Many people on Beacon Hill were expecting the news to be worse than it was last week when a federal grand jury issued indictments in connection with an alleged hiring scandal in the Massachusetts Probation Department.
The indictments were limited to three former top officials in the department: John J. O’Brien, former Probation Commissioner; Elizabeth V. Tavares, First Deputy Probation Commissioner; and William H. Burke, III, a Deputy Probation Commissioner.
The U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts had been investigating the department’s hiring practices for months, and right up to the moment on March 22 when the grand jury made the indictments public, rumors swirled around the State House that some legislators would be charged.
The next day, there was a lot of talk in the media about legislators breathing a huge sigh of relief because the indictments had left the State House untouched.
I don’t know if anyone in the building was actually sighing, but if they were, I imagine they weren’t for long because avoiding an indictment is not the same as extricating yourself from this story first brought to us by the Boston Globe.
If you are a member of the legislature and had succeeded in getting your favored candidates jobs in Probation time and again, you can’t help but be concerned at the prospect of former Commissioner O’Brien and his deputies going to trial.
O’Brien and company are undoubtedly angry about the legal predicament they are in, and the legal predicament that the legislators they helped are not in. It’s the kind of anger that might lead the indicted parties to say all sorts of things now to the U.S. Attorney.
When you think about it, maybe that’s why the feds played the indictments the way they did: to get the appointed officials to tell tales about the elected officials. Politicians make bigger trophies than bureaucrats.
I have a friend who has never seen what all the fuss about patronage in Probation was about. “What did they do that was different from what politicians have always done, and what their constituents want them to do, and demand that they do, which is get jobs for people in their districts?” he asks.
This same gentleman, who once served in the Massachusetts House, predicts that O’Brien, Tavares and Burke will all be found innocent if they go to trial. “This is a weak case,” he says. “What did O’Brien and the others (allegedly) get in return for their contributions to this ‘scheme’? The feds can’t point to anything.”
After reading the entire indictment against O’Brien and the others, I have to admit my friend has a point.
“Between 2000 and 2010, the defendants…devised and intended to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud and to obtain money and property,” the indictment says, “by means of false and fraudulent pretenses and representations, in that the defendants and their co-conspirators did award employment and promotions to individuals who were solicited from and sponsored by members of the state legislature and others when those sponsored individuals were not the most qualified candidates who had applied for the employment or promotion.
“In so doing,” the indictment continues, “the defendants obtained money and property, to wit, jobs and salaries for individuals who were not the most qualified candidates, but who had the sponsorship of a member of the state legislature or some other individual of significance to members of the enterprise.”
Huh?
Doesn’t that say that the “money and property” derived from this alleged scheme consisted of the jobs and salaries given to under-qualified applicants sponsored by legislators?
If so, what did O’Brien, Tavares and Burke get?
I’m no Perry Mason, but I predict that the defense lawyers will make this a major argument to the jury: What did our clients derive from this so-called scheme?
And with the jurors pondering why only appointed officials are sitting before them at the defendants’ table, it will not be easy for the U.S. Attorney to win a conviction.
a blog published by Preti Strategies
Making a Federal Case Out of Patronage in Probation Is Not as Easy as It Sounds
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
A Bill Can Be Very Good, Yet Incommensurate to the Tragedy That Inspired It
Monday, March 19, 2012
In August of 2002, I accompanied my 21-year-old daughter, Catherine, to New Mexico, where she was to begin a new job as a teacher in an elementary school for Navajo children. A newly minted graduate of Emmanuel College, an overlooked star in Boston’s educational firmament, she had made a two-year commitment to teach at the St. Bonaventure Mission in Thoreau (pronounced thuh-RUE), a small, high desert settlement seven miles east of the Continental Divide.
We flew to Albuquerque on a Sunday, rented a car at the airport, got a suite at Motel 6, and started looking for a good used car for her to buy. After three days of car shopping, we settled on a 10-year-old Honda Accord with low mileage, bought and registered it, arranged financing and insurance, and returned the rental. On Thursday morning, we headed to Thoreau, which is located approximately 140 miles west of Albuquerque, just off Route 40, (formerly Route 66).
For someone like me, a lifelong resident of Massachusetts with a love of cities, it didn’t look like there was a lot to Thoreau or a lot that went on there. My urban bias, I am sure, blinded me to the virtues and charms of the place. As for St. Bonaventure’s itself, it is quite interesting -- if your curiosity extends to old trailer parks.
The mission sits in a vast, flat, sun-scorched landscape stretching for miles in all directions. The teachers all live in mobile homes arrayed on an elongated loop spread over several acres. The air rings constantly with the faint whistle of a wind from the west that drives a powdery, reddish dust through the tiny cracks of window frames and doorways. On the day we drove in, tumbleweeds were blowing across the road.
The closer we got to the trailer housing the mission office, the more I wondered, How am I going to leave my daughter in such a desolate place, more than two thousand miles from her home?
Having learned in Albuquerque that the state of New Mexico operates prisons in the rural towns near Thoreau, the first thing I did when we got to her trailer was check for locks on the windows and doors. I had this terrifying picture in my mind of an escaped convict lurking in a nearby gully, watching Catherine’s trailer as darkness descended on the desert, and waiting for the moment when he could break in, beat her (or worse!) and steal away with her car.
All parents, alas, must learn to let their children go, even if one day they are heading into potentially unsafe or risky situations. It is worse to deprive them of the opportunity to go where their hearts lead them than to expose them to something that might harm them, somehow, someday. You do not want to wound their spirits, diminish their confidence, or deprive them of chances to fulfill their dreams.
