Category Archives: Boston

St. Elizabeth’s Hospital (Boston) ER: wait 0 minutes to be seen, 9 days to be treated

January 26, 2010 John Holiver, President St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center 736 Cambridge Street Brighton, MA 02135 Dear Mr. Holiver, My wife, A… Kamens, was treated in your emergency room (ER) early in the morning on Sunday, January 17. The doctor who treated her told her to seek follow-up care with her primary care physician (PCP),… Read More »

Honda Village is still at it; let’s see if the threat of a class-action lawsuit will put a stop to it!

[You can read the whole series of Honda Village postings here.] January 22, 2010 Ray Ciccolo Village Automotive Group 75 North Beacon Street Allston, MA 02134-1912 Dear Mr. Ciccolo, Once again, I find myself sending you a M.G.L. Chapter 93a letter because of Honda Village’s deceptive trade practices. In June 2009, Honda Village started sending… Read More »

New Massachusetts unemployment insurance employer Web site crashes and burns upon launch

(Simulblogged at universalhub.com.) The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has a convoluted(*) unemployment insurance system, under which employers are required to make various quarterly and annual filings and quarterly payments involving at least two different state agencies. This system is administered by the Department of Unemployment Assistance (DUA), who decided to replace their old, paper-based system with… Read More »

Family “Letters to the Editor” Score: +1

In today’s Boston Herald: Learn from Israel Monday, January 11, 2010 The Israelis do not use racial profiling for airport security (“European response mixed to new U.S. security demands,” Jan. 4). They use profiling, which includes patterns of behavior, coordination of intelligence and sophisticated modeling of which country of origin as but one factor. Interviews… Read More »

Zipcar! w00t!

I recently joined Zipcar.  I have been incredibly impressed in all of my dealings with them.  Some examples… Like just about every other company nowadays, Zipcar has a form on their Web site you can use to send them a message.  However, unlike most other companies, they also publish an actual email address you can… Read More »

Comcast Tech: “Comcast already disconnected? But I’ve got to disconnect SOMETHING!”

As I’ve discussed at length, I recently switched from Comcast internet & phone to RCN + Vonage because of dissatisfaction with Comcast’s business model (i.e., rip customers off at every opportunity), pricing (i.e., not at all competitive) and customer support (i.e., awful).  I thought this afterthought might be amusing to some… When the RCN installers… Read More »

Joe Fitzgerald’s token Christmas-loving Jew

To: letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com To the editor: On Dec. 10, Joe Fitzgerald wrote about Irina Koltoniuc, his favorite Christmas-loving Jew, for the sixth time (“Jewish immigrant champions Christmas”).  Does he keep writing about the same woman because he’s too lazy to find someone else, or because he can’t find any other Jews willing to talk about how… Read More »