Simon Waxman

Writer, editor 

But even where a solution cannot be engineered in concrete, it can be in people’s minds. Most important is a shift in norms, which begins by recognizing the social advantages of cycling.

Kurmann's ghost bike is fastened to a street sign at the Back Bay intersection where she died. (Hadley Green for WBUR)

That attention so easily turns to bike safety reflects a number of biases.

Getting Some Perspective On Bike Safety In Boston

A bicyclist rides past the Boston intersection of Mass. Ave. and Beacon Street, where Anita Kurmann, 38, was hit and killed in a crash on August 7, 2015. Mourners have placed flowers at the scene. (Hadley Green for WBUR)

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Health

Opinion

Transportation

policy

The Olympics are complicated and expensive, so necessarily a tough sell. But it would be hard to imagine more inept salespeople than Boston 2024 and the USOC.

What Walsh couldn’t deny is that when this sort of thing goes bad, governments pay.

On Olympics, Mayor Walsh Finally Came To His Senses

In this Jan. 9, 2015, file photo, Boston Mayor Martin Walsh speaks during a news conference in Boston after the city was picked by the USOC as its bid city for the 2024 Olympic Summer Games. Walsh said Monday, July 27, 2015, he won't sign a host city contract, which is key to the city's bid, without more assurances that taxpayers won't foot the bill. (Winslow Townson/AP)

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Coverage of Boston's bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. 

Boston 2024 Olympics

Olympics

To suggest that buskers, whose hard work ensures much of Faneuil Hall’s appeal, are freeloading is not just wrong but insulting.

the effect of such extreme fees ... will be to dissolve the wit and spontaneity performers bring to a historic, communal place, solidifying its metamorphosis into yet another consumer citadel, indistinguishable from the rest.

Soaking The Buskers Of Faneuil Hall

The managers of Faneuil Hall Marketplace are demanding that artists there pay between $500 and $2,500 for the privilege of earning tips and vending small wares. In this 1988 archive photo, a juggler performs at Faneuil Hall Marketplace. (Peter H. Dreyer/City of Boston Archives)

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Business

We don’t yet know the precise reasons for [Beverly Scott's] departure, but the pressure from the governor’s office seems a likely factor.

MBTA GM Beverly Scott gave an impassioned news conference this week. She submitted her resignation on Wednesday. (Courtesy of WCVB-TV)

Who among Baker’s brass is not looking over their shoulder now, wondering when the boss is going to throw them under the bus, assuming it can make it out of the depot?

Amid The T’s Crisis, Gov. Baker Is Showing His Management Style. It’s Not Pretty.

Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, left, speaks to reporters as Democratic legislative leaders Senate President Stanley Rosenberg, center, and House Speaker Robert DeLeo look on during a news conference Jan. 12, outside the governor's office at the State House in Boston. (Steven Senne/AP)

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Politics

We are a fraternity of fighters, and the pavement is our ring. Whether on two wheels or four -- and even on our feet, we are all Boston drivers: ruthless, uncompromising and no less than half-crazy.

Commentary: Keep Rollin&#039;: A Cyclist&#039;s Case For The Idaho Stop

My theory is not complicated: spend as little time as possible where the cars are. The Idaho stop facilitates this by enabling cyclists to keep moving rather than mob with drivers at red lights.

Keep Rollin': A Cyclist's Case For The Idaho Stop

Simon Waxman: "All it means is that, for cyclists, red lights are equivalent to stop signs, and stop signs equivalent to yields." (Kevin Schraer/flickr)

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Life

...receiving these refugees is less a matter of choice than of obligation. It is America’s fault that Central American children are knocking down our doors.

It’s not about turning children back at our borders or deporting them once they are here; it is about improving conditions in their countries of origin...

America's Debt To The Children Crossing Our Border

Simon Waxman: "Tens of thousands of young people are fleeing Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala thanks to America’s war on drugs." Pictured: Students walk after school in the community of San Jose Las Flores in the northern Cuchumatanes mountains of Guatemala, Tuesday, July 1, 2014. In this small community, Gilberto Francisco Ramos Juarez was born, a Guatemalan boy whose decomposed body was found in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. The number of unaccompanied immigrant children picked up along the border has been rising for three years as they flee pervasive gang violence in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. (Luis Soto/AP)

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The Court sees itself as enriching our democracy by enabling the flourishing of political speech. So we should accept the challenge and use our speech to contest the corruption money breeds in politics.

Republican activist Shaun McCutcheon of Hoover, Ala., right, leaves the Supreme Court in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2013, after the court's hearing on campaign finance. (Susan Walsh/AP) 

But even as we attempt to restore our democracy, this Court will hang over us, drowning out the speech of the many in favor of the wealthiest.

Big Money, Politics And The High Court: Considering The Implications Of McCutcheon V. FEC

On Wednesday, April 2, 2014, the Supreme Court struck down limits in federal law on the aggregate campaign contributions individual donors may make to candidates, political parties and political action committees. In this photo, demonstrators gather outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2013, as the court heard arguments on campaign finance. (Susan Walsh/AP) 


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this legislation is an attempt to anticipate 'other federal laws that may burden religious freedom.'

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has been urged to veto a bill that would allow business owners to refuse service to gays or other groups that offend their religious beliefs. (Ross D. Franklin/AP)

Arizona’s Push For Legal Discrimination Against Gays

What Arizona's 'Religious Freedom' Bill Is Really All About

Jo Beaudry holds up a sign as she joins nearly 250 gay rights supporters protesting SB1062 at the Arizona Capitol, Friday, Feb. 21, 2014, in Phoenix. The protesters gathered demanding Gov. Jan Brewer veto legislation that would allow business owners to refuse to serve gays by citing their religious beliefs. (Ross D. Franklin/AP)

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Religion

What he did want, though, from his own music, was to break down the barrier between professional and amateur, performer and audience.

The World According To Pete Seeger: A Remembrance

Pete Seeger's Radical Simplicity

Folk singer Pete Seeger sings in a one-man benefit concert in Berkeley, Calif. on Feb. 25, 1984. Seeger died Monday, Jan. 27, 2014, at age 94. (Mark Costantini/AP)

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Tribute

Arts

If there are good reasons to treat adult and youth offenders differently, why are those reasons discarded according to the severity of the crime?

If 20 percent of defendants his age are not competent to stand as adults, how confident can we be that his trial will be a fair one?

A Child Who Kills Is Still A Child

Simon Waxman: The requirement that minors accused of first-degree murder be tried as adults is an affront to reason and a challenge to the separation of juvenile and adult justice. In this photo, Phillip Chism, 14, from Danvers, Mass., is lead into the court room at his arraigned in Salem Superior Court, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013, in Salem, Mass. Chism is charged  in the Oct. 22 killing of a popular Danvers High School Math teacher Colleen Ritzer. (AP)

Simon Waxman

Recently published

Getting Some Perspective On Bike Safety In Boston

Cognoscenti

On Olympics, Mayor Walsh Finally Came To His Senses

Cognoscenti

Soaking The Buskers Of Faneuil Hall

Cognoscenti

Amid The T’s Crisis, Gov. Baker Is Showing His Management Style. It’s Not Pretty.

Cognoscenti

Keep Rollin': A Cyclist's Case For The Idaho Stop

Cognoscenti

America's Debt To The Children Crossing Our Border

Cognoscenti

Big Money, Politics And The High Court: Considering The Implications Of McCutcheon V. FEC

Cognoscenti

What Arizona's 'Religious Freedom' Bill Is Really All About

Cognoscenti

Pete Seeger's Radical Simplicity

Cognoscenti

A Child Who Kills Is Still A Child

Cognoscenti