Parents everywhere, in every age, have learned to accept this truth.
Catherine, I am happy to report, spent a total of three years at St. Bonaventure’s and the closest she ever came to real danger (that I am aware of) was the day the Girl Scout troop she was leading on a camping trip saw a rattlesnake up ahead on a trail they were walking. “The Navajo girls see snakes all the time, so they weren’t fazed at all,” she said, “but I couldn’t run fast enough in the opposite direction.”
Not all parents, though, are as fortunate as my wife and I, and I do not like to dwell on the unfortunate ones. Their sorrow is too great, their pain unending.
Whenever I see something on the State House News Service about Senate Bill 2006, however, I can’t help but think of the parents of Stephanie Moulton, a young woman who took a job as a counselor at a group home for mental patients in Revere not long after graduating from college. On January 20, 2011, a day she was working there alone, Stephanie was brutally murdered by one of her clients.
Senate Majority Leader Fred Berry of Peabody filed SB 2006, An Act Requiring Employees at Residential Facilities Licensed by the Department of Mental Health to Be Equipped with Panic Buttons, in the aftermath of her murder, and with the full support of Stephanie’s parents, Kim Flynn and Robert Moulton. The idea behind the legislation is to provide a level of protection to mental health workers that Stephanie tragically lacked.
I do not know Stephanie’s parents, but I’m certain that they worried about her safety when she took that job at the group home. I say that, of course, at the risk of offending those who suffer from mental illness and those who care for, and advocate for, those with mental illnesses. I apologize in advance to anyone so offended. I’m sure that the great majority of mental patients never pose a physical threat to anyone else.
And in writing this, I’m not criticizing any individual, group, program, or system.
I’m merely trying, in a way almost certainly doomed to fail because of my limitations, to commiserate with the parents of a young woman who died a violent, senseless death, a unique human being whose life of great hope and promise was ended suddenly one morning because her commitment to serve others put her in the wrong place at the worst possible moment.
SB 2006 is a good bill. I hope the legislature enacts it soon. I also hope that no parent in Massachusetts is ever again compelled, as Kim Flynn and Robert Moulton have been, to seek a scrap of consolation in imperfect solutions like panic buttons
We flew to Albuquerque on a Sunday, rented a car at the airport, got a suite at Motel 6, and started looking for a good used car for her to buy. After three days of car shopping, we settled on a 10-year-old Honda Accord with low mileage, bought and registered it, arranged financing and insurance, and returned the rental. On Thursday morning, we headed to Thoreau, which is located approximately 140 miles west of Albuquerque, just off Route 40, (formerly Route 66).
For someone like me, a lifelong resident of Massachusetts with a love of cities, it didn’t look like there was a lot to Thoreau or a lot that went on there. My urban bias, I am sure, blinded me to the virtues and charms of the place. As for St. Bonaventure’s itself, it is quite interesting -- if your curiosity extends to old trailer parks.
The mission sits in a vast, flat, sun-scorched landscape stretching for miles in all directions. The teachers all live in mobile homes arrayed on an elongated loop spread over several acres. The air rings constantly with the faint whistle of a wind from the west that drives a powdery, reddish dust through the tiny cracks of window frames and doorways. On the day we drove in, tumbleweeds were blowing across the road.
The closer we got to the trailer housing the mission office, the more I wondered, How am I going to leave my daughter in such a desolate place, more than two thousand miles from her home?
Having learned in Albuquerque that the state of New Mexico operates prisons in the rural towns near Thoreau, the first thing I did when we got to her trailer was check for locks on the windows and doors. I had this terrifying picture in my mind of an escaped convict lurking in a nearby gully, watching Catherine’s trailer as darkness descended on the desert, and waiting for the moment when he could break in, beat her (or worse!) and steal away with her car.
All parents, alas, must learn to let their children go, even if one day they are heading into potentially unsafe or risky situations. It is worse to deprive them of the opportunity to go where their hearts lead them than to expose them to something that might harm them, somehow, someday. You do not want to wound their spirits, diminish their confidence, or deprive them of chances to fulfill their dreams.
Parents everywhere, in every age, have learned to accept this truth.
Catherine, I am happy to report, spent a total of three years at St. Bonaventure’s and the closest she ever came to real danger (that I am aware of) was the day the Girl Scout troop she was leading on a camping trip saw a rattlesnake up ahead on a trail they were walking. “The Navajo girls see snakes all the time, so they weren’t fazed at all,” she said, “but I couldn’t run fast enough in the opposite direction.”
Not all parents, though, are as fortunate as my wife and I, and I do not like to dwell on the unfortunate ones. Their sorrow is too great, their pain unending.
Whenever I see something on the State House News Service about Senate Bill 2006, however, I can’t help but think of the parents of Stephanie Moulton, a young woman who took a job as a counselor at a group home for mental patients in Revere not long after graduating from college. On January 20, 2011, a day she was working there alone, Stephanie was brutally murdered by one of her clients.
Senate Majority Leader Fred Berry of Peabody filed SB 2006, An Act Requiring Employees at Residential Facilities Licensed by the Department of Mental Health to Be Equipped with Panic Buttons, in the aftermath of her murder, and with the full support of Stephanie’s parents, Kim Flynn and Robert Moulton. The idea behind the legislation is to provide a level of protection to mental health workers that Stephanie tragically lacked.
I do not know Stephanie’s parents, but I’m certain that they worried about her safety when she took that job at the group home. I say that, of course, at the risk of offending those who suffer from mental illness and those who care for, and advocate for, those with mental illnesses. I apologize in advance to anyone so offended. I’m sure that the great majority of mental patients never pose a physical threat to anyone else.
