Author Archives: dunster

Menino’s Email Problem Just Got A Lot Bigger

I’ve been lazily watching the Boston Globe’s pursuit of Menino aide Michael J. Kineavy’s emails.  It was obvious from the start that the guy was violating state law – he was deleting emails that the law required be retained.  But it looked like more smoke than fire.  Yeah, he should be keeping the emails, I thought, but there’s a long distance between deleting some emails and a cover-up.  The easiest explanation was that he was anal-retentive, not that he was a felon.  I’m a firm believer that one should  “never blame on malice what can be explained by incompetence.”  Even while the Globe was mentioning Kineavy’s relationship with accused felons Dianne Wilkerson and Chuck Turner, I thought they were just fishing for a good story line.

Today, the Globe got a pile of emails from the mayor’s office.  Kineavy had deleted emails, but the people he corresponded with hadn’t, and thus the emails came to light.  The Globe published a sample, and there’s a game-changer in that sample.  Kineavy sends an email saying “reminder. . .these are foiable.”  Foiable?  What’s foiable?  Foible?  Friable?  No – it’s FOIable.  As in “Freedom of Information Act”-able.  Suddenly Kineavy isn’t a naive, idiosyncratic geek.  Now, he’s someone with knowledge of the Freedom of Information Act who takes actions every day that violate state law about record retention.  This is no longer a “honest mistake” that Menino can just shrug off – it’s a deliberate attempt to hide the internal workings of government from the public.  This is no longer just smoke.  There’s fire.

There are three interesting question areas that I can think of:

  1. The FBI already issued subpoenas, and they presumably didn’t get Kineavy’s email.  Now that the Globe is digging harder, will the FBI?  Is there a link between Kineavy, Wilkerson, and Turner?  When will we see those emails?
  2. Will this issue mature quickly enough to affect Menino’s re-election chances?  That seems unlikely, given Boston’s history of re-electing candidates with ethical problems.  But one can hope.
  3. Will Attorney General Coakley, a Menino supporter, regret her decision to ignore the issue? I’ve wondered for a while how someone can run as a law enforcement candidate in Massachusetts with such a thin record on rooting out corruption. In this case the violation was brought to her door, and she turned it away.  Will that affect her chances to replace Kennedy?

Dog Looking For A Home

IMG_1879For the last four months I’ve been fostering a very nice dog named Bailey.  Bailey’s owner died suddenly this spring; a work colleague was looking for a home for Bailey and I volunteered on a temporary basis.  If she ends up at a home close to Arlington, she comes with free dog sitting services.  I like her and will enjoy having her visit while you go away for the weekend or on vacation or even just overnight.  I just can’t commit to taking care of her full time.

Bailey is 10 years old.  She’s mostly German Shepherd, but there’s something else there too.  She’s very friendly with people and children.  She’s not great with other dogs; she thinks that she’s the alpha dog.  She does fine with other submissive dogs.  She’s not good with cats, either – she thinks they are fun to chase.

As an older dog she’s content to sleep for much of the day.  I let her out in the morning and feed her.  A dog walker takes her for a stroll midday.  I come home in the evening and either walk her or let her out, and feed her again.  On weekends she goes on daytrips with me, or just stays at home while I’m getting work done.

She has excellent house training and has never once had an accident in my house. She can easily go 8 hours without needing to go outside.  She has no health problems and is an active companion.  She travels well in cars.

If you’re interested in meeting Bailey, please let me know.  If you’re interested in taking her for a few days to see if you get along, that is possible.  And, as I said before, if you take her full-time I’m very happy to be a regular dog sitter.

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Choosing Massachusett’s Next Senator

Ted Kennedy is dead, and that is all I have to say on the topic of Ted Kennedy.  But the questions of who will succeed him and how that person will be selected – now those are things I can write about.

The last time the Republicans won a Senate seat in Massachusetts was 1972: Edward Brooke, the first popularly elected black Senator.  When Paul Tsongas unseated him in 1978, the Democrats spent the next 25+ years with two “safe” seats from Massachusetts.  In the summer of 2004, they were horrified to realize that their success might mean failure: Sen. John Kerry was running away with the presidential race, and Mitt Romney, Republican, was governor.  When Kerry won the presidency, Romney would get to appoint an interim replacement.  Failure.

