Boston, MA
Howie Carr: Boston needs a makeover. Fast!
The Boston Globe found itself faced with some shocking news yesterday:
“Working-age residents are leaving Massachusetts at a growing rate.”
Stop the presses! Replate the front page!
Why would anyone want to leave Boston, or what William F. Buckley used to call Sodom and Begorrah.
That was a long time ago of course. Begorrah’s long gone. Nothing is left but Sodom.
Can I suggest a few possibilities for the escalating exodus, in no particular order.
Rotten weather – eight months of winter, more rainy days than Seattle.
High housing costs – even as productive citizens flee, residential real estate prices in Massachusetts remain high.
This is because all the trust-funded virtue signalers who have those “Hate Has No Home Here” signs in their front yards are in fact totally committed to every NIMBY proposal to keep their hometowns migrant-free.
Illegal aliens, and all the calamities associated with Third Worlders from the non-working classes – more crime, disease, out-of-control welfare and fewer resources for non-criminal American citizens, especially children in the public schools.
Terrible infrastructure – the more money they spend, the worse everything managed by the hacks in the public sectors gets.
I’m talking here about, just for starters, roads, public education and the MBTA.
Just the other day, there was another story about how the Legislature is finally getting serious about “fixing” the T. Right, sure they are.
They’ll hire a few more “decarbonization” experts at $200 large to strategize about it.
The utter breakdown of law and order – as the illegals get away with driving around unregistered, uninsured, uninspected vehicles, everyone else figures, why the hell can’t I?
It’s the same way with everything else. The cops look the other way with illegals – if I’m wrong please let me know – so pretty soon everybody else feels why shouldn’t I get away with everything too.
Doesn’t matter what it is – shoplifting, fare-jumping, selling drugs, getting automobile insurance, etc.
What the Democrats seem to have forgotten, if they ever knew, is that no society ever has two sets of laws for very long, because no people are going to obey the rules that another group doesn’t have to follow.
How about taxes? How’s that millionaires’ tax working out for the hackerama? If you have a lot of assets, it takes a while to wind down everything, but already tax revenues have been mostly falling, from month to month.
You move to New Hampshire, Florida, Tennessee, Texas – no income taxes. That’s an extra 5% increase in take-home pay right there.
Political corruption – it’s not a top-of-mind issue for most people, but it’s real, and it makes all of the above societal blisters even worse, because everyone in the hackerama is just concerned with lining their own pockets.
Want a couple of examples?
How about the Spinelli’s Ravioli no-bid $10 million contract to provide millions for all the foreign freeloaders flopping in the old no-tell motels across the Commonwealth?
On the records of the Office of Campaign and Political Finance, the general manager of Spinelli’s is listed as Jeannie Giuggio. On March 27, she maxed out to Gov. Maura Healey — $1,000. Three months earlier, she maxed out for 2023 – another brand. Ditto for 2022.
Giuggio is 70 years old, and is listed on the state voter records as living in Rockport, a quaint seaside village which by the way has no “migrants” squatting on the dole.
The “manager” of Spinelli’s, according to OCPF records, is Rita Roberto, age 66. On state voting rolls, she’s registered at the same address in Rockport as Giuggio.
Roberto gave a grand to Maura Healey last Dec. 20 – the same day as Giuggio. Plus she’s given another $1,200 to Healey over the years.
A $10-million no-bid contract, to a company whose managers gave $5,200 to the governor. That’s an excellent ROI! I daresay most of the people who are leaving Massachusetts haven’t had the same kind of luck with their investments.
How about the City of Boston’s new “chief climate officer,” one Brian Swett. He’ll be making $195,000 a year.
It was another nationwide search, after he ponied up $3,250 to Mayor Michelle Wu, including the maximum $1,000 in December. (It’s always important to make sure that if you’re planning to remain in Massachusetts and grab big bucks in the hackerama, you have to make sure you’ve done the right thing every year. This is why so many of the maximum contributions come in December. Come January, you can max out again – right, Ms. Giuggio?)
It’s not that politics in other states isn’t dirty. It’s just that it’s even dirtier here in Massachusetts.
It used to be, though, that you could make the argument that the quality of life here in Massachusetts was in some certain ways superior.
Boston, MA
Boston Pops spotlights modern masters in new season
When Keith Lockhart became the Boston Pops conductor in 1995, the orchestra had a pretty obvious fan base and repertoire.
“When I came in, sales at the Boston Pops were over 60 percent group sales,” Lockhart told the Herald. “A lot of (the sales) were 50 people at a time from the Rotary Club in Gilford, New Hampshire.”