And in writing this, I’m not criticizing any individual, group, program, or system.
I’m merely trying, in a way almost certainly doomed to fail because of my limitations, to commiserate with the parents of a young woman who died a violent, senseless death, a unique human being whose life of great hope and promise was ended suddenly one morning because her commitment to serve others put her in the wrong place at the worst possible moment.
SB 2006 is a good bill. I hope the legislature enacts it soon. I also hope that no parent in Massachusetts is ever again compelled, as Kim Flynn and Robert Moulton have been, to seek a scrap of consolation in imperfect solutions like panic buttons
Coakley Tries to Win Minds on a Top Court Ensnared in Presidential Race
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
“Obamacare should be the number one issue in the campaign. I think it’s the gift that keeps on giving.” - U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican Minority Leader
We keep hearing that economic conditions will determine the outcome of the contest this November between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts.
While the economy is likely to be the key “decider,” don’t discount other issues, such as the endless war in Afghanistan, a possible new war between Israel and Iran, and the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on constitutional challenges to President Obama’s health care reform legislation of 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) -- or, as the Republicans like to call it, Obamacare.
The Supreme Court is due to hear oral arguments for three days at the end of this month on the appeal by the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services of the federal court decision in Florida that Congress did not have the constitutional authority to make citizens buy health insurance or pay a penalty. In the normal course of business, the Supreme Court could decide the case as soon as this summer, when the presidential election is starting to get really hot.
If the top court kills the PPACA, the energy boost to the Republicans will be enormous. Close your eyes and imagine you’re listening to the soundtrack of the TV ad Romney will have on the air within 24 hours:
“A vote for Obama is a vote for the biggest blunder by a president in modern times: the illegal federal takeover of health care. Vote for Mitt Romney. He’ll honor our sacred constitution.”
Consider, conversely, what the Democrats could make of a favorable Supreme Court ruling:
“The Republicans tried everything imaginable – Everything! -- to destroy health care reform and the common-sense protections it provided to hardworking Americans. President Obama fought the GOP all the way to the Supreme Court, where he won an historic, lasting victory. Re-elect President Obama, the people’s champion.”
Some people believe Obama will benefit no matter how the Supreme Court decides. If the constitutionality of the PPACA is upheld, Obama will take on the aura of a courageous visionary, this line of thought goes; and if it is overturned, the core Democratic constituencies will be enraged -- and driven to express that anger by working like demons for the president’s re-election.
But with the populace evenly divided in its support and antipathy for national health care reform, a negative decision would probably turn folks who are tentative supporters of the PPACA against it, and lead them to conclude that Obama was seriously misguided in attempting reform on such a grand scale.
Looming always in the background is the experience of Massachusetts and of Governor Romney in fathering our state’s universal health care legislation, a still popular measure whose success rests on the individual mandate to purchase health insurance.
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 13 arguing that the PPACA is constitutional on three grounds:
One, that the economic effects of the Massachusetts reform bill demonstrate that Congress had a rational basis to determine that “free riders,” i.e., those who decline to obtain health insurance but avail themselves of free care in emergency rooms when they are sick or injured, affect interstate commerce.
Two, that the Massachusetts experience demonstrates that the elimination of “free riding” is rationally related to the successful implementation of the other components of federal health care reform, and that Congress thus had the authority under the “necessary and proper clause” of the constitution to impose the minimum coverage requirement.
Three, that federal health care reform is necessary to address the significant interstate aspects of health care that are beyond the scope of any individual state’s authority.
You do not have to be a lawyer to profit from a close reading of the Coakley brief, which can be found at: http://www.mass.gov/ago/docs/press/2012-01-13-health-care-amicus.pdf
A good way to conclude is by citing a few of the informational gems in the Coakley brief:
· In the filing letter attached to his initial health care reform bill in July, 2005, Gov. Romney asserted, “…it is fair to ask all residents to purchase health insurance or have the means to pay for their own care. This personal responsibility principle means that individuals should not expect society to pay for their medical costs if they forego affordable health insurance options.”
· Since the enactment of health care reform in Massachusetts, the amount the state spent on care for uninsured persons from the so-called “free care pool” dropped by nearly $235 million annually over a four-year period.
· The total cost, nationwide, of providing uncompensated care to the uninsured was $43 billion in 2008, and has certainly increased significantly since then. To pay for uncompensated care, health care providers pass on the cost to private insurers, who pass on the cost to families. This cost-shifting, Congress found, increases family premiums by more than $1,000 a year on average.
We keep hearing that economic conditions will determine the outcome of the contest this November between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts.
While the economy is likely to be the key “decider,” don’t discount other issues, such as the endless war in Afghanistan, a possible new war between Israel and Iran, and the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on constitutional challenges to President Obama’s health care reform legislation of 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) -- or, as the Republicans like to call it, Obamacare.
The Supreme Court is due to hear oral arguments for three days at the end of this month on the appeal by the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services of the federal court decision in Florida that Congress did not have the constitutional authority to make citizens buy health insurance or pay a penalty. In the normal course of business, the Supreme Court could decide the case as soon as this summer, when the presidential election is starting to get really hot.
If the top court kills the PPACA, the energy boost to the Republicans will be enormous. Close your eyes and imagine you’re listening to the soundtrack of the TV ad Romney will have on the air within 24 hours:
“A vote for Obama is a vote for the biggest blunder by a president in modern times: the illegal federal takeover of health care. Vote for Mitt Romney. He’ll honor our sacred constitution.”
