Free the T!

We are delighted to return from our trip to find that Shari Sachs over at Democracy for America -- Cambridge is onboard. He too is calling for a free MBTA.

We can all contact our legislators. Other bloggers should grab this and wave it. You can see our post advancing the concept here.

We need some numbers, which I haven't had time to run yet. If you can, beat me to it, and if you do, tell us where your posts are.

Key concepts here include:

• As a state and nation, we stupidly heavily subsidize highways over mass transit.
• This leads to sickness and death from pollution and accidents, dreadful commutes and ugliness on and around the highways, economically indefensible reliance on oil, mostly foreign, and neglect of low- or non-polluting mass transit and bicycling.
• We have no infrastructure that would permit real high-speed, inexpensive rail like in Europe and Asia.

I have no doubt that the cost per mile including all those factors far outweighs what true intracity and intercity mass transit would be. We have so much catching up to do, we need to start immediately.

There will be much moaning from the hide-bound hicks in the sticks and swells in the dells. They don't want to subsidize those damned city folk in Boston, Worcester, Lawrence... Make them see the benefits, and then remind them that the vast bulk of the commonwealth's funds come from the citizens and businesses of cities, funds that support very expensive roads and rails for the rest of Massachusetts. The cost per passenger mile is already carried by the cities. It's time to give back with sensible policy.

If we truly want to be in control of our nation's future, we need inexpensive, convenient and clean mass transit. Let we make that statement here.

The least you need to do is tell your state and district politicians to get with the program. Start with a free T.

Find your officials here.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Boston, MBTA, fare hike

Soltani Sip and Run

Everyone's favorite New Hampshire bigot, Tony Soltani, pleaded innocent to hit-and-run charges.

The Granite State's number one elected homophobe became infamous for his railroading of the state marriage commission. He denied reality there too. This time though, the minority opinion is likely to come from a judge.

From accounts, including the woman whose car he knocked off Interstate 393 around lunchtime on Valentine's Day, he'll need more than his bluster and bull to get out of this one.

State police charged him with negligent driving and conduct after an accident. They say he slammed into the side of the other car, knocking her onto the shoulder and forcing his own car into the median. He then took off without slowing or stopping.

His arraignment was May 8th in the Concord District Court. He claimed he was drinking a soda, which distracted him and that he was unaware that he was unaware of the big bang.

According to the coverage in the Concord Monitor, state employee Bridgette Dukette, whose car he hit, is incredulous. "When he hit me, it made him go out of control, and he went into the median. His story is that he didn't know that he hit someone. And I find it hard to believe. I mean, it was an impact. I felt it. I heard it."

She called cops from the scene, described the driver and car, and gave a partial plate number. When police IDed Tony and spoke with him, he said it was possible that he was involved in a minor accident -- because of the soda sipping. They found damage and paint that matched Bukette's car's.

Never one to let humanity interfere with his legal training, Soltani expects to evade responsibility here:

Soltani said he will rely on this logic in the courtroom: Since he has a clean driving record, carries insurance and drives an easily recognizable car, why would he have knowingly fled the scene of an accident?

...Soltani said he called Dukette and apologized after learning her identity. She was "very nice, very understanding," he said. But the situation would have been resolved more easily if she had been an Epsom constituent, not an Andover resident, he said. "That way she'd know me,"Soltani said. "I mean, this is not the kind of thing I do."

...According to the House Calendar, Soltani was late for a 1 p.m. judiciary committee hearing when he hit Dukette's car. He said he grabbed lunch to go - his usual: a Diet Coke and a foot-long Subway Club, no mayo - at the Epsom traffic circle before heading to Concord.

"Maybe I shouldn't have tried to drink my soft drink as I was driving," said Soltani, who switched to sports bottles after the accident. "They do not spill; they don't do anything. You can pop them open with your teeth, take a nice swig, and no problem. Lesson learned."

Excuse me, Rep. S., but the rest of us are supposed to take responsibility for our driving behavior. If we did what you did, we'd have to take our lumps, pay the fines and insurance costs, and likely have a license suspension. Living free in New Hampshire should not mean free from honor.

Oh, but who are we talking about here? It looks like it's up to a judge or jury to tell him that driving people off the road and leaving them there is not in his job description.

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Tags: massmarrier, New Hampshire, Soltani, hit and run

Charlie Fairies Visited

"Old timer, where'd all these big rocks come from?"

"The glacier brung 'em."

"Well, where's the glacier now?"

"Went back for more rocks."

The MBTA version seems to be the Automatic Fare Collection project. The Park Square swells at the Transportation Department have never rushed to support the Orange Line and this project is no exception. However, they sort of, kind of, finally coverted the Forest Hills terminus while I was away. This has been months in the making and built out with all the suddenness of a quilting group.

