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THE RIGHT QUESTION FOR THE BROAD LEFT

  On July 5, start asking the Democrats, “What policies will help working families?”   The patriotic season is upon us. With it comes the arrival of the 2020 presidential race—far too early, in my estimation. Which in turn tends to generate conservative political ripples all the way down to the local level in the […]

EDITORIAL: THE ARTS SPEECH

  DigBoston wants to hear from Boston-area neighborhood artists and arts reporters   Every few months, we start a new intern cohort at DigBoston. And since we’ve taken to accepting larger numbers of interns—we currently have 16 for the summer—inevitably several are arts reporters. Naturally, we want reporting interns to know what we expect of […]

MORE ACTIVISM NEEDED IN STATE AND LOCAL POLITICS

  Solely spending your money and free time on presidential pageants is unwise   The other day my colleague Chris Faraone made an interesting comment on social media—inveighing against those who lavish money on presidential candidates with the next national elections still a year and a half away:   We held a forum for the […]

STOP THE ELECTRIC SCOOTER SCAM

  Mass needs expanded public transportation, not hazardous rental toys   It’s not like I didn’t warn everyone. Last summer I wrote a column on the illegal rollouts of dockless electric scooters by Bird Rides in Cambridge and Somerville that was extremely critical of the company’s move on two grounds: safety, and the problem of […]

IT’S TIME TO BRING BACK RENT CONTROL IN MASSACHUSETTS

  Some cause for hope in new tenant protection legislation being filed at the State House   Yesterday, I saw some good news in the local press. A rarity to be sure. The Boston Globe reported that Rep. Mike Connolly and a coalition of other state legislators are about to file a rent control bill. […]

THE FALL OF THE GE BOSTON DEAL, PART II

  AG Healey should form independent commission to investigate the failed agreement   Last week in the first installment of this two-part column, I ran through the many problems with the January 2016 deal between General Electric, the city of Boston, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that has now collapsed for all intents and purposes. […]

THE FALL OF THE GE BOSTON DEAL, PART I

  The official narrative and the real story   Readers might feel that this should be a time for me to take a victory lap. The GE Boston deal that I criticized from the moment it was made public in January 2016 has crashed to Earth a bit over three years later. The now-failing multinational […]

2019: WE HAVE 11 YEARS TO DO THE IMPOSSIBLE

  In last week’s column looking back at “2018: The Year in Global Warming,”  I reviewed the dire threat posed to humanity and our environment by climate change, and concluded with the following:   The big question for Bostonians and anyone else reading this: How do we go from this grim state of affairs to […]

2018: THE YEAR IN GLOBAL WARMING

  “We are the first generation to fully understand climate change and the last generation to be able to do something about it.” —Petteri Taalas, secretary-general, World Meteorological Organization   Given all the developments I could review from the year that’s now drawing to a close—and given that I primarily write for a Greater Boston […]

EDITORIAL: SAVE COMMUNITY MEDIA

Tell the FCC That You Support Your Local Cable Access Station by Dec 14   December 12, 2018 BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS   At DigBoston, my colleagues and I put a lot of effort into working with local community media stations around Greater Boston. Because they are the heart and soul of grassroots democratic public […]