Consider, conversely, what the Democrats could make of a favorable Supreme Court ruling:
“The Republicans tried everything imaginable – Everything! -- to destroy health care reform and the common-sense protections it provided to hardworking Americans. President Obama fought the GOP all the way to the Supreme Court, where he won an historic, lasting victory. Re-elect President Obama, the people’s champion.”
Some people believe Obama will benefit no matter how the Supreme Court decides. If the constitutionality of the PPACA is upheld, Obama will take on the aura of a courageous visionary, this line of thought goes; and if it is overturned, the core Democratic constituencies will be enraged -- and driven to express that anger by working like demons for the president’s re-election.
But with the populace evenly divided in its support and antipathy for national health care reform, a negative decision would probably turn folks who are tentative supporters of the PPACA against it, and lead them to conclude that Obama was seriously misguided in attempting reform on such a grand scale.
Looming always in the background is the experience of Massachusetts and of Governor Romney in fathering our state’s universal health care legislation, a still popular measure whose success rests on the individual mandate to purchase health insurance.
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 13 arguing that the PPACA is constitutional on three grounds:
One, that the economic effects of the Massachusetts reform bill demonstrate that Congress had a rational basis to determine that “free riders,” i.e., those who decline to obtain health insurance but avail themselves of free care in emergency rooms when they are sick or injured, affect interstate commerce.
Two, that the Massachusetts experience demonstrates that the elimination of “free riding” is rationally related to the successful implementation of the other components of federal health care reform, and that Congress thus had the authority under the “necessary and proper clause” of the constitution to impose the minimum coverage requirement.
Three, that federal health care reform is necessary to address the significant interstate aspects of health care that are beyond the scope of any individual state’s authority.
You do not have to be a lawyer to profit from a close reading of the Coakley brief, which can be found at: http://www.mass.gov/ago/docs/press/2012-01-13-health-care-amicus.pdf
A good way to conclude is by citing a few of the informational gems in the Coakley brief:
· In the filing letter attached to his initial health care reform bill in July, 2005, Gov. Romney asserted, “…it is fair to ask all residents to purchase health insurance or have the means to pay for their own care. This personal responsibility principle means that individuals should not expect society to pay for their medical costs if they forego affordable health insurance options.”
· Since the enactment of health care reform in Massachusetts, the amount the state spent on care for uninsured persons from the so-called “free care pool” dropped by nearly $235 million annually over a four-year period.
· The total cost, nationwide, of providing uncompensated care to the uninsured was $43 billion in 2008, and has certainly increased significantly since then. To pay for uncompensated care, health care providers pass on the cost to private insurers, who pass on the cost to families. This cost-shifting, Congress found, increases family premiums by more than $1,000 a year on average.
It's Time This Nation Had a Serious Discussion on Presidential Blue Jeans
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
I’m kind of tired of hearing Mitt Romney’s thoughts on the economic policies of the nation. It's time for the former Massachusetts governor to address more serious and important topics.
I’d like to hear him explain, for example, how he got those blue jeans to look so perfectly faded and worn when he never wore jeans before late-2011?
Did he hire someone to wash them hundreds of times before he’d go out in public with them on?
I’d also like to know if the jeans are helping him get deeper into the obligatory “Man-of-the-People” role?
And has he consciously adopted the approach taken by Jack Nicholson when he played The Joker, i.e., “I’ll just have to let the clothes do the acting,” or have those jeans mystically provided a newfound comfort in campaigning?
Regardless of the answers, we have to hand it to Mitt. His dress-down-for-success routine has coincided with a prolonged run as the favorite in this painfully long Republican presidential primary season.
Romney is nothing if not practical. He understands that appearances do matter, that clothes do make the man, that the uniform you wear sends a very clear message.
But at least to me, there will always be something faintly comical about Romney in jeans, something a little goofy, like a tourist wearing lederhosen on his first trip to Bavaria.
Romney in jeans on stage at a high school auditorium in Michigan is like seeing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff wearing love beads and a flower in his cap in Harvard Square.
I’m not saying there are no presidential candidates who can get away with wearing jeans. George W. Bush pulled it off quite nicely in his Western, brush-clearing mode. It’s impossible only for the Romneys of this world, guys whose fathers enrolled them in executive training programs in high school, whose demeanor hints they went straight from baby clothes to white shirts, neckties and blazers.
Joe Queenan, the great humorist and Wall Street Journal columnist, takes a more doctrinaire view. “Personally, I think blue jeans on an older man look ridiculous," Queenan observed, " – the French call it vieux jeune homme, which literally means ‘old young guy,’ ” (“How to Dress Like You Just Might Win,” March 3-4, 2012).
Even more than jeans, Queenan is bothered by presidential candidates wearing dress shirts without neckties. "...my real beef," he wrote, "is: Would it kill these guys to wear a tie every once in a while? Dress shirts literally scream: Please, please complete me with a tie. Please, please festoon me.
"OK, OK, if you're running your mouth on a beach or in a factory or while attending the Daytona 500, the tieless look is tolerable. Same deal if you're visiting a swamp or a filling station or the Bronx. But if you're up there on a dais and there's a podium right in front of you, and there's some sense that what you're saying might be important, could you please put on a dress tie to go with your dress shirt? I think they still make these things.
"Otherwise, you look like a dink. You're running for the most important office in the entire world, and here you are dressing like somebody working the night shift at Wal-Mart."
When we try too hard to fit in, I guess we all can look like dinks, which is why I probably should not wear my Red Sox cap backwards next time I attend parents weekend at my daughter's college.
Read the entire Joe Queenan column at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203986604577253423914263252.html?KEYWORDS=How+to+dress+like+you+just+might+win
I’d like to hear him explain, for example, how he got those blue jeans to look so perfectly faded and worn when he never wore jeans before late-2011?
