Tom Keane

Is the ‘birth dearth’ a crisis for Boston schools?

Some will blame the quality of the schools. Others will cite the expensive cost of housing. These reasons are true and also beside the point.

When Boston’s public schools open on Sept. 5 there will probably be fewer children than ever showing up.

Consider these startling numbers: In 1980, the city’s population was 563,000 and there were about 85,000 kids in Boston’s schools. Today, the city’s population has grown by 12 percent to 630,000. All things being equal, the number of schoolchildren also should have risen about 12 percent — to 95,000. Instead, the number of students this year will be about 58,000 — 37,000 fewer than you’d expect it to be.

Some will blame the quality of the schools. Others will cite the expensive cost of housing. And then there are the demographic shifts: increasingly the city — with its nightlife and restaurants — appeals to younger singles and older empty nesters and not to families with kids.

All of these reasons are true and all of them are also beside the point. This isn’t a Boston problem or even a Massachusetts problem. The birth rate is declining across the nation.

And this isn’t even just a national problem. It’s worldwide. The “birth dearth” is a global phenomenon — a “crisis” in the eyes of some. Crisis? Maybe it’s really great news.

Everyone from Thomas Malthus to Paul Ehrlich, author of ”The Population Bomb,” has predicted that human population would continue to grow endlessly upward, with horrifying effects — starvation, wars, environmental destruction. For decades China — seemingly attuned to those worries — mandated a one-child policy, punishing those who had more. Dan Brown’s novel ”Inferno” imagined a scenario where his antihero tried — and successfully managed — to infect the world with a drug to dramatically curb fertility. And of course, Marvel’s Thanos — worried about galactic overpopulation — in one fell “Snap!” killed off half of all life in the universe.

All of them were wrong. The Earth’s population isn’t inexorably climbing. The so-called “replacement rate” is about 2.2 — in other words, one woman should have about 2.2 children to keep the population stable (the fraction accounts for those who never make it to child-bearing age or can’t have children at all).

In the United States, according to the CIA (apparently its spies are everywhere), we’re at 1.84. China is down to 1.55. India — once teeming with seemingly too many babies — is at 2.03. The United Nations now figures world population will peak at 10.4 billion in the 2080s. Others, such as the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, think the peak will happen even sooner.

Why the population implosion? It’s not just JD Vance’s fears of “childless cat ladies.” Nor is it simply that mandating seatbelts and car seats makes it impossible to have a gaggle of kids (no more piling the kids on top of each other). And while the lack of affordable child care is lamentable, that’s hardly what drives the decision to have a child (in fact, wealthier women — who presumably can better afford child care — have fewer children than those who are poorer).

In fact, it turns out that when women are educated, when they have opportunities to be more than just mothers, the desire to have lots of children goes away. A study reported by the World Bank, for example, found that “women with eight years of schooling would have a fertility rate 53 percentage points lower than those with no schooling at all.” That explains China and India. (It also explains why impoverished and uneducated nations such as Niger and Angola still have extraordinarily high birth rates.) And that explains Boston — and the United States — as well.

Does a shrinking population pose challenges? Sure. There are fears that fewer younger people won’t be able to support the pensions and Social Security payments being made to a large number of older folks. Economic growth could slow. There probably won’t be enough service members for the military.

I suspect these are all manageable. People and markets adjust to changing circumstances. Retirement ages may change; older people may work longer; AI can boost economic productivity; technology increasingly dominates warfare.

And here in Boston, rather than worrying about fewer children in the schools, perhaps we’ll be able to do a better job of educating the ones who remain.

This column appeared in The Boston Globe on September 3, 2024 at https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/09/03/opinion/boston-schools-fewer-children-birth-dearth.

Wu’s plan to save Boston: Make it more expensive

You know how Harvard is so difficult to get into and so expensive to attend, yet everyone wants to go there? The same with Boston. The more expensive we make it and the harder it is to visit, the more people will want to be here!

I’m trying to explain to a friend Boston’s newest scheme to save itself.

“Businesses no longer want to be in Boston,” I say. “So what Mayor Michelle Wu plans to do is make it more expensive to be in Boston, and they’ll come flocking back.”

“Are you kidding me?” says my friend. “That’s like a restaurant with no customers raising its prices and thinking it’ll suddenly be full.”

My friend is kind of dimwitted so I have to take things slowly.

“Ever since the pandemic,” I explain, “Employees no longer want to come into the office. They’d rather stay out in the suburbs, working in their pajamas and slippers, maybe wearing a dress shirt for Zoom calls, but otherwise just comfortably sitting in front of their computers. You do get that, right?”

“Sure.”