Now, you have the same privilege as the other colored subway lines. You must enter at some places with your Charlie Ticket or Card, and you absolutely cannot use either -- tokens only -- at other stations on the same line.

I left Saturday morning, taking the Orange Line from Forest Hills (token only) to State Street (I stayed underground, but it is also token only in a similar state to FH) to the Blue Line's Airport (Charlie only for entry). I knew I would be returning on an overnight from Nevada. So, I went to buy a Charlie Ticket to prevent a rush-hour backup on the return.

The well-intentioned T lackey at Airport was not confidence inspiring. Where I have seen the conversion, such as at South Station, the T knows it's Byzantine and has employees hovering around the vending equipment to prevent exasperation.

This character was not a great marking person. First of all, he urged me to buy only one ride's worth. Stop for a moment to imagine if all riders during the transition loaded a single ride on a Charlie Ticket, and repeated that everytime they were at a Charlie-enabled station. Right.

The machine was clearly not from a usability lab.

Likewise, the readers present feeding issues. For those with a lot of computer experience, the 5.25-inch floppies come to mind. They had eight ways they would fit in a drive slot, seven of which were wrong and would not work. You learned to feel or see the cutout tab to orient the floppy each time. Similarly the vast majority of Charlie Ticket users have ticket feeding issues, which suggests that it is not their shortcoming, rather the equipment's. There are four ways to feed a ticket, three of which are wrong.

Counter-intuitively, the back, white side of the ticket must go up. Then it must feed only orange arrow first (dark station, orange on white for guaranteed confusion). Clearly, the equipment should be able to read these cards in any of the four ways they accept the tickets. Anything else is madness and a paternal insistence on training each user in a single technique. Inane. Whoever specified this system must have a chauffer driven ride to work.

I put $10 of value on the Ticket, despite the opinion of the T guy. This too was not as easy as it should have been. The equipment does accept tokens to increment a Ticket's value. Short-term that's nice to help people get rid of their tokens, but why would you build this permanently into a system designed for Ticket and Card only use? It's more to manage and maintain.

It also takes cash and credit or debit cards.

Then the machine is not user-friendly or considerate. First, it is quite vertical; riders must adjust their height and angle to comply with the machine to see the options and use the functions. Duh. Then the feed for credit card or debit card is badly designed. Even worse than typical grocery stores' swiping systems that are ambiguous about which side of the card to put in the slot, this shows a tiny, fuzzy representation of the numbers on the face of the card. I hung around to watch one person after another fumble to see what to do. This is poor design. The graphic should have been larger and clearer and embedded wording should also appear next to it. This alone will cause many hundreds of lost rider hours and much frustration.

Returning on Thursday a little after dawn, I found the entry with my Ticket slower than using a token, but acceptable. Clearly here again, it will be the job of the riders as it was in D.C. to learn to add extra moments here and there to use T Daddy's system. This is a user-tolerant, not user-friendly system.

Transferring at State, I saw the same transitional setup as had been at FH. Tarps hide the pending equipment. Riders throw tokens or coins in a steel box -- the honor system.

At FH, the equipment was kind of working. I had not anticipated what a clot of humanity would fight for space at rush should, bidirectionally. The reader/gate systems are also the exits. Commuters want in and out simultaneously. It makes me wonder what happens when an exiting rider appears when the Ticket feeding commuter has fed the scanner and triggered the gate. Will this decrement the Ticket if the exiter goes through?

Anyway, this was a huge pinch point. At busy stations, there must be independent exits or there will be screaming, shoving and fisticuffs. Imagine Boston drivers on a single-lane, bidirectional street.

So, I return to a quasi-operational Charlie-ized FH. If I bike to work, I don't care. If I take the T, for at least a month, I need my new friend Chuck at FH and a token at Downtown Crossing. Lame, slow and not well planned.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Boston, MBTA, Charlie ticket, Forest Hills, Airport, usability

West on My Boot and in My Eyes

Five days in Nevada leaves me both there and here. Until the temporal vibrato stills, I can muse on street cycling in Las Vegas (and Québec City -- a post to come) and oddments.

Meanwhile, we return to find more color in Texas politics than Massachusetts ones. The legislature here is again locked in leadershipless inertia. But there's a fire outside San Antonio.

Eager to offend, yet oddly rational, Kinky Friedman is running for governor. He has been talking truth and tweaking twits for a long time, certainly from the 1970s, when he founded his band The Texas Jewboys, managing to piss off even his Jewish dad.

