Boston

Today I take a day off from politics and as I've been doing since 2012, to brag about the wonderful students who are graduating from the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

The Grand Prix is out and the chorus of boos rains down on the stodgy, old Boston way of doing business. Strange, given that Boston is a preeminent global city. And that may be a bigger cause of lament than a cancelled weekend of car racing along city streets.

The sad news from the Boston Globe last week was of layoffs in the news room. The sadder news for all of us is the decline of real news coverage in favor of pseudo-news.

Recent news of a referendum on the Olympics and new bike lanes in Boston show that try as we might, it is very hard to kill democracy.

The recent snow storms and the MBTA’s breakdowns gave us all a great opportunity to push for our favorite policy solutions.