Tom Keane

The futility of predictions

A year ago on New Year’s Eve, it would have been easy to make a few obvious predictions about 2013.

■ Fresh off his victory over Mitt Romney, the president would be able to consolidate his gains and finally have the chance to enact his agenda. He’d be helped by the long-awaited rollout of Obamacare. With millions of Americans signing up in the fall, the criticism of the program would, at long last, be put to rest.

■ Equally obvious would have been that 2013 would see some tough legislation on guns. The Sandy Hook tragedy still seared the mind and clearly would propel Democrats and Republicans alike to embrace some overdue, common-sense controls.

■ It would be a tough year for Boston baseball fans. Toronto looked set to dominate the American League. For the Red Sox, to put it kindly, it seemed to be a time to rebuild. The only uncertainty was whether the Sox would be worst or next-to-worst.

■ The Patriots would be a different story. The team had an exceptional lineup in Aaron Hernandez, Rob Gronkowski, Jerod Mayo, and Vince Wilfork. With talent like that, coaching wouldn’t matter; Bill Belichick, it appeared, would only need to stand back and let the stars on the field have their way.

■ Locally, the biggest story would be Tom Menino’s easy walk to a sixth term. In office for two decades, the mayor felt like a comfortable and reliable old shoe. In a tumultuous world, his grandfatherly presence offered a welcome measure of stability.

All of these obvious predictions were, of course, completely wrong. Instead of a crowning year of achievement, 2013 was in the eyes of many Obama’s worst. The massive glitches in the health care website were but one example of what seemed a series of endless presidential snafus. Meanwhile, Sandy Hook came and went, and several shooting tragedies since still have not changed the dynamics around gun control.

At home, the Red Sox bounced back and won the World Series, while several of the players the Patriots had counted upon were either injured or, in Hernandez’s case, in jail. And Menino, beset by illness, ended up taking a pass on another term. The race to succeed him was the region’s second biggest story. The biggest was a horror show no one foresaw: the Marathon Day bombings.

One lesson to be drawn from all of this is that prediction is largely useless. As we now look toward 2014 and try to divine its secrets, even the best prognosticators are little more than street-alley psychics. Some make predictions that, like astrology, are so obliquely put that they can’t help but be right. But most are simply coin tosses.

And why is that? One theory of history holds that events unfold almost fatalistically, driven by large changes in culture and environment. In that conception of the world, we are, as Tolstoy put it, just “history’s slaves.” The opposite view is the so-called “great man” theory — it includes women too, and “great” does not necessarily mean good, just influential. Its key idea: Individuals matter, in the large scheme of things and the small.

Thus, the course of Barack Obama’s presidency is largely up to Obama and not a consequence of some grand and impenetrable machinations. Similarly, whether gun laws change will depend on specific legislators on either side of the issue. The success of the Red Sox shows how the human side of the sport — as opposed to the merely statistical — still matters. So too the Patriots’ winning season is the result of a coach and players who refused to accept what seemed to be inevitable losses. That Marty Walsh and not Tom Menino will be taking the oath of office Jan. 6 is also a testament to the singular importance — and frailties — of one person. And, of course, the April 15 explosions also tell us, in a grim way, how much effect one or two individuals can have on a community.

It’s stuff like this that makes the prediction game so difficult. For good or ill, humans matter and humans are unpredictable. So a wish to you for this new year. May it be happy, but know as well that the only thing you can be sure to expect is that much will be unexpected.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on December 31, 2013.

Assessing Snowden, six months later

Edward Snowden is holed up in Russia as 2013 gives way to 2014. It’s been just over six months since his initial revelations about spying by the National Security Agency made headlines worldwide. Some, including the US government, branded him a traitor. He had taken his job on the condition that he would maintain secrecy, they pointed out. He had then revealed information that would help our enemies, imperiling an elaborate system of surveillance whose only goal, after all, was to keep Americans safe. Others — and I’m one of them — called him an American hero for his willingness to take great personal risks to expose potential wrongdoing.

Over the months, Snowden continued to leak information about the wide variety of eavesdropping efforts the NSA had undertaken. In a lengthy interview with Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman last week, he seemed satisfied with what he had set in motion. “For me . . . the mission’s already accomplished,” Snowden said.

That’s an unfortunate choice of words, given George W. Bush’s 2003 stumble over the same claim, but as the year ends, it is worth asking precisely what Snowden has accomplished and whether his critics should reconsider their view.

What he told us was breathtaking.

There was, first off, the extraordinary list of data-collection efforts sponsored by or connected to the NSA, from the call database (collecting phone records from the likes of AT&T and Verizon) to cryptically named programs such as PRISM (data collection from nine major Internet companies), Boundless Informant (meta-data collection of all communications), Tempora (a British scheme to tap fiber-optic cables), and Bullrun (a program to defeat encryption). We discovered that US surveillance efforts were abetted by spy agencies from a host of other nations, including the United Kingdom, France, Australia, and Israel. At least 35 world leaders learned they were subject to US spying, prompting German’s Angela Merkel to tell President Obama, “This is like the Stasi,” the infamous East German secret police.

