Published August 12, 2010

Uncle Sam is getting ready for the weekend. (Jeff Sandquist/Flickr)

This weekend in Massachusetts: The more you spend, the more you save!*

Bay State shoppers will be lining up in droves Aug. 14-15 — or maybe they won’t, since so many retailers let you arrange tax-free purchases in advance now. It amazes me, what people will people will do to save a few dozen dollars. My boss is buying a mattress and a television. Another colleague is considering an iPad for her son.

What the state economy loses in tax revenue is more than made up for in consumer spending, the Globe reported:

Between 2005 and 2008, total sales revenue rose in Massachusetts during the tax-free shopping weekend from the usual $100 million to approximately $500 million, according to the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. Last August, however, total sales were down an average of 20 percent compared with August 2008, the association said.

Cranky Howie Carr opines:

It’s funny how the state couldn’t “afford” a sales-tax holiday last year, but this year it can. Couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that this is an election year for the State House, and 2009 wasn’t?

Meanwhile, New Hampshire is taking great pleasure in reminding Massachusetts that sales are tax-free every day in the Granite State.

So, how will you spend your sales tax holiday? What are you buying?

____

*Unless you spend more than $2,500, in which case the sales-tax exemption no longer applies. (more details at Mass.gov)

Published August 12, 2010

Mom and Magic Beans co-owner Sheri Gurock says she was misquoted in today’s Globe article about maternity leave — and mortified mommies have the wrong impression in comment threads and on Facebook.

Gurock says her company — which sells baby clothes and toys at stores around Boston — is portrayed as tough on moms. From her blog post:

Here’s the quote:

“It’s my dream that someday Magic Beans is big enough and secure enough that anyone who works for us would get three months maternity leave, but that’s just not an economic reality right now,”

Here’s what I actually said:

“It’s my dream that someday Magic Beans is big enough and secure enough that anyone who works for us would get three months fully paid maternity leave, but that’s just not an economic reality right now,’

That’s a big difference.

In fact, as I told her in the beginning of our conversation, Magic Beans has enough employees that we are subject to the FMLA, not the Massachusetts state law. We would never consider anything less than 12 weeks time off for our employees. I told her that from the perspective of most working mothers, 8 weeks is nowhere near enough time.

A mother of three herself, Gurock has suffered from too little maternity time.

This week the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that employers are not required to guarantee a woman’s job beyond eight weeks. We discussed “the motherhood penalty” Monday on Radio Boston.

Published August 12, 2010

A Naragansett is the Boston hipster's answer to Pabst Blue Ribbon, Zezima reports. (one light/Flickr)

New York Times reporter Katie Zezima recently documented 36 hours of good times in Boston. It’s an impossibly ambitious guide for the tourist or the local — where to stay, where to eat, what to do. The Beehive, the ICA, the Greenway, 75 Chestnut, Drink, the Ames Hotel and the Charles River all get love.

Zezima is our guest today for Radio Boston’s Thursday arts roundup. She joins Hubbub immediately afterward for a live Web chat.

Of course, when a New York newspaper tells America what to do in Boston, Bostonians inevitably take offense. Consider the comment thread at Universal Hub:

Commenter Roslindalian writes:

I have to say, this was actually a pretty standard format and tone for these NYT “36 hours in ___” and was genrally free of offensive invectives and derision. This is, of course, with the exception of every New Yorker’s inability to make reference to any marginally Italian neighborhood as anything other than “Little Italy” and its mention of the gastronomic “inferiority complex” that apparently exists in The HUB. I was able to brush off those slights by imagining what nose-look-donwery might be found in one of these pieces on (gasp) Chicago, or other western frontier villiages. Heavens, what would cause you to leave Manhattan for one of THOSE areas?!

But Katie (who is a friend) is no carpetbagger; she lives and works here in Boston. The article focuses on the new and novel, and I’ll admit, I hadn’t tried (or heard of) a lot of her discoveries. It’s a good read.

Surely you have suggestions of your own. How would you kill 36 hours in Boston? Dish it out in the comments, and join us for the live Web chat at about 3:45 p.m.

Published August 12, 2010

The Big Dig keeps coming back to haunt us this week.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker capped a day of dueling news conferences in front the State House on Wednesday. (Adam Ragusea/WBUR)

With just eight weeks till the election(!), the gubernatorial trio held dueling news conferences on the same spot in front of the State House.

