Loose ends from around the Commonwealth

By Liam Day
July 22nd, 2008

From the Springfield Republican: I suppose irony can be defined by the trial of Mike Franco, a Holyoke man who is accused of failing to report for jury duty. Why was the trial postponed, you ask. There weren’t enough jurors.

Mr. Franco insisted on a trial as a public display of the inefficiency of the state’s trial court system. I would say he succeeded in demonstrating his point. (By the way, he’s also right. Check out this Pioneer study from 2002.)

From the Fitchburg Sentinel and Enterprise: a curious op-ed on the trans-Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta canal, which was originally to have been built as part of the 1960 California Water Plan. Curious, I say, because it struck me as odd that the Sentinal and Enterprise would pick it up. If, however, you are interested in reading more about the as-yet-to-be-constructed canal, the California Water Plan, or water policy in the western United States generally, I highly recommend Cadillac Desert. (I must also give a shout out here to my former colleague Alan Petrillo, who originally recommended the book to me.)

And, finally, from the editorial page of the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune: an interesting take on national security, from the perspective of bridge inspections and repair. I don’t know, a bit of a hot topic around here lately.

It seems whole swaths of the inspection report on I-95’s John Greenleaf Whittier Bridge the state released earlier this month were blacked out because of provisions in the Patriot Act. As the Eagle-Tribune sensibly asks:

At what point does your right to know if you are taking your life into your hands as you cross that bridge supersede the broad-sweeping swath of the Patriot Act?

And if you’re in the mood to contemplate broad, sweeping governmental power, I suggest taking in the new Batman movie. Though a comic book adaptation and at times thematically heavy-handed, it does offer a surprisingly mature exploration of terrorism and government’s response to it.