What a disgrace.
Here we have a bunch of unelected, sniveling NIMBYs who are probably off somewhere celebrating their tremendous victory against the evil Olympics. Emboldened, they are certainly looking for something else to run out of town. I don’t know what. Maybe ice cream.
Meanwhile, Boston now looks truly miserable and inhospitable. Hub of the universe? Humbug. We are now the place where we can’t get the trains to work. Improve our infrastructure by 2024? NO! We can’t even fix the trains we have. Use the bidding process as an opportunity to sell Boston as a tourist destination? Nah. We don’t want the hotel occupancy tax revenue, we don’t want the meals tax revenue, we don’t really want to be bothered with visitors.
No Boston Olympics was all over this thing from the minute the US Olympic Committee told us that Boston would be a wonderful place to invite the world for a celebration. Yes, the whole thing was at the beginning of the process, and lots of questions needed to be answered. But No Boston Olympics didn’t care about getting the facts on the table. Everything was bad, and every change to meed legitimate objections was even more evil. It was a constant barrage of negativity that didn’t allow us to fairly evaluate the costs and benefits of holding the Olympics in Boston.
Despite their ever increasing calls for transparency from Boston 2024, No Boston Olympics was fueled with undisclosed funding from unnamed supporters. Here we had a wonderful excuse to fix our infrastructure with a firm deadline. Here we had a wonderful opportunity to look really wonderful on television across the world, free media telling the world that our city is a wonderful place to visit with economic benefits in the long term. Did those possibilities matter? No! Let’s just condemn the whole idea of doing anything.
Did the numbers actually work? I don’t know. We didn’t get that far. All we got was a bunch of rock throwers who chased the whole idea out of town before we got the answers. Plus, we got a bunch of elected “leaders” standing at the side until the polling numbers started trending.
Shame on us.
An organization that raised $17,763 from its inception through First Quarter 2015 (No Boston Olympics disclosed its funding totals, but not its small-dollar donors) is somehow a dark force because it beat an organization, with the force of City government backing it, that raised $2.88 million in the First Quarter alone?
You can’t expect them to do addition in the first draft of the post.
It is proprietary information anyway. What if the competing posts knew that $17,763 isn’t more than $2.8 million?
And anyway, there’s insurance.
I can’t say I had strong opinions about Boston’s bid for the Olympics (though historically, it rarely works out well for the hosts), but this poster’s whining about “undisclosed cash” with an organization outspent probably 500-1 by millionaire donors makes me very, very glad they got kicked to the curb.
Thanks for some numbers from reality, something that fortunately still matters to some people in Massachusetts.
I have. Their bullet train to the winter Olympic site is already completed under budget and ahead of schedule, they are worthy, we’re not. Not yet anyway. Maybe we can start having a conversation about how to pay for the nice things people assume we deserve by birthright or fiat. It will likely require raising taxes.
The local trains are spectacular, the Shinkansen is amazing.
If we sit around here whining, we will never get good trains. I think a thorough analysis of our infrastructure, with a tight deadline, would have had the potential for prompting action.
I disagree that this is what Boston 2024 was committed to. But, perhaps we can agree tha this event whether viewed as a defeat or a victory can and should be a catalyst for future infrastructure investment?
Building temporary stadiums is not going to pay for nice trains. The Olympics would not have brought a dime of revenue towards fixing our transportation problems and would have sucked away public money for stuff we don’t need.
Yes, shame on us for not fixing our transportation system, but that has got *nothing* to do with this Olympic bid.
If we rely on nonsense like B2024 to improve our trains, we’ll never get good trains either. What might have happened if the money, publicity, and hoopla that was squandered on this hopeless fantasy had, instead, been devoted to promoting the improvement of our trains?
How much more analysis of our infrastructure is needed to figure out that decades of deferred maintenance and billions of dollars of Big Dig debt have essentially destroyed our public rail transportation system?
Where might we be, politically, if the movers and shakers behind the B2024 proposal had been demanding answers to how last winter’s collapse happened and how it will be avoided next winter?
If a “tight deadline” is helpful, why not focus on the winter of 2015-2016 less than NINE MONTHS from now, rather than nine years?
.. Suppose, just for the nonce, that Charlie Baker pulls 15 billion dollars outta his ass and gives every last dime of it to the MBTA. How many of the handful of engineering firms around the world capable of doing top notch work are going to bid for the job if they think they’ll be working with the Beacon Hill Clampetts? How many of the less ethical firms (who don’t do top notch work) will bid because they think they’ll be able to put it over those same Clampetts? That’s going to fix the MBTA?