“So that means office buildings are no longer full and businesses that had leases are no longer renewing their leases, which means that the values of those office buildings are now dropping like a rock. And if their values drop, so do the property taxes they pay and suddenly Boston is finding itself collecting hundreds of millions less in taxes than before.”

“Understood.”

“So the solution is to increase property taxes on those buildings beyond the state limit. And that’s what Mayor Wu wants to do.”

“But if you increase property taxes, won’t those extra costs just make it even less economically feasible to own an office building in the city?”

“The mayor has that figured out as well. Yes, she’ll raise taxes. But since the building is now worth so much less, the owner will actually be paying less in taxes than they would have been paying if the building’s value hadn’t gone down.”

“But the point is the building’s value has gone down. And the owners would still be paying a much higher tax rate, right?”

I sigh. My friend is such a dunderhead.

“And further,” my friend continues, like a dog that’s finally caught that car it’s been chasing and won’t let go, “office buildings in the suburbs have lower tax rates and, if this goes through, the comparison between the city and the suburbs will be even worse for Boston. If you make it even more expensive to be in Boston, then why would anyone bother to develop any more in the city when it’s cheaper outside of it?”

“That’s because Boston is such an attractive place to be,” I say.

“I thought you just told me no one is coming into the city!”

“No need to raise your voice,” I say. “Look at all of the new bike lanes. And we’ve finally started to attack this ‘car-first’ culture. Car lanes are down to one, meter parking in some parts of the city is at $3.75 an hour, and, even better, the city is now insisting that there be fewer parking spaces available whenever people do build housing.”

“But hardly anyone is in the bike lanes. And if you make it harder and more expensive to drive and park in the city, won’t that just put off people further?”

“No, to the contrary. You know how Harvard is so difficult to get into and so expensive to attend, yet everyone wants to go there? The same with Boston. The more expensive we make it and the harder it is to visit, the more people will want to be here!”

“I’m not sure that’s an apt comparison …”

“Well then, we’re sure lucky you’re not mayor.”

This column appeared in The Boston Globe on April 1, 2024 at https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/04/01/opinion/downton-boston-office-vacancies-taxes/.

Let’s face it: We Americans want our own royals

Our head of government shouldn’t also be our head of state.

Queen Elizabeth dies and commentators — from America, no less — start demanding the new king seize the moment and put an end to the monarchy: an absurd, antidemocratic, imperialist relic grounded in the silly notion of the “divine right of kings.”

And then William and Kate show up in Boston and we go gaga.

Instead of Britain dumping its monarchy, perhaps the United States might consider adopting one of its own.

After all, when the Brits sing their national anthem — “God save the Queen!” (now, of course, “the King!”) — they aren’t really singing about the mortal life of an individual. Rather, they are singing about the far longer life of their own country. That’s because their kings and queens (and the kings and queens of many other European Union nations, including Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Spain) aren’t political leaders. Rather, they represent something that transcends mere politics and embodies the country’s sense of itself. In effect, the Brits have neatly separated the head of government — in their case, the prime minister — from the head of state.

Not so in the United States. The job of president combines both. He (and maybe someday, she) is both a political leader and the symbol of the nation. That poses a problem, particularly in today’s hyperpartisan climate. We see presidents as almost exclusively political creatures — creatures that, depending on who’s in office, half of us adore and the other half abhor.

So what to do? Should we write to Charles III, beg forgiveness for what we did to George III, and ask if we can come back into the fold? No way. The lesson of the American Revolution was that we did not want to be ruled from overseas. We wanted to control our own destiny.

Might we find some American royalty of our own? The Kennedys, Bushes, Clintons, Tafts, and Roosevelts come to mind (and given its alliteration with king, I’d be delighted to offer up my own family as well). Nah. Our democratic and meritocratic age would never accept those options. One’s DNA does not dictate an ability to lead.

An alternative might be to put in place some formal process for choosing our own sovereign, who would represent the United States as a nation both within the country and to the outside world.

This non-monarchal model is used by a number of other nations, such as France, Israel, and Germany. The framer of the Fifth Republic, Charles de Gaulle, said the president of France should represent the “spirit of the nation,” while the prime minister dealt more with politics. But the French messed up in separating head-of-state from head-of-government: both are elected positions. In other words, it’s just two politicians battling for control.

The United States should avoid the same mistake. Indeed, it would likely be best if our own sovereign is clearly not a politician — either now or in the past. Rather, the sovereign would be an individual of exceptional merit, one who represents all of the greatest qualities of the nation: devotion to the country, selflessness, accomplishment, commitment to our founding ideals, and so on. That person would serve as sovereign for life and, upon death or disablement, would be replaced by another. (Again, I offer myself up as a possibility.)

Assuming that’s the direction we go, the question is: How do we choose our sovereign? Almost by its very nature, it should not be a political contest. One possibility might be to have the US Supreme Court make the choice — although given the court’s makeup, that might end up giving us King Donald.

