONS FEAR HIS SHORT FINGER ON TRIGGER. The final word on
Trump in this post goes to Senator Warren.
In the aforementioned Bloomberg Businessweek interview, Warren was
asked, “Given that the financial industry has given Hillary $41 million this
election vs. $109,000 for Trump, do you think banks will exert renewed pressure
within the Democratic Party?” Said she, “I don’t see it as a swing back to
Democrats so much as I see it as supporting sanity. The financial-services people, as much as
many of them would like to see more deregulation, are also deeply frightened by
the prospect of a Trump presidency.
Nuclear war is bad for business.”
DANGER LURKING ON PATIO, PART 2: “It’s only a matter of time
before the fear of local Zika transmission we are experiencing in Florida
becomes the reality for every state in the nation,” stated Ed Markey, the Bay
State’s junior U.S. Senator, yesterday in a press release concerning the
promising efforts now under way in Boston to develop vaccines to prevent the spread by mosquitos of the Zika virus, (“Senator Markey Joins Doctors and Researchers at
Beth Israel Deaconess in Boston to Discuss Promising Zika Virus Vaccine Candidates”). Markey says it’s time for the Congress “to pass a
robust emergency funding package to deal with this growing crisis.”
No comments:
Post a Comment