Quite the position we’ve put ourselves into.
Congratulations. You got the outcome you think you wanted. Strangely enough, it proves to the rest of us that you, also, aren’t immune from “hopeless fantasy”.
If what you say is true, then the T would not be fixed with or without the Olympics. So what is really your point?
…
Nobody denies that fixing the MBTA is going to be difficult under any circumstances.
It’s going to be even more difficult if the CommonWealth has a reputation for fumbling complex projects.
The CommonWealth has historically, fumbled some complex projects (ref list above).
This looks very much like another fumble.
So.. My point is the outcome you think you wanted isn’t likely to lead to the next outcome you think you want: the manner in which the outcome came about made it even harder to do the thing you say must be done. So, yeah, as victory laps go, your’s is slightly depressing.
What does Boston 2024 bumbling their Olympics bid have to do with the Commonwealth fumbling? This was never a government project. The Olympics was never going to manage the fixing of the T. All it was going to do was put a little bit of extra pressure to get it done.
Of course, you would think that the mass of unhappy tax-paying T users would be all you need, especially after last Winter.
In any case, I don’t really understand how you can be at the same time ultra-cynical and pessimistic about our Government’s ability to get things done but super-optimistic that the same Government would get things done if only we had the Olympics.
At least now we can focus on the actual T priorities (including keeping the system up and running in the Winter) and not merely the ones of most interest to the Olympic bid (i.e. moving people between Olympic venues).
Are you being deliberately ridiculous? Is this some form of performance art? I thought your beef was ‘taxpayer expenditures’? How can it simultaneously be about taxpayers and not about government? It was only ‘game over’ when Marty Walsh, MAYOR, closed the lid on it. Of course this was government… duh. And it was clearly about the ability of government and the private sector to work together, which is exactly what any mega-project is about. Whether or no it’s true the notion that Boston isn’t receptive to private initiatives has long been out there and this doesn’t do anything to deny and, in fact, goes a long way to confirming it. How many private firms are re-thinking their involvement in the CommonWealth now?
I’m neither ultra-cynical nor super-optimistic. I’ve have never indulged either and if you’d pay more attention you’d know that. You should stop arguing with what you think I said and, instead, engage what I have said.
When and if the need infrastructure improvements get the green light any and all private sector engineering firms who might be otherwise straightforwardly willing to bid — and who will do the actual work — will be required to take into account, regardless of the underlying truth, the notion of having to deal with the city of Boston and it’s reputation. Right now, that rep has a black eye. Don’t think it doesn’t, no matter your personal pleasure at the outcome of the Olympics bid, and don’t think it won’t have repercussions down the road.
You really think it is that simple? Boston can now ‘focus’? You really think people think that of Boston and the CommonWealth now? That the city was distracted by the bid and now we can do real work? Unlikely to automagically happen and naive to think it should…
My beef is not with tax expenditures on public projects such as fixing the T or subsidizing needed development. My beef was spending tax payer money on stuff like building temporary stadiums and paying a billion dollars for security for a one-time event. I have no problem with the public and private sector working together, but not when that simply means that we end up giving away massive amounts of tax revenue to private developers without commensurate return. We cannot simply write a blank check.
I think myself and everyone else who has expressed opposition here have been very clear in our support of massive amounts of public money to be spent on transportation infrastructure. For you to pretend otherwise is intellectually dishonest.
In any case, I don’t know what imaginary entity you think will be reluctant to “do business” with Boston. I am sure that big developers will continue to pitch ideas, construction will continue to boom, as it has done for years. Maybe it will be harder to make another pitch for the Olympics here for a while, but I don’t think that is just fine. If we have succeeded in scaring away developers who hoped to profit off of hidden tax breaks, and sweatheart deals, that is just fine by me. There is still plenty of money to be made in Boston real-estate without that.
In any case, your claim of future gloom and doom is meaningless because it is not falsifiable. No one is going to publicly announce that they canceled their plans to locate their unicorn farm in Boston because of the failed Olympic bid.
Was that a typo in your last time or a deliberate turn of phrase?
… it’s common usage in some of the circles in which I travel…
Well, we just told the world on BBC radio just how awful Boston is. There was a No Boston Olympics spokesperson on the radio telling the world that the trains suck, housing sucks, and we don’t have enough money for schools. Sort of makes tourists want to travel to Newark, instead.