If not the court, perhaps we could put together a consciously nonpartisan commission, chosen by both Congress and the president. That commission would be charged with identifying as sovereign someone who doesn’t take sides but rather represents the breadth and diversity of America, someone around whom we could all coalesce.

Such as Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings. As his own longest ever Jeopardy winning streak demonstrates, he’s wise beyond measure. He’s also gracious, interested in others, has exceedingly nice manners, and is adept at consoling those who have just suffered big losses.

OK. Choosing a sovereign might be tough. But it also might be worth the effort. Politics pulls us apart; a sovereign for the United States might be just the thing we need to pull us together.

This column appeared in The Boston Globe on December 1, 2023 at https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/12/01/opinion/lets-face-it-we-americans-want-our-own-royals/.

The deadly motorcycle accident. And the other vehicle.

There’s a jolt, an explosion, and the world turns white.

I’m in the turning lane, waiting to go left. Ahead of me I see blue lights flashing and then, much closer, a motorcyclist, driving at what seems an incredible speed. As the motorcycle is about to enter the intersection, the motorcyclist veers left — Did he lose control? Is he trying to avoid someone else? — and heads straight for me. There’s a jolt, an explosion, and the world turns white.

A few minutes earlier, I had been leaving the house and was about to get in the car when I remembered the bag. The grocery store charges an annoying 10 cents for one, so I turned around, went back inside, and picked up one from our stack of reusables. I hate paying that extra dime.

It was a sunny, near-perfect Sunday, with low humidity and temperatures in the mid-70s. It was early afternoon and the streets were surprisingly clear of traffic. I figured I’d be back shortly.

The biker is almost upon me and I helplessly raise my hands, as if to ward him off. “What the … !” I say, and we crash.

The world is white. Silent.

Am I dead? Am I in heaven?

I am surrounded by a deep fog but the haze quickly dissipates. In front of me, an airbag is deflating. I realize I need to get out of the car, but the side airbags are still inflated. That’s interesting, I think, oddly analytical — some deflate, others don’t. I wonder why?

I reach under them to open the door and then squeeze out, almost on my hands and knees.

I walk around, dazed. The motorcycle — a Harley-Davidson — hit the front of my car, on the passenger side. My right front wheel is torn off, the Harley next to it, ruined and twisted. There is a boot on the ground and a piece of cloth lying on my windshield. About 30 feet away I see a body prone on the street, curled fetal-like. A police officer is already there. He motions for me to back off and so I do. I remember my wallet and phone are still in the car and I crawl back in to retrieve them.

I stand by the side of the road and start to shake, the adrenaline rush receding. I’m light-headed, my legs barely able to hold me up. The area floods with police cars, fire trucks, and EMTs. Some come over to check on me. “What’s your birth date?” asks one. I give him my phone number.

My hands and arms sting and are turning red with what look like first-degree burns. In a couple of places the skin is harshly abraded, dots of blood showing. “It happens with airbags,” says another officer.

“Is he alive?” I ask her.

She had been by the body and gives a noncommittal shake of her head. “I don’t know.” There’s something in the way she says it, however, that tells me she does know.

EMTs check me out and ask if I want to go to the emergency room. I say no and, still trembling, am barely able to sign a waiver.

It’s been close to an hour. I call my wife. “I’m OK,” I say, “but … .”

At home, I ruminate about chance. If only I hadn’t gone back into the house for a reusable bag, I would have been through the intersection before the motorcyclist passed, never encountering him at all. But then someone else might have been — going through what I had and perhaps worse.

News stories are already appearing online. The Barnstable Police Department posts on Facebook. A “patrol officer attempted to pull a motorcycle over for a traffic violation.” Instead, the post continues, the biker took off; “moments later the motorcycle crashed into a vehicle.”

Other news stories appear, in The Cape Cod Times, The Boston Globe, and elsewhere. And then the commentators begin to rear their heads. “Play stupid games … zap-zap splat!” says one. “No 2nd chance for this jerk,” another writes, while a third assures everyone: “He got his just desserts.” A critic quotes the old Sonny Curtis song, “I fought the law, And the law won.” There’s a gif of Charles Darwin, giving a thumbs up.

Really? They don’t even know who he is.

But I do.

When he died, he was just three months shy of his 56th birthday. He had two children and worked in construction. He was no saint; the police tell me he’d had previous brushes with the law. And his motorcycle might have been unregistered. That perhaps would have earned him a reprimand, a fine, or suspended sentence but ... death? I think not.

How quick and unkind we are to judge, to “other” strangers, to grant them life or death. Whether known to us or not, we are pretty much all the same, making our ways through life, grappling with the hands we’ve been dealt, trying to make the best of things, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing.

