Not either/or

Personally, I wouldn’t mind paying a higher gasoline tax. As Boston Globe columnist Steve Bailey points out today, the state gas tax hasn’t been raised for years, and is now lower than it is in most nearby states. Besides, it’s good public policy — it would provide a disincentive for gas-guzzling SUVs, and a boost to public transportation as well.

But I have to disagree with Bailey when he writes, “Saying no to gambling is not enough; opponents must be willing to offer an alternative.” Massachusetts ranks 28th in state and local tax burden. So yes, 27 states take away more of their residents’ income, but 21 take away less. That puts us in about the middle.

So even if a higher gas tax makes sense, it’s wrong to say we’re so undertaxed that we absolutely have to do something about it. And certainly not on a day when a story like this appears on the front of the City & Region section. As a private-school teacher patiently explained to Tom Finneran on WRKO Radio (AM 680) this morning when he tried to defend this outrageous expenditure on pension-fund bonuses, most people in the private sector don’t even get pensions.

Bailey has been steadfast in his opposition to casino gambling, and I especially like his nickname for Gov. Deval Patrick: “Governor Slots.” But he’s wrong about this being an either/or proposition. Casino gambling is bad for the state, and opponents do not need to apologize or come up with alternatives. After all, it’s Patrick who proposes to sell out our future, not us.

Obama’s cell-phone problem

Is technology costing Barack Obama points in the polls? National Public Radio yesterday broadcast a fascinating report on the looming meltdown of polling as we know it.

Officials with the Obama campaign believe their guy is receiving disproportionate support from young, black and Hispanic voters. All three of these groups are more likely than the rest of the population to have ditched their land lines in favor of a cell-phone-only lifestyle. And pollsters rarely call cell phones, for obvious reasons. (How would you like to receive a cell-phone call from a pollster?)

According to the NPR story, polling experts believe the cell-phone conundrum isn’t out of hand yet, and that the sampling population can be adjusted by weighting it differently. Clearly, though, technology is changing the face of polling. If Obama does better than his polling numbers in New Hampshire, we’ll know one of the reasons why.

DePetro does it again

John DePetro, the ratings-challenged former WRKO Radio (AM 680) talk-show host, is at it again. Ian Donnis explains that DePetro, now back on the air in Providence, blurted out a few remarks in an appearance on MSNBC that indulged in some pretty raw racial stereotypes.

DePetro, of course, was fired by WRKO after he referred to 2006 gubernatorial candidate Grace Ross as a “fat lesbian.” Thus did he show that he had forgotten the first rule of talk radio, which is that you can only get away with stuff like that if you’ve got the numbers.

Mashpee meltdown

Cape Cod Today reporter/blogger Peter Kenney writes (link fixed) that a dissident faction of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe is preparing to renew a 30-year-old lawsuit against the town of Mashpee.

The suit, which is said to challenge “the validity of virtually every title to property in Mashpee,” was to have been laid to rest under the terms of an agreement reached by town officials with Glenn Marshall, the disgraced former leader of the tribal council.

Could this have an effect on the proposed Middleborough casino? It’s hard to say. But the Marshall-Mashpee agreement would have prevented the Wampanoags from building a casino in Mashpee. If the agreement is void, then a Mashpee casino would be on the table again.

My standard disclosure.

Jeff Lawrence speaks

The Boston Daily Blog has posted an interview with Weekly Dig publisher Jeff Lawrence about last week’s mysterious removal of Dig editor Michael Brodeur. “Michael is a phenomenal writer. He’s not an editor,” Lawrence is quoted as saying.

I don’t know Brodeur, and I don’t know what constraints he might have been working under. But I do think the Dig has lacked some of its customary panache since the previous editor, Joe Keohane, departed for Boston Magazine (yes, home of the Boston Daily Blog) earlier this year.

Dan Rea replaces Paul Sullivan

No surprise, but it’s good news that veteran journalist Dan Rea has been named to replace the late Paul Sullivan as the evening talk-show host on WBZ Radio (AM 1030). Rea will continue in the tradition of Sullivan and his predecessor, the late David Brudnoy — that is, he’ll host a show where the conversation is civil, and where news and interviews take precedence over ideology.

Now, as Brudnoy always said, if we can only get the Bruins off WBZ, we’ll be all set.

(Via Universal Hub and the Herald’s Messenger Blog.)

“Little People” is now online

Today I have an exciting announcement to make (exciting to me, anyway). The full text of “Little People,” my 2003 book on the culture of dwarfism, is now online. You will find it here.

