Ronald Reagan

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Stupid is equal-opportunity

Diverse City
To me, 2011 offered a buffet of publicly expressed stupidity, perpetuated by a broad swatch of races, genders, and ideological factions. Here are a few gems.
By SHAY STEWART-BOULEY | January 04, 2012

The strike that changed America

Action Speaks!
Action Speaks!, the panel discussion series at AS220, wraps up its fall program with a look back at Ronald Reagan's firing of striking air traffic controllers in 1981 — a watershed moment for organized labor.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | October 19, 2011

Heavy burden

More than any other city on the East Coast, Boston is addicted to property taxes. Could the Hub be hitting a crippling tax-levy ceiling soon?
In 2012, collections on homes, buildings, and private infrastructure will feed more than 65 percent of Boston's $2.4 billion budget.
By CHRIS FARAONE | August 17, 2011

Pledge class

This campaign season, you’re not really committed to defending the GOP agenda unless you sign on the dotted line
Whether it's to flags, fraternities, or charities, privileged douchebags love pledging allegiance.
By CHRIS FARAONE AND DAVID EISENBERG | August 01, 2011

Does Obama have the cojones to win?

This WTF moment
To make sense of this bizarre and dispiriting moment in American politics, here are the things one needs to appreciate.
By EDITORIAL | July 27, 2011

From Morons to Assholes

Failure
A pyramid of political insults.
By KARL STEVENS | July 12, 2011

Hail the swinging geniuses!

A fan's notes on the Young Adults
For a tiny state, Rhode Island has offered much to the world — Mr. Potato Head, the Claus von Bulow trial, and a rich local music scene that covers the waterfront from alternative acts to blues, country, and a wide variety of artists in electronic noise, working out of the mill buildings and factory lofts that dot the landscape around Providence and Pawtucket.
By TED WIDMER | May 25, 2011

Flesh and blood

Last year, The Low Anthem finished their third album and toured the world. During a freewheeling interview back home, they tell us all about it
The acclaimed folk/Americana quartet resume the whirlwind promo stretch leading up to their third full-length release, following 2008’s critically-lauded breakthrough Oh My God, Charlie Darwin and their ’07 debut, What the Crow Brings .
By CHRIS CONTI | February 17, 2011

Understanding the legacy of John F. Kennedy

'Ask not . . .'
January 20, 1961. On this day 50 years ago, John Fitzgerald Kennedy began his presidential odyssey.
By EDITORIAL | January 19, 2011

Review: Inside Job

The feel-bad movie of the year.
Although Inside Job is destined for Academy acclaim, it seems unlikely that anyone will actually enjoy Charles Ferguson's new documentary.
By CHRIS FARAONE | February 24, 2011

Waiting for Repo Man

The man behind Inside Job shows us just how low Wall Street has sunk
Inside Job , Charles Ferguson's newly released documentary, details with painful precision just how royally Wall Street screwed the planet.
By CHRIS FARAONE | October 13, 2010

Review: Farewell

The big winner in this fact-based KGB drama? Western pop culture.
Somewhere between the shenanigans of Angelina Jolie in Salt and the ineptitude of the Russian moles recently deported to Moscow lie the exploits of KGB colonel Sergei Grigoriev (Emir Kusturica), who's known to French intelligence as "Farewell."
By PETER KEOUGH | August 04, 2010

Cutting taxes (and throats)

The GOP only cares about winning; the rich get even richers; notes from the road
"If there was such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing . . . It is . . . unseemly for the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell to insist that the nation's wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase."
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | August 04, 2010

Afghanistan: The war that's killing us

Interview: Former Army colonel and current Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich explains why staying is a big mistake
For several years now, I've been reading Andrew Bacevich's articles and books that argue for a reimagination of how American government conceives of and executes foreign policy.
By PETER KADZIS | August 02, 2010

The FBI's spy problem

Freedom Watch
I've been following the latest Russian spy saga with great interest, partly because of the local color and partly because of my prior experience with the FBI.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | July 07, 2010

