Tobacco ban
Lance Reynolds’ report that the town of Brookline’s ban on tobacco sales to anyone born in the current century has been upheld by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts is just one further step to creating the quintessential “nanny state.” One does not have to approve of smoking (and I don’t – cigarettes killed my father at age 48) in order to see the lack of wisdom in such a regulation. Anyone who thinks it will keep young people from smoking is self-delusional. They will have older people buy them cigs. They will buy cigs from the thriving black market that would result. And so forth.
This is just another example of government officials engaging in actions that make them feel virtuous. But, in the long run, such virtue-preening will backfire, as it has with, for example, our nation’s ill-fated experiment with liquor prohibition, and attempts to criminalize marijuana (still a federal crime, but Massachusetts gave up the futile attempt) . As the Spanish philosopher George Santayana put it: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Harvey Silverglate
Cambridge
Mac Jones trade
As is the case of some idiot fans and media members, they can’t let a player be traded until they get in personal cheap shots. Mac Jones joins a long list of outgoing former Boston pro sports players who fans and media alike feel it’s OK to take venomous personal shots at. Only in Boston do we feel the need to do that, circumstances be damned, such as an aging head coach who set him up to fail by promoting two clueless people as offensive coaches. And the lack of talent set Jones and the Patriots up to fail. Good luck Mac Jones, New England does not deserve to have a good person like you representing the team.
Paul J. Baranofsky
Waltham
John Kerry
Make no mistake, John Kerry is not “resigning,” he is vacating the scene of the crime before the authorities show up. Like Anthony Fauci “retiring” just before the Republican congress and its subpoena powers were sworn in, Kerry is heading for Davos before President Trump can come into office and open the books on what this climate change charlatan has been doing with our money and illegitimate projection of U.S. diplomatic power.
Nick McNulty
Windham, NH