Monthly Archives: September 2015

The bottomline is Entergy’s only concern

It has made the headlines here and in Boston: Entergy, the parent company of Pilgrim nuclear power plant is, at long last, considering closing it down. The gist of the story: after years of faltering performance plant has recently been ranked as one of the worst in the nation. If the cost of making the […]

September 24, 2015 – 11:57 am | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Let’s get curious about the charter school controversy

You’d like to think that Education, in the business of encouraging being thoughtful and curious about things, would be curious about itself. But it would be naïve to expect that. Education isn’t any better at self -examination than any other embedded institution. There was a news story early in August about a ballot question for […]

September 19, 2015 – 8:32 am | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Labor Day, Self-driving cars and John Henry

Don’t look now, but the self driving car (SDC) is apparently about to run us over. Already prototypes have put in over a million miles on public roads (so far with a human co-pilot for emergencies). Google says it plans to make SDCs available by 2020. It’s a shock reading that the SDC will have […]

September 13, 2015 – 12:31 pm | By Brent | Posted in Columns | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Pilgrim shutdown and the real role of the NRC

Today’s big front page story suggests that the shutdown of Pilgrim may be imminent now that this antiquated plant has fallen to worst-in-nation status. This is heartening new to the great majority of Cape Codders who want to see the end this upwind threat defused at long last. But any celebrating would be premature. Governor […]

September 3, 2015 – 12:34 pm | By Brent | Posted in Posts | Tagged , | Comments (0)