So we killed the Olympics. Bravo. Now what? Same old inertia to do almost nothing to build up our infrastructure.
Causing the election of public officials from a political party that believes in investment in public infrastructure.
Really who cares? Is anyone not going to visit Boston because are schools aren’t good enough? And we *do* have issues with our trains. We should fix that.
I predict that this will have absolutely no impact on Boston tourism whatsoever.
How about we fix that shit instead of blowing a few billion on a three week parade of international elites? Looks like the people of Boston and its political leadership made a resounding commitment to fixing that shit rather than wasting money on something we said we didn’t want or need.
The trains DO suck! Have you been to another city? I’ve lived in several US cities and visited several more, our transit system is the worst by far I’ve encountered. Even smaller cities in Republican controlled states like Madison and Austin seem more committed to transit than we do at this point.
Housing does suck! I am want to teach or work in policy back in Massachusetts now or go to grad school, either way, I have no idea how I can afford rent in the area on a 30k-50k salary.
Schools look good on paper but are grossly inequitable, let’s work on fixing those problems rather than finding monsters to slay.
Tourists are going to go to Newark instead of Boston because we rejected the Olympics? Color me highly doubtful. I’ve lived not far from Newark for several years. Even with all our challenges, Boston is a much more interesting tourist attraction than Newark, imho.
And beyond that, tourism is not the be all and end all for our economy, nor should it be. Have you ever been to a city that relies solely on tourism? It’s not a nice place to live generally because everything is pitched toward visitors.
We need a city that works for the people who live and work here, as jconway so accurately outlined in his response @ 12:01pm. And the Olympics absolutely would not have done that — in fact they would have drained resources and energy into projects that supported the Games and away from projects that help residents.
For ex there was no money in Bid 2.0 for MBTA improvements, all of that was going to be entirely on the taxpayers’ shoulders. Which means since we wouldn’t have gotten a tax increase to pay for the Olympics (no way would that pass muster on Beacon Hill), other MBTA projects would have been back burnered.
Far from inertia, what the past few months have proven to me is that a relatively small but very committed group of mostly youngish citizen activists is stepping up to be heard and taken seriously on the issue of making the Boston region more liveable and sustainable for those of us who live here. And the establishment in all its forms didn’t know what to do about that, and is threatened by that, but is going to have to deal with it. As far as I’m concerned that is all to the good. The big money boys (they are almost all boys) have way too much say on how we do or do not prioritize infrastructure, transportation, schools, climate, etc. Normal people who work for a living deserve a voice in that conversation too.
You mean, a tax increase to pay for infrastructure improvements? Hell yeah! I’m for that.
If the Olympics would have caused us to spend millions or billions on trains, that’s a benefit – not a liability.
You cite three complaints:
1. The trains suck
2. The housing sucks (presumably meaning it’s too expensive)
3. We don’t have enough money for schools
These are all true and valid. It seems to me that we’re better served by deciding to address these than in chasing yet another boondoggle.
My experience has been that bashing people who dare to speak the truth (such as you just did with the No Boston Olympics spokesperson) is a sure-fire way to worsen the problem. Boneheaded politicians who set these priorities, and bone-headed voters who reinforce them, NEED the real-world feedback that comes from being honest.
You would have us enable and thus perpetuate these problems by continuing the code of silence that has already done so much harm.
Chasing away the Olympics doesn’t help achieve any of these things. The Olympics could have inspired some really infrastructure improvements.
We’re now stuck with our crappy trains.
This has been gone over exhaustively. If the Olympics costs more money than it brings in, so hosting the Olympics means you will inevitably be sucking money away from other projects. You would also be warping infrastructure priorities to favor just those ones that are needed for the Olympics to succeed. It is utter nonsense to suggest that no one would think to improve our infrastructure without the Olympics.
It’s that thinking is so far as far as it has gone. We have not seen the improvements the T desperately needs and some of us were hoping that having the Olympics in a given year would finally put our leadership under the gun to meet a deadline. The priorities may have been a bit different, but I’m sure whatever we ended up with would have a benefit beyond the Olympics.
We have absolute no need for a new T station in Widett circle for one.
Really there isn’t any evidence that the Olympics has caused any action whatsoever on the part of the Governor and Legislature, so it is pure speculation as to how much of a difference it might actually make.