In 2004, as today, the Democrats held more than 80% of the seats in the legislature.  They were losing the game, but they had the power to re-write the rules, so they did.  They proposed a law that would strip Romney of his power to appoint a Senator.  The Republicans offered an amendment to permit an interim appointment.  The amendment was shot down, the bill was approved, Romney vetoed, the veto was overridden, and on July 30, 2004, the law was passed.  Read some of the quotes from the debate, and keep the window open for re-reading in a couple paragraphs.  They’re funny, in a sad kind of way.

Fast forward to today.  The national Democrats desperately want another (D) in Washington, but the state legislature is hogtied by its past actions.  They could change the law again and let Gov. Patrick appoint an interim Senator, but that would expose them as partisan hacks.  Or, they could do nothing and watch health care reform founder – the signature priority of their party’s new President.  It’s really a no-win situation for them; no matter what they look like unprincipled partisan whores.  I think this conclusion is an accurate one. It’s nice to see it in black and white without much room for spinning, dodging, or blaming.

There are a couple winners here:

  • Congratulations to the unnamed adviser to Gov. Patrick who convinced him to make a full-throated endorsement of interim appointments.  Patrick is one of the few statehouse figures that can distance himself from the 2004 power grab.  Everyone knows he wasn’t governor in 2004.  Either he gets to appoint the 60th vote in the health care cloture vote, or he gets to tell the legislature “I told you so.”  And with almost no political downside!
  • Potentially, congratulations to the Republicans.  They made the right arguments in 2004.  It’s impossible to prove whether that was principle or luck, but they get to bask in it now.  If they’re smart, they’ll stick to the same tune, but quietly at first.  If the leaders on Beacon Hill bring the issue to a vote, they should support the vote, and then congratulate the Dems on correcting their error in 2004.  If the Dems don’t bring it to a vote, they get to make hay for each day the seat goes empty.  Every vote, health care and all, they issue a press release bemoaning the short-sightedness of the leadership.  Of course, they can still screw this up -  if they oppose the vote, they also look like partisan whores.  Think red clothing instead of blue.

I’m not a fan of appointments.  Senators should be elected, not appointed.  The counter-argument is that for 100+ days, the state will only have one Senator, that we’re under-represented.  I just don’t think that matters in a 3-4 month timeframe.  I just don’t feel shortchanged.

So here’s what I’d do:  Make the time frame shorter, and hold the election in Oct/Nov rather than Dec/Jan.  Change the electoral calendar from 145-160 days to something like 105-120 days.  Hold the elections in November, at the same time as many cities, and save them some money.  Seat the new guy (or gal) in time for the New Year.  This blunts the “under-represented” argument.  And for the people who want a longer campaign – do you think anyone’s going to vote during the holiday season?  Not too likely.

It’s a change based on calendar, not party.

Four Videos

Brilliant, blog-worthy thoughts continue to elude me.  But I still come across some pretty good links, so I might as well share them.  Today is all video.

First off, the melting bunny.  Weighing in at 2:36, it’s easily worth it.  My mother’s emailed comment is quite telling: “Although the net result was the same as my method, I found the actual dropping of the eyeballs quite distressing.”  I leave her personal bunny story to your collective, fervid imagination.

Second off, same source, “Revenge,” a quick 2:38.  I think it’s poorly titled.  To me, that’s a movie about tension and anticipation – I stared, unblinking and terrified that I’d miss the moment of climax.

Third link is a huge change of pace, so you might want to read your email for a minute to cleanse your visual palate.  Seasame Street sends us on a massive drug trip. I remember thinking this was pretty cool as a kid.  Now, I recognize this for what it really was: a 2:43-long advertisement for drug use.

The last link is for all three of my readers who share my love of all things Annie Lennox.  Evidently she handed the keys of her musical castle to DJEarworm, and the result is pretty impressive.  4:34 of Annie Lennox musical genius.

A Fantastic Wedding

First, a story: when my brother was married, he avoided the wedding planning like the plague.  I was totally with him on this – I can’t imagine fretting about the details. He did offer one suggestion, the entrance music for the newly married couple at the reception.  His wife-to-be, whom I love dearly, was happy to agree to the music. It sounded nice.  What she didn’t realize was that it was the Imperial March.  Absolutely hysterical in retrospect.