Some see me as a victim that day, but I don’t feel that way. I walked away. I am alive, safe with my family, safe with my friends. But not the biker who struck my car. I grieve for him and for those he once loved and who loved him in turn.

This column appeared in The Boston Globe on July 24, 2023 at https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/24/opinion/motorcycle-accident-death/.

Texts between Boston politicians shouldn’t be public record

Anything written down is deemed a public record; everything else is not. But increasingly it’s not all that sensible a distinction, especially with today’s evolving technology.

The Globe recently asked Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and city councilors to release copies of their texts. No way, came the reply. We never text anything work-related. Just dinner plans with the spouse.

I don’t believe that, and I expect few do. Texting is so ubiquitous — and has become such a common substitute for what used to be done by telephone — that it’s hard to imagine that any of the 14 elected politicians involved keep such a bright line between their personal and political lives. Indeed, for most politicians, getting elected means all of life becomes political; it essentially is a 24/7 job.

I’m glad the politicians didn’t release their texts. Maybe what’s wrong here is not the behavior of the politicians but rather the rules that say anything as pedestrian as a text should be deemed a public record.

Public records laws draw a sharp distinction between the written and the spoken. Anything written down is deemed a public record; everything else is not. But increasingly it’s not all that sensible a distinction, especially with today’s evolving technology.

Imagine two pols having a conversation: “I’ll vote for the budget if you make sure my district gets a new substation.” Clearly not a public record. Two pols on the phone saying the same thing? Also not a public record (but, weirdly, it is a public record that such a call occurred — since phone companies keep written records of numbers dialed). But if one politician dictates the same words in a text to the other? Supposedly that’s a public record but — really? Just because technology allows the spoken to be converted into the written, does that suddenly make something so conversation-like into a public record? Or, to use another example, suppose two politicians are talking by phone but one is deaf, using a transcription device such as RogerVoice. Are the non-hearing politician’s conversations now public records even while the hearing politician’s conversation is not?

The purpose of public records laws (and their close cousin, open meetings laws) is to prevent government from operating in secret. Laws and regulations must be available to all. Votes by governing bodies must be conducted in public. But these rules weren’t intended to be voyeuristic, inhibiting open communication among politicians.

An old-school Boston politician, Martin Lomasney, is credited with this advice: “Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink.” One interpretation of his adage is that it’s a method for avoiding scrutiny of the nefarious.

But another way of looking at it is that politics — much like sausage-making — is a messy business, full of compromises and deals. Politicians need to be able to talk bluntly and openly with each other. That’s the way folks with different ideologies and principles can get together and actually get something done. But if all of these conversations were suddenly subject to public scrutiny, where every word, written or not, is available for all to see? Then the communication stops.

That may be good for the ideologues of the world — those who would never accept any deviation from their own gospel. But for those of us who think compromise and negotiation are the way that politics moves a city, a state, and a nation forward, it would be disastrous. Communications that are conversation-like — such as text exchanges, e-mails, Slack messages — should be treated as conversation. In light of advancing technology, public records laws need to be rethought and scaled back.

This column appeared in The Boston Globe on March 9, 2023 at https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/03/08/opinion/texts-between-boston-politicians-shouldnt-be-public-record/.

What if Ricardo Arroyo wins?

Would he remain district attorney for the next four years? Probably. But not necessarily. There are two possibilities that might trip him up.

Allegations of sexual assault while in high school have rocked Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo’s campaign for Suffolk County district attorney and the city itself. Most of the high-profile endorsers who backed Arroyo have pulled their support. The Globe ran an editorial urging Arroyo to either pull out of the race or for voters to choose his opponent, DA Kevin Hayden. Wednesday’s City Council meeting was an angry mess, devolving into what might be called a brawl in the hall.

Nevertheless, Arroyo still may be Suffolk County’s next DA. In fact, it’s an easy scenario to imagine.

For one, as every seasoned pol will tell you, endorsements don’t win or lose elections — and un-endorsements probably don’t either. Moreover, the allegations against Arroyo arrived late in the election cycle, surfacing just over a week ago — with the most damning (a direct accusation by one of the women involved) coming on Tuesday. With the primary election only days away, that doesn’t leave voters much time to seriously evaluate their options. Indeed, thanks to early voting, a sizable chunk of them marked their ballots well before the allegations ever surfaced. Early voting, unfortunately, doesn’t allow for a do-over.

All of which means Arroyo may well pull off a victory Tuesday. From there, it’s on to the Nov. 8 final election which — given there is no Republican candidate — would make Arroyo a shoo-in. He would take office Jan. 4.