At first both dismissive and defensive, President Obama called in August for an outside examination of US intelligence activities. That review concluded earlier this month, with a set of 46 recommendations that proposed significantly enhanced scrutiny of the NSA and limits on some of its programs. (One member of that panel, University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone, said there was no evidence the NSA’s collection of phone records had stopped any terrorism at all.) Also this month, a federal district court judge ruled some NSA activities unconstitutional, saying they violated the Fourth Amendment and calling them “almost Orwellian.”

Perhaps most importantly, Snowden’s whistleblowing prompted a fierce debate in the United States about privacy and the extent of the government’s powers to snoop into citizens’ lives. Absent Snowden’s actions, that debate wouldn’t have occurred; it is, after all, impossible to have a discussion about something you don’t even know is occurring.

Much has been made of Snowden signing a nondisclosure agreement, known as Standard Form 312, when he started working for the US government. There is no question Snowden violated that agreement, and in the eyes of many, that violation is sufficient to label him a turncoat. But as citizens we all have a deeper responsibility. Naturalized citizens take an oath that pledges them to “support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America.” Whether we are naturalized or not, that obligation applies to all of us. And when an agreement such as Standard Form 312 comes into conflict with the Constitution, it’s clear which one should prevail.

Snowden was on the short list this year for Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year,” though that honor ultimately went to Pope Francis. Yet there is much in common between the two men. The pope earned his accolades for his efforts to bring the Roman Catholic Church back to its first principles. So too Snowden was reminding the United States about its first principles, and questioning whether in our zeal to keep ourselves safe, we had lost sight of them altogether.

There are differences between the two men, of course. Francis rules the Catholic Church and, through the force of his will, can push through change. Snowden, on the other hand, is utterly without power. Whether anything changes is up to us.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on December 29, 2013.

We’re actually good at driving, so back off

Here are a few things everyone knows to be true. Go outside with wet hair, and you’ll get a cold. Fortune cookies come from China. And Massachusetts drivers are the worst in the country.

All false. Wet hair doesn’t make you more likely to get sick, fortune cookies are a US invention, and Massachusetts drivers are actually among the nation’s best.

I know this last item sounds unbelievable. We wait tensely at a red light and, the moment it turns green, make a left turn before drivers going the other way have time to react. Stop signs, we tell everyone, are mere “suggestions.” At a crowded merge — the Central Artery southbound coming out of the tunnel, for instance — eyes are dead ahead. You let the other guy catch you looking, and you’re doomed. “A yellow light is just a ripe green,” goes the saying. We pass on the right. We swerve. We take off abruptly. We stop quickly. We’re Boston drivers — the name applies even when we live elsewhere in the state. We’re known nationwide, visitors fear to drive in our midst, and we wreak mayhem on the streets.

Yet fewer people are killed by automobiles in Massachusetts than in any of the other 50 states and the District of Columbia. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, our fatality rate is just .62 for every million miles traveled. The worst is Montana, more than double at 1.79.

An insurance website — carinsurancecomparison.com — annually looks at such data and ranks drivers from worst to best. Aside from fatalities, it tracks careless driving, failure to obey the rules of the road, drunk driving, and traffic tickets. By its reckoning, the worst drivers are from Louisiana while the best come from Vermont. Massachusetts drivers are quite good too, coming in at 10th best.

On some measures, we lag. Just over 35 percent of our fatalities involve alcohol, the eighth worst in the nation. (Utah, not surprising, is best on that score, at under 16 percent.) We are also in the middle of the pack when it comes to using safety devices such as seat belts. (We were for a long time holdouts on mandatory seat belts, thanks to the efforts of Jerry Williams, a night-time radio talk show host in the 1980s who almost singlehandedly persuaded voters to repeal the law.)

Imagine, then, if we drove more soberly and used seat belts more frequently. Our fatality rates would likely drop even more, making us far and away the safest place to drive in America.

Which leads to this conundrum: How can such bad drivers produce such great results?

I’ve traveled and driven in many areas of the United States, and the high rankings for the Bay State didn’t surprise me at all. People elsewhere simply seem less skilled as drivers. They’re more timid, they don’t know how to handle bad conditions, and they seem far less focused on the road. For the most part, Massachusetts drivers are the opposite. We’re aggressive, but in a good sense, meaning that a complex traffic situation doesn’t leave us upset and discombobulated. In other states, it’s common to see a backlog of cars building up behind a driver afraid to make a turn into oncoming traffic. Honking horns eventually impel that driver forward, sometimes with bad results. In Massachusetts we just bull our way through.

