Yvonne Abraham

Yvonne Abraham

Every Wednesday and Sunday.
E-Mail abraham@globe.com
PHONE (617) 929-7427
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  • Yvonne Abraham: Leave Ted Kennedy out of the race to fill his Senate seat

    Let’s face it: Martha Coakley is no Ted Kennedy. Neither is Mike Capuano. Nor Alan Khazei. Nor Steve Pagliuca.

  • Ideal role close to home

    Ruth Ellen Fitch has traveled worlds beyond the Harrishof Street house in Roxbury where she grew up during the fifties and sixties.

  • Known as the mayor

    Now Thomas M. Menino becomes the standard by whom other mayors are measured. A fifth consecutive term. That’s more than the infamous, beloved James Michael Curley and his formidable machinery could engineer. And more than Kevin White’s vaunted vision could inspire.

  • Flaherty’s big contribution

    Whatever happens on Tuesday, Boston should be grateful to Michael Flaherty. Watching him over the last week, hammering away at Mayor Tom Menino over the state of the schools, the lack of diversity in his top posts, and his autocratic leadership style, I was struck by how remarkable this city councilor’s challenge has been.

  • Newton man's sudden death shatters family, town

    NEWTON - Everybody in Newton knew Jeff Beatrice because he had coached every kid in town at one time or another. Their mothers would stop his wife, Elinor, in the street to tell her Jeff was the best basketball, baseball, softball, football coach their kid had ever had.

  • Solution for dropouts

    EVERETT - Usually, big social problems are so complicated that it’s hard to imagine ever fixing them. And, daunted, we don’t.

  • Another test of willpower

    CHELSEA - “You threw your life away.’’ That’s what Leslie Niedner’s guidance counselor at Boston Latin Academy told her when she got pregnant at 16.

  • Beacon Hill’s 7 brave souls

    Say you’re one of the 135 Democratic legislators who voted to keep Sal DiMasi as House speaker back in January. Right now, you’ve got to be feeling even chumpier than usual, which hardly seemed possible until a few days ago.

  • Time to help foster parents

    Sunday’s column on Maria Dickerson , the remarkable woman who took in four young children after their mother’s murder last year, brought torrents of mail from readers offering help and donations.

  • High time to decide

    Sooner or later, everybody who runs for citywide office finds themselves standing bleary-eyed beneath the giant clock at the Forest Hills T station.

  • A little less ‘conversation’

    It was one of the most telling moments in Thursday night’s mayoral debate. Defending his temperament following e-mails revealing that he had reamed out community activist Valerie Burns, Mayor Tom Menino likened himself to a corporate executive.

  • Anonymity, round two

    Massachusetts is a study in political ambition right now, with legions of hopefuls up and down the political food chain salivating over possible vacancies.

  • Bottle bill bottled up

    What if somebody came to you with a proven way to keep billions of plastic bottles out of our rivers, fields, and landfills?

  • Electrify the electorate

    Let’s hope today marks the start of a whole new mayoral race. Until now, the four-way fight for mayor has been by turns a snoozer and an unseemly scrap. Mostly, the campaign has consisted of Menino’s three challengers trying to beat the stuffing out of him, while the incumbent has tried desperately not to slip up.

  • The missing missives?

    So Mayor Thomas M. Menino and his go-to guy, Michael Kineavy, have left us wondering what was in all those e-mails that Kineavy was so fastidious about deleting every day - perhaps illegally.

  • Let us now praise him

    He’s a brilliant politician whose name has never appeared on a ballot. He’s a phenomenally successful CEO for an outfit that never turned a cent of profit. He’s the center of the universe for tens of thousands in a city where most people have never heard of him.

  • For Mass. Senate seat, I’ll vote on merit, not gender

    A lot of people think they know how I’m going to vote in this winter’s special election for the US Senate, and I find that mighty annoying.

  • A seat fit for Dukakis

    And now, to the very difficult business of moving forward. It’s looking like state lawmakers might do the right thing and grant one of Senator Ted Kennedy’s final wishes, installing somebody to act in his stead until voters choose a permanent replacement.

  • A man who knew pain eased it in others

    There was no use arguing. It was Aug. 18, 2008. The senator read in the paper that two servicemen from Mashpee had died in Iraq and Afghanistan. He knew their grieving families would be together that afternoon, gathering for sandwiches and fortitude before a candlelight service at Mashpee’s veterans memorial.

  • A weedy lot blossoms

    Your idea of fun probably doesn’t involve hanging out in a weedy vacant lot on a summer night.

  • Crowning achievement

    I have often looked up at that newish skyscraper by the Pru and thought, “Man, that weird crown thing on top of that building is ugly. What were they thinking?’’

  • Little steps, big results

    There’s a lot of dead space in Boston right now - giant holes all over the city, as developers wait for financing to thaw. But you’d never know that if you dropped by the Brewery complex, near the Stony Brook T in Jamaica Plain.