Granted, there may well be a lot of mishigas over the next few months that could disrupt this. A write-in candidate may surface. Arroyo might choose at some point to end his candidacy or — if elected — resign. New evidence or new allegations could emerge. Advertisement But assuming none of that happens, would Arroyo remain district attorney for the next four years?

Probably. But not necessarily. There are two possibilities that might trip him up.

The first is that Massachusetts law requires a DA be “a member of the bar of the Commonwealth.” Arroyo is a lawyer. But it’s possible that the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers could either disbar or suspend him. The application for the bar asks whether one has been “the subject of any investigation for a felony or misdemeanor.” Arroyo answered in the negative. Police reports appear to say he was told of the investigation; Arroyo maintains he was not.

In theory, if the board determined he had lied, he could lose his license. In practice, though, it’s more likely Arroyo would get suspended. Once the suspension was over, he’d be back on the job.

The second is that Arroyo could be removed. But unlike governors and other constitutional officers, DAs can’t be impeached. Instead removal happens if a complaint is brought to the Supreme Judicial Court and a majority decides “in their judgment . . . it appears that the public good so requires.” This has happened once before, literally 100 years ago in 1922. The Massachusetts attorney general brought a complaint against the Suffolk DA, Joseph Pelletier, charging him with blackmail and extortion. The SJC decision was unanimous, saying that Pelletier had used his office as “instruments of oppression in an attempt to wrest money from the blameless and aged.” (The case was quite controversial, with claims that the charges against the DA were driven by the anti-Catholic bias of the Watch and Ward Society. Pelletier afterward seemed a broken man, dying just two years later at age 51.)

So, yes, it’s possible Arroyo could be removed. But the case against Pelletier had to do with his conduct in office, not with allegations from years before. And there’s one other factor the Board of Bar Overseers or the SJC would each have to take into account: Both are unelected bodies. By disbarring or removing Arroyo, they would be going against the will of the citizens who voted for him. It’s a subversion of democracy that should only happen in the most extraordinary of circumstances.

Best guess? If Arroyo is elected, he’ll join a long parade of scandalous public figures such as Clarence Thomas, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Brett Kavanaugh. One lesson each proved is that if politicians tough it out, the controversy eventually dies.

This column appeared in The Boston Globe on September 1, 2022 at https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/09/01/opinion/what-if-ricardo-arroyo-wins.

Your next job might be in the metaverse

WFH is here to stay — but we have to do better than Zoom.

In March 2020, office workers abandoned their cubicles, leaving behind overflowing file cabinets and half-empty cups of coffee. We thought we’d be right back.

More than two years later, companies are beginning to push in earnest for employees to return to work. Elon Musk says he’ll fire workers who don’t spend at least 40 hours each week in the office. Other businesses — preferring carrots over sticks — are instead spiffing up their digs, hoping to lure those now toiling remotely. For its part, Boston has launched “Boston Together Again,” begging workers to return.

They’re helped in this effort by the sorry state of today’s work from home technology. Video meetings feel straight out of the opening credits to The Brady Bunch. We’re all lined up in little squares. We think we look terrible — and actually, we all do look terrible — with computer cameras precisely placed to accentuate the jowls. Fatigue sets in, and it’s too easy to play Wordle while someone makes a presentation.

Moreover, IRL has real advantages over WFH. The office affords the opportunity of a chance meeting, a serendipity that scheduled video meetings can’t replicate. IRL facilitates mentorship, and makes it easy to know folks by more than their faces and work product.

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If Zoom and its ilk were all we would ever have, perhaps WFH would lose its allure. But the world is changing: Wait until you see what work is like in the metaverse.

It might seem the stuff of a science-fiction novel, but it’s also the thing on which Mark Zuckerberg has staked the future of Meta (née Facebook). Granted, some of the hype is absurd. (People buying virtual real estate? What? You didn’t lose enough in crypto?) But take a spin and you get a glimmer of just how transformative it could be.

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Start first by putting on an Oculus — now Meta — Quest headset. Open your eyes and you are in a different world: On top of the Great Wall of China, for instance. Look around and you see the Wall stretching in the distance. You hear the sounds of the place, as well — birds chirping, a rustling breeze. You can walk a few steps and the ground moves beneath you.

That’s what they mean by “virtual reality.” VR can make for a great game platform; I bought my first headset in May 2020 and have been using it to shoot demons, work out, and travel to exotic places. But it also seemed obvious that VR could also be a superior substitute for Zoom. So I asked around and it turns out a number of companies are doing just that, using apps such as Strivr, Connec2, or Meta’s Horizon Workrooms.

“You log onto the metaverse as your avatar, dress your avatar up, navigate to your virtual office, all from the comfort of your house and your pajamas,” explains Randy Angwin, founder of thermal imaging company SmartScouter. “This is more profound, engaging, and realistic than mere Zoom calls and online meets.”