Did he hire someone to wash them hundreds of times before he’d go out in public with them on?
I’d also like to know if the jeans are helping him get deeper into the obligatory “Man-of-the-People” role?
And has he consciously adopted the approach taken by Jack Nicholson when he played The Joker, i.e., “I’ll just have to let the clothes do the acting,” or have those jeans mystically provided a newfound comfort in campaigning?
Regardless of the answers, we have to hand it to Mitt. His dress-down-for-success routine has coincided with a prolonged run as the favorite in this painfully long Republican presidential primary season.
Romney is nothing if not practical. He understands that appearances do matter, that clothes do make the man, that the uniform you wear sends a very clear message.
But at least to me, there will always be something faintly comical about Romney in jeans, something a little goofy, like a tourist wearing lederhosen on his first trip to Bavaria.
Romney in jeans on stage at a high school auditorium in Michigan is like seeing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff wearing love beads and a flower in his cap in Harvard Square.
I’m not saying there are no presidential candidates who can get away with wearing jeans. George W. Bush pulled it off quite nicely in his Western, brush-clearing mode. It’s impossible only for the Romneys of this world, guys whose fathers enrolled them in executive training programs in high school, whose demeanor hints they went straight from baby clothes to white shirts, neckties and blazers.
Joe Queenan, the great humorist and Wall Street Journal columnist, takes a more doctrinaire view. “Personally, I think blue jeans on an older man look ridiculous," Queenan observed, " – the French call it vieux jeune homme, which literally means ‘old young guy,’ ” (“How to Dress Like You Just Might Win,” March 3-4, 2012).
Even more than jeans, Queenan is bothered by presidential candidates wearing dress shirts without neckties. "...my real beef," he wrote, "is: Would it kill these guys to wear a tie every once in a while? Dress shirts literally scream: Please, please complete me with a tie. Please, please festoon me.
"OK, OK, if you're running your mouth on a beach or in a factory or while attending the Daytona 500, the tieless look is tolerable. Same deal if you're visiting a swamp or a filling station or the Bronx. But if you're up there on a dais and there's a podium right in front of you, and there's some sense that what you're saying might be important, could you please put on a dress tie to go with your dress shirt? I think they still make these things.
"Otherwise, you look like a dink. You're running for the most important office in the entire world, and here you are dressing like somebody working the night shift at Wal-Mart."
When we try too hard to fit in, I guess we all can look like dinks, which is why I probably should not wear my Red Sox cap backwards next time I attend parents weekend at my daughter's college.
Read the entire Joe Queenan column at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203986604577253423914263252.html?KEYWORDS=How+to+dress+like+you+just+might+win
The Environment Should Be a Factor in Siting a Casino in Eastern Mass.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
It's still early in the race to license three casinos in Massachusetts, but Suffolk Downs in East Boston seems to have the momentum needed to gain the one big prize available in the eastern part of the state. It holds the favored position despite the glaring downsides to a casino in that spot.
Let us count some of the ways that the old racetrack on the Boston-Revere line doesn't fit the bill for a large, resort-style casino:
One, it's out of the way and hard to get to. From downtown Boston, you have to drive there on Route C-1 or take the MBTA's Blue Line. Thanks to the role C-1 plays in servicing Logan Airport, traffic is already backed up in that area for hours on many days. It can only get worse when thousands of gamblers enter the mix, every day and night.
Two, it has no synergy with the convention center, the hotels, the restaurants, the clubs and the other attractions of downtown Boston. People will not go to Suffolk Downs as part of some other activity or reason to be in Boston, such as attending a convention, visiting the city's historical sites, or going out on the town for the night.
Three, a casino at Suffolk will add to existing congestion in three communities that are densely settled and already very busy: East Boston, Revere and Winthrop. It will thus make life harder for the hard-working folks of generally average (or lower) means who have lived there, worked there, and built those communities for generations.
Four, if horse racing is going to die a natural death in eastern Massachusetts without a rescue from the casino industry, as appears inevitable, talk of a casino at Suffolk forestalls a larger, more important discussion about the best way to reuse the racetrack. It could be argued, for example, that creating more housing in Boston is a higher priority than licensing a casino, and that a transit-oriented housing development is a better way to go, long-term, because the site adjoins the Blue Line, and because the line's Suffolk Downs station could easily accommodate the folks residing in a new "commuter village" there.
To this list we can legitimately add environmental concerns.
In an opinion piece published yesterday (2/22/12) in the Boston Globe, ("The state of green. Patrick has a good track on environment, but there is still a lot of work to be done"), former state senator George Bachrach, now president of the Environmental League of Massachusetts, nailed this point when he said:
"Casinos are now on center stage. We need economic development and jobs. The question is where? Foxwoods was built in the middle of nowhere, in the Connecticut countryside. Forty thousand cars a day make the pilgrimage, adding to our pollution. When Massachusetts builds casinos, they must be accessible to an existing infrastructure without putting endless cars on parade, poisoning the air we breathe and despoiling the open spaces we value."
Where in eastern Massachusetts is the most accessible existing infrastructure for a casino? Only in downtown Boston -- and especially near South Station and the convention center. You could get to a casino there by plane, train, bus, car and boat, and you could easily walk to that casino from several excellent, large hotels already operating in that area.
But no one's talking about a downtown casino. All we hear about is Suffolk Downs.
It's still early in the race, though.
