Idle chatter while waiting for a horse to emerge from the pack of Democrats that has, rather haphazardly, sprung out of the gate with the goal of attaining the 2020 presidential nomination …
— U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton should have saved himself the trouble. Our local representative couldn’t have flubbed this up more if he’d taken the directions from an instruction manual on how to best bungle. Taking on Nancy Pelosi was a major miscalculation to begin with, and subsequent events, such as her whipping President Trump in the shutdown debacle, exacerbated that mistake.
Talk about backing the wrong horse. Especially if you want to be president.
Maybe I’m all wrong. Maybe he’s going to turn out to be JFK redux. But he doesn’t seem to be off to a very good start, does he?
— I’m very happy for Drew Russo for his nomination to fill the position of city personnel director. He’s a good guy. Besides (and he’ll kill me for this), I was the judge of The Item spelling bee when Russo, all of 12, made it to the Final Five. He was a pretty cool customer up there.
I will miss Russo at the Lynn Museum, though. He did a superlative job giving the place a prominent position on the cultural map.
And this has nothing to do with the fact that our group, named “Team Hogwash,” is the two-time museum trivia champion.
— Reading in Monday’s LOOK page about the High Tea Gala that’ll take place next month reminds me that the Marblehead Arts Association does something similar, but ties it in with Kentucky Derby (May 4). It’s one of the MAA’s three principal fundraisers, and those who go get to dress in derby finery, and, presumably, sip mint juleps. For those of you who have seen “My Fair Lady,” think “Ascot Opening Day.”
— Strikes come and strikes go. Sometimes they barely register a ripple, and other times they strike a nerve. I’d say the Stop & Shop strike falls into the latter category.
Here’s why, in my opinion. This economy is humming for the people who were already doing well. It’s is not humming quite as smoothly for those who struggle. They’re still struggling. So for supermarket workers to take the risk of striking, and considering that these are not the wealthiest of people to begin with, it should have indicated the depth of their resolve, and that their reasons for striking were serious enough to take the chance.
You never win the money back. And the company will never fully recover the lost revenue from customers who refused to cross picket lines. A strike is, almost overwhelmingly, a lose-lose proposition in the short term.
I think in this case the recognition of that simple fact transcended party lines and perhaps even transcended fundamental beliefs about unions and their necessity.
I’m happy that it’s over. Our area has five stores (Lynn, Swampscott, Saugus, Peabody and Revere), which means we can all return to our normal shopping habits.
— Which Boston playoff team do you think will go further? My money is still on the Bruins, who should win tonight, obliterate the Columbus Blue Jackets and make the Eastern Division final.
The Celtics have the single scariest player in the NBA right now (Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks) for the next seven games. Good luck to them. They’ll need it.
— If you were ever wondering why all Christians do not observe Easter on the same day, here goes. All Christians calculate the holy day to fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.
But when the church split after the Great Schism of 1054, Eastern Orthodox Christians stayed with the Julian calendar to calculate Easter while the Catholics began using the Gregorian calendar.
The Julian calendar is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar.
— There seems to be a great deal of angst because rich people have flocked to donate money for the rebuilding of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris — much more willingly, it would appear, than they would to help the poor and the destitute.
Would I like to see the same enthusiasm shown toward eradicating poverty? Yes, I would. Most definitely. At the same time, let’s all climb down from the high horse here.
The cathedral is a national landmark in France, and seeing a burned-out structure on the site where this landmark stands has to be a wound to the heart of everyone who lives in the country.
I have no problem with anyone who donates money to fix it. I would hope, though, that people listen to the concerns of those who feel that such charity should also be extended to people in need.