The headset “takes some getting used to,” Laura Fuentes, who works at Infinity Dish, writes in an e-mail. But “the sensation of being in the same room as your co-workers, even if you’re thousands of miles away, is pretty special.” This year, Accenture, the consulting giant, says it plans to use the metaverse to onboard 150,000 new hires.

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Even jobs that used to require an in-person presence can be done remotely in VR. Piotr Ziemba is CEO of Nsflow, a company that works with the manufacturing and automotive industries: “A person working from home can operate, run tests, carry out simulations, compare different solutions, play out scenarios, and predict final performance on a digital twin, while still being at home.”

If you’re the owner of a real brick-and-mortar office building, stuff like this is downright scary.

The metaverse does have its problems, of course. Some of them are technological. The software is in its early stages. The battery life of existing headsets is short; the devices themselves are heavy and somewhat awkward. The images are not all that crisp, and some users complain of eye strain or nausea.

Still, if there’s one thing we know about technology, it’s that it always gets better — faster, cheaper, smaller.

There are other worries as well. There are fears that the virtual world can be alienating, lacking humanity and empathy. Moreover, Meta, the leader in the space, leaves many uncomfortable given its cavalier approach to privacy — companies will be especially concerned about that. (Meta is also now the subject of a Federal Trade Commission probe alleging it’s monopolizing the metaverse.)

But these are challenges to be addressed, not walked away from. And there are billions of dollars in venture capital chasing solutions.

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And if it succeeds? Right now, complaints about WFH have mostly focused on empty office buildings and out-of-business lunch places. The metaverse — more attractive and more “real” than video calls — will only exacerbate that. (In 2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that up to 45 percent of people work in jobs that could be done remotely.) And even more, the notion that we really all can interact with each other on a virtual plane will raise big questions about the nature of work and how we as human beings connect with each other from day to day. As with much technology, there will be big benefits — and big risks.

This column first appeared in print in the Boston Globe Magazine on Sunday, August 28, 2022. It is posted on-line at https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/08/24/magazine/your-next-job-might-be-metaverse/.

High prices at the pump hurt. Here’s why they should be even higher.

Politicians should stop trying to manipulate prices and let markets work — for the sake of the planet.

Almost every economist will tell you that the best way to manage demand is through price. With low prices, we use more of something. With high prices, we use less. If fresh fish (and the skills of a chef) were dirt cheap, I’d be out having sushi every chance I could. But I’m not. And it’s all because of price. Goodbye toro; hello chicken.

Apply that same line of thinking to gas prices. When the price per gallon goes up, our behavior changes. We drive less. We consider getting more efficient — or even electric — cars. We carpool. We take subways and buses. We work from home if we can. We ride bikes. Heaven forbid, we might even walk.

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Anything to save a buck.

This isn’t just theory. A think tank at San José State University in 2014, for example, observed that demand for light rail transit climbed 9.34 percent when the price per gallon exceeded $4. More than a decade ago, the Federal Highway Administration noted that in the first 10 months of 2008, Americans reduced their driving by 3.5 percent — 90 billion miles! — as prices at the pump rose above $4. (Yes, really. For all of our complaints now about $4-plus gas, it’s not a new problem.) And a March 2022 survey by the American Automobile Association found things hadn’t changed much: at $4 per gallon, 59 percent of respondents said they would “make changes to their driving habits or lifestyle.” If gas were to hit $5 nationally, as it already has in some places, the number rises to 75 percent.

And when prices drop? Logically, all of that happens in reverse. We drive more, buy bigger cars, and no longer cram into public transit. And we make fun of those silly people on bikes.

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So here’s my big question: If climate change is such an extreme catastrophe — one that the United Nations says will continue to render portions of the world “uninhabitable” — and if burning fuel is a major contributor to this, why are politicians (including, and sometimes most loudly, the left wing) trying so hard to make the price of gasoline go down?

Isn’t that exactly the opposite of what we should be doing?

Seems like it. But Democratic governors from states including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin want to suspend the federal (and in some cases, the state) gas tax to make fuel cheaper. For his part, President Joe Biden is doing the same by tapping 30 billion barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This is the same guy who, in one of his first executive orders, vowed to place climate change at the “forefront of this Nation’s foreign policy and national security planning.”

At the forefront, I guess, unless that means paying $4 a gallon.

All of which suggests that, while our rhetoric about the global climate crisis may sound uncompromising, our will to solve it is not. That, in part, is politics: The complaints of aggrieved motorists are far louder than the cries of the planet.

