I wonder what our former governor’s thoughts are about the current MBTA funding scheme. A little leadership from the executive branch would be refreshing.
I don’t think anyone is playing us like a violin to gain critical mass for a long-term solution. IMHO the institutional stakeholders are pulling in slightly different directions based on their various missions and T riders are going to take it on the chin again when the heat dissipates. You have to love tone deaf MASSPORT though. 1 billion dollars for superLogan renovation. You need a ferry system.
Anecdotally, a friend in Lynn said that over two hundred people showed up at a recent public meeting about the fare hike. She was agog because ” 200 people at any meeting in Lynn is unheard of.” Will all these people end up with a bad taste in their mouth because of another round of can kicking?
My solution: A Damon/Affleck film with 1.4 million extras portraying subway riders. Would DeLeo acknowledge T riders then?
Matt Damon’s line from December still rings true “people are literally- without any focus or leadership- just wandering out into the streets to yell right now because they are so pissed off … Imagine if they had a leader.”
BTW Speaking of institutional leaders, where the #**# is the Conservation Law Foundation? You all are pretty quiet considering. See: http://bluemassgroup.com/2012/02/proposed-mbta-service-cutsfare-increase-passing-the-buck-for-mitigation/
Paddy McTammany can’t help wondering whether anybody at the Massachusetts Bay Torture Authority has yet thought of asking herself, “¿What would ‘Mittens’ Romney do?” [1]
She’d *have* to ask herself, naturally, not His Excellency directly. It is well known that for many years now H. E. has been deeply engrossed in some mysterious long-term project of his own in the Secret Sector, and is therefore unlikely to be available to casual inquirers with trivial and public purposes.
Moreover, to respond to such an impertinence in any detail _gratis_ would be unworthy of that Consultant Culture of which Mittens has been so splendid an ornament. [2] Like givin’ a quarter to a bum on the Common–only worse, really–to prepare a free Five Year Plan for Secretary Davey and Acting _Quälmeister_ Davis [3] would only (further) pauperize them. Indeed, if persisted in, that sort of misguided charity could ultimately reduce our poor MA as a whole to … … to . . . a condition of … of ¡Murrayan Dependency!
Though not in the runnin’ personally, Mittens is undoubtedly the whight *sort* of freelord to have recourse to in fiscal extremity, far more suitable than the likes of Citizen Michael. Though both ex-Excellencies are Juris Doctor in the eyes of the Greatest University in the County, yet only Mittens is M.B.A. ’75 as well, which attainment is a couple of orders of magnitude more to the present Powerpoin™. Obviously.
In addition to that generic superiority, W. M. Romney possesses a second, which one detects as soon as one distinctly notices that the problem now before the Torture Authority, by her own account, is half one of which bus and rail and ferry lines can be baincapped
to optimal advantage. With all due respect to The Man in the Tank, ¿Would it not be an extremely improbable accident, if he also should prove to have a flair, or knack, or a whatever-it-takes, for baincappin’?
So, then: what the Torturers ought to do, in Paddy’s opinion, is humbly solicit an audience with Freelord Romneycare and, should their petition be granted, beg–not for a complete Five Year Plan for Mass. Torture from the august keyboard, or for anything the least bit like it–but only for the name of some former underlin’ whom His Excellency has found to be a competent baincapper. That transaction should not take more than perhaps sixty seconds of H. E.’s invaluable time.
Even better, the dread spectre of Ch. A. Murray would not be invited to haunt the banquet. Paddy’s plan would be like that Common hoboe accosting his freelordship to seek advice about where to apply for a salaried position: possibly Mittens would be in too important a self-hurry to comply with the request, but his freelordship would have no legitimate grounds to complain that he was gettin’ mooched from.
Happy days.
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[1] Poor Paddy actually thought that might be what was going on here, because the cross-reference under “Recent Comments” mentioned “this guy” and “former Governor” but without a picture or the guy’s johnhancock.
(( The other notes contain even more first-person-singular anecdotal evidence and general self-indulgence than that one, so I think it will be wiser to squirrel them away inobtrusively over _chez moi_.
(( On the other hand, there *are* some additional pictures, at least one of which Torture Authority students may find helpful. Let him click who dares. ))