Our Fifteen Cents' Worth

Today, the MTA’s successor, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), raises subway fares from 85 cents to one dollar. Even at a dollar the fare will remain one of the lowest in the nation, and the T’s announcement of its first fare hike in almost a decade met only half-hearted protest from environmental and transportation advocacy groups.

And so, in the name of inevitable progress, fades one of the quotidian figures of life in Boston. Thousands of stickers on token booths will be scraped away; hundreds of thousands of commuters will slowly forget the multiples of 85 cents. The city’s quirky transportation system, its fares no longer quaintly nestled under the barrier of a dollar, rumbles into the 21st century.

—Sept. 18, 2000

Threskiornis aethiopicus

There are few places he hasn’t visited. He has been seen lounging in rural Appalachia, and perched proudly on piers along eastern seaboard. He has hunted for grubs in the marshlands of Nova Scotia; he has cavorted with royal seagulls from afar; he has flown atop the Great Wall; he has been tete-a-tete with distinguished journalists at The Washington Post’s Beijing Bureau; and, most recently, he has been seen circling Tiananmen Square.

We wouldn’t be surprised if Threski (short for Threskiornis aethiopicus) decided to remain in the Far East. During his frequent trips to 14 Plympton St., he has often been seen reading the Writings of Chairman Mao, copies of which are usually on hand in the offices of The Crimson’s editorial board. Ideology exerts a strong force on this bird; for an example one need only look to his famous 1953 visit to the Russian delegation in New York.