But it reflects a deeper divide as well. The broad stereotype is that the Democrats believe in regulation, the GOP in the free market. Academics and think tanks argue that market-based strategies — higher prices, carbon trading, and the like — are the most effective and efficient way to reduce CO2 emissions. But many of the folks who might agree with that approach — Republicans — have taken the head-in-the-sand position that there is no climate crisis to begin with. Meanwhile, Democrats typically shun market approaches in favor of tougher regulation.

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Regulation sounds good because it beats up on corporations — Democrats’ favorite whipping boys — while seemingly leaving regular voters unscathed. But it’s heavy-handed, potentially filled with loopholes, and often not that effective.

Consider, for example, federal fuel efficiency standards. By 2026, new cars must get 49 miles per gallon. The Department of Transportation brags the new rules “will reduce fuel use by more than 200 billion gallons through 2050.” Sounds great. But as the think tank Resources for the Future has observed, cheaper gas prices undermine fuel-efficiency standards. For instance, standards were tightened for cars built between 2012 and 2025. But as gas prices plummeted in 2015, the perverse result was that folks bought more gas guzzlers and the average vehicle fuel economy of cars actually declined. Price, it seems, can be a more powerful driver of behavior than regulation.

What was true then will undoubtedly be true this time around as well. Moreover, if the political winds blow differently — say, a Republican president in the White House in 2024 — those fuel-efficiency rules could be readily dismantled.

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Of course, as prices rise, we’re all unhappy. And less well-off people are particularly hard-hit. To a degree, that speaks to problems that could be solved with more direct solutions (higher wages and child care credits, for example), rather than simply driving down the price of gas for all. Or perhaps, for sudden price increases, just give low-income families some extra cash, to use as they wish. That might offset the pain in the wallet but — because it’s cash — wouldn’t simply act as a gas subsidy.

Bottom line: Except for a few of the most green-enlightened (and I’m not one of them), most of us are economic creatures. Make gas cheap, we’ll use more. Make it costly, we’ll use less. Politicians should stop trying to manipulate prices and let markets work.

This column appeared in print in the Boston Globe Magazine on Sunday, May 1, 2022. It is posted on-line at https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/04/26/magazine/want-solve-climate-change-its-going-cost-us-gas-pump/.

I was convinced I didn’t have Lyme disease. But guess what?

The tick-borne illness can manifest in mysterious ways — which is why we should test for it more often.

For months, I had been feeling increasingly off. I’d get out of the car, stand up, and suddenly feel faint. I’d wake at night in a panic, coming out of dreams where I couldn’t breathe. Hills and inclines I once walked with ease became ever more challenging.

But there was nothing especially dramatic about this. Instead, a general sense of malaise crept up slowly, with no precipitating event that might shock me into action. On occasion I’d think about calling a doctor or heading into the emergency room, but then the thought would pass. I figured I had a cold, and self-medicated with Mucinex. That helped a bit.

But not enough.

And so one Saturday, my wife looked at me across the kitchen table and said, “We’re not doing anything today. Why don’t we make a quick visit to the ER?”

We drove to Massachusetts General Hospital, walked in, and at intake I was asked why I was there. Now, whenever anything seems amiss, I consult WebMD (where the symptoms either mean there’s nothing to worry about or death is imminent) and so, armed with my Internet-based degree in medicine, I explained that I was out of breath, likely had a low-grade case of walking pneumonia, and if someone could just prescribe me some Zithromax or Cipro, I’d be grateful.

I think it was the words “out of breath” that set off the alarm bells. Almost immediately, my vitals were being taken, I was given a quick echocardiogram, and suddenly it appeared I was in the middle of a major medical event.

But it’s just simple pneumonia, I explained.

“Your lungs are clear,” came the retort. “It’s your heart that’s the problem.”

And thus followed three days in the emergency room, filled with blood draws, a CAT scan, another echocardiogram, a stress test, a chest X-ray, countless EKGs, and two sleepless nights tethered to a heart monitor that blared whenever I began to doze.

I had what’s called heart block: The electrical signals that controlled my heartbeat were somehow obstructed, meaning my heart would beat abnormally, weakly, or sometimes miss a beat altogether. Doctors began talking about putting in a pacemaker.

But the question left unanswered by all of those tests was: Why was my heartbeat off? My blood tests came back normal; no signs of congestive heart failure, for example. The CAT scan and X-rays were unremarkable, as was my echocardiogram. And yet, I was thinking to myself, I’m dying.

And then into my hospital room strode Dr. Patrick Ellinor, director of MGH’s Cardiac Arrhythmia Service. “Sometimes,” he told me, “we see this in people who have Lyme disease.”

“Do you have Lyme disease?” he asked.

Wait a second, I thought. I never saw that in WebMD. So I said, “Absolutely not.”

“Well, we’re going to test anyway,” he said.

