Rick Burnes' Blog

No Enemy

David Remnick in The New Yorker: “Putin is no enemy of free speech,” Ksenia Ponomareva, who worked on his first Presidential campaign, told the St. Petersburg Times. “He simply finds absurd the idea that somebody has the right to criticize him publicly.”

Analogy to Verizon’s Decision

NYT on Verizon's decision not to make their mobile network available for a text-messaging program run by Naral Pro-Choice America: Timothy Wu, a law professor at Columbia, said it was possible to find analogies to Verizon’s decision abroad. “Another entity that controls mass text messages is the Chinese government,” Professor Wu said.

The Problem With Lying

Umair Haque on the Success of Times Select: The real problem with lying is that it simply never provides the incentives for people to embrace failure - and keep failing.

As Big as You Can Without Breaking the Skin

Ryan Lizza quoting Bill Clinton in The New Yorker: “When you grow a big pumpkin or you’re in a watermelon contest, if you give it too much water and the skin breaks, you’re eliminated. And if you give it too little somebody else beats you, because they got a bigger melon or a bigger pumpkin. So it’s like, at the end, and in very tense circumstances, there are these constant judgment calls. You know, it’s kind of like being President—you want to make it as big as you can without breaking the skin.” With that, Bill Clinton may have aptly described his role in his wife’s campaign.

BMG, Too, Endorses Flaherty

The editors of Blue Mass Group posted an excellent piece today supporting Tim Flaherty in next week's special state senate election -- more context and more helpful than the Globe editorial I wrote about yesterday.

The Globe on Flaherty: Unsigned, Unhelpful

This is why I've stopped reading unsigned editorials.

The upcoming special State Senate election in Middlesex, Essex and Suffolk counties is an interesting, close race. Voters have a tough decision, mainly between an effective, experienced candidate with several DUIs (Anthony Galluccio) and a well-spoken, DUI-free prosecutor who seems thin on issues other than crime (Tim Flaherty).

The Globe parachutes into the race this morning with a few paragraphs that read like a coloring book -- they pick a template and fill in some color.

They endorse Flaherty because he has "the right mix of energy, agility, and experience to serve the district." They suggest his background will be useful in sections of the district with serious drug problems and in areas "where major [real estate] developments are now in play."

Maybe, but in both of the debates that I went to, Galluccio was the only one able to speak deeply and intelligently about real estate development and community approaches to fighting crime. Flaherty mostly harped on his experience as a prosecutor and assorted cliches that everybody voting next Tuesday agrees on.

I get the impression that the Globe editorial was written by somebody who hasn't followed the race. They read a few articles, had a few of the candidates stop by the office, then picked one because an editorial had to be written.

I could easily be wrong. It's possible the piece was written by somebody who knows the race intimately -- somebody who has a far better sense of the candidates than I do and sees a side of Flaherty that I haven't.

But since the piece is unsigned, and lacks any context or voice, there's no way to tell. So I'll probably end up voting for Galluccio.

Juxtaposed by Jon Stewart ...

Ya know, Jon Stewart is brilliant.

One week he runs this wonderful piece on the absurdity of Cape Wind. The next week he has his main man Rob Riggle in Iraq with the troops working keep our fossil fuels flowing.

Laughter is the only way to deal with all this insanity.