This campaign is not off topic, believe it or else. He's not only pro-hunting, but he's pro-choice and pro-same-sex marriage. His campaign FAQ puts it out there. In SSM terms, his position is:

Kinky supports gay marriage and equal rights for homosexuals. He believes that the constitution protects everyone. As he says, "I believe love is bigger than government. And besides, they have a right to be as miserable as the rest of us."

So, you got your humor, your philosophy and your politics in one lump.

Texas has some similar issues to Massachusetts', an MCAS teach-to-test style problem in education, for one. His site has a single-page PDF of the top ten issues and solutions. His campaign gathered over 160,000 signatures to put him on the ballot.

Knowing Southern politics, we predict that if he looks like he's winning or will be one of two in a runoff, there will be mysterious computer failures. When the count finalizes, Kinky will be back on the stage and not at a desk in Austin.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, same sex marriage, Texas, Kinky Friedman, governor

Mr. Rogers Backhandedly For SSM

No, not that Mr. Rogers. He's dead.

The Massachusetts House Majority Leader John Rogers has jumped the fence on the anti-same-sex-marriage amendment. Bay Windows announced this afternoon that he told them in an interview that he could no longer support this effort to stop SSM here.

The bad news for the Dark Side keeps piling one. Consider:

• The Supreme Judicial Court has heard the GLAD suit that the amendment petition and drive were unconstitutional.
• Senate President Don't-Call-Me-Bobby Travaglini has postponed this week's scheduled hearing at a Constitutional Convention on the amendment for two months.
• Two other anti-SSM leaders, Phil Travis and Emil Goguen, of the legislature are retiring.
• Several other anti-SSM legislators lost their last re-election drives.
• Massachusetts voters have seen that SSM works and hurts no one, so that the polls favor SSM more strongly all the time.

Rogers has never been shy about his one-man/one-woman feelings. He has joined in various anti-gay and anti-SSM speeches or legislation. However, he told BW that the current amendment has no safeguards or options for same-sex couples. So, he can't support it.

The people driving this amendment have been seeing legislative support plunge, gradually but steadily. Politicians may claim integrity, but they sure hate to be on the wrong side of voters' opinions.

The extra joke is that Travaglini is doing a wait-for-the-SJC ploy again. That's too funny. That's how we go to SSM here anyway. The Senate has ample warning that if the General Court didn't align our marriage laws with our anti-discrimination ones, the SJC would make it so.

Travaglini did the passive-aggressive thing to avoid having this be a legislative decision. He waited and sure enough, the SJC declared for SSM and ordered the General Court to make it so.

Now again, he's ordered his fellows to wait for the court.

Meanwhile, Rogers' pragmatism will surely be a cause for reflection in both houses.

Personal Note: I've been in geeky sessions for four days, all day. I returned to my hotel room to find Bay Windows' revelation. This calls for a drink.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, same sex marriage, House Majority Leader, John Rogers, amendment

The First Lowell, the Looeys Did Say

BlogLeft is driving a debate of the Massachusettts lieutenant governor candidates. Click the image to see the details.

Otherwise, we'll steal Lynne's intro:

BlogLeft, an unchained association of us Massachusetts liberal bloggers, is cosponsoring a Lt Governor’s forum with the Lowell Democratic City Committee and Greater Lowell Area Democrats on May 21, 2pm, at the Senior Center in Lowell (276 Broadway Street, Lowell, MA). You can see the LDCC page on the forum here, and get directions here.

Download the poster [PDF] and hang it up anywhere you can, and here are some postcards [PDF] to print and hand out.

This is a really good opportunity to come and meet the Lt. Governor candidates, and listen to their ideas. Soon, participating bloggers will be soliciting questions for the candidates from readers, so keep an eye out!

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, LeftinLowell, lieutenant governor, debate, Lowell

Battle of the Books Continues

The Mad Dad and his chums better hire a claque. So far, the reaction to the long-planned lawsuit to control the curriculum of the Lexington elementary schools is four plus an attorney against the world.

The local newspaper, the Lexington Minuteman apparently had a flood of embarrassed and empathetic letters from Lexingtonians wanting to distinguish themselves from the suers. We didn't see any from Article8 types supporting the foursome. Yet, there were:

• The four weren't trying to compromise; they were bullying.
• The real issue is honoring cultural diversity.
• Schools offer ideas and facts; parents should explain those they disagree with.
• Parents can't pick and choose all curricula.
• The lawsuit forces reasonable parents to explain its hateful basis.
• Teaching diversity is the schools' right and duty.
• Lexington has a long history of openness.
• ACLU exec sees lawsuit as frivolous.

If you aren't read out by all that, turn to Bay Windows for a series of interviews by Ethan Jacobs and Laura Kiritsy. They made an effort at balance, even with such outliers.