In any case, I thought you said you were an “optimist”. Why does that only apply to the self-appointed Olympic group (and in the face of ineptness and lies) but does not apply to our elected government?
…the legislature with many of the same players has been around awhile and done nothing whereas the Olympics were a brand new initiative that had the potential of getting people excited.
The fact is that the Olympic did not get people excited in the way you suggest. It was a nice thought, but it didn’t happen and it is not clear it would ever have happened.
Now let’s hope that we can get our legislators excited about getting off their butts and fixing the T for real. If you are real optimist, then you should feel confident that we can get them to do that.
Now instead of talking about how wonderful it will be for Olympic visitors to use the T to visit events, we can instead envision how wonderful it will be for the actual citizens of the Commonwealth to use the T more effectively in their daily lives. The vision for the future of our region should belong to us as a community, not to some small self-appointed committee of the rich and privileged.
They ride the crappy trains and the horrible buses every day. They grumble, but they are used to it. Why bother fixing it?
…Like, maybe, Joe Biden can ride the Red Line from Ashmont to Alewife and emerge saying he enjoyed LaGuardia”s ‘third world’ ambience better. That might get us some money to fix it. Worked for NY and LaGuardia…
It that is your argument, you can just as well say that the citizens are “used to” everything that is wrong with how public services are delivered.
The fact is that complaining about stuff to your elected representatives does make a difference. Bad as some aspects of the T have become, there have been improvements and I expect that will continue. The more pressure we collectively put on Government to make things better, the more likely they are to listen and do something about it.
You wrote a comment titled “BBC”, in which you argued that telling the truth about Boston would “[make] tourists want to travel to Newark”.
B2024 is dead. It’s history.
I never argued that “chasing away the Olympics” would help solve the problems you cite. I instead argue that telling the truth about the current state of affairs is a necessary first step towards addressing them. I don’t care WHO is doing the talking, I think we need to quit pretending that our public rail system is anything but an embarrassment to a state we both love.
We’ve been stuck with our crappy trains for decades. We will remain that way so long as we refuse to admit that they’re crappy.
Since we seem to agree that our trains ARE crappy, and since B2024 is dead, then I suggest we quit bad-mouthing people who speak the truth and instead join forces to solve the problem.
We need to invest in our trains — the Olympics are irrelevant.
No, they aren’t going to Newark, although the Newark City Subway is really quite cool. It’s just the publicity, and the NO spokesperson on BBC, made Boston sound more like Newark than any kind of a destination tourists might want to enjoy.
Tourism is a significant industry, and taxes (airport car rentals, hotel occupancy, meals) are skewed to provide tremendous benefit from these visitors. If I thrown money into the pot now, that results in more tourists and more taxes later, then I am ahead of the game.
There’s a chance you know that’s in France. Where in France?
That’s okay. Who would know it’s in Occitane in the southwest? It’s a nice town. Well, it’s a city, but it feels like a nice town with lots of housing. They have a decent soccer team, one of the leading schools of economics in Europe — but did you know that? That’s okay — people abroad don’t always know where MIT is either. They haven’t heard of Tufts. In Toulouse there’s a good roadway and a little square with a periodic famers’ market. I mean, it’s kinda out of the way, and not the first, second, or even third city one thinks of when thinking of France. It’s a nice little town with nice little things, but not too many tourists. You want amazing architecture, big events? You go to Paris. Toulousians (?) have a right to be proud of their city, but nobody sees it as a metropole of France. Heck, their gift stores sell models of the Eiffel Tower, which would be equivalent of Boston stores selling miniature Statues of Liberty.
We can blame the exact people who chaired the bid, or how they released their reports, or the days of the week on which they held hearings. I’d love to hear from any of the opponents of the bid explain the circumstances under which they would have supported the bid. Because open-minded consideration is what big cities do. Toulouse and Boston, not so much.
I would be much more likely to support the Olympics if 1) we didn’t have to build any major venues 2) it would require minimal public money and 3) the government would not be required to insure the games against cost overruns 4) the group organizing the bid was competent, representative of the community and having minimal conflicts of interest 5) the bid was done *much* more transparently and honestly than it was done this time (e.g. I see no reason why they could not do an “open source” approach to planning next time around).
I don’t see any of those things happening any time soon, but perhaps someday Boston will either be larger or the Olympics smaller. Really, I think that Olympics has grown without bounds over the years, and until cities start saying no more often, there is no incentive for the IOC to change its ways.
