Ramping up

Today is Wednesday. Another week half-done.

We now have a time frame for when the final season of Better Call Saul will air. Another 2-part season.

Three officers shot in a standoff. Another stabbed earlier in the week. Two suspects shot dead by police. Crime might be down in Boston but these incidents show the volatility and day to day danger for law enforcement. Also, the mayor-elect has named her transition team. I couldn’t find anyone with any real public safety experience on the list, which seems odd given the urgency of naming a permanent commissioner.

Who are the swing voters? David Leonhardt looks at the data.

Lisa Kashinsky writes about where Charlie Baker is on running again and whether he’ll ever become an independent.

And this is why I hate Pinterest. Good to see I’m not alone.

Strictly for the birds

Happy Monday. Travel day.

A potato so big it has a name. Hint: it’s not MacKenzie.

Some folks from the GOP are up in arms about a public health announcement from Big Bird on vaccinations. Talk about triggered. Then, the NBC News article on this goes on to explain that there’s very little research on how Covid affects birds and chickens as if Big Bird is actually a… big bird. It’s going to be one of those weeks.

Here’s more on the Rivian truck from Chris Taylor. It’s a head turner, he says.

The pillow guy is at it again.

Benjamin Balthaser writes about his uncle’s Bronx accent. But there’s more here than that. His uncle sounds like a guy I would get along well with. It’s one of the best things I’ve read in a long time.

And another asteroid is coming to destroy the earth. Paging Chicken Little. Someday one of these things will be real.

Politics on the margins

Sunday, November 7. Today’s word is soporific.

The Globe is being very nice to Kim Janey this morning. But isn’t it a little late for that?

The Squad made a big, empty gesture, voting against the infrastructure bill. Fortunately a handful of Republicans stepped up. What a world. Maureen Dowd writes about the problem of Democrats not being able to get out of their own way. And the show’s not over yet. Let’s see what happens with the spending bill.

Mobile devices with mini-computers have taken over the world. Our cars are full of computers. Even toasters have computers in them. Where are all those microchips coming from? That, writes Christopher Mimms, is the problem.

Wording in one section of the infrastructure bill, related to tax reporting requirements, is alarming some crypto watchers.

And I really hate biking up hills. Wind and hills. No thanks. But there are cyclists that love climbing hills. There’s even a blog highlighting the best, hardest hills. I don’t get it. For me it would be like reading ‘getting punched in the stomach’ magazine. But, to each his own, I guess.

Moneybags

Saturday. The Weekend.

Paleontology, politics and dairy all came together in 1802 when the good folks from Cheshire, MA sent a ‘mammoth’ block of cheese to Thomas Jefferson. Not to be outdone, upstate New Yorkers sent an even bigger block to Andrew Jackson, sparking a literal feeding frenzy in the White House. Ah, the good old days.

Coleman Herman reports that non-union employees at the MBTA received a $1000 bonus for working through the pandemic. Huh? Some people in the private sector were lucky enough to have been compensated for continuing to come into work, but not many. How did anyone in management at the T think that was a good idea at an agency struggling to control costs. Just the optics alone should have taken this off the table.

Alan Levinovitz responds to John McWhorter’s article about wokeness being like a religion. And in France, they’re just confused about the whole thing.

Mayor-elect Wu is still taking the T to work. She told WBUR that she will continue to do so as mayor. I guess that’s a good thing. The city can save a few bucks on a driver and when the T goes free, she will save as well.

And if you’re in the market for a new bike and you want to stand out from the crowd you should consider this gold Giant Defy. It’s only $288,125. Cash for flash.

Reaching across the aisle

Thursday morning. Settle in for a nice cool day.

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. What it’s not is a guy in a jetpack.

Charlie Baker‘s favorite super PAC backs both Democrats and Republicans. And, as Bruce Mohl writes, it gets results, especially for Democrats. Candidates for mayor backed by the PAC won in Woburn (D), Marlboro (R), Leominster (D), Gardner (D), Framingham (D), Fitchburg (D), Fall River (D), Everett (D), Easthampton (D), Brockton (D) and Agawam (D). As far as Boston goes, mayor-elect Wu and Baker don’t seem to be the best of buds. It will be interesting to see what kind of relationship develops, if one does. The IGR folks are going to be earning their money.