There's a wishy-washy attorney, who says the foursome needs to chill, but that the school system should bend a bit. The lawsuit attorney, Neil Tassel, doesn't convince us that there's any legal merit to the action. However, this is likely your best glimpse into the dustbin of the plaintiffs' thoughts.

The other three subjects look at the issue from their legal, parental and educational perspectives.

It may be that the suers know they are bound to lose. They may well just want spots on right-wing talk shows, which they are bound to get. On the other hand, if they want to wage a PR battle, they are way short.

This is one big fat artificial fight. What happens when you scream, "Let's go!" and no one follows?

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, same sex marriage, Lexington, public schools, parental notification

Forest Hills Asks Where's Charlie?

Waiting for Godot...waiting for Charlie...

We're waiting for Godot.
You're sure it was here?
What?
That we were to wait.

Well, we're sure it was Charlie. We're sure it was Forest Hills Station. We're sure it was May 4th, the day of our days on which we visited most recently.

Yet, Charlie has only put in a cameo, if that. He is here, but not here.

Then again, the sign promised that the Charlie ticket would be starting here on May 4th. It did not say that you could actually use or buy a Charlie ticket here. It did not say the system of hardware that had lain in crates and cartons for months would have any function that you could touch or operate. It read starting.

Oh, this is so existential.

I biked to and from work yesterday. On the way home, I clacked on my cleats into the middle of the FH lobby. It was R.U.R. again. In place of rebellious robots, there was a gutted, gaping rack of inoperative Charlie-ticket vending machines. Next was a small set of Charlie scanners, only four of which had the Plexiglas gates connected. Beyond and close to the bus bays was the large set of (inoperative) ticket dispensers. There, the Charlie elves and fairies were driving their Charlie screwdrivers and plying with their Charlie needle-noses. These machines at least showed an error screen, something about temporarily out of order. They had some juice, though, just to scant effect.

I clicked and slid my way to the shortest, ruddiest elf and asked (with nary a hint of humor) whether the equipment would be working today or tomorrow. He paused his elfin pause before saying, "Tuesday. You can use them on Tuesday."

Well, shall we go?
Yes, let's go.

They do not move.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Boston, MBTA, Charlie ticket, Forest Hills

Con Con Debate Wait

The Boston Herald quotes Senate President Robert don't-call-me-Bobby-anymore Travaglini as calling off the scheduled debate on the anti-same-sex marriage amendment -- at least until the Supreme Judicial Court rules. The SJC didn't give a sked for their action.

Yesterday, the court heard arguments on a suit alleging the amendment is unconstitutional. While waiting word, "lawmakers have put off the ConCon debate, saying it would be '“premature' before the court ruling, said Senate President Robert E. Travaglini's spokeswoman, Ann Dufresne."

Blog Note: Posts here should be very, very light for about a week after today. We'll be remote and overly scheduled. We had been distressed at not being around for the amendment debate. Whew. Thanks, no-longer-Bobby.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, same sex marriage, Supreme Judicial Court, Constitutional Convention, amendment, Travaglini

GLAD and Tommy Dancing Today

Let the judicial activism recommence!

Today the Supreme Judicial Court hears the arguments on the suit to drown the anti-same-sex-marriage amendment process in its own swamp. The AP article includes the background, as does our rant at the time. You can find the filings and pretty much what today's hearing will hear here.

The kernel is that our attorney general, Tom the Mortician Reilly let the petition advance the amendment process in what sure looks like a violation of the Massachusetts constitution. The aim of halting SSM here is clearly to try to overturn a judicial decision, which is specifically forbidden.

Tentative Tommy, according to the AP, "counters that the proposed amendment would not reverse the court's ruling or invalidate gay marriages that have already been performed under the ruling. Instead, the question, if approved by voters, would amend the state constitution so that no additional gay marriages could take place."

Right.

Representing goodness and light, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders has a different view. As their legal director, Gary Buseck puts it:

The Attorney General simply got it wrong. Our state constitution says there can be no citizen-initiated constitutional amendment that 'relates to the reversal of a judicial decision.' This proposed anti-gay, anti-marriage amendment is meant squarely and solely to reverse the decision in Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health that ended marriage discrimination in Massachusetts.

We cannot extrapolate where this suit will go. Clearly the SJC has a stake. It legalized SSM here with a decision and mandated that the legislature pass enabling laws (which it is finally about to do with Senate Bill 967 and House Bill 977). On the other hand, in March, it affirmed Reilly's decision to forbid out-of-staters from marrying here.