I mean, I could say I would vote for a Republican presidential candidate if 1)s/he (who am I kidding…he) upheld equal rights regardless of race, gender, and orientation, 2)restrained the excesses of our plutocratic capitalism, 3) worked for a complete overhaul of our campaign finance system, 4) refused to start a PAC, and 5) visited me in person.
Or, I could be a lot less misleading and say that I won’t support a Republican for president. By the same token, you’re saying you’d have supported a bid if it were…well, a completely different thing. Which is fine. I just wish as a city Boston had the chance to have that conversation before being shut off by folks who wouldn’t consider it.
But the fact is that unless the Olympic boosters take an honest assessment of what people are willing to put up with and deal with it, there is never going to be a successful bid.
I would be fine with having a “conversation” about hosting the Olympics, but next time let us do it *before* throwing our hat into the ring instead of afterwards.
Like I said before, you shouldn’t be figuring out how your are going to pay for your house after you have already bought it. At least in that case, you have a chance of having the bank turn you down. Actually, I guess that is what happened in this case. The bank comprised of the people of Boston were not willing to grant a mortgage based on the collateral and credit history of Boston 2024. Hopefully, next time they will do a credit check first.
… People in Tokyo, London and Rio are, what, chumps? Last I checked they were, respectively, capital cities of the 3rd, the 5th and the 7th largest economies in the world.
Boston, not even the biggest city, in the biggest economy in the world can’t do what Tokyo, London and Rio are doing? We’re that much more sensitive and frail than they… ?
You don’t like the Olympics. We got it. Don’t hide behind projections of what other people will put up with to avoid admitting you just want to say no.
They were chumps only if they are suprised and unhappy with what the Olympics cost them. Some people are perfectly happy paying $500 for a $100 meal, others are not.
I thank you for pointing out how small Boston is compared to Tokyo, London and Rio. How can a small city like Boston be expected to financially insure an event that stresses the finances of the largest cities in the world? Indeed.
….and I will be sure to come and visit you before I declare my candidacy for President
Besides, let some of the 16 people running drop out first.
… the IOC has changed it’s ways. You, however, have structured your thinking in such a way as to dis-allow either the change or the extent of the change. So, in affect, no change is good enough for you. Your answer is bullshit.
Yes, the IOC has cleaned up some corruption, but it still requires that cities write a blank check and that is exactly what killed this bid. If the USOC actually believed Boston 2024’s claim that the insurance policy would cover the risk, then there should have been no problem with Walsh not signing that part of the host city agreement. The fact that this was a killer issue is a sure sign that both the IOC and the USOC absolutely believe that there will be large cost overruns that they do not want to be responsible for covering.
In any case, the question was about our personal opinion and I gave it. That is not bullshit. That is what I feel.
In any case, I don’t think there is anything wrong with making people who propose massive mega-projects prove in advance that they are worth the risk. Boston 2024 didn’t do that, pure and simple.
… You’re like the hypochondriac who thinks a sneeze is a sure sign of cancer : any symptom, however fanciful, validates the fear.
The USOC and the IOC wanted insurance. The requirement for insurance is a recognition of risk. It is not a blanket permission to overrun. Nobody ever denied the risk was there. You deny the risk because you think it a surety.
The insurance against the possibility is not the codification of the eventuality. That’s, actually, not risk at all. But that’s how you want to look at it. That’s utterly, entirely and not to put too fine a point upon it, bullshit. So I’m an asshole for pointing that out. boo hoo for me. Doesn’t make me wrong. I can live with being an asshole. I’d have much more trouble trying to make my way as a hypochondriac going from symptom to symptom certain of my imminent demise. Sounds like an utterly bullshit way to live…
The USOC can cover cover the insurance if it is reasonably bounded. For that matter, Boston could have put a firm limit on the amount of overruns it would cover (e.g. $50 million) and you can bet that any such limit would also have killed this deal. The IOC wants a no-limit insurance policy or “blank check” and as long as it continues to get them, I don’t think they are going to stop asking for them.
In my opinion, this blank check is a huge disincentive for Olympic organizers to keep their costs in check because there are no real consequences to them. I don’t think I am being paranoid about anticipating cost overruns — and who will pay for them — when that has been the pattern of every other Olympics. In any case, I guess the Mayor and the City Council, and the Governor, and the Legislature and the Congressional delegation are all “hypochondriacs” as well, since they are all concerned with the same issue.