So too, drivers in other states seem unable to handle rain or, particularly, snow and ice. We have to live with adverse weather each year, and we’ve learned how to do it. Moreover, it seems as if we pay more attention when we drive. Perhaps that’s the upside to our bad reputation, the fact that driving is like a game and we’re focused on somehow winning.

Whatever the reason, “Boston driver” has been a moniker we’ve worn with some pride, and it’s somewhat deflating to see a cherished Beantown myth punctured. Speaking of which, Beantown itself is also a fiction. According to the US Department of Agriculture, we eat far fewer beans than most other parts of the country. Argh! We have these carefully constructed illusions about ourselves and along come some data that shatter them completely.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on December 24, 2013.

Desperate measures

Space-savers and Harvard exams – overreactions to life’s vicissitudes

The custom of “saving” a parking spot you’ve just shoveled out is absurd and ridiculous — unless, of course, you’re the one who just did the shoveling. And getting panicked about having to take a final exam is certainly nothing new either — but if it’s you who is looking failure in the eye, desperate measures seem warranted.

But using a nail gun to shoot out all four tires on a Jeep Grand Cherokee because you’re mad that someone took the spot you just cleared? Or e-mailing in a terrorist threat so that everyone’s exams get canceled? Somewhere, it seems, a sense of proportion has been lost.

South Boston got a good round of mocking a week ago after a few inches of snow were dumped on the city. Residents cleared their cars and then promptly put out their space savers — everything from chairs to cones to all manner of detritus — designed to signal that, having shoveled the spot, they were now laying claim. The neighborhood is hardly alone in this curious tradition; a quick drive around town will find space-savers everywhere: Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, even across the river in Cambridge. Boston isn’t alone, either. The practice is common is many northern cities, including Pittsburgh, Chicago,Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.

Those who decry space-saving worry about the private taking of public property. Residents mostly understand that, but they also need a place to park when they come home, and there seems a measure of rough justice that, having arduously worked to clear a spot, they are entitled to at least a couple of days grace.

Like many of these conflicts, there’s really no right or wrong answer. Particularly in cities where residents live cheek-to-jowl, daily life is routinely a matter of accommodation. The things other people do inevitably annoy you: They’re noisy at the wrong hours, they paint their houses off colors, they leave their junk mail lying around — the list is long and varied. The way to handle all of this is to develop a thicker skin, recognize that often the offenses others commit are unintentional, and remember that most of them are of little consequence anyway. You tolerate their foibles, they tolerate yours.

The nail gunner didn’t get that. The amount of snow he cleared really didn’t rise to the level of effort that justified a parking saver anyway. But even if the snowfall had been greater, the right response would have been a letter on the windshield — something polite, something that assumed the transgression was innocent (which, as it turned out, was the case: The space-stealer was unaware of the code of the snow).

Vandalism is a lousy way to create neighborliness.

Nor are bomb threats a great way to handle exam stress.

Last Monday — the day after the nail gunner’s attack — Harvard student Eldo Kim allegedly sent out e-mails claiming “shrapnel bombs” had been placed in two of four Harvard buildings. His goal, according to the FBI, was to get out of having to take a test. There’s an object lesson here for us all, by the way. What you do on the Internet is rarely anonymous. Kim supposedly used anonymizer services to disguise himself, but apparently investigators were able quickly to figure out that he happened to be the only student on campus using those services. D’oh!

Given Harvard’s much-publicized grade inflation, it’s not clear what Kim feared anyway. Perhaps a B+ if he failed? And even if that outcome was too much to bear, surely there are other ways to get out of exams without risking jail time: feigning illness, for instance.

Granted, we all harbor deranged fantasies. I’m cut off in traffic, and suddenly I’m ramming my car into the culprit. But in real life I just give a couple of annoyed honks. One wonders about Kim, the South Boston gunner, and — in the news lately — those in Centennial, Colo., and Reno, Nev., who’ve taken out their frustrations behind the barrel of a gun. All of them share a common thread: an overreaction to life’s vicissitudes. Using destruction and death to get our way may be the stuff of TV and video games, but it’s no way to live.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on December 22, 2013.

The telephone regulation game

If there’s no such thing as a free lunch, how can there be a free conference call?

If you work in an office or perhaps spend your time telecommuting, you probably know about free conference calls. Years ago, conference calls were expensive and laborious to set up. Now, they’re free and easy. FreeConferencing.com is one, but there are many others as well. They all have a similar business model. Jump to a website, register, and you’re provided with a phone number and access code. From that point on, all you have to do is send colleagues a time for the call, share the number and code, and soon you’re connected. No credit card, no bills, and no ads.

How is this wonderful miracle possible?

The short answer is, the government screwed up.

It probably should be obvious that it is a lot cheaper, on a per customer basis, to provide phone service in urban areas than in spread-out rural areas. Stringing telephone lines miles between farmhouses costs far more than wiring a city apartment building, meaning rural consumers in theory should be paying far more for service than urban consumers.