Supposedly, the SJC should be above consideration that the local hysterics blame the SJC for everything short of AIDS and dog poop on the sidewalks, but that remains to be seen. This looks like a clear enough and narrow enough point of law.

It should be a quick and easy decision. If the SJC sides with GLAD though, the temperature within 20 minutes of Beacon Street may rise considerably.

Midday Update: After the arguments, the SJC took the case under advisement. A ruling could come immediately or much later. TBD.

Post Post: The Globe covered the arguments and later ran a short that cited the commonwealth's rebuttal:

But Peter Sacks, deputy chief of the attorney general's government bureau and author of the 15-page decision last September that certified the ballot question, said that the provision dealt with attempts during the Progressive Era in the early 20th century to overturn court rulings by going directly to voters. That is different, he insisted, from petitions such as the gay-marriage ban to change the constitution itself. The drafters of the provision were "very clear that the people should be the masters of their own constitution,'' Sacks said.

Post Post Post: And Bay Windows' Ethan Jacobs was there. He reports that Chief Justice Margaret Marshall and Sacks sparred verbally. He contended as above that Article XLVIII, which forbids ballot initiatives overruling court decisions, is not at issue, but she differed strongly:

"That was not intended to protect minority rights. It was designed to protect an independent judiciary," said Sacks.

Yet Marshall disagreed and said it was one of the primary roles of the courts in the United States to protect minority rights.

"It seems to me is, what the Attorney General has substituted [for our system of government] is a system of parliamentary supremacy, that the rule of the majority always triumphs" said Marshall.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, same sex marriage, Supreme Judicial Court, GLAD, Tom Reilly

Boston Councilors Act Out

Governmental Viagra arrived in Boston yesterday. It shouldn't surprise any of us. The City Council hopped up and down on the pump. When it finished inflating, all too quickly, it passed 16.6% raises for themselves and Da Mare.

To get a full sense of what was happening, think back to those annoying, road-blocking strollers. You slow your car to let some clown jaywalkers cross safely. They proceed to proceed verrrrrry slowly, letting you stew by way of thanks.

It's not really that they are dissing you. Instead, they represent the powerless. When they get a chance to make themselves felt, they take it. Then it's back to the shadows.

It's the same with the Boston Council. Da Mare has more power than they, and the commonwealth owns the mayor (see home-rule analyses, like this PDF). They can't make major changes, they have to beg (excuse, petition) the State House for the right and money to do the big stuff and can't tax.

But yesterday, they strolled, bumping their salaries to $87,500 and Da Mare's to $175,000.

Assuming that Da Mare signs this, it will be amusing to see the reaction up on Beacon Hill. The absentee governor makes $135,000 (this one doesn't take it), and the do-nothing legislators gross $55,570, plus $15,000 for committee chairs.

This is a definite linger and block in front of the General Court truck.

The other amusing point is that the debate lasted six minutes, and the vote was voice, not roll-call. This means one thing, sunshine laws or not, this deal was cut privately long before the graying and balding dudes and dudettes entered the chamber.

We need to see and hear now who is most outraged.

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Tags: massmarrier, Boston, City Council, mayor, raises, Menino

MBTA Free for All: 2

The initial call for fare-free or greatly reduced-fare Boston-area transit brought solid responses. I still intend:

• To attend and testify at one or more hearings.
• To collect and present reader responses here.
• To gather supporting documents for the concepts.

Meanwhile, you can see some excellent comments on the initial post. Also the ever sharp — in all senses of the term — Chris at LeftCenterLeft immediately brought up a key consideration. How can the MBTA handle increased rush-hour ridership? I think of the Green Line trolleys stocked like a Chinese restaurant's carp tank.

We can do it, but the bureaucratic MBTA wouldn't lead the way.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Boston, MBTA, fare hike

Single-Parents on the Little Screen

Flashbacks and wholesome politics in one URL -- wowzers. MassResistance Watch has a brilliant piece, with period art, on TV shows based on one-parent households. Lots of good memories are there, along with the question of how the anti-gay forces have conveniently overlooked this shameful 60-year parade of perversion.

From early Westerns to sitcoms to dramas, them damned single parents have been indoctrinating us!

That is, they are teaching us that caring for those who need us and doing what we have to do for kids' welfare are the right things, and have made for good entertainment as well as solid morals.

We'll have to ask the haters. We're not seeing the downside here.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, MassResistance Watch, single parents, TV shows

Doctor's Hand to Your Mouth

Doctors look high and low and very wide for the answer to the mystery of the dying, suffering Americans. We suggest that that the solution is very, very close.

A study paper in the current Journal of the American Medical Association concludes very little. The major finding is that Americans pay twice as much a year for medical care than Brits do. Yet we get shorter, sicker lives.