“Charlie Baker got government out of ‘the future business’ with his Big Dig financing scheme,” said Deval Patrick, the incumbent governor. “And we’ve been pulling our way out of that hole for four years now.”

Baker, a Republican, was state budget director from 1994-98. He secured funding for the project by borrowing against future federal highway money. What began as a $2 billion plan ballooned into $15 billion. The debt saddled the state for years.

Baker said he owns just 10 percent of that plan — but the blame is bipartisan. “There were lots and lots of people who owned a piece of that project, and I’ve taken full responsibility for the part I owned,” Baker said.

The independent Tim Cahill piled on, accusing Baker and the Republican administrations he served of being dishonest.

“I did not lie,” Baker retorted.

Patrick talks of building bridges to the future, even invoking Bill Clinton in his remarks Wednesday. Where does the Big Dig fit into the future?

Published August 11, 2010

Poor Matt.

With Yachtgate (Boatgate? Watergate?) behind us, the Boston Herald feasts on new prey: Matt Amorello, the Big Dig contractor boss who failed to show up for court Monday — and posed for one of the all-time best worst police mug shots. Two consecutive covers is the minimum for a bona fide Herald nontroversy.

Media blogger John Carroll thinks the tabloid is being too hard on the guy:

Make no mistake: former Massachusetts Turnpike Authority chairman and current accused drunk driver Matt Amorello is a menace to society and – to all appearances – deserves swift and harsh justice.

But the Boston Herald’s coverage of Amorello’s alleged drunken demolition derby this past weekend has been swift and excessively harsh.

Other media blogger Dan Kennedy does a fine job rounding up the coverage. WBZ analyst Jon Keller says Amorello does not deserve forgiveness. But compassion? Yes.

I don’t favor forgetting about his Big Dig blunders, they’re a part of the record. But we ought not to forget that the man is a human being, who was obviously devastated by the death that occurred on his watch and has had a terrible time of it since. At this point, Amorello-bashing is a truly cruel pastime. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

I never defend the right of privacy for public figures. But what is Amorello? After the former state senator  became a scapegoat for the deadly collapse four years ago, he fell into obscurity. What do you think? Should Matt Amorello be left in peace with his sins?

• NPR: July 2006 interview with Amorello

Published August 11, 2010

He wore a bow tie. (AP)

Shaq started it on Twitter last week:

hello green town. ok what u got 4 nicknames? make um good

On the Celtics website, the team dubbed their latest shaquisiton “The Big Shamrock.”

Only A Game host Bill Littlefield likes “‘The Big Chowda,’ because it’s exquisitely silly.”

At the news conference in Waltham on Tuesday, Doc Rivers showed a fondness for “The Big Leprechaun” and “The Green Monster.”

Here are some great suggestions from readers.

Steve Engelr:

“Jolly” as in Jolly Green Giant.

Sean Tierney:

TIP’n O’Neal

Braden:

Bio-Diesel; Shaq’s going green!

Danielle Chenette:

If he deserves any nickname it should be “gold-digger”!

What are you favorite nicknames for Shaq?

Key:

= Phelps favorite

Related Stories:

• Doug Tribou: Once-King Shaq Seeks Regal New Role
• Bill Littlefield: On Shaq And Nicknaming Privileges

Published August 10, 2010

I love this guy. (Matt Law/Flickr)

Here’s a possible cure for Boston’s New York inferiority complex: Average rent here has risen to $1,717 a month, according to a study cited today in the Globe. And vacancy rates have fallen, which means apartment-hunters have fewer options.

If you don’t have a place yet for Sept. 1, good luck. WBUR Web producer Jess Bidgood just managed to secure an apartment in Cambridgeport after three weeks of searching. She would call a broker, set up a viewing, and then get a call back with the news that, sorry, someone had signed a lease.

“I’ve never tried to find an apartment in New York, but I felt like it was New York,” Jess told me. “This did not feel like Boston.”

I recently moved out of Brookline because I could no longer stomach the astronomical cost of living there. When I moved here from San Diego two years ago, I was forced to take a place on short notice for Sept. 1.

Amazingly, I found a (much) cheaper place in Harvard Square. I feel fortunate. The Globe story quotes a man named Reginald Fuller, who faces homelessness after a recent pay cut. He can’t find an affordable home for his family.

Do you have a place for Sept. 1? How much do you pay in rent? Are you able to afford it? What neighborhood do you call home? Gloat or kvetch in the comments.

