ABC producer arrested

Most of the DNC coverage right now is insufferable. But one thing stood out: NECN's good reporting on the fact that in spite of all the Obama rhetoric, the convention is the same as every other convention in the history of the Union: It's all about money.

Not exactly news, but what made it interesting was an ABC News producer got arrested for refusing to leave the sidewalk outside some event where they were serving up filet to the fiscally effluent faithful. The whole thing's on tape: about five cops, including a cigar-chomping sergeant, manhandling the skinny producer.

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I must have been only halfway paying attention. The report that aired on NECN last night showed video of the arrest of ABC producer Asa Eslocker. ABC has asked the Denver authorities to drop charges against Eslocker, which include obstructing a public sidewalk. I've corrected the headline and the copy above.

Massive gambling loss

Remember when the Patrick administration was suggesting that casino revenues could pay a projected billion-dollar-a-year deficit in capital funds for roads, bridges, buses and rails? It turns out that even a commission made up of casino boosters reckoned the gov's cash-flow estimates were a losing bet. The gov's now-dead three-casino proposal would have created only 6/10ths of the jobs Patrick originally predicted; and only a third of the construction jobs.

What's interesting is Dan Kennedy's post on Media Nation, earlier this week, calling out Spectrum Gaming Group, who did the analysis, as a solidly pro-gaming group. Here's the company bios, as Dan excerpted them Friday: 

• Harvey Perkins, senior vice president, "has thirty years of casino gaming industry experience and has held high-level positions at major gaming properties in Atlantic City and New Orleans."
• Tina Ercole LoBiondo, vice president for analysis, "has worked in the casino resort industry since 1988, having held various analytical, operational and developmental roles in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, and was instrumental in the opening of three major gaming resorts."
• Bill LaPenta, director of financial analysis, "is a casino and hotel industry professional with more than 20 years of operations management and analysis experience, providing critical business decision support, planning, analysis, and performance management tools to casino hotel and resort operators."

So my question is, what cloud of fruitcake produced the original numbers, if these gambling boosters are pointing out there's only half a pie here. 

Silver Lining for Newton

In a letter to the Globe editor Saturday, Silver Line hater Mark Slater (Bay Village Neighborhood Association) railed (no pun intended) against the T's plans to link the two branches of the urban rapid bus transit line via a tunnel under downtown. 

A leading example of this fiscal folly is the widely reviled Silver Line Phase III, a $1.5 billion to $2 billion bus tunnel touted as providing Roxbury residents with a "one-stop ride" to Logan airport. This project will result in an increase of the MBTA's debt by $600 million to $800 million, despite adding an insignificant number of new riders to the system and despite the fact there is no demand from Roxbury residents for this route.

Slater has a point: there is some dissension in Roxbury as to whether the Silver Line Phase III is of any use at all. But the project is not really intended to serve the people of Roxbury. The Silver Line connection through Chinatown and Boylston stations will allow people from Newton to ride into the South Station financial district and the cash-rich South Boston waterfront without going through Park Street. (Roxbury and South End riders will be able to do the same thing without going through Downtown Crossing.) I've got nothing against the people of Newton, Roxbury or the South End, but I'll relish their absence all the same, next time I'm jammed in there waiting for a train. 

Paywatch: Season 1

Day 1 after it was reported that MBTA General Manager Daniel A. Grabauskas raised executive salaries by 9 percent: Mr. Grabauskas still hasn't told how much the pay raise will cost. They declined to tell the Herald. The Globe didn't ask. 

The Globe, however, did report this:

While technically called executives and managers, not all of the nonunion employees are supervisors, Grabauskas said. They include some secretaries, budget analysts, and medical assistants, as well as the agency's highest paid executives.

I would like to know exactly how many secretaries, budget analysts and medical assistants are included on the non-union payroll at the MBTA. 

Where is Georgia on Google Maps?

Okay, moments ago the Google ad bar on my gmail account comes up with a Google blog item titled, "Where is Georgia on Google Maps?" The linked Google apologia wouldn't be so hilarious, if it hadn't come hours before Google News' hilarious confusion between a former Soviet Republic and the Empire State of the South.

via Recovering Journalist and Valleywag

Cincinnati is one of 40-plus American metropoli planning light-rail streetcar service on its city streets, the New York Times reports today. Will Boston be left behind?

“In years gone by, people would move to cities to get a job,” Cincinnati’s city manager, Milton Dohoney, said. “Today, young, educated workers move to cities with a sense of place. And if businesses see us laying rail down on a street, they’ll know that’s a permanent route that will have people passing by seven days a week.”

After looking into streetcar systems in Seattle, Tacoma, Wash., and Charlotte, Mr. Dohoney became convinced that they spur growth. “Cincinnati has to compete with other cities for investment,” he said. “We have to compete for talent and for place of national prominence.”

Can Boston's upcoming transit projects compete for federal dollars with all these Portland, Oregon-style urban visions? Two out of three of our projects involve rapid bus transit rather than light rail. And the whole thing begs the question: are we just a heckuvalot smarter than these cities that are fixated on rail? Or what?

Gas sipping and meat nibbling

Analysts think the U.S is in for a long-term increase in food prices, Scott Kilman reported Monday in the Wall Street Journal. The high price of gas has gotten lots of Americans to drive less. I wonder if the high price of food will also get us to change the way we eat?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture sees food prices climbing 4.5 percent to 5.5 percent this year and 4 percent to 5 percent in 2009. Even under this more conservative forecast, the average family of four would see its annual food costs hit $9,800 in 2009, up about $1,200 since 2006.

Meat is a big reason economists think food inflation has legs.