How is that related to this video?  Only tangentially.  I just liked the video, and my brother’s story. Five minute video, sound required, and hopefully you’ll smile like I did.

Remembering Grandma

My father’s father was the first of my grandparents to die.  I remember snippets and images of him, but nothing of his personality.  He died when I was young.  I remember his funeral, but didn’t really understand what it meant.

My father’s mother was next.  She died while I was in college, a few months after my father died.  I remember her quite clearly.  We were never particularly close, though.  We’d talk about things that were new in my life, she’d smile and say how nice that was.  I was sad when she died, but it was really just a small aftershock following my father.

My mother’s father died two years ago.  I still miss him.  He wasn’t a close friend, but we had real conversations about things that we both cared about.  I learned from him, and he learned from me.  I never understood his religious views, but they didn’t keep us from talking.  We shared attachments to Town Meeting, the Red Sox, and Massachusetts politics, and talked about them for hours over the years.

My mother’s mother died yesterday.  She’s been frail for a while and quite ill for the last two weeks, so it wasn’t a shock.  But it hurts like a bitch.  She’s my grandmother.  I’ve talked and joked and laughed and chatted with her for as long as I can remember.  And now she’s gone.  Some things that I remember:

I remember going on “Grandma-cations” when I was a kid, where my brothers and I would stay for a night or two with her in Dedham.

I remember, as a child, getting her very angry.  She said she was “very cross” with me, and I had no idea what that meant.

I remember her cajoling me into piano drills and conversations in French – all a waste of her time, I’m afraid.

I remember getting hand-written, 4-page letters from her while I was at college – and the first three pages were about the Red Sox.

I remember giving a presentation to the exec team at Abuzz in 1999 – and having to apologize because my 80+ year old grandmother was IM’ing me on AOL about whether or not Pedro Martinez was going to win the Cy Young.

I remember how she could press a button and make my mother and her siblings react like they’d been electrified.  But somehow grandchildren got a pass, and we never got that level of disapproval.

I remember when I was unemployed and rather than buy gifts for Christmas, I used my mother’s kitchen and made cookies as presents, and that made Grandma cry.

I remember the day of grandpa’s funeral, when she got all of her grandchildren together at a table and just talked – about us, about her, about her life, about grandpa.

Most of all I remember her stories.  I’ll never be able to reconstruct them.  Most of them died with her.  But I have snippets.

One last picture, from my Uncle John.  It’s not a picture of Grandma, but it’s a picture of what she was.  She was family, she was cake, she was Dedham, she was china, she was napkins, she was birthday, she was date keeper.  She was the last of her generation. She was family.

I miss her already.

United Breaks Guitars

This nicely written country tune is a lesson to companies everywhere: the customer you piss off next might be the one who obliterates millions of dollars of brand advertising.

New Chapter in the DiMasi Story

Today former Massachusetts House Speaker Sal DiMasi was indicted for “conspiracy, honest services mail fraud, aiding and abetting, and honest services wire fraud” related to the awarding of a multi-million dollar contract to Cognos software. For most of us, this isn’t a shock.  The Globe has been writing investigative stories about this for a year and the story lines all lead to the speaker.  Still, it’s a milestone in that it moves the issue from a story to a courtroom.  Whether the story ends in a jail cell is up to a jury at this point.

This is not water under the bridge. The people who put DiMasi in power are all still in power themselves, and they need to be called to account.  DiMasi was re-elected to his speakership just five months ago, and resigned three weeks after that.  Each of us needs to call up our representative and ask them why they voted to make DiMasi their leader.  Read my post from January, when I asked what our legislators are made of: We all knew he was ethically compromised, but they elected him anyway.  Why?

I’m particularly unhappy with my legislator, Jay Kaufman.  Kaufman didn’t just vote for DiMasi.  He nominated him, complete with glowing speech.  He even went on a publicity tour to shore up DiMasi’s reputation.  Check this quote, given after one of DiMasi’s claims of innocence:

“This should put an end to the questions about the speaker’s integrity and about his seriousness of purpose, ” said Representative Jay Kaufman, Democrat of Lexington and chairman of the Joint Committee on Public Service. “But cynics and skeptics abound in this business, and all of us in it know that.”

End of questions about his integrity, Jay?  Really?  A grand jury still has some questions.  So do I.  And they’re questions about you.