Rock the vote

Musicians with national interests
Musicians with national interests
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | May 25, 2010

Elena Kagan’s shaky record

What a Kagan appointment to the Supreme Court could mean for civil liberties
As a potential Obama nominee for Supreme Court justice, Elena Kagan has liberal bona fides and the likely support of the right. But if her record is any indication, she’s more likely to side with the conservative bloc on matters of executive power and war-time presidential authority.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE AND KYLE SMEALLIE | April 16, 2010

Fess Elisha Parker, 1924–2010

In memoriam
The King of the Wild Frontier is dead.
By CLIF GARBODEN | March 24, 2010

Review: Formosa Betrayed

Newsflash: All was not rosy during the Reagan years
Had Adam Kane's Formosa Betrayed come out 25 years ago, it might have been an eye-opening exposé.
By PETER KEOUGH | March 01, 2010

Texas Textbook Excerpts

Big Fat Whale
The square root of taxes = bad
By BRIAN MCFADDEN | February 24, 2010

Bouquets all around

P+J spread the love; haigiography; hate-mongers in the Biggest Little
While it is difficult to be very jolly during February, P+J are in a generous mood and are willing to salute a few people, rather than dissect them. Yes, we are just wonderful.
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | February 24, 2010

Screams from solitary

‘By dehumanizing prisoners, we dehumanize ourselves.’
The 132-man supermax unit within the 925-man Maine State Prison is an expensive, taxpayer-funded torture chamber that for 18 years has sucked in mostly nonviolent, mostly mentally ill prisoners and ground them up by means of mind-destroying solitary confinement, officially sanctioned beatings, “restraint” devices resembling those in medieval dungeons, sexual humiliation, and psychiatric, medical, and legal neglect.
By LANCE TAPLEY | February 17, 2010

New and improved Romney

He's more fiscal, less social. And he's got millions. But will GOP voters give a Mitt?
Scott Brown's unexpected victory in last month's special US Senate election captured the attention of the country — and particularly of core Republican voters, who huddled eagerly before their TV screens to watch their hero du jour give his acceptance speech. But even in the midst of his moment in the sun, Brown made sure to thank the other handsome, well-coifed man on the stage, Mitt Romney.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | February 12, 2010

The next Scott Brown?

John J. Loughlin’s suddenly high-profile campaign to oust Patrick Kennedy
Republican Scott Brown's victory last month in the race for the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat has every two-bit GOP hopeful in the Northeast claiming the mantle of the pick-up truck populist.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | February 10, 2010

How to Celebrate Presidents' Day 2010

Big Fat Whale
Pin the mustache on Teddy Roosevelt, and more
By BRIAN MCFADDEN | February 10, 2010

A wake-up call

Ranting about money and media; musical musings; and notes from the road
Some months back, Judge Richard Posner, a prolific author and longtime leading figure in the laissez-faire-oriented Chicago school of economics published his latest tome, a little bit of conservative heresy titled A Failure of Capitalism .
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | January 27, 2010

Tea-bagger Brown triumphs

Obama must rally independents
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley may be a good person and a dedicated public servant, but thanks to her gut-wrenching loss to tea-bagging Republican Scott Brown in the race for the US Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy, Coakley is now — quite rightly — a figure of local scorn and national derision.
By EDITORIAL | January 20, 2010

Instead of cuts: guts

Raise taxes on the rich? Only one candidate says ‘yes’?
Let’s assume, reader, that you’re concerned about economic and social justice. For those in real need — people who are poor, sick, old, mentally ill, addicted, disabled — you want decent care. You’re concerned, too, about proper funding of schools, community colleges, and university campuses.
By LANCE TAPLEY | January 06, 2010

Over the coals

Letters to the Boston editor, December 4, 2009
Not so fast, Mike!
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | December 02, 2009

Mutant rats invade Allston

Letters to the Boston editor, November 27, 2009
How could you write this article, a cover story no less, with no mention of the Allston squrat? Obviously, you have not done your homework.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | November 25, 2009