There is a great battle being fought by everything gentle, colorful and gorgeous that has been coming out of the ground and blooming or coming near to it. That battle is about life and death between what is blooming or trying to bloom and the recent spate of nightly cold which causes death to such early expressions of the spring.
It is a terrible battle, really, and everyone walking the Commonwealth Avenue promenade can see the toll the return of the cold has caused the early bloomers.
They tend to wilt and to fade rather quickly in the cold.
Those that don’t immediately die, are refreshed by the relative warmth of the day, using sunlight the way those of us taking medicine would ward off a sickness by using it.
Bottom line – the early spring in March was a fake. It caused everything growing to accelerate that growth unnaturally and then when things were about to blossom, the cold came and put a real damper to that.
All of this doesn’t bode well for everything seeking to remain alive and well throughout an extended spring and into summer.
Enjoy all the blooming while it lasts.
After all, nothing lasts forever and doesn’t last at all following a false spring followed by severe cold.
To be a millionaire or not
Back Bay residents might well ponder whether or not it matters that Senator Scott Brown and his opponent, Harvard Law professor Elisabeth Warren are both millionaires.
During this election season, being rich and wanting to serve in public office are often proving to be incompatible.
Senator Brown and Ms. Warren have both been put in the hot seat by reporters and commentators about being millionaires as though both need to apologize for their success.
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has also been having to dodge questions about his $200 million fortune.
He has responded by telling stories about how his grandfather went broke and his father grew-up with nothing.
It is amusing, really, that being a millionaire matters at all when it comes to getting elected to the US Senate.
After all, 60 out of 100 senators are millionaires, and our Senator John Kerry, is the richest among them.
The late Ted Kennedy was one of the richest senators but he never worked at making money and money certainly wasn’t his God. His late brother President John Kennedy distanced himself from the family fortune as did his late brother the former senator and attorney general Robert Kennedy.
The Kennedy’s weren’t about money. They were all about power.
The recent crop of candidates seem to be about money and power and of the inability to separate the two.
There is no crime in being a millionaire and running for office in America.
The crime is in doing nothing to meaningfully change the course of our history in order that we be a better nation.