BTW, you are an asshole for resorting to personal attacks and insults in your arguments, not for disagreeing with me.
BMG is not a bar in Southie.
hrs-kevin wrote:
You wrote:
and:
From the BMG rules (emphasis mine):
The editors don’t have time to edit and moderate every exchange. Can we please get better at moderating ourselves?
The title from hrs-kevin is improved by editing it to conform to the rules:
The response from petr is much improved by removing the “insults, personal attacks and rudeness” — and striking the entire first (after the quote) and last paragraph. The result is, in fact, a “bold and constructive observation”.
I’m hesitant to uprate comments with such language even if I agree with the substance. In our previous rating system that allowed for more nuance I might have given such comments 5 whereas without the language I would have given a 6.
In any case, I don’t see any reason why some city could not satisfy all of my points. Not Boston at this time because of the lack of venues, but perhaps some day it will already have appropriate facilities for the major events or the Olympics will have been scaled down to a more manageable size. Not having to build venues or other major infrastructure would greatly bring down both the cost and the risk of overruns. However, if someone can come up with a plan to pay for major venues with only private money, that would be fine.
I don’t think there is anything ridiculous about wanting the organizers to be competent, honest and open. Nor do I think it is ridiculous for the organizers to be much more open about sharing their plans and data.
Agree, and maybe some folks ought to review Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement.
We’re down in “You are an ass hat” territory.
I’d never heard of it. It reminded me of Monty Python’s Argument Clinic:
Good. Now I’m arrestin’ this entire show on three counts: one, acts of self-conscious behaviour contrary to the ‘Not in front of the children’ Act, two, always saying ‘It’s so and so of the Yard’ every time the fuzz arrives and, three, and this is the cruncher, offenses against the ‘Getting out of sketches without using a proper punchline’ Act, four, namely, simply ending every bleedin’ sketch by just having a policeman come in and… wait a minute.
what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.
O: Oh yes, the, uh, the Norwegian Blue…What’s,uh…What’s wrong with it?
C: I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, my lad. ‘E’s dead, that’s what’s wrong with it!
O: No, no, ‘e’s uh,…he’s resting.
C: Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I’m looking at one right now.
O: No no he’s not dead, he’s, he’s restin’! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn’it, ay? Beautiful plumage!
C: The plumage don’t enter into it. It’s stone dead.
For both apropos Python references!
… is not described as a species of hypochondria? I make no personal attacks. I describe his argument (sic) as I see it.
Hrs-kervin made the blanket declarative statement that a) there must be overruns and 2) that the USOC and IOC knows this. This is a stupid statement. It borders upon the idiotic and the nonsensical. It is, in fact, an argument no better than the whirling feverish meanderings of a hypochondriac who diagnoses a headache to the conclusion of cancer.
If we are forbidden from calling a stupid argument a stupid argument then let’s just have tea and sconces and forget the reality based part of this whole endeavor.
and I don’t see any actual logical fact-based refutation coming from you either. Yelling out “nonsense” or “bullshit” doesn’t represent a real refutation. And your hypochondriac comment, whether or not it was intended as an insult, was an ad-hominem argument that has nothing to do with the underlying facts.
Boston 2024 said they were getting insurance and that essentially the financial risk was not going to be a big deal. The USOC made it pretty clear by their insistence on the agreement that assumption of the risk was indeed a big deal. So either Boston 2024 was greatly exaggerating the amount of risk mitigation that would be provided by their insurance plan, or the USOC are overly afraid of assuming the residual risk, perhaps both.
Some people on the pro side have complained that the opponents never gave this bid a chance to succeed. If true, you would have to say that about the USOC as well. They could have stuck with their choice and trusted that they together with Boston 2024 would eventually be able to win people over, but they didn’t do that. In fact, by repeated leaking hints that the bid would be pulled and given to LA, they seriously undermined Boston 2024’s credibility and made it much easier for politicians to withhold their support.
You keep outdoing yourself, Petr. What first-class engineering firm will ever take you seriously again.
… by any firm — or person– who takes an innocent typo so seriously.
I do know that my tone and tenor — and a reputation for an in-ability to play nice and get along with others — risks future employment, either with engineering firms or elsewhere. That is a risk. I am aware of it. I don’t pretend it isn’t there. Most engineering firms — or indeed any firm — hiring will do a google search and it’s relatively easy to find out who I am and what I’ve said here. That’s a rep. But a rep for making the occasional typo? Meh. I type ‘nobel’ yesterday when I meant ‘noble’. I typed ‘sconces’ when I meant ‘scones.’ Not the end of the world.