Read the entire Bachrach piece at: http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/02/22/patrick-environmental-legacy-risk/xkpbZYZ1K2obb406OfqwDK/story.html
Let us count some of the ways that the old racetrack on the Boston-Revere line doesn't fit the bill for a large, resort-style casino:
One, it's out of the way and hard to get to. From downtown Boston, you have to drive there on Route C-1 or take the MBTA's Blue Line. Thanks to the role C-1 plays in servicing Logan Airport, traffic is already backed up in that area for hours on many days. It can only get worse when thousands of gamblers enter the mix, every day and night.
Two, it has no synergy with the convention center, the hotels, the restaurants, the clubs and the other attractions of downtown Boston. People will not go to Suffolk Downs as part of some other activity or reason to be in Boston, such as attending a convention, visiting the city's historical sites, or going out on the town for the night.
Three, a casino at Suffolk will add to existing congestion in three communities that are densely settled and already very busy: East Boston, Revere and Winthrop. It will thus make life harder for the hard-working folks of generally average (or lower) means who have lived there, worked there, and built those communities for generations.
Four, if horse racing is going to die a natural death in eastern Massachusetts without a rescue from the casino industry, as appears inevitable, talk of a casino at Suffolk forestalls a larger, more important discussion about the best way to reuse the racetrack. It could be argued, for example, that creating more housing in Boston is a higher priority than licensing a casino, and that a transit-oriented housing development is a better way to go, long-term, because the site adjoins the Blue Line, and because the line's Suffolk Downs station could easily accommodate the folks residing in a new "commuter village" there.
To this list we can legitimately add environmental concerns.
In an opinion piece published yesterday (2/22/12) in the Boston Globe, ("The state of green. Patrick has a good track on environment, but there is still a lot of work to be done"), former state senator George Bachrach, now president of the Environmental League of Massachusetts, nailed this point when he said:
"Casinos are now on center stage. We need economic development and jobs. The question is where? Foxwoods was built in the middle of nowhere, in the Connecticut countryside. Forty thousand cars a day make the pilgrimage, adding to our pollution. When Massachusetts builds casinos, they must be accessible to an existing infrastructure without putting endless cars on parade, poisoning the air we breathe and despoiling the open spaces we value."
Where in eastern Massachusetts is the most accessible existing infrastructure for a casino? Only in downtown Boston -- and especially near South Station and the convention center. You could get to a casino there by plane, train, bus, car and boat, and you could easily walk to that casino from several excellent, large hotels already operating in that area.
But no one's talking about a downtown casino. All we hear about is Suffolk Downs.
It's still early in the race, though.
Read the entire Bachrach piece at: http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/02/22/patrick-environmental-legacy-risk/xkpbZYZ1K2obb406OfqwDK/story.html
Some Random Thoughts on a Warm Friday Before Presidents Day
Friday, February 17, 2012
There must be something a little crazy about a 50-degree day in February, something that brings out the Andy Rooney in me, that makes me think the blogosphere is in need of my random observations and pronouncements:
- Back in January, Denise Andrews, a freshman state rep from the town of Orange, went to the podium during a formal House session expressly to complain that so many of her colleagues were chatting among themselves during the debate on an education collaborative reform bill that no one could hear what was being said. "We wonder in today's society why in the classroom teachers are not listened to," Andrews lamented. "Yet, we sit here on Beacon Hill and do not listen to each other." Her point was driven home later when State House News Service reporter Colleen Quinn asked several legislators what they thought of Andrews's complaint. Each replied that he had been unable to hear her because there was so much noise in the House at the time, so they could not comment on what she said.
- Young Joe Kennedy the Third heard enough during his recent listening tour of the Fourth Massachusetts Congressional District to persuade him he had to run for Barney Frank's seat. I've never kept score on these listening tours, but I can't recall anyone completing one and announcing he could find no good reason to run and was swearing off the idea of ever seeking elective office. I should go on a listening tour simply to capture the distinction of being the first "tourist" to declare, "I ain't running. The people don't want me." (Trust me, they would not.)
- Nurses are pushing once again for a mandatory staffing bill, meaning the ratio of nurses to patients in hospitals would be set by law. In previous sessions, bills like this have been enacted in the House, only to die in the Senate. When opposing these bills, hospital administrators always say they need flexibility when making staffing decisions, which may be true. (It's also better than saying their institutions cannot afford to pay for the ideal number of nurses on a patient floor and, besides, the public is not willing to pay for the highest and best levels of nursing care.) As the son of a registered nurse, (one of the best ever, she was), I can't help but believe that, if most front-line nurses in Massachusetts are convinced that mandatory staff ratios are needed to ensure good, safe, thorough care, this bill should pass.
- I was glad to hear that Boston Mayor Tom Menino has dropped the idea of building a new city hall in South Boston. (He told WBZ radio in January, "I have no plans at this time to move city hall down to the waterfront.") It's not that I want to preserve the unique but stubbornly inhumane edifice in Government Center. I just think it's neat that the State House, the old State House, City Hall, and the old City Hall are all within a short walk of one another in downtown Boston. Convenient, yes, but more important is the statement it makes that the business of Boston is fundamentally governmental. We see a concentration of action there that explains the pulse of our capital city, a small metropolis powered by a big political heart. Yank city hall from the center of Boston and you damage the body politic in unexpected ways.
- With a smile, I noted that a voter interviewed in New Hampshire by the New York Times before the presidential primary said he was going to vote for Romney because Mitt and his sons had once rescued a family whose boat was sinking on Lake Winnipesaukee, several hundred feet from the Romney's lake-front home. "It tells me he (Romney) would get done what needs to be done at any moment," said Harry Spain, age 85, of Belmont, N.H. I laughed not because Spain was unfairly crediting Romney -- the rescue story is true, and it reflects well on Mitt and those perfect boys of his -- but rather because it reminded me that the rescue had taken place late on a Sunday afternoon at a time when Romney was serving as governor of Massachusetts, and that many people at the State House subsequently marveled at Romney's ability to perform such deeds after a weekend of summer fun and relaxation. As one wag on The Hill put it at the time, "You gotta give it to Mitt. Most people in this building would have been in no shape to rescue anybody after a weekend of partying at the lake. That's when it pays to be a Mormon."