You can read the abstract of Disease and Disadvantage in the United States and in England (you need a sub or to wait six months for the whole thing). Popular coverage is ubiquitous, including this overview in the International Herald Tribune.

The MDs and PhDs who researched and wrote the study look skyward, into their shirt pockets and at all manner of other studies. They would like to know how the richest nation on the planet can be so sick and bring up the very rear of the longevity train. (Check World Health Organization figures to see how low we are.)

We suggest that they need look no farther than the table where they confer.

They eliminated smoking, weight, alcohol and all the usual bugbears. It must be one really rough day for a medical professional when he can't blame something on obesity, eh?

What they have not mentioned is medical care. We get a lot more and die sooner, sicker. Hmm, what can we learn from this?

One solution is to stay away from doctors. Yet, we are so paranoid that if we do, something terrible will happen very soon. After all, our doctors said so.

It's simple, but not that simple. What the report has not considered are some of the most obvious differences:

• We die the soonest and are the sickest of First World countries.
• We spend far more per capital on health care than our peer nations.
• But, aha, much of that expenditure is prescription drug related.
• It is quick, easy and profitable for a doctor to treat symptoms with drugs rather than diagnose and treat underlying conditions, which may lead to sickness and death.

Let's put it out there. American doctors are drug pushers. This makes perfect sense. They are under considerable pressure to maintain their own high incomes and the profits of their hospitals and practices. They do this by seeing more patients. They see more patients by spending less time with each. They spend less time with each by using drugs instead of diagnosis, treating a symptom and hoping that this drug or the next will fix something. This also has a good chance of keeping the patients returning for more drugs and for fine-tuning of the levels.

Surprise. Surprise. Surprise.

Imagine instead if a doctor spent an hour rather than seven minutes dealing with your problem. She would ask about what you eat, your bowel movements, and other symptoms, even those you don't think are related.

In this country, they are wont to use the inane BMI chart instead of evaluating your body and health, which would take time. They don't have the time to do their job. They want churn and turn.

From a capitalist/physician standpoint, real diagnosis and treatment are terribly inefficient. Yet it is what they are supposed to be doing. They are allegedly about keeping people healthy and curing disease. Those almost never come from prescribing the most likely drug for a symptom and hopping to the next billable task.

We can cut 18 different ways to Sunday, but we see clear differences in British, Canadian and Israeli treatment.

When my parents-in-law used to visit, each of them would set up pill, tablet and capsule containers across a window sill. Each needed a whole sill.

My wife was appalled to see the array and asked her mother if they were all necessary. My mother-in-law said she asked her doctor the same question. His response was, "What drug?" and wanted her to pick one (rather than dealing with the larger issue). She pointed to one and asked, "What would happen if I stopped taking that?" He said, "You'd die."

That's not an unusual attitude, even if other doctors are not so paternalistic.

American doctors are in a rut, a drug rut. We contend that it is killing us, fast or slowly.

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Tags: massmarrier, longevity, health, doctors, JAMA

Showtime for Charlie

The breathtaking heroics of the MBTA have a scheduled performance tomorrow, May 4th AD 2006. I read it in the station on a T poster So it must be true.

Maybe this will stop my sniping and complaining. Months in the making, amid the litter of cardboard wrappings of machinery, the conversion of the Forest Hills station is to occur tomorrow. Rather, to put it in inert transit terms, Charlie Ticket Starts Here May 4th.

So, perhaps a bureaucrat can explain how one "starts" an either/or operation. You use tokens or Charlie tickets and passes. There is no provision for co-existing token-operated turnstiles with the new dispenser/scanner/gate systems. In fact, at FH, the turnstiles are gone and behind curtains are maybe 9 mounted scanners -- no gates. Also, the ticket dispensers are still in cardboard against the walls.

A jolly T staffer watching as I tossed my token in the fare cuspidor was sanguine, and at least orally, loyal. "Yeah, they said tomorrow, or maybe even tonight," she told me.

Well, there you have it, almost first hand. From the Transportation Building in Park Square through a few levels of management to the T worker to me to your eyes. It's almost primary source, eh?

Rain or not tomorrow, I'm catching the Orange Line at FH. The Charlie-system fairies will perform. I can't wait and won't miss it.

Oh, the fact that the equipment has been on site uninstalled for months doesn't dampen my expectations. Neither does the fact that I see the system in use at South Station and know how much they have to add to bring FH anywhere close.

This is like an opening night at the Wang.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Boston, MBTA, Charlie ticket, Forest Hills

Ottawa Hovering by Harper

It's the supporters of same-sex marriage who are telling PM Stephen Harper to get it on and get it over. He campaigned with a promise for a quick free vote by Parliament on whether to reopen the marriage debate. He has since hemmed, hawed and hovered.