But, because this is one country, the thought was that — just as it costs the same to mail a letter next door as it does across the country — we should make sure that everyone had equal access to phone service. The solution was to use subsidies to even things out. As a result, long-distance carriers and telephone customers elsewhere pay higher fees — by as much as 100 times more — to connect incoming calls to rural carriers. Those extra fees are supposed to help the rural carriers build and maintain their networks, keeping costs for rural customers pretty much the same as they are for everyone else.

Enter the free conference call services, as well as a number of others such as adult chat lines (where adults chat about the experience of being adult, I guess) and dial-to-win services. They cut a deal with the local carrier to share the revenue for every call they bring in. They then get as many people as they can to start dialing and, as the volume of calls increases, the profits mount as well. It’s called “traffic pumping” or, in the more anodyne language of the Federal Communications Commission, “access stimulation,” and it’s left much of the rest of the telecommunications industry steaming. A 2010 study estimated the annual cost of traffic pumping was over $150 million.

In 2011, the FCC responded, adopting rules that tried to address the problem by allowing it to reset the subsidies to a lower amount if too many outside calls were coming in. Carriers and the traffic pumpers have been battling back in court. Just this year, though, a carrier in South Dakota — the state has historically been a haven for traffic pumping — lost its lawsuit, and some predict the era of free conference calling may be nearing its end.

As it should.

What’s fascinating about this tale, however, is that problems such as these are hardly confined to the telecommunications industry. Good regulation, it turns out, is hard to do. Raising the legal drinking age is believed to have increased marijuana use among the young. Imposing tough environmental requirements on, say, new power plants makes it more likely that old — and dirtier — plants remain in use. Intricate tax rules drive businesses to set up operations off-shore.

Rules and regulations are adopted with the best of intentions. But the real world is so complex that even the most comprehensive schemes can leave us with perverse results and unintended consequences. Some might say this argues for no regulation at all, but in the case of rural folks, that would have essentially left them without phone service. The lesson, I suppose, is that regulation is needed but imperfect — and there’s always someone around to take advantage.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on December 17, 2013. 

Happy days are here again, and we can thank Obama

In his speech at the 2012 Democratic convention, former President Bill Clinton argued Barack Obama’s case, saying “No president, not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years.”

How about five?

A year after the election, Americans aren’t happy with Obama. A recently-released NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found only 43 percent approve of the job the president is doing — the lowest ever. And when it comes to the economy, it’s worse: Only 39 percent think he’s doing a good job while a significant majority — 58 percent — do not. This may be a case of it being darkest before the dawn, however. As 2013 ends and we turn the page to a new year, the US economy appears poised for a significant rebound, and with it, Obama’s fortunes.

The economic news from November has been strikingly good. To most Americans, the important measures of the economy are those that track employment. Another new high for the Dow Jones Industrial Index may prompt cheers, but it has little meaning for the out-of-work or underemployed. November saw the unemployment rate drop to 7.0 percent, the lowest since before Obama took office. And while the unemployment rate can often be a quirky and misleading measure, this time other indicators are marching in lockstep. The rate went down because a net of 203,000 jobs were created during the month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the average monthly gain for the last 12 months is now 195,000. The number of people participating in the labor force (that is, those working or those looking for work) also climbed, as onetime discouraged job seekers came back into the labor market, more optimistic about their chances of landing a position. Real wages increased, productivity grew, and inflation remained low — so far this year, it’s averaged only 1.0 percent.

And all of this good news came during a time when the US government was getting over another one of its frequent crises — this time, the partial shutdown in October as federal workers were furloughed and uncertainty reigned. What that suggests is that there’s a strong resiliency to the US economy. Policies put in motion by Obama shortly after he took office (particularly the economic stimulus law and the restructuring of the automobile industry) are now bearing fruit, and short-term kerfuffles — even a shutdown — won’t stop it.

Meanwhile, the “broken city” is suddenly starting to look a little less broken. We’ve spent the last several months bemoaning the logjam in Washington, the intransigence of extremists (especially the Tea Partiers; the left flank poses nowhere near the same problem to Obama as the right does to Speaker John Boehner), and the lack of goodwill that prevents simple compromise. And now, suddenly, a budget deal is in the works, one that would end the automatic sequester, stop another shutdown, and, at least for the next two years, assure some measure of government stability.

Happy days are here again? I think so.

I’m hardly alone in my optimism. The chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, Mark Zandi, believes, “the economy is gaining traction.” The Economist magazine forecasts that in 2014, “the American economy will at long last enjoy a solid cyclical recovery.” American business, it says, will be “on top of the world again.”

Don’t misunderstand. There are still long-term issues that could drag us down, especially the too-large deficit and the dearth of skilled employees available for today’s knowledge-intensive jobs. And even a short-term recovery leaves many behind. November’s unemployment rate for whites was 6.2 percent, for example, while for African Americans it was more than double, at 12.5 percent. Moreover, there’s persistent worry that many of the new jobs just don’t pay enough.