- It's been known for a very long time that it's better for elderly folks to stay in their homes, and receive care in their homes if they need it, than to go into nursing homes, where the care can get expensive and impersonal. That's why freshman Quincy rep Tackey Chan, who was the star of the staff of former State Senator Michael Morrissey before running for office himself, deserves high praise for a bill he's filed, An Act to Provide an Income Tax Exemption for Families Caring for Their Elderly Relatives at Home, which is now before the Joint Committee on Children and Families. Anybody caring full time for an elderly relative deserves a tax cut. They're saving the health care system a bundle.
- Sure every city and town official in Massachusetts is happy now to be saving shovelfuls of money on snow removal during this eerily warm and snowless and rainless winter. But these are some of the same folks who'll be telling us in August we have to support tax overrides to pay for drilling new municipal wells because aquifers were not replenished by the usual winter precipitation.
Newly Released JFK Recordings Bring to Mind the Involvement of Torby Macdonald
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
The recent release of audio recordings made in the Kennedy White House jogged my memory about a story I heard one night many years ago in Malden about Torbert H. Macdonald, Harvard football star, World War II naval hero, lawyer, spouse of a Hollywood starlet, Congressman, and lifelong friend of JFK. It was a tale hinting strongly of intrigue and uncertainty at one of the early, critical junctures of the war in Vietnam.
On January 24, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston declassified and released to the public the final 45 hours of White House recordings that the president secretly made of meetings in the Oval Office. The batch included a conversation the president had on September 10, 1963, with Army General Victor Krulak and Joseph Mendenhall, an advisor to the State Department, regarding a fact-finding visit they had made to Vietnam at the behest of the president.
Kennedy was perplexed that two intelligent men had come back with such different impressions of one country. The war against the Viet Cong, the general said, "will be won (by the United States) if the current U.S. military and sociological programs are pursued." But the man from the State Department wasn't buying it. "The people I talked to in the (South Vietnam) government," Mendenhall said, "when I asked them about the war against the VC (Viet Cong), they said that is secondary now -- (that) our first concern is, in effect, in a war with the (allied) regime here in Saigon. There are increasing reports in Saigon and Hue, as well, that students are talking of moving over to the Viet Cong side."
After a pause, the president asked, "You both went to the same country?" There was nervous laughter, then Kennedy said, "I mean, how is (it) that you get such different -- This is not a new thing. This is what we've been dealing with for three weeks. On the one hand, you get the military saying the war is going better and, on the other hand, you get the political (opinion), with its 'deterioration is affecting the military'...What is the reason for the difference? I'd like to have an explanation what the reason is for the difference."
In the fall of 1963, there was growing disenchantment in the Kennedy administration with the president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, and with the influence exerted by Diem's brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, and Nhu's imperious wife, "Madame Nhu," on the affairs of their war-enfeebled nation. Our ambassador to Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, was pressuring Diem behind the scenes to banish his brother and sister-in-law from the government. And according to secret State Department cables that were made public years later, President Kennedy's doubts about Diem's reliability as an ally in the war against the communists were so great that he was ready to explore the establishment of an alternative government in South Vietnam.
On November 1, 1963, six weeks after Kennedy's Oval Office colloquy with Krulak and Mendenhall, and three weeks before Kennedy would be killed in Dallas, there was a coup in South Vietnam. Both Diems were killed. Madame Nhu was sent into exile. To this day, the supposition persists that the Kennedy administration supported the overthrow of the Diem regime, actively or tacitly.
In the late-1970s, I was a reporter at the Malden (MA) Evening News, covering city government. My attendance at all meetings of the City Council and its various committees was required. At that time, Joseph Croken was the Malden City Clerk, meaning he took care of all of the Council's paperwork, helped run the Council meetings, and maintained all Council records. Previously, Croken had been the top aide to Torby Macdonald during Macdonald's 22 years in the U.S. Congress as the representative from the Seventh Massachusetts District (1954-76). Macdonald served until his death in the spring of 1976 at the age of 58.
One night, close to 10 o'clock, after a particularly long and drawn-out City Council meeting, Croken told me that Macdonald had traveled to Vietnam just before the coup against the Diems. I cannot remember the date, or even the year, when I heard this from him, and I have only a vague memory of the story having been prompted by some matter concerning local Vietnam veterans that was a topic of discussion at that night's Council meeting.
I had followed Croken to his office across from the Council chamber to photocopy a document in his possession, and as I was copying, we somehow we got talking about the war. "You know, Torby went to Vietnam not long before the president died," Croken said. "I was never sure why he went. He said very little to me about the trip. I always thought maybe he'd been sent there by the president on sort of a personal diplomatic mission."
"Wouldn't that have been around the time the Diems were killed in that coup?" I asked.
"That's right," Croken said.
"Do you think he (Torby) could have been checking things out in Saigon for the president, maybe to verify information Kennedy had been given, or was carrying a personal message from the president to someone in the government?"
"It's possible, I guess," Croken said. "Torby, like I said, never talked much about the trip. And before we knew it, the president was dead, Torby was devastated with grief, and the war went on. The thing (the trip) just faded."
