We are well on our way to restoring power to Massachusetts voters.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena... who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause.  - Teddy Roosevelt

In producing her first reelection commercial, Governor Maura Healey plugs in American Celtic punk fave “I'm Shipping up to Boston” as the soundtrack. While the Dropkick Murphys play, Healey’s voiceover drops these claims:

Be courageous! Whatever setbacks America has encountered, it has always emerged as a stronger and more prosperous nation... Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith and go forward!  -Thomas Edison.

Update on May 4, 2026, following the Supreme Court’s decision to temporarily restore access to the abortion pill mifepristone:

"Friday's Fifth Circuit decision wasn't intended to be the final ruling on mailing mifepristone; it was a temporary judgment. We are pleased that the Supreme Court will conduct the thorough review of abortion pill shipments that our movement has long sought. And we look forward to a final ruling that prioritizes women's safety above the abortion industry's bottom line."

Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress. - Mahatma Gandhi

A 9-week-old embryo. Photo credit: lunar caustic, CC BY 2.0

One thing we learned from this report is that Governor Maura Healey is a woman of her word.

"Whatever it takes, whatever we need to do as a state to support access to reproductive healthcare — to health care, which I think is a human right— we are going to do," she told a reporter last summer.

I take a lot of walks, particularly during challenging periods like this past week. Between predictable December stress and unpredictable, incomprehensible headlines, I make time for significant doses of fresh air. Yesterday, my kids and I escaped to a local pond, sped around it a couple times, then stopped to catch our breath. I wasn’t angry, but I suddenly felt the urge to throw a few rocks, to toss weighty emotions into the deep. To my slightly befuddled kids, this was the coolest idea I’d ever had. Before you could say “green bean casserole” they’d picked up their stones. We hurled them out over the pond and watched its stillness erupt into countless ripples.

“Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car." - E.B. White

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -Preamble, Declaration of Independence.