Massachusetts Political Shorts

It looks like the University of Massachusetts didn't learn its lesson from the Billy Bulger saga and once again appointed a career politician with no academic experience to a top leadership position. This time, it's Congressman Marty Meehan (of "Marty, a ham and cheese on rye, Marty!" "Yes, sir!" fame), who is the new chancellor of UMass-Lowell. Meehan is hardly underqualified for the position, since he's never been indicted for obstruction of justice. In my opinion, Tom Finneran would have been a much better choice.

Governor Deval Patrick announced that he's scaling back his schedule to spend more time with his wife, who is suffering from depression. That's funny, I though we were already paying someone $72,000 a year to take of his wife.

Speaking of Patrick, there's a burger place in Harvard Square that names its sandwiches after celebrities. Their latest offering is called the Deval Patrick. It's described as "the Cadillac of hamburgers." The cost? A mere $1,166 (registration and title extra).

Finally, in all seriousness, It's A Magical World mourns the loss of Supreme Judicial Court Justice Martha Sosman. Unlike other justices on the SJC (margaretmarshall, ahem), Sosman would rigidly analyze the law when making her decisions, rather than issuing judgments on the basis of political viewpoints and backfilling with some bogus legal analysis that gave her the result she wanted. Sosman was an abortion rights activist and a suspected homosexual, yet she consistently left her politics in chambers and considered only the law while on the bench. She developed a reputation for repeatedly dissenting from the majority opinions, most notably in the Goodridge v. Department of Public Health gay marriage case. As an independent judicial voice, she was a valuable asset to the judiciary of Massachusetts and will be sorely missed, especially since Deval Patrick gets to appoint her replacement.