Free Republic

So there I was, at the first 6th Congressional District debate, held by Commonwealth Magazine at North Shore Community College. Participants were, in alphabetic order, Fishman vs. Tierney vs. Tisei. This completes the only objectivity in this column. As a libertarian, I agreed with everything the Libertarian candidate Daniel Fishman eloquently said — especially his mini-poem about my primary concern this election: “Debt is the threat.” Hope this mantra lodges itself in every voter’s mind. Now moving on to the real race, which is between Richard Tisei, a nice young man (roughly my son’s age) whom I’ve known for almost...

Something has changed within me, something is not the same/I'm through with playing by the rules, of someone else's game/Too late for second-guessing, too late to go back to sleep/It's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes and LEAP--"Defying Gravity" from the musical "Wicked" To begin my Halloween celebration this year, I took a break from Revolution 2010 and treated myself with a Danversbank Destinations trip to see "Wicked" at the Boston Opera House. I had a wonderful time, but of course I didn't take a break from Revolution 2010. Even as I identified with the "wicked" witch Elphaba,...

Say what historians will about this shameful aspect of our history, at least Massachusetts didn't honor John Hathorne after he participated in the mass hysteria that sent 19 alleged witches to the gallows here in 1692. Years later, Hathorne, a judge who acted more as prosecutor according to the transcripts of the witchcraft trials, came to be seen for what he was — a disgrace to the concept of justice and a sad excuse for a human being. At least that's how he's portrayed in his great-grandson Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel "The House of the Seven Gables." We less superstitious...

(1989) Bang! The gavel sounds and three of Massachusetts' fastest political mouths are off and running. It's the self-styled "governors of the commonwealth" -- starring Barbara Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation; Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr and talk-radio host Jerry Williams -- live on WRKO every Tuesday for two hours of hacks, hokum and hyperbole. In one recent episode, WRKO's $200,000-plus-a-year talkmaster and the Herald's six-figure multimedia man were decrying the temerity of the state Division of Capital Planning and Operations for wanting to pay a civil engineer between $36,072 and $47,000. The point, Williams said later,...

In the spirit of the season, let me say to David Brudnoy: God rest ye, Merry Gentleman. David's agnosticism didn't keep him from celebrating Christmas with his Christian friends, just as the process of dying didn't keep him from celebrating life. If, as Ray Bradbury wrote, enthusiasm for living gets one into heaven, David is there now. I called WBZ to say good-bye, having been told he was listening from his hospital bed. It was harder than I expected so I just blurted out something about us all meeting again, as if I know for sure. It does seem, though,...