August 2020 The hardest pandemic question facing us today is how to keep our kids safe in school. Some people feel that until there is a vaccine, there is no way schools can be made safe. Others feel that with careful planning, social distancing, masks, track and trace, etc, schools can be safe today. Both…
June 2020 “We are always fighting the last war” has been a common criticism of the military, at least since World War I. Generals are reluctant to change strategies, even when it’s obvious to everyone that a strategy isn’t working. At the time of the American revolution, battles were fought by lining up soldiers armed…
April, 2020 Part of me thinks I’m nuts to bring up anything to do with sex work in the middle of the #metoo movement. The stories of sexual harassment, almost all of them involving men molesting women, are disgusting. Trafficking, forcing women to service men, and pimping are also abhorrent. Women are rightly outraged. But…
March 2020 HSBC bank announced recently that it will be laying off 35,000 employees – more than 10% of its worldwide staff. So I expected to read that the 150-year-old bank (with 235,000 employees in 64 countries) had lost money last year. Not so. In fact HSBC cleared $5.97 billion in profit in 2019. The…
February 2020 When we moved to Sandwich 22 years ago, I wondered why the property tax rate was so high compared to neighboring towns. Residential Property Tax Rate (not including exclusions for residents where available) Falmouth: $8.56 Mashpee: $8.92 Barnstable: $9.37 Bourne: $10.51 Plymouth: …