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Wednesday, November 20, 2002

Homeland Security

Published: New York Times, page A32

The special interest business provisions added to the Homeland Security Bill by the Republicans (front page, Nov 20) are an insult to the men and women who died in the September 11 attacks.
The legislators who proposed and approved these provisions should be ashamed

Thursday, September 26, 2002

Women Leaders

Submitted to Boston Globe but not published

Women Leaders

I saw a bumper sticker today that read, "Republican women make great leaders." Mitt Romney obviously doesn't agree: Lieutenant, yes; leader, no!

Friday, September 20, 2002

Robert Reich Won Too

Published: Boston Globe, page A18

Robert Reich won, too! He won because he gave us a vision of what the Democratic Party of Massachusetts might be. He won because he presented a vision of a Commonwealth transformed by his insistence on social justice. He won because he brought back into the political process voters who had felt disenfranchised by business as usual
I urge all of those who worked for Reich to continue their struggle within the Democratic Party. Continue to volunteer and above all continue to articulate the values that Reich expressed and embodied. Only if they stay the course can they bring about the transformation of state politics that he has begun.

Wednesday, July 10, 2002

Cloning Ted Williams

Published: Boston Globe, page A18

Surely the pitchers' union will be filing an injunction to prevent Ted Williams from being cloned
Griffith Evans,

Saturday, July 6, 2002

Romney Works for a Day

Submitted to Boston Globe but not published.


The day at work program being undertaken by Mitt Romney provides great photo opportunities. But Mitt Romney would learn a lot more about the problems facing low paid workers from reading Nickel and Dimed (Barbara Ehrenreich) or When Work Disappears (W. J. Wilson). In these books the complete set of difficulties of a low paid person’s life are laid out in detail. The lack of jobs in the inner city; the difficulty of getting transportation to a distant job in time for the start of a shift; the theft of one’s time through unpaid overtime;  the difficulty of finding affordable accommodation (and that insurmountable barrier of accumulating two month’s rent in advance). It is this context of life’s difficulties that is so debilitating before one even does a hard day’s work.
Of course, one day on the job does not give time for the meaninglessness of much of that work to sink in – one is still in a learning mode.  I only lasted a week on a donut assembly line: I could not get to sleep until I started up the line in my dreams. That is the reality of many assembly line jobs.
So, let’s have fewer photo opportunities and more discussion of meaningful policies for the social safety net.

Sunday, June 2, 2002

Where does Mitt live?

Submitted to Boston Globe, but not published.

It seems to me that through his polyresidency, Mitt Romney was trying to have it both ways: to be able to run for Governor in either Utah or Massachusetts or even both!