Copyright 2010 Jeff Jacoby Tue, 09 Feb 2010 07:40:01 -0500 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Jeff Jacoby :: Writings http://www.jeffjacoby.com jacoby@globe.com (Jeff Jacoby) webmaster@pundicity.com en-us http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6908/paying-the-price-for-a-umass-law-school Sun, 7 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST LAST WEEK'S VOTE by the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education to establish a state-run law school didn't come close to passing the smell test. The vote authorized the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth to acquire the Southern New England School... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6887/candidates-campaigns-and-new-coke Sat, 30 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST DENOUNCING the Supreme Court's Jan. 21 ruling in the Citizens United campaign-finance case, President Obama called it "a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics" and "a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6872/public-sector-pay-private-sector-backlash Wed, 27 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST LAST MONTH, the US economy shed another 85,000 jobs. It marked a miserable end to a calamitous year in which an estimated 4.2 million American jobs were liquidated, and the unemployment rate rose to 10 percent. In addition, more than 920,000 "discouraged... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6864/the-freedom-to-think-for-ourselves Sun, 24 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST THE SUPREME COURT'S RULING last week in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was a triumph for the First Amendment. In clear and cogent language, five justices swept away the caste system under which some groups of citizens have been free to... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6851/a-blessing-in-disguise Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST IT REALLY IS the people's seat, and on Tuesday the people of Massachusetts took it back. But in electing Scott Brown instead of Martha Coakley to replace Ted Kennedy in the US Senate, the Bay State's voters did more than hand the GOP its most improbable... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6841/blame-obama-for-the-bluest-states-blues Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST EDWARD M. KENNEDY has been gone less than five months, but in political terms he is already ancient history. For 47 years he represented Massachusetts in the US Senate; in his home state, no one wielded greater influence or cast a longer shadow. As... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6813/harry-reids-racial-imbroglio Wed, 13 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST YOU CAN WRITE A CHECK to the United Negro College Fund. You can show off your collection of Negro Leagues baseball cards. You can discourse learnedly on the significance of the "magical negro" in film and fiction, identify yourself as "Negro" on the 2010... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6811/its-the-peoples-seat-and-its-up-for-grabs Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST [Note: Following the debate among the three candidates running in the special election for the US Senate from Massachusetts, the Boston Globe's op-ed columnists each wrote a short comment. My contribution appears below. To read those of my colleagues... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6775/the-protectionist-delusion Sun, 10 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST WHEN SENATOR BYRON DORGAN of North Dakota announced his support for Barack Obama's presidential campaign early in 2008, he told reporters that a key factor in his endorsement was that Obama "has always opposed NAFTA" – the North American Free Trade... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6762/medicare-and-the-mayo-clinic Wed, 6 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST PRESIDENT OBAMA is a great admirer of the Mayo Clinic. Time and again he has extolled it as an outstanding model of health-care excellence and efficiency. "Look at what the Mayo Clinic is able to do," the president proclaimed at a rally in September.... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6754/lets-keep-the-death-tax-dead Sun, 3 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST NOT ALL DEATHS ARE SAD. The federal estate tax died at 12:01 A.M. on January 1, an occasion of joy if there ever was one. Allowing it to expire was one of the few sensible things Congress accomplished in 2009. Keeping it dead should be a congressional... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6750/the-2000s-a-descent-into-incivility Thu, 31 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST [To close out 2009, the Boston Globe invited several contributors to "Name That Decade" -- i.e., to (very) briefly identify an "undercurrent" that has "reshaped society and politics" over the past 10 years. My contribution appears below. To read the... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6739/the-wake-up-call-from-flight-253 Wed, 30 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST AFTER THE SEPT. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, it was widely asserted at the time, nothing would be the same. What Pearl Harbor had been for our parents and grandparents, 9/11 would be for us: a shattering national wake-up call revealing both the gaping... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6730/musings-random-and-otherwise Sun, 27 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST JEWISH SONGWRITERS have created some of the most enduringly popular songs of the season -- Irving Berlin's "White Christmas," of course, but also "The Christmas Song," "Silver Bells," and "I'll Be Home For Christmas," among others. Some people might view... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6723/not-all-tidings-are-of-great-joy Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST As far back as the 5th century, the Monastery of Abu Fana in Upper Egypt was renowned, in the words of one travel guide, for its "exceptional splendor and prestige." In the 21st century, that grandeur is gone and the monastery has become instead a symbol...