Published August 9, 2010

The designer Rob Stewart imagined subway lines in places without public transit and then mapped his creations, such as this one for Martha's Vineyard.

It can be a nightmare to get around Martha’s Vineyard by car. You could rent a scooter or ride a bike.  But why not take the subway? Just take the Blue Line to Oak Bluffs.

OK, there’s no T on the Vineyard, and the islanders would probably keep it that way. But it’s nice to dream, isn’t it?

Rob Stewart, half of the Northampton design firm Rob & Damia, dreamed up subway lines in places without robust public transit. Imagine a line from Plymouth to P-town. Or one straight to UMass Amherst. Stewart maps these fantasy subway lines for a project called Transit Authority Figures. They’re beautiful and believable.

“I found myself staring at a T map and just thinking about how that classic subway diagram … works for every mass transit system in the world,” Stewart told me on the phone. “You could just put any names on the stops. You could just relocate it to any place, and all of a sudden that place, no matter how rural or how unadaptable … to a subway, if you just design the map, it’s completely believable.”

[pullquote author=”Rob Stewart”]”You could just put any names on the stops. You could just relocate it to any place, and all of a sudden that place, no matter how rural … it’s completely believable.”[/pullquote]

Since Stewart designed his first map for Northampton/Amherst, he has been inundated with requests from people in other towns. It has turned into a side business for the pair, selling posters and T-shirts. Stewart said he has been approached by a publisher for a book deal.

I’m reminded of a tweet I posted a long time ago, fantasizing about a “purple line” from Mattapan in the south, through Forest Hills in JP, through Coolidge Corner in Brookline and terminating in Harvard Square. Fellow Twitterers responded with even better ideas, and one person alerted me to the MBTA’s long-planned Urban Ring Project, which would connect Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Medford and Somerville by bus.

Here’s my question for you, readers: What public transit options do you wish for? What’s your dream subway line? I’d love a bus from Harvard to BU. Let’s brainstorm in the comments.

Update: I talked about this Monday on Radio Boston.

Published August 9, 2010

(Marcello Graciolli/Flickr)

I moved yesterday, from Brookline to Harvard Square. (Ever parallel parked a 14-foot U-Haul truck in Harvard Square? I have.)

I finished unloading late in the day and found myself lying on a bed without sheets, hungry and tired. All I wanted was a few hours of mindless surfing.

But I was off the grid. My Internet connection won’t be flipped on till Tuesday afternoon. My laptop was dead. My iPhone was dead. I found my iPad, 12% battery remaining, and scanned for wireless networks. But they were all password-protected.

Desperate, I actually tried guessing network passwords, which may be a crime. I drove to a closed Starbucks and sat outside, scooter idling, where I could finally check e-mail and read headlines. It wasn’t even that satisfying.

[pullquote author=”jemimah”]”We’re ruled by our computers, not the other way around.”[/pullquote]

It was my accidental Internet sabbath, a phrase coined by the author William Powers, who joined Hubbub last week for a live Web chat. His family unplugs the Internet every weekend.

This morning I couldn’t fire up Globe Reader or open wbur.org, the first two things I do every morning. No Universal Hub, no New York Times, no Twitter. Not that I’d have had time — my dead iPhone is also my dead alarm clock.

Last week, commenter jemimah poignantly noted:

I’ve been marveling for years at the fact that we’re ruled by our computers, not the other way around. All these devices are great and I love ‘em, but they were supposed to give us more “free” time. Instead, we’re never w/o either work or social obligations. We need to teach these machines who’s boss!

Powers said the “itch to connect” is a “perfectly natural human instinct.” We’re biologically programmed to respond to stimuli.

His book, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry,” is a more of a how-to guide than a warning. He doesn’t foretell the end of society; he asks people to create boundaries.

You know the cliche about Thoreau is that he ran away from society. In fact, he built his cabin a short walk from town, and was back and forth all the time. The real point of his experiment was that he established a ZONE where he could be “less” connected on a regular basis, and allow his inner life to flourish.

So I think any of us can do the same today, inside our homes. A Walden Zone is a room or other kind of space – it could be the front porch – where digital screens are not used. A place for non-screen togetherness and solitude. Sounds kind of nice, doesn’t it?

Maybe. Maybe Powers finds peace in his weekly Internet sabbath because it’s self-imposed. I’m just cranky.