Canadians for Equal Marriage says that the deferral "clearly panders to the religious right." They add that this give the anti-gay, anti-SSM forces time to plot, regroup and cut deals. Laurie Arron, the organization's national coordinator told The Globe and Mail that "We think a delay does real harm to us, and, to the extent that this is a divisive and protracted debate, I think all Canadians are worse off."

From here, it seems a really savvy politician would have called the vote immediately. When he lost it, he could say he did what he promised, that he tried.

The Dark Side on this issue is not Harper per se. Rather, it is the Defend Marriage Coalition of 12 anti-SSM groups. It has been using Harper's breather to lobby churches and politicians alike.

One of their leaders reinforces the pro-SSM side's view. Gwendolyn Landolt, rational VP of (I'm not making this up) REAL Women Canada, says, "So we are glad to have this opportunity to work on our different strategies to get all of the information out and to get things in place for the debate."

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Tags: massmarrier, Canada, same sex marriage, Harper, free vote

Risible Lexington Suit

The Mad Dad and his backup group the Lexington Looneys have put themselves back on thin ice, very thin ice. Their federal suit demanding control over the public schools' curriculum is a hoot.

His attorneys, who brag about defending child abusers, pornographers and drug dealers on their Website, don't talk about their pro bono efforts. Perhaps they specialize here in anti-gay cases or perhaps only Parker-related windmill tilts.

They had better be good about judge shopping. Their filing is pretty lame. There's a lot of boilerplate in it.

One cute angle is the claim that the school officials "...interfered with and deprived the plaintiffs of their exercise and enjoyment of their civil rights secured under the constitution and laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts..." The giggle here is that the school folk didn't threaten with anything and the Mad Dad and his minions have tried to threaten and coerce the teachers, principal and superintendent repeatedly. This lawsuit is the latest attack doing just that.

What hypocrites!

The meat of the matter is more Vienna sausage than steak. They fundamentally come three ways at the schools' not adhering to the Looneys' particular religion. They try to turn that backward by saying, in effect, if you present any facts or reality that does not conform to what we teach at home, you have violated commonwealth and federal law. It is to laugh a judicial laugh.

Basically, by making a picture book available that shows simply that there are same-sex couples with kids the schools "invaded and impaired the plaintiff's clearly established rights to the free exercise of religion." This claim comes in a state which permits same-sex marriage and adoption, and in a town and school system with numerous same-sex-headed families.

The suit also tries -- very weakly -- to twist the opt-out human sexuality law. It claims that "The Town of Lexington has begun a program intended primarily to indoctrinate very young elementary school children in the notion that homosexuality and homosexual relationships and marriage are right and moral." That takes such forms at an early-reader book that has a two princes falling in love, a sweet and decidedly non-sexual fairy tale, and another in an optional diversity packet that has mundane images of gay couples doing household chores with their kids.

The Looneys' suit claims that these fall in the "human sexual education or human sexuality issues" definition of the commonwealth law. You can be damned sure that's a throwaway claim.

The suit finally falls on the filthy bed of conspiracy -- generally nearly impossible to prove. It claims that "the defendants conspired to deprive the plaintiffs of their due process rights and their rights to equal protection of the law or of the equal privileges and immunities under the law, and they acted in furtherance of the conspiracy which resulted in the injury to the plaintiffs as described above..."

(Pause to chuckle.)

So, we have a conspiracy claim that is sure to lose, an effort to rewrite the opt-out law that is sure to lose, and an attempt to turn the First Amendment 180 degrees saying that if you teach anything other than their particular religious beliefs you are preventing them from practicing that religion. Double huh?

This is a worthless suit. If it were clothing, it would dissolve in the first spring shower.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, same sex marriage, Lexington, public schools, parental notification

MBTA Free for All

The MBTA has totally the wrong goal in mind. The solution to the transit crisis must start in Boston. It is to make subways and buses free.

Reasoning that high gas prices and more costly subway fares elsewhere will make T fare hikes okay is lunacy.

I can hear the suburban legislators sputtering, but this is a long overdue idea, one that fits the emergencies of high gas prices, jammed city streets, and asthma-inducing pollution. Last week's insane and inane announcement by MBTA management that it will try to jack its fares way up shows they need a dope slap.

Perfect Mass Transit

Let's consider the ideal. What would make a perfect transit system?

• Next to departure and destination points.
• 24-hour operation.
• Frequent to the point of being continuous.
• Safe.
• Clean.
• Silent.
• Easy entry and exit.
• Free.

A lot of that we are far from, and some, like 24-hour operation, do not fit our culture.