Grain is such a big part of the cost of raising livestock that many farmers big and small are losing money on every chicken, steer and hog they sell this summer. As a result, the livestock industry is beginning what could be its biggest contraction since 1982. By next year, the supply of beef, pork and poultry available to U.S. consumers is expected to shrink by five pounds per person, according to the Livestock Marketing Information Center in Denver.

Are Americans, suddenly converted to cyclists and subway riders, going to turn vegetarian as well? Companies have already begun reducing portion sizes in packaged food. Will we stop gobbling such huge portions?  

Via the Baltimore Sun

Devil's in the details

Massachusetts says it's ready to join the other 49 states that allow civilian flaggers on road projects, saving money for its cash-strapped transportation authorities, particularly the Mass Highway Department. Draft regulations released today would require a police presence only on the fastest, most-traveled roads.

1.     High-Speed Roads – Allows for the use of civilian flaggers when the traffic flow has been separated from the construction zone using continuous, connected barriers. High-speed roads include both divided and undivided public roads with a legal speed limit greater than or equal to 45 mph.

2.      Low-Traffic, High-Speed Roads – For high-speed roads with a maximum volume of 4,000 vehicles per day, there is a presumption that civilian flaggers will be used unless CZSP recommends otherwise for public safety reasons.

3.      Low-Speed Roads – For low-speed roads including divided and undivided public roads with a legal speed limit less than 45 mph, there is a presumption that civilian flaggers will be used unless CZSP recommends otherwise for public safety reasons.

The regs seem to leave a lot of latitude in the CZSP - Construction Zone Safety Plans - to be developed by each transportation agency. So there's still room to water this down totally. 

From post-Soviet bloc, a solution to MBTA woes

Oh boy! I hope Dan Grabauskas read his Wall Street Journal today like a good executive, because I think this could be the solution to the T's operating deficit, now tabbed at $105 million on the year. WSJ's Daniel Michaels reports on the Pioneer Railway, a suburban rail line staffed entirely by child labor:

Fun wasn't the goal in 1948, when the line was created by Stalinist apparatchiks to train future rail workers and instill political obedience in youths. Today, however, the line is a mix of apprenticeship and day camp. Children learn leadership and teamwork while playing. Though unpaid, the children are graded on their on-the-job skills. From age 14, they can oversee younger children and organize games and sports activities. Lili Abraham, 14, says she has learned a lot about customer service and event organization during her four years on the line.

The renewed popularity of the railway, which shut down briefly after Communism collapsed in 1989, is one of the more playful examples of how Hungarians and other Central Europeans are burying the worst of Communist legacies.

For another example of what's known in parts of unified Germany as "ostalgia" - nostalgia for the former communist East Germany, check out this BBC article on the milk bars of Poland.

 

McCain's shady donor bundles

In an article posted late yesterday to washingtonpost.com, Post reporter Matthew Mosk takes a blind jab at the fundraising activities of Harry Sargeant III, a so-called fundraising "bundler," who has raised over $100,000 for John McCain from a wide network of donors who each gave within the federal individual donation limit of $2,300.

Some of the most prolific givers in Sargeant's network live in modest homes in Southern California's Inland Empire. Most had never given a political contribution before being contacted by Sargeant or his associates. Most said they have never voiced much interest in politics. And in several instances, they had never registered to vote. And yet, records show, some families have ponied up as much as $18,400 for various candidates between December and March.

Both Sargeant and the donors were vague when asked to explain how Sargeant persuaded them to give away so much money.

So this piece could turn out to be the first glimpse of a major scandal, or it's the Post trying to copy the Times' playbook - raising its notoriety by splashing onto the Web a whiff of scandal that hasn't been proven yet. 

Either way, what kind of guy answers questions about his campaign fundraising activities like this?

"I have a lot of Arab business partners. I do a lot of business in the Middle East. I've got a lot of friends," Sargeant said in a telephone interview yesterday. "I ask my friends to support candidates that I think are worthy of supporting. They usually come through for me." 

"The base" twitters

Republican blogger Patrick Ruffini credits Twitter for fueling what he calls Republicans' best grass-roots effort in recent years - an effort to force a House vote on new oil drilling during the August recess. The text-message campaign is called #dontgo.

There has been nothing worthwhile to speak of in recent years that’s emanated solely from the base like this has. It’s worth our time to take a step back and understand what made this success possible.

First, while Reps. Mike Pence and Tom Price provided the spark by starting the House floor revolt, it was the rightosphere (and crucially, the Twitterverse) that poured the gasoline.

Must be tough for such a savvy guy like that to back a candidate who does not own a computer. Meanwhile, here's the last news item I remember to do with text messages on Capitol Hill.

via The Opinionator

Olympics Boondoggle

Since I have the olympics on my mind...

The anti-commerce magazine Multinational Monitor published a report today critical of how commercialized the games have become. In China, 63 companies sponsor the Olympic committee and athletes; in the U.S., the number is above 100.

The Olympics have auctioned off virtually every aspect of the Games to the highest bidder. In addition to multimillion dollar sponsorship deals between the International Olympic Committee and international companies, smaller firms are paying for designations from “official home and industrial flooring supplier” to the “frozen dumplings exclusive supplier” of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Not that there's anything wrong with it. someone's got to supply the frozen dumplings, and they might as well get a little bounce out of the effort. But the report does point out that there is nothing in the Olympic Charter about raking in dollars or shilling for brewers and fast food restaurants.

It left me wondering how much the need for sponsorship cash is an inevitable result of the biennial one-upmanship in Olympics as global spectacle. Every Olympic cycle, countries set new spending records, blowing wads of cash on viral construction of extravagant buildings, and fireworks displays like some kind of blossoming rash. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Greeks compete naked, in the dirt?

Via Huffington Post.