Still, something’s afoot. “This could finally be the big moment for the US economy,” says Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider. If so, Obama will get the credit. Some will claim he doesn’t deserve it and, no question, the complex machinations of the economy are not under the control of any one man, even a president. But those same dissenters were blaming him when things weren’t good, and it will hard now to make the opposite case. Obama may be down today, but things are looking up.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on December 15, 2013.

My father

Why the long faces? “No, be happy.”

I don’t think I ever saw more than a couple of minutes go by without a smile on my father’s face, a gleam in his eye, a quick laugh. We went to many funerals with Sir and he would tell us, this isn’t a sad time. Celebrate.  Take joy. Remember all that was good.

So let’s do that.

It was 1924. Michael and Mary Keane – her maiden name was Ward -- were living in Claremorris in County Mayo, Ireland. That’s where my father – Thomas Michael Keane -- was conceived. “I want this baby to be born under the Stars and Stripes,” said Mary, and so the Keanes packed up and left – mother and father, and their four children, Martin, Mary, Kathleen and Peggy -- settling in Hartford, Connecticut.  It was not an easy life.  A sixth child, Ronnie, was born and then, when my father was just age three, his mother died of breast cancer. That left Michael, a greenskeeper at the Hartford Country Club, with five children under the age of seven. The family lived in a cold-water flat on Andover Street, the younger kids cared for by the older.

They could have bemoaned their lives, I suppose, but instead the lessons my father learned from these times were that family matters, that we help each other, and that there is interest, fun, and at least a good tale to be told in even the most adverse circumstances.

After high school, at just 17 and with war raging, Dad joined the United States Army, a Private First Class serving as an MP in England and France.  That made him a member of what Tom Brokaw would later call the “Greatest Generation.”  While he was overseas he learned that his father passed away; he never had the opportunity to say goodbye.  He rarely talked about his time in service; the best we could get out of him was a comic anecdote about lifting some eggs from a countryside henhouse. But in fact his career in the military was quite distinguished.  As some of his children know all too well, Dad had a condition called strabismus (one of the rare gifts from him we could just as soon have foregone), a condition that left him nearly blind in one eye.  Nevertheless, he took the tests and qualified as a Rifle and Pistol Sharpshooter.  And he served with honor.  He received the World War II Victory Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, and even – and apparently despite the incident with the chickens -- a Good Conduct medal.

After the war and thanks to the GI Bill, in 1950 Dad received his undergraduate degree in zoology from the University of Connecticut. For a while he entertained thoughts of becoming a veterinarian, but instead joined up with the Warner Chilcott pharmaceutical company, where he was a salesman and eventually regional manager. He loved that job.  He had to know as much as the doctors and pharmacists he visited and so he became quite the expert on health care.  He also enjoyed sales.  This was no Willy Loman-like existence, however.  Gregarious and interested in others, he enjoyed talking to all manner of folks.  But Dad’s life wasn’t grounded in worries about the next sale.  Rather, it was grounded in something else altogether.   

In 1954, Tom was at a party and met one Betty Ann Kelly, from the town of Wethersfield, CT.   He was 29, she just 24.  He was interested, she was not.  He was persistent and eventually, having run out of excuses, she agreed to one – one – date.

It must have gone well. They married in June 1955.

They first lived on South Marshall Street in Hartford, where I was born.  Soon after, they purchased a small red house on Wintonbury Avenue in Bloomfield and along came five more.  Dad got a promotion, one that frequently brought him to the Boston area, so in spring 1964 they moved north to Needham, just outside of the city.  Why Needham? They had toured a number of towns, evaluating them not by the quality of the housing stock or the lushness of their lawns, but rather by their churches – and in St Bartholomew’s Church and its elementary school, they felt they had found a place where their children could thrive.

It was tough leaving so many friends and relatives behind.  It was tough too because, just as they were moving, two more – twins – were born.  We moved without them, leaving them in a preemie unit in Hartford. A short while later, though, they showed up, the infants traveling in shoe boxes. But don’t worry.  They were safe. The shoeboxes were on the floor, in the back seat of the car.

The births didn’t stop there.  Two more came along and then, finally, with the arrival of Bridget in 1973, the Keanes were a baker’s dozen:  mom, dad and 11 children.

Dad officially retired in 1987, but in truth he just embarked on another career – the task of raising not only his progeny but oftentimes, directly and indirectly, their progeny as well. He set great store on learning and was thrilled as all of his children went to college. He created the job of director of development at Catholic Memorial High School – the place where he sent all seven of his boys. He drove the Roche Brothers Shuttle Bus for the Needham Retirees at North Hill.  He was a member of the Retired Men’s Glee Club.

