Donna Patalano is a progressive criminal justice reformer who is mounting a primary challenge to Democratic incumbent Marian Ryan in the 2018 race for District Attorney in Massachusetts' Middlesex County. This event is designed to give … [Read more...]
The Strange Death of Burrell Ramsey-White
Given everything we've seen in recent months about police killing black men and then lying about it, I thought I would revisit an event in Boston that caught my eye a few years ago: the killing of Burrell Ramsey-White. At the time, … [Read more...]
Intertribal Problems Stuck on Stupid
We are going into our fifth month of demonstrations and actions all over the USA about police violence and sanctioned summary judgment. Hearing, reading, seeing the news, it seems as if brutality, terror, and torture are breaking out … [Read more...]
Boston Police Have a Racially Biased Policing Problem, and a Golden Opportunity to Reform
During the summer of 2011, then-19-year-old Ivan Richiez was robbed at gunpoint and pistol-whipped by two men in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. Bruised and bloodied, Ivan walked home passed the local Boston Police Department … [Read more...]
Fixes Following Ferguson?
I confess I'm a typical pinko/progressive/UU type. I look for the underlying causes of societal problems and the related solutions. Hence. the events and aftermath of Ferguson gets me. Today on Left Ahead, Ryan Adams and I kicked around the … [Read more...]
Thank you, Judge Plitt.
A small crack in the cold, gray cement wall of tyranny has developed. Within government that more and more shields itself from the light of freedom and truth, a Maryland judge has ruled for the defense in the case of a man prosecuted … [Read more...]
Deval and the Unions: Part 2
For whatever reason the Mass AFL-CIO seems to be dominated by the hysterical police and fire unions. This story in the Globe today: Some patrolmen object to paper's Obama depictions is illustrative. If one ever gets a chance to read … [Read more...]
Road Villains 1, 2, and 3
Cross-posting: I'm passionate about cycling and cross-posted this at Marry in Massachusetts and Harrumph!There's little point to the moot and pissant arguments about whether car/truck/bus operators or cyclists are more likely per … [Read more...]
Gatesgate, part two (now starring Globe reporter Yvonne Abraham)
The email itself, courtesy of Fox25 Boston: What no one has reported (yet) is precisely what got Barrett so exercised. A small amount of digging reveals this column by the Boston Globe's Yvonne … [Read more...]
Some thought-provoking analyses of the Gates arrest
Stanley Fish, a longtime friend and colleague of Gates's, in his New York Times blog summarizes the racist treatment Gates has suffered since his earliest days as a professor. It's important for those of us who have followed his career to … [Read more...]