Yet, despite the expsense and inconvenience of auto travel, we have declining ridership in a city filled with motor vehicles. They fill the air with toxins and noise. They clog the roads and cost billions in highway construction and repair.

We are looking forward to $3, $4 and maybe $5 or higher per gallon fuel.

Boston is an ideal laboratory for building an ideal mass-transit system, which we have not done. The central city is under 600,000 people, yet very compact. Likewise, the metropolitan area of around 3 million is near MBTA lines.

Yet, we foster car commuting, are very bicycle hostile, and seem to do what we can to discourage transit usage. The latest outrage is socking commuters when the gas price is going up.

Get With the Program

Instead, we should drop MBTA fares or make buses and subways free. By keeping fares equal to other cities and bringing the cost of mass transit to the level of car commuting, we ensure that congestion and pollution instead of capturing riders. The MBTA pigpiles woes on potential riders instead of luring them to use mass transit and benefit us all.

At the projected rates, a subway roundtrip will be $3.40 per person, assuming that you only go one place. If you look at a few commuters or a family headed anywhere on the line, suddenly they can justify spend gas and filling up a parking meter. Dumb.

Not even counting the Big Dig, the commonwealth and Feds heavily subsidize the suburban and exurban car-driving communities. We build and maintain massive highways and services for a very few people. Count it per passenger mile and it is much more than what a free T would cost.

Pennsylvania brags about having the nation's first turnpike and we brag about the first subway. Sorry, but both look and ride like it. They range from only okay to dangerous to unattractive to the public.

The solution is to make the T free or a low cost, like a quarter or 50-cents, per ride. Add more trains and buses, pay for drivers instead of fare systems and collectors.

I see Boston area roads used by delivery trucks and passenger buses...and bicycles.

If the legislature gets with the program and calculates the costs, we can do this.

This rant will continue with figures and vetting.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Boston, MBTA, fare hike

Adoption Hand-Off by Catholic Charities

Good for the kids. The board of Catholic Charities managed to rise above the cruel and destructive politics of our Cardinal and the Pope.

Under orders from the Church hierarchy, they had to stop all adoptions rather than risk placing one or two needy kids a year with assiduously screened same-sex couples. They found an agency that will pick up the load. God bless everyone involved, exception the sniveling politicians in cassocks.

Child & Family Services Inc. in New Bedford will get the the Charities' adoption caseload at the end of June. That is not a terrific strain. Numerous agencies in the commonwealth act on adoptions. While Charities is one of the top five, it does not place thousands or hundreds a year; in 2005, it placed 41 children.

Charities already works with Child & Family services. So the transfer was easy.

After two decades of adoption services, Charities had to quit under order of Archbishop Sean O'Malley. It reports that in total it had placed 720 children, 13 of those with gay couples. That is 1.8% of its adoptions, almost all of those very hard-to-place kids.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, adoption, Catholic Charities, Child & Family Services, Sean O'Malley

Healey Straddles the Dead Horse

Our Afghan hound clone of a Republican Party gubernatorial nominee had no surprises at her convention. She intends to flog a horse so dead that its bones crumble under Kerry Healey's cudgel.

In Lowell, to faint huzzahs, she echoed our occasional governor, Willard Mitt Romney, with, "To every voter who wants to keep two-party democracy alive in this state and hold your government accountable, I ask you to stand with us in this election."

Willard kicked that poor equine corpse up and down Beacon Street to victory. Like Healey will do, he predicted that something just terrible would happen if there was also a Democratic governor. Clearly having an indecisive, visionless, do-nothing Republican would be vastly superior.

Well, has it been?

There's probably no reasonable way for Democrats to show what an incredible deceit Healey's main point is. They would first have to admit publicly that there are a frightening number of DINOs in office here. A few urban legislators, and many suburban and exurban ones, speak and vote as Republicans -- on aid to the poor, on crime and punishment, on taxes, or mass transit, on abortion and on gay rights.

To my Southern relatives, it is plain from that distance that we live in Pinko-Land, home to communists and others Godless liberals. That's all too plainly not reality on the streets or under the golden dome.

We look forward to blogger takes on Healey, particularly Kerry Healey -- Out of Touch. Meanwhile, we can imagine and hope for a Massachusetts that she pretends looms. If only we had enough Democrats with conviction, passion and plans to fill 200 General Court seats, plus two chairs upstairs.

Unfortunately, we never have and don't now.

Let her beat hollow noises on the skeleton of that dead horse, a kind of one-party scare-horse. The rest of us have work to do on a commonwealth that needs a lot of repair from the damage of Republicans and DINOs.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Healey, governor, campaign, Republican