He and my mom moved to Centerville in 2000 – he loved the Cape and frequently would say, “I can’t believe I get to live here”—and then, just last September, as managing a house by themselves became difficult, to Linden Ponds in Hingham.

Dad was a man of faith, not as a dogmatist but more in the mold of Pope Francis. He never forced his beliefs on others but rather simply lived his values: fairness, kindness, tolerance, and openness to change.  This last was particularly striking.  He lived through an era of extraordinary turmoil.  But where some might cling to nostalgia and old prejudices, becoming crabby, negative and pessimistic, he was an optimist who embraced the new, be it change in our lives or change in our technology. It was always remarkable to me that, even as a man in his 80s, he could be so extraordinarily contemporary.

Dad had a curious and sharp mind. A student of politics, history and theology, he was an avid reader who discussed and debated the issues of the day. He loved the Daily Show, Stephen Colbert and (it pains me to say this) Rachel Maddow.

He was a nurturer who cared for his gardens like he cared for all he met – and he grew great tomatoes, as well. He carried a song in his heart and was always willing to share it, albeit sometimes without knowing all of the words. 

He was a long-time smoker who, mercilessly harassed by his children, finally quit – but not before he’d managed to melt a few holes in the polyester suits he favored during the fashion challenged ‘70s.

He would bring us to McDonalds and purchase one burger for each kid, three containers of fries to share and one large orange soda – with many straws.

One summer he barely slept, lying in bed, a pillow speaker under his ear as he soaked in the season of the Impossible Dream, shouting when the Kardiac Kids pulled off yet another miracle win.

He loved to tell stories: the mysterious lady in white, the old lady who went to market in the middle of the night, leprechauns and their pots of gold.

His knees creaked when he walked upstairs.  That’s how we knew to stop talking and at least pretend to sleep.

He had an exceptional way with animals – Towser, Beana, Dusty, Rex and a parakeet that he told us had decided it would prefer to live on a beautiful farm far, far away.

His was an idol to a very young Jimmy Lamort, who would follow him around the yard, toy mower mirroring every path cut by the real.

On Sundays he would take us to visit older relatives in Fall River, the Wards from his mother’s side, relatives that others might easily have forgotten.

He was a strikingly good artist, painting our windows for Christmas and able to draw almost anything. Every time we went to the beach we could find him in the sand, building extraordinary sculptures – a crocodile crawling out of the ocean, a person lying on the beach and innumerable fantastic sand castles.

He made the mundane fun.  Every adventure started with, “How about we…” Shoveling snow. Walking a trail at a farm. And the excitement in his voice when he rousted us from Saturday morning cartoons because it was … time to go to the Dump.

Each Christmas Eve, he took the family caroling, at first startling the neighbors, then winning them over and eventually, getting them to join in. By the end, I think, there were so many caroling – and it didn’t matter your faith at all – that there was almost no one at home to listen.

On the 4^th of July, he’d set up along the parade route, having posted uproute a fake sign with the Channel Four logo and the words, "Bands Start Playing Now." Most of the time it worked.

He wrote a song as each of his children was born; it was yours and yours only, even if the tune was borrowed from elsewhere. 

And for those of you curious about his nickname: he earned it while we were on vacation in South Carolina.  Somewhat jokingly, he reprimanded us for our casual demeanor to our elders, a far cry from the “Yes, Sir” and Yes, Ma’am” he heard from the children of the South.  So, smart-alecks that we were, we got back at him, some of us – and I include myself in that – calling him and my mother nothing else except “Sir” or “Ma’am” from that point on  Oftentimes we’d be at a restaurant, and waiter would come up and ask, “What would you like, Sir,” and I’d turn to him, astonished.  “How did she know your name?”

I miss you, Sir.

The day after Dad died, the monthly unemployment report came out and it was good news and I found myself thinking I’d call him up, sure he’d want to exult that Obama was proving his critics wrong. I suspect all of us feel this way.  We shared our lives with him. We still want to.

Family is what defined him. Certainly that meant his immediate family: his wife – my Mom, Betty Ann -- their children, their spouses and 33 incredible grandchildren.  But it also meant the larger family, the human family, and the web of connections that bind us to each other.  If I had to sum him up in just a few words, it would simply be this: Enjoy each other, be open to each other, forgive each other, like each other, love each other – as he did us.

Rest in peace, Sir.

Eulogy delivered Decmber 10, 2013.

Walsh is right about Secure Communities

Boston Mayor-elect Marty Walsh is skeptical about Secure Communities, a federal program that depends on local police departments to identify illegal immigrants. It’s a position that’s earning him much criticism, but he’s smart to worry: not only for the ethics of the matter, but for practical reasons too.