Why did I do this? About a year ago, my publisher, Rodale, took “Little People” off the market and sold its inventory to remainder houses. Despite a flurry of favorable reviews and national attention, sales had never really taken off. Given that the book is now officially out of print, the rights have reverted to me, and I decided to make it available for anyone who’s interested.

You’ll find everything online that’s in the hardcover edition — even a Flickr slide show of photos from the book. (I did have to make some substitutions to deal with copyright issues. But the result, I think, is a better selection.) I’ve changed the subtitle; it’s now “A Father Reflects on His Daughter’s Dwarfism — and What It Means to Be Different,” which is a mouthful, but which more accurately describes the contents. There’s also a new, online-only introduction.

Finally, I’ve issued “Little People” under a Creative Commons license, which allows anyone to make copies or even adaptations, as long as it’s for non-commercial use and (ahem) I get the credit.

I actually posted “Little People” over the summer, but, like Andy Card, I believe you shouldn’t introduce new products in August, whether it’s a war or an e-book. Now feels like the right time.

My hope is that some enterprising publisher will take new interest in “Little People” and contact me about bringing out a paperback edition. (E-mail me!) I also hope this helps me sell a few hardcover copies out of my basement. (New condition! Signed by the author!)

Even if that doesn’t happen, though, this means that “Little People” is still in circulation. And, ultimately, that’s what every author wants.

Living in the fishbowl

Students already know — or, least, they should know — that their Facebook and MySpace profiles can and will be used against them when they’re looking for a job. Now Ross Kerber reports in the Boston Globe that personal information posted to employment services such as Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com is ending up in the hands of marketers.

Which has me thinking about LinkedIn, a professional social-networking site that I joined about a year ago at the invitation of citizen-journalism pioneer Lisa Williams. As best as I can tell, I haven’t gotten any sales calls due to my LinkedIn profile. But I suppose it’s only a matter of time. We’re all living in the fishbowl now.

“Yes” to gambling; “no” to casinos

If nothing else, today’s Boston Globe poll on casino gambling shows that though there may be support for the idea of casino gambling, it’s going to be rough sledding for any particular casino proposal.

Overall, 53 percent of those surveyed say they favor Gov. Deval Patrick’s plan to build three casinos in Massachusetts. Dig deeper, though, and you can see that they really don’t.

The story, by Andrea Estes, gets at this dynamic here:

The poll raises the prospect of a “not in my backyard” backlash, one in which residents favor casinos but fear the traffic and crime problems associated with large-scale resort-casino developments. Fifty-four percent of those surveyed who live in metropolitan Boston said they think casinos should be located in rural areas, while 36 percent of those living in Western Massachusetts said they believe casinos should be in cities.

“I think if it’s in your backyard, you’re not going to want it,” said Ron Hull of East Boston, a teacher. “I’ve read that crime does go up in areas with casinos, and there is the traffic I’m worried about, too.”

When you look at the actual results (PDF), the numbers are even more striking. For instance, respondents were asked, “If Massachusetts were to permit casinos to open, would you want them to be in urban or rural areas?” Check this out:

  • Those who live inside Route 128 favor rural areas over urban areas, 54 percent to 18 percent.
  • Those who live between 128 and 495 favor rural areas over urban areas, 40 percent to 23 percent.
  • Those who live in Central Massachusetts favor rural areas over urban areas, 45 percent to 26 percent.
  • Those who live in Western Massachusetts favor urban areas over rural areas, 36 percent to 27 percent.
  • Those who live in “Southern” (which I take to mean Southeastern) Massachusetts, Cape Cod and the Islands favor rural areas over urban areas, 44 percent to 24 percent.

So there you have it. In every part of the state, overwhelming majorities do not want a casino built near them.

My other favorite question: “If you had a child, would you want your son or daughter to work in a casino?” The answer: 46 percent “no,” 33 percent “yes.” This is, of course, another form of NIMBYism, and a particular pernicious one. Why is it all right for someone else’s kid to work at a casino but not your own?

In other casino-related news, efforts to recall three of Middleborough’s five selectmen fell short yesterday. (The New Bedford Standard-Times covers the story here; the Brockton Enterprise here.)

To the extent that casino opponents allowed the recall election to be portrayed as a referendum on the proposed casino in that town, this is an unfortunate development. But I suspect this will prove to be no more than a minor setback in the campaign to keep Middleborough casino-free.

My standard disclosure.

Blumenthal defends Rather

Earlier this week, Sidney Blumenthal wrote a long piece for Salon headlined “Dan Rather stands by his story,” based on the false premise that it’s somehow necessary to rehabilitate Rather in order to believe George W. Bush did not fulfill his National Guard service in the early 1970s.

Several Media Nation readers are using Blumenthal’s piece to attack my Guardian column on Rather. I have posted a response here.