On Brookline

Over the next two weeks, I’m going to be redesigning On Brookline in set-up and focus. I want to get back to writing columns and digging deep on a few things, rather than trying to spread myself over lots of things.

I’ll do two columns a week, appearing on Monday and Thursday. I’ll run guest columns and syndicate other pieces where I can. And at some point, the comments section will be turned off.

All I want do with this site is to make the case for reform. Now more than ever. Next week, I’ll address the school-based psy ops campaign run by town government during the recent local election and start to take a closer look at how the Town’s advisory committee is a charade modeled on the Soviet system.

It may sound out there, but there’s a lot about Brookline that resembles the Bush Administration — using public institutions to influence elections, putting lackeys in regulatory positions. It goes on and on.

People in Brookline think that we are an exception to those kind of abuses. And that is what allows the abuses to persist.

I have no illusion that this site will change any of that soon. I’ve always said that my role is to chronicle the madness so as to lay down markers for our progeny when the reckoning comes.

And the best indication to me that the reckoning is on its way is the desperation with which those in power have been trying to beat it back.