If there was a secret at the heart of Macdonald's 1963 trip to Vietnam, it most likely died with him. He was a true friend and confidant of Kennedy's from their freshman year at Harvard, when Kennedy's father, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, insisted that his son room with an athlete because he didn't want his son to become an Ivy League twit, and Kennedy was placed with Macdonald, a handsome and gifted athlete who had grown up in Malden, the son of a renowned high school football coach. They remained close throughout Kennedy's life. Macdonald was an usher, for example, in Kennedy's wedding to Jacqueline Bouvier, and Macdonald would frequently visit with Kennedy at the end of his White House work days. Macdonald, however, was scrupulous about not trading on the fact he was close to the Kennedys.
It is not unreasonable, therefore, to speculate that the president sent Macdonald, who had significant military experience, to Vietnam in order to benefit from his first-hand impressions, and perhaps to help him find his way to the truth through the contradictory reports he was receiving from the State Department and the Pentagon. Any conjecture beyond that gets pretty wild.
On January 24, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston declassified and released to the public the final 45 hours of White House recordings that the president secretly made of meetings in the Oval Office. The batch included a conversation the president had on September 10, 1963, with Army General Victor Krulak and Joseph Mendenhall, an advisor to the State Department, regarding a fact-finding visit they had made to Vietnam at the behest of the president.
Kennedy was perplexed that two intelligent men had come back with such different impressions of one country. The war against the Viet Cong, the general said, "will be won (by the United States) if the current U.S. military and sociological programs are pursued." But the man from the State Department wasn't buying it. "The people I talked to in the (South Vietnam) government," Mendenhall said, "when I asked them about the war against the VC (Viet Cong), they said that is secondary now -- (that) our first concern is, in effect, in a war with the (allied) regime here in Saigon. There are increasing reports in Saigon and Hue, as well, that students are talking of moving over to the Viet Cong side."
After a pause, the president asked, "You both went to the same country?" There was nervous laughter, then Kennedy said, "I mean, how is (it) that you get such different -- This is not a new thing. This is what we've been dealing with for three weeks. On the one hand, you get the military saying the war is going better and, on the other hand, you get the political (opinion), with its 'deterioration is affecting the military'...What is the reason for the difference? I'd like to have an explanation what the reason is for the difference."
In the fall of 1963, there was growing disenchantment in the Kennedy administration with the president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, and with the influence exerted by Diem's brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, and Nhu's imperious wife, "Madame Nhu," on the affairs of their war-enfeebled nation. Our ambassador to Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, was pressuring Diem behind the scenes to banish his brother and sister-in-law from the government. And according to secret State Department cables that were made public years later, President Kennedy's doubts about Diem's reliability as an ally in the war against the communists were so great that he was ready to explore the establishment of an alternative government in South Vietnam.
On November 1, 1963, six weeks after Kennedy's Oval Office colloquy with Krulak and Mendenhall, and three weeks before Kennedy would be killed in Dallas, there was a coup in South Vietnam. Both Diems were killed. Madame Nhu was sent into exile. To this day, the supposition persists that the Kennedy administration supported the overthrow of the Diem regime, actively or tacitly.
In the late-1970s, I was a reporter at the Malden (MA) Evening News, covering city government. My attendance at all meetings of the City Council and its various committees was required. At that time, Joseph Croken was the Malden City Clerk, meaning he took care of all of the Council's paperwork, helped run the Council meetings, and maintained all Council records. Previously, Croken had been the top aide to Torby Macdonald during Macdonald's 22 years in the U.S. Congress as the representative from the Seventh Massachusetts District (1954-76). Macdonald served until his death in the spring of 1976 at the age of 58.
One night, close to 10 o'clock, after a particularly long and drawn-out City Council meeting, Croken told me that Macdonald had traveled to Vietnam just before the coup against the Diems. I cannot remember the date, or even the year, when I heard this from him, and I have only a vague memory of the story having been prompted by some matter concerning local Vietnam veterans that was a topic of discussion at that night's Council meeting.
I had followed Croken to his office across from the Council chamber to photocopy a document in his possession, and as I was copying, we somehow we got talking about the war. "You know, Torby went to Vietnam not long before the president died," Croken said. "I was never sure why he went. He said very little to me about the trip. I always thought maybe he'd been sent there by the president on sort of a personal diplomatic mission."
"Wouldn't that have been around the time the Diems were killed in that coup?" I asked.
"That's right," Croken said.
"Do you think he (Torby) could have been checking things out in Saigon for the president, maybe to verify information Kennedy had been given, or was carrying a personal message from the president to someone in the government?"
"It's possible, I guess," Croken said. "Torby, like I said, never talked much about the trip. And before we knew it, the president was dead, Torby was devastated with grief, and the war went on. The thing (the trip) just faded."
If there was a secret at the heart of Macdonald's 1963 trip to Vietnam, it most likely died with him. He was a true friend and confidant of Kennedy's from their freshman year at Harvard, when Kennedy's father, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, insisted that his son room with an athlete because he didn't want his son to become an Ivy League twit, and Kennedy was placed with Macdonald, a handsome and gifted athlete who had grown up in Malden, the son of a renowned high school football coach. They remained close throughout Kennedy's life. Macdonald was an usher, for example, in Kennedy's wedding to Jacqueline Bouvier, and Macdonald would frequently visit with Kennedy at the end of his White House work days. Macdonald, however, was scrupulous about not trading on the fact he was close to the Kennedys.
It is not unreasonable, therefore, to speculate that the president sent Macdonald, who had significant military experience, to Vietnam in order to benefit from his first-hand impressions, and perhaps to help him find his way to the truth through the contradictory reports he was receiving from the State Department and the Pentagon. Any conjecture beyond that gets pretty wild.
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