Secure Communities is the creation of the coolly named US Immigration and Customs Enforcement — ICE. Like many government programs with clever names that obfuscate their real purpose (think of the Patriot Act: a sweeping invasion of privacy clothed in the stars and stripes), Secure Communities isn’t intended to make cities and towns safer. Rather, as ICE itself acknowledges, it’s a “commonsense way to carry out ICE’s priorities.” Every time a cop detains or arrests someone, that person’s fingerprints are to be turned over to the feds. The heavy hand of Homeland Security then follows up.

ICE says it only goes after the seriously violent and claims much success, with over 166,000 individuals “removed” (in the agency’s parlance) through August of last year. But there is much doubt about who is being deported. Nationally about a quarter of those expelled under Secure Communities had no criminal record. In Massachusetts, according to a Globe analysis from earlier this year, fewer than half of those deported had criminal records. The rest were simply undocumented.

Of course, as the anti-immigrant crowd is quick to point out, illegals are criminals too. “What part of ‘illegal’ don’t you understand?” is a favored question, a somewhat nonsensical query. (I once went 30 miles in a 25 mph zone; I guess that makes me an “illegal.”) I’ll confess as well to a conflict of interest here. It turns out my forebears were immigrants to this country. I suppose it’s understandable that those of you whose ancestors were not immigrants might resent the newcomers’ presence on your shores. Not so the rest of us.

I kid, of course. Except for Native Americans, everyone in the United States can trace his or her lineage back to an immigrant. The hypocrisy is breathtaking, but it’s justified by this distinction: “We” arrived here legally. “They” did not.

Perhaps, but it’s more the case that, having arrived, we’ve shut the door behind us. Once, the welcome mat was out. Today we’ve become increasingly xenophobic and we’ve embodied that xenophobia in our laws. It’s a bad, harsh, and immoral policy, one contrary to the nation’s ideals and one that Congress seems unable to resolve. It’s no wonder that local officials have little desire to enforce it.

That’s especially true in Boston, home to a large number of thriving immigrant communities. You can see that diversity in the city’s public schools, where almost half of all students speak a language other than English when at home. Indeed, as the school department notes, Cape Verdean Creole, Chinese, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, Somali, Spanish, and Vietnamese are so prevalent that school publications are usually translated into those languages. And while most families are properly documented, undoubtedly some are not. Massachusetts is home to some 160,000 illegal immigrants and — contrary to the focus of so much anti-immigrant ire — they’re not only of Hispanic origin. Indeed, the Irish Pastoral Center figures that there are about 10,000 undocumented Irish in Boston alone.

This reality puts the mayor, and especially the police, in an impossible position, with officialdom at odds with neighborhoods. Local policing is far different than the CSI-style crime-solving we see on TV. Rather, Boston relies on “community policing” — a strategy that’s been dramatically successful at lowering crime rates — where cops are more peacekeepers than crimefighters, with their mission being to stop crimes before they occur. It’s a strategy that works only when officers can earn the trust of residents, learning about the community and becoming part of it.

But under Secure Communities, the cops are in effect an arm of ICE, de facto immigration agents. Folks worry that if they talk to the police, for example, the family whose children are legal but mother is not will suddenly find itself busted up. Trust is gone, cooperation evaporates, and community policing falls apart. Ultimately, Secure Communities makes communities less secure — which is exactly why Walsh is right to want to pull out.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on December 10, 2013.

In death, lessons on how to live

My father died Thursday, in the scheme of things nothing remarkable. Almost 2.5 million Americans die each year, over 6,700 each day. Birth and death are the two human certainties (I’ll leave aside taxes), one joyfully anticipated, the other dreaded. Our metaphors for death — “a falling star,” “the birthday of eternity,” “wilted leaves on the tree of life,” “the next great adventure” — are but weak attempts to understand our most profound mystery.

He was 88, alert, engaged, and active. Longevity does not make the prospect of the next day any less sweet, and my father approached each one with relish. He was the patriarch of a large clan: 11 children (the eldest, I bear his name) and 33 grandchildren. On Thanksgiving a small number of us gathered — well, OK, 50 — and he led the festivities, beginning dinner with a prayer and spending the evening telling the younger grandkids gentle stories of Ireland, leprechauns, and spirits that moved in the dark hours of the night. Like all of our gatherings, it was loud and occasionally raucous, filled with talk, song, and a keg of beer.

He had a cold, that’s all, but two days later found him at South Shore Hospital. At first the news seemed good: a respiratory infection. Some antibiotics and he should be out in just a few days. But Monday things had worsened. Pneumonia had settled in, and nothing his doctors tried seemed able to reverse it. His children started to fly and drive in.

His life story reads like a cliche version of the American dream, from “wretched refuse” to success in two generations. His parents were immigrants, living in a cold-water flat in Hartford. His mother died when he was just a toddler, his father working as a greenskeeper while his older sisters and brother chipped in to run the household. At 18, he was in England and France fighting the war; the GI Bill helped him get his degree.

