By Jay Fitzgerald – A blog about Boston, Hub of the Universe, and everything else.
Down two starters – Kristaps and Jaylen – and the defending champs still find a way to win. … In particular, it’s remarkable how little people are talking about Kristaps’s absence. … This team is just fun to watch. They have so much talent and depth.
Update – 11-5-24 – Ho-hum. Another day, another Celts win, this time by 30 points, and without Jaylen and Kristaps again.
And good riddance. … The excesses of progressives’ identity politics and political correctness are the main reasons why Democrats aren’t a majority party today. …
BTW: Nate Cohn has a separate take on why Dems can’t shake Donald Trump.
Ben Berke at WBUR explains why Fall River has gone Trump. It’s that working-class thing again. … And that Portuguese thing, too.
The NYT reports on internal emails that show Harvard leaders grappling with how to respond to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. … The obvious question: Why did they feel compelled to respond to events at all? They acted as if the entire world was waiting for their moral pronouncements, etc. … Mercifully, Harvard has since decided to no longer take stands on issues outside the university’s immediate interests.
The best political email of the week, via a friend: “The Yankees can still win the World Series if the scoreboard operator has the courage to act.”
I’m no admirer of Bernie’s socialist pedigree. But I do agree with him about the plight of today’s working-class in America and why so many of them are turning to Donald Trump …
Here’s an example of how not to help the working-class: Question 5, which would raise the pay of tipped workers to $15 an hour. Similar to the views of the Globe’s Shirley Leung, I’m a ‘no’ vote on Question 5 because I question whether A.) referendum voters can and should be determining the pay of workers in specific industries and B.) whether restaurant workers really want this. …
Re voters deciding how much to pay workers: It’s similar to the nurse staffing referendum a few years back. How the heck is the average voter supposed to know how many nurses should be on a typical hospital shift? It’s a ridiculous question to ask voters. … Re whether restaurants workers really want a change: Working in restaurants is one of the last truly egalitarian jobs in America. Whether college-educated or not, it’s almost a rite of passage for young people to work in a restaurant. And one of the reasons why this strange and distinctly American payment system works is because there’s the incentive of potentially big paydays for tipped workers.
Update — From a reader: “RE your restaurant post – Eli Feldman is GM of Shy Bird (Kendall Square, South Boston) and Branch Line (Watertown) – writes a great Substack, go-to on restaurant economics but many other related ideas. He had a great summary of Question 5 earlier this month: One Bad Idea.
Well, not quite. But Steve Pagliuca, who owns about 20 percent of the Boston Celtics, is trying to put together a coalition of fellow minority shareholders to buy the legendary NBA franchise, perhaps at a discount, the NY Post reports. … Post story via the invaluable Contrarian Boston.
According to NPR, the Washington Post has lost 200,000 subscribers since its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezo, decided to not endorse a presidential candidate this year, a move many (including yours truly) viewed as him proactively bowing to Donald Trump should the former president win the election. I find the 200K number hard to believe, but if it’s even remotely close to that figure, it’s a devastating loss. … But I think the cancel movement is off base. It’s only punishing the grunt reporters and editors at the Post, not Bezos, a billionaire who can easily afford the loss of $20 million or so in canceled subscriptions. … But here’s an idea from The Atlantic: Cancel Bezos/Prime. It’s preferable to cancelling a Post subscription. But what I’d really like to see is Bezos sell the Post. He’s done enough damage to the paper. His credibility is shot, not the credibility of the great journalists there. Bezos needs to go.
Update – From the Guardian: “Washington Post writers say don’t dump subscriptions over non-endorsement.”
Update II – 10.30.24 – NPR is now reporting that 250,000 subscriptions have been canceled.
That would be giving “green cards” to international students graduating from U.S. universities and colleges. Local employers like the idea, though not necessarily where the idea comes from. The BBJ explains.
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