And a day later, the results came back: I had Lyme disease. In less than 1 percent of all cases, it causes what’s called Lyme carditis: The Lyme bacteria set up shop around the heart and can wreak havoc with its electrical signals.

Here’s the good news, and the reason those of us who live in New England should pay attention. As my primary care physician, Dr. Steven Atlas, explained, if caught in time, Lyme disease can be curable. In my case, all that was required was a 21-day course of antibiotics, administered intravenously, and the heart block would be no more.

A day after the Lyme test came back, I got my first dose of Ceftriaxone at 8 p.m., and by morning my heartbeat was already returning to normal. I was sent home that day with a PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter) line in my right arm, along with instructions on how to administer the antibiotic myself. My symptoms disappeared in a couple of days; the hills I struggled to climb became mere walks once more.

And if Dr. Ellinor — who I think of as MGH’s version of Dr. Gregory House — hadn’t been around? The heart block could have been fatal, and the disease would have spread ever further through my body. Even if at some later point another doctor figured out I had Lyme, the damage may have been done. As New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has experienced and written about, for many folks the devastating aftereffects of Lyme — severe pain, fatigue, and cognitive difficulties — can linger for years.

Which raises this question: Why don’t we routinely test for Lyme? The disease draws its name from Lyme, Connecticut, where it was first observed (and where, in an odd coincidence, my family used to vacation when I was young). At first relatively rare, today somewhere between 300,000 to 476,000 people in the United States get Lyme each year — most of them in the Northeast. Some notice the mark of an infected tick: a red bull’s-eye on the skin. But others, like me, never show any signs until the disease is in full bloom.

Sure, widespread testing would cost money — easy-to-administer, at-home tests for Lyme can be found online for about $100. But early testing would catch the disease before it does its damage. Even someone whose medical expertise comes mostly from Google knows that’s a lot better and cheaper than a five-day stay in the hospital.

This column first appeared in print in the Boston Globe Magazine on Sunday, April 3, 2022. It is posted on-line at https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/03/28/magazine/i-was-convinced-i-didnt-have-lyme-disease-guess-what/.

What I’m thankful for: The turkey shortage

Sure, we all ooh and aah at the golden behemoth atop our tables. But face it. We don’t really like the stuff. We eat because we’re supposed to, not because we want to.

Just in time for the holiday, there’s a new crisis to worry about: a turkey shortage. A disaster? Hardly. Think of it as a gift: a chance, finally, to get rid of the Thanksgiving turkey forever.

The overfed, gargantuan turkeys found in one’s supermarket are a culinary abomination. Every year, cooking magazines and websites try to persuade you that this is your fault — you didn’t brine, you basted too little, you messed up on the stuffing, you didn’t put foil wrappers around the drumsticks and wings, you didn’t use a rub, or you used the wrong one. And every November those same magazines and websites offer up their latest culinary trick to — this year, finally — make the perfect bird. You try them and, yet again, the result is dry and tasteless.

It’s not you who are the problem; it’s the turkey — inherently bland, inherently insipid. You can’t put lipstick on this particular pig and think it’ll cut the mustard (to mix up the metaphor a bit). Sure, we all ooh and aah at the golden behemoth atop our tables. But face it. We don’t really like the stuff. We eat because we’re supposed to, not because we want to.

The proof is all around us. Throw some steaks on the grill, and you’ll get a crowd. Promise them a turkey, and your company will make excuses. Except during November, no decent restaurant bothers putting turkey on the menu, nor will supermarkets fully stock them any other season. It’s a once-a-year special, you say? Thank God. Who would want it twice a year?

Indeed, turkey — like a bad apple — seems to infect the entire meal. All of the side dishes are equally things we would not dare serve any other day. Molded Jell-O rings filled with shredded carrots and mini marshmallows. Pureed orange stuff that once was a squash. Slimy creamed onions. Candied yams. Stuffing (seriously — soggy bread??). Vegetables boiled so much they might as well be from the 1950s.

We sit down gazing at this repast, taking turns to express our gratitude for one thing or another. I give thanks that, in just a few hours, dinner will finally be over.

Why do we do this? Perhaps it’s some sort of ersatz homage to the first Thanksgiving, the stuff of lore. Mostly incorrect lore, as it turns out. The Pilgrims chowed down on venison, a variety of wildfowl – especially duck or geese – codfish, and bass. But turkey as the flagship? They would have laughed in our faces.

And the alternative? Pretty much anything. Imagine the Thanksgiving issue of, say, Bon Appétit, filled with recipes you’d be happy to serve year-round. If they’re good enough all the time, maybe they should be good enough for the fourth Thursday of November.

This column first appeared in print in the Boston Globe on Saturday, November 20, 2021. It is posted on-line at https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/11/19/opinion/what-im-thankful-turkey-shortage.