The CommonWealth of Massachusetts has long had a history as both ‘tax-achusetts’ and as a place where, in general, it is difficult to do business. That’s the rep. It might not even be true… but that’s the rep. Boston had such a vicious reputation for racism that in the 2006 Kevin Garnett actually made serious inquiries as to whether the rep still held and if it was therefore in his best interest to go somewhere else. So, reputations matter.
How many private firms are asking themselves, right now, ‘do we want to go through what Boston2024 went through?” If you don’t think that’s a valid question then maybe policing the blog for typos is a good beat for you…
The public face of the bid rejection was Walsh and Baker announcing that negotiations had failed, and, implicitly, that they couldn’t make the numbers work (wearing their CFO hats) and hadn’t identified enough customer demand for the product after extensive market research (CEO hats). Even though I am sensitive to your business climate argument, I think they did a good job of deflecting this kind of criticism.
Please petr, calm down, we get what you’re saying here.
I was all set to give petr an uprate on his last post but I could not push the key because of his last paragraph.
I interact with a lot of businesses internationally and I tell them that I only want them to come to Boston if they know we will hold them accountable. Guys from Hanoi and Shenzen need that kind of reminder and guys from Doha don’t give a shit. Brits get scared.
Contrary to petr, I want EVERY private firm that comes to Boston to ask if they could meet the pretty low standards of the USOC and the IOC. If they can’t we can give them a rapid exit line at every government office they visit.
… my nipples are a tingle in the anticipation of the day I earn an uprate from you. I didn’t think it was possible to feel this alive and hopeful!
This not, actually, contrary to what I said because you’re making shit up. It’s not Boston2024 as the standard everybody else has to meet. it’s everybody else wondering why they should bother with a city that treats it’s very own community boosters so shabbily. Bill Russell is famous for saying he never played for Boston, he played for the Celtics and for Red Auerbach. He disdained Boston because of the racist talk they spewed at him as he played. As I described above, that rep was strong enough and long-lasting enough to cause Kevin Garnett to hesitate when the opportunity to play in Boston presented itself. Garnett didn’t question whether he could meet the standard set by Russell (no one could…). He questioned whether the effort was worth it in the face of irrationality and racism.
This is no different. private firms aren’t going to worry that they couldn’t best the standards of Boston2024. They’re gonna ask if they’ll get accused of being liars and tricksters as they get the rapid-exit line… They’ll question if it’s worth it
The problem with it is that it is just that, an opinion, and one not based on any actual knowledge or evidence that any such think is likely to happen. But it doesn’t really matter at this point. We will just have to see if this has any real repercussions.
I can see an argument that perhaps Walsh himself may have put himself in a position where someone might not trust him entirely, but I think that most people understand that this was at least partly a rookie Mayor mistake. I doubt that going forward Walsh will be making big deals without exploring the consequences and potential pitfalls more thoroughly than he did in this case.
I do agree that this outcome will very likely make it difficult for Boston to be considered for another Olympics for a long time. Hopefully, if the Olympics ever becomes more affordable for the host city Boston will not be excluded from consideration, but it is possible they might be.
“my nipples are a tingle in anticipation”?
I’m done with your comments.
… between the excitement of possibly winning the approval of TheBestDefense and the crushing weight of your disapproval I’m just a whipsaw of emotions today. Why, it’s almost like being in love!
allusion to John Fish and Steve Pagliuca, the babies who would build the new Rome on the North American continent.
… together, we’ll fight crime!
(somebody should tell the real Mark Bail that his account is being used to comment on an issue from which he has clearly moved on … =-)
Meanwhile:
That was supposed to embed the youtube video of the Hungarian Phrasebook
Always gets an uprate
Fish and Pagliuca. I got carried away with the image.
They explode with delight (see the python video below)
The insurance is not the issue. It’s the USOC/IOC’s refusal to accept the insurance as sufficient.
Not formal “insurance” — the contractual obligation to mitigate risk — but the more general “insurance” — assurance of protection by process or avowal.
The first as in “the company insures my house against fire” and the second as in I’m insured against flood by living 2,000 feet above sea level.
also an industrial center (aerospace, Air Bus), and a Socialist stronghold.
Residents are toulousains (fem. toulousaines).