Now, to be clear, Lockhart would love for 50 people from the Rotary Club, any Rotary Club, to come see something on the 2024 calendar, which starts May 10. But he’s happy the Pops now reaches a wide-ranging audience with wide-ranging tastes.
“If you looked at who was in the audience and what they were expecting to hear in 1995-96 and now, without looking at the incremental steps over time, the differences are flabbergasting,” Lockhart said.
Maybe because today’s Pops defies expectations. Oh, sure, in every season there’s guaranteed to be nights devoted to Broadway, classic jazz, and blockbuster film scores. But even those standards have been tweaked.
The 2024 season’s Broadway program takes a look at modern masters with numbers exclusively from 21st-century Tony-winning musicals, including selections from “The Band’s Visit,” “Kimberly Akimbo,” “Hadestown,” “A Strange Loop,” and “Hamilton.” They’ll be lots of jazz but it will typically show up in surprising spots (Glenn Miller swing in “The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to V-E Day;” Branford Marsalis’ concerts exploring an overlap between jazz and classical). No “Star Wars” scores, but John Williams will be represented at a “Jurassic Park” night.
“I’m excited about a lot of things, Sutton Foster, Harry Connick Jr, and I’ve worked with them before and they are gold standard performers,” Lockhart said. “But I’m really excited about the ‘Eyes of the World’ program. I love that we are doing our first ever Pride Night concert with Thorgy Thor.”
Lockhart admits he’s not a big “RuPaul’s Drag Race” person, but he’s been wowed by drag queen Thor’s talent — “She’s just stunning, and you’d expect her to be fun and a little over the top, but on top of that she’s a really, really incredible violinist,” he said of the “Drag Race” alum.
All in all, the season is packed with the sublime and odd. There’s a in-concert film screening of “Encanto” with a live soundtrack. Marc Martel & One Vision of Queen join the orchestra for a symphonic blowout of the rock gods’ catalog. And the Gospel Night spectacular Grammy-winning a cappella group Take 6 ends the season.
“Some people want to be challenged, some people want to be entertained, so it’s amazing to me how much we’ve moved away from one-size-fits-all programming and toward something very bespoke,” Lockhart said. “Fortunately, the Pops is a flexible enough vehicle to encompass all these worlds. And I have to say, (these types of seasons) makes it more fun for us.” #
For tickets and details, visit bso.org.
Boston, MA
Miami Heat And Boston Celtics Game 5 Injury Reports
On Wednesday evening, the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics will play Game 5 of their first-round playoff series in Massachusetts.
For the game, both teams have announced their injury reports (updated as of 4:30 Eastern Time).
The Heat have ruled out Jimmy Butler, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Josh Richardson and Terry Rozier.
Haywood Highsmith and Duncan Robinson are both listed as available.
Meanwhile, the Celtics will be without 2018 NBA All-Star Kristaps Porzingis, and no one else is on their injury report for the game.
The Celtics have a 3-1 in the lead, so they can end the series with a victory on Wednesday.
Most recently, they beat the Heat (in Game 4) by a score of 102-88.
Derrick White led the way with 38 points, four rebounds, three assists and three blocks while shooting 15/26 from the field and 8/15 from the three-point range in 41 minutes of playing time.
The Heat are the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference and had a 46-36 record.
They have made the NBA Finals in two of the previous four seasons, and are coming off a year where they beat the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals (in seven games).
As for the Celtics, they are the first seed in the Eastern Conference with a 64-18 record.
If the Heat stay alive, Game 6 will be on Friday evening in Miami, Florida.
Whoever wins the series will advance to the second to face off against either the Orlando Magic or the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Boston, MA
To-go cocktails are now permanently legal in Massachusetts
BOSTON – You can once again grab a cocktail to go in Massachusetts. Gov. Maura Healey has signed a supplemental bill that makes to-go cocktails a permanent fixture at restaurants in the state.
Customers can buy up to 64 ounces of a mixed cocktail alongside a food purchase. The drinks must be kept in a sealed container and transported in the trunk of a car or a place “that is not considered the passenger area,” legislation says
Pandemic-era legislation becomes permanent
Cocktails to go were first legalized in Massachusetts in 2020, months after the COVID pandemic began, but only on a temporary basis. A temporary measure allowing their sale had expired on April 1.
“Massachusetts consumers, restaurants and bars can all toast to the fact that cocktails to-go are here to stay,” Andy Deloney of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States said in a statement. “During the pandemic, cocktails to-go were a critical source of revenue for many businesses, and now, the increased convenience and stability they offer is permanent.”
There are 27 states that have made to-go cocktails permanent, including Rhode Island, Connecticut and Maine.
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