Hannah Bohn is a pretty good writer who apparently doesn’t adhere to the ‘write what you know’ rule. Her most recent column in the BU student newspaper is on aging. I’m not as good a writer as she is but I do have a deeper knowledge of the topic. Just sayin.

An off-year election could be a preview, and if it is, Dan Pfeiffer writes that it doesn’t bode well for Democrats. Zachary Carter believes that the loss in Virginia was mostly about schools (and Covid). Jonathan Chait agrees. Democrats have a schools problem, he thinks. Good timing for Boston, where, with the reintroduction of an elected school committee, the mayor can just throw up her hands and blame the committee.

And The Guardian explores how California botched legalizing marijuana. NIMBY. So close.

Changing of the guard

Wednesday. Sunshine and cool temps.

Michelle Wu is the mayor elect of Boston. She’ll be sworn in in 2 weeks. I expect/hope she already has names lined up for a cabinet and presumably we’ll hear who those people are soon. They will be the key to executing her vision while making sure the trash gets picked up and potholes filled. She’ll also need a new police commissioner. (I think we know who it won’t be.) It’s a critical early decision for the new mayor so she shouldn’t rush it. But sooner is better than later.

Former Globe columnist Eileen McNamara reflects on Wu’s victory in the Times, noting that turnout was about 30%. But, she adds, “Ms. Wu should not be misled. Those stay-at-home voters will be paying close attention when she takes the oath of office in two weeks. Politics in Boston might just have gotten more diverse, but it is still this city’s favorite spectator sport.”

The Boston race reverberated to the other side of the planet, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taiwan tweeting its congratulations. “We couldn’t be prouder of the 1st woman & Asian American to hold the city’s top job. More power to her as she keeps breaking those glass ceilings!”

Despite all the election stories, I wasn’t able to find the results of the ballot questions in the Globe’s online coverage. At least not easily. I ended up Googling “Boston Globe ballot questions 2021” to get this article. (I don’t think that’s the way an online newspaper is supposed to work, but whatever.) So it looks like Boston will go back to an elected school committee. In the past this gave plausible deniability to the mayor on school issues. And Question 1, the new budget process, also passed. Implementing it will require a change to the city charter, a big deal. Whoever Wu picks as CFO will have their hands full in the spring.

And it looks like we’re going to have to go to war with Maine. Sustainable energy? Can’t get here from there.

The new Boston

It’s Tuesday! Election day. Today’s word is passel.

Scientists studying body temperature say we’re getting cooler. But also lazier.

James Aloisi looks at some of Boston’s defining moments of the past and sees this election as right up there with them. Familiar face Bill Galvin doesn’t think there will be a big turn out. But the candidates spent the Friday night before the election talking to college students, so somebody thinks at least they will come out to vote. And Jack Thornton lays out the three ballot questions, two of which are big deals. Questions 1 and 3 are directly related to mayoral authority and accountability. So here we go.

Joshua Eaton at FiveThirtyEight writes about firearm trafficking and the huge gaps in data about where the guns used in crimes come from.

The pandemic is over. But it’s not over. But it is kinda. But not really. The Washington Post looks at the complexity of getting past Covid. How can we miss it if it won’t go away?

And Facebook just isn’t cool anymore. Kids don’t want to join. But there’s this new thing. It’s called the Metaverse.

Reality check

Monday. November arrives.

Apple’s hottest product – its thinnest yet – is a piece of cloth. A $20 dollar piece of cloth. It’s actually backordered. And as they usually do with Apple products, iFixit has a teardown.

When I heard about the Southwest pilot mocking Joe Biden over the PA, I thought it was way out of line. I still do. But Matt Taibbi has a solid point about fair play. The world was a better place when politics wasn’t so engrained in our culture.

Pulling people over just to bring in revenue is a bad policing. Eliminating this practice is the kind of defunding I can get behind.

News Flash: Billionaires want to start a new media outlet to combat disinformation. About billionaires probably. Actually, the Bezos-funded Washington Post has had a pretty good record of providing reliable information. As far as the Henry-funded Boston Globe goes, the jury is still out.

And Spiders are much smarter than you think. Not. Welcome. News.