He took a job as a detail man for a pharmaceutical company and married when he was 30. Family took precedence. “No one on their deathbed regrets not spending more time at the office,” he would say. He reveled as his many children grew, went to college, married, and helped make the brood even larger. He had an acute and curious intellect, a strong faith, and a deep engagement with the larger world. Fairness, tolerance, and justice were his values and he passed them on to his children, the success of his teaching reflected in their own lives and careers.

Early Wednesday morning his oxygen levels fell sharply. The doctors had proposed more extreme measures — intubation, for instance — but he refused. “Call my wife,” he said. “I’m ready to die.” When I stepped into his room just before dawn, I was the last of the children to arrive. “Glad you could make it,” he said dryly, his voice muffled from a respirator mask. Words failed or dissolved into tears as we each tried to say goodbye. In truth, no words were needed.

A nurse turned off his monitor and removed his mask.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” Dylan Thomas urged his father, and I felt the same way too. But my father had raged in the past, knowing when to pick his medical battles and always emerging the victor. This time he took a different course, a course he chose for himself.

Death in these circumstances comes with an almost agonizing slowness. My father received some morphine to ease the pain, occasionally closing his eyes but often awake and talking. He was pleased to hear the Obamacare website was back up. He took with equanimity Jacoby Ellsbury’s departure for the Yankees. We sang songs until he pointed out, “You’re repeating yourselves.” More and more of his extended family gathered. “Wow,” he said at one point, surveying the packed room.

“Daddy, you’re still teaching us,” one of my sisters said. “Teaching us how to die.”

“I love you all,” he said and then, to my mother who bent over him weeping, “No. Be happy.” He closed his eyes for the final time. About 14 hours later, at 2:46 a.m. he drew his last breath. No regrets.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on December 8, 2013.

A well-regulated history

There’s an odd nostalgia among some conservatives that recalls days gone by as a time of limited government and open markets. It makes for an apparently sharp contrast to today’s heavy-handed government intervention, intervention that supposedly stifles competition and individual initiative. In fact, the opposite is true — at least in modern times, the US economy today is freer than ever, a point neatly illustrated by an ignominious 40-year anniversary.

In 1973, Americans were at the tail end of a truly bizarre experiment: a full-throttled system of wage and price controls. First launched by President Richard Nixon as a temporary measure in 1971, they were reimposed in June 1973. By the end of that year, they had left the economy in tatters.

The problem Nixon sought to cure was inflation, then at roughly 4 to 6 percent a year. It seemed a high figure at the time, and the White House thought it had just the cure. The government would, in effect, make inflation illegal. So it froze wages and prices on every single worker and every single item across the country. In a breathtaking example of central planning, any exceptions required approval from the federal Price Commission, headed by what became known as the price “czar.” A baker would like to charge $1.25 instead of $1.10? An employer wants to increase wages to its workers? Only if the czar said so.

The result was catastrophic. Productivity declined. Shortages were rampant. The economy headed downhill. “Ranchers stopped shipping their cattle to the market, farmers drowned their chickens, and consumers emptied the shelves of supermarkets,” recall authors Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw. And far from dampening inflation, the controls actually exacerbated it. When they were finally lifted (the last controls ended in April 1974), inflation soared to over 12 percent.

There was much irony in what Nixon did. A famous cold warrior, the system he put in place was something any communist would have applauded. But Nixon doesn’t deserve all of the blame. The wage and price controls he imposed may have been extreme, but back then it was common practice to regulate prices and limit competition.

Airfares for every single flight, for example, were set by the Civil Aeronautics Board. Meanwhile, interstate truckers weren’t allowed to set their own rates for hauling goods from place to place. That was the job of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Telephone prices were regulated too. The Bell Telephone Company — or “Ma Bell” as it was known — had a government-granted monopoly over all phone service; consumers weren’t even allowed to own their own handsets. The federal government controlled gasoline and natural gas prices. When OPEC launched embargoes in 1973 and 1979, motorists waited in long lines to refuel. (If prices had been allowed to rise, the shortages wouldn’t have developed.) Meanwhile, in cities across the nation, owners of apartment buildings were subject to often punitive rent controls.

All of this provides a striking contrast to today. The Civil Aeronautics Board is gone — thanks to the late Senator Edward Kennedy, who successfully pushed for deregulation. The Interstate Commerce Commission was phased out in 1996. Ma Bell is no more. Prices at the gas pump rise and fall with demand and supply. Rent controls are discredited, abandoned by all but a handful of areas (Boston finally got rid of them in 1994). And the idea of a US president asserting the authority to control every wage and price in America would be seen as a laughable overreach.

Why such a change in attitudes? The good news is that we are able to learn from our mistakes. We’re more willing to let markets work as they should. Competition can be destructive, yes, but we see it as necessary for productivity. Sure, those committed to free markets are certainly right to worry about the downsides of government intervention. Still, we’re much better off today than in any imagined past.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on December 4, 2013.