NStar works to restore power; cause of fire still unknown
- The utility is focusing on restoring power to 13,000 customers before focusing on what caused the massive transformer fire Tuesday night.
Tweet
Tweet
I love the Hahbah Islands!
Birds of winter charm a Harbor Islands cruise
- State and federal officials have teamed up with the owner of a whale-watching boat to offer what many New Englanders might consider to be an oxymoron: a winter cruise.
Tweet
Here it comes. I’m glad I finally took the air conditioners out this past weekend.
Some areas of Mass. could see snow
- Though Boston may not be getting more than a few snowflakes on Thursday night, National Weather Service meteorologist Alan Dunham is “reasonably sure” sustained snowfall will occur northwest of the city.
Tweet
Who’s wrong here? People occupying a public space to talk about the problems in our society and how things could be better or is it the banks that we’re camped out next to that are taking people’s homes, ruining the world economy? They’re at fault. They’re at fault. And yet it’s people from Occupy Boston who are in court today, not people from banks.
“
| — | Kari Peterson-Smith “Across The Nation, ‘Wall Street’ Protests Continue” : NPR 10/11/11 |
Tweet
From the beginning, occupiers have worked tirelessly to maintain a positive working relationship with city officials. Today’s threats by the Boston Police Department represent a sudden shift away from that dialogue.
“
| — |
Statement from Occupy Boston. Boston police warn protesters to leave Greenway tonight, or be moved out - Metro Desk - Local news updates from The Boston Globe Political justice—the use of the criminal justice system to advance political ends—has come to Boston. It is an outrage to abrogate in this way people’s First Amendment rights of free speech and peaceable assembly for redress of grievances. |
Tweet
The Boston subway system opened on this date [September 1]in 1897. Traffic was terrible — especially streetcar traffic on Tremont Avenue — and the public’s complaints forced the governor to appoint a special commission to take up the matter in 1891. It was eventually decided to put in a combination of elevated railways for trains and subways for streetcar traffic, at a final cost of $4.4 million. There were some setbacks along the way, however. Workers were dismayed to find they’d cut too close to the Old Common Burial Ground, and they ended up accidentally exhuming more than 900 bodies. An explosion at Boylston and Tremont killed nine men. But the project was finished ahead of schedule and under budget.
The Tremont Street line was the first subway in North America; it served stations at Park Street, Scollay Square, and Adams Square. The trip took three and a half minutes and the fare was five cents. The single line grew into the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, known by locals as the “T,” and it now boasts 181 routes and 252 stations. The old Tremont Avenue line now forms the center of the Green Line.
“
| — |
via The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor 9/1/11 Sorry I didn’t get to post this yesterday. |
Tweet
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? We the people are, apparently.
Hear ye, hear ye!!
The First Circuit Court of Appeals—the highest federal court for New England just below the U.S. Supreme Court—last Friday handed down a ground-breaking decision defending our right to videotape the police and other public officials as they engage in their official duties—including when, as in this case, the cops appear to be beating a man on the Boston Common.
Tweet
Just when we began to think he was a mythical creature, like a unicorn or griffin.
June 23, 2011
In these 1984 file photos originally released by the FBI, New England organized crime figure James “Whitey” Bulger is shown. (AP)LOS ANGELES — Boston mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger was captured near Los Angeles after spending the last 16 years on the run during an epic manhunt that served as a major embarrassment to the FBI and made the fugitive a global sensation as he constantly found a way to elude authorities.
The FBI finally caught the 81-year-old Bulger Wednesday at a residence in Santa Monica along with his longtime girlfriend Catherine Greig just days after the government launched a new publicity campaign to locate the fugitive mobster, said Steven Martinez, FBI’s assistant director in charge in Los Angeles. The arrest was based on a tip from the campaign, he said.
Tweet
Responsible journalists will help us look beyond the hype infused with the modern US “culture of fear.”
Today’s headlines pertain directly to issues we covered in my Modern Social Thought class at Endicott College this past semester.
Police dispersed crowds at Carson Beach in Boston after fights broke out.… (photos by Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff)
You may see more police at beaches around Boston this summer. That’s because of an incident at Carson Beach in South Boston Monday, when about 1,000 young people gathered there. Some of them, according to state police, got into fights and acted unruly. Initial media reports painted the incident as gang warfare organized over Facebook and Twitter, but the real story may be less sexy.
The lead story on the “Drudge Report” Tuesday carried the headline “Teen Gangs Unleashed on Boston Beach.” The link takes you to the story in the Boston Globe that suggested rival gangs had used Facebook to plan unruly gatherings on the beach.
My students read the revised edtion (2009) of Barry Glassner’s The Culture of Fear. Amongst what they find there are an analysis of the supposed dangers of the internet. It’s just like the media to sensationalize “gang violence,” which turns out not to have been gang-related, to Facebook and Twitter, which turns out just to be the multiplier effect of people “telling two friends” (like the old Fabergé commercial), or in fact, telling five hundred, to go to the beach. Fortunately, as Glassner points out, responsible journalists like those at WBUR also debunk such myths and the hype about youth cyber-crime that frequents the halls of criminal justice studies and police departments alike. To some, social media is a great unknown, and therefore it should be scary, because it sells more clicks on webads. We have come to expect that of Drudge, but the BoGlobe?
Tweet
Nor’easter in Northeastern MA (1/26-1/27/11)
Be careful out there, people. Today’s snow is very heavy. Don’t let the totals fool you. If you have a snowblower, you’ll see what I mean. It’s not sopping wet like those March snows, but it is much more dense than the powder we’ve been having in Northeastern Massachusetts. A snowblower fluffs it back up, not unlike whipping air into egg whites. One of the berms that line my driveway is probably over six feet high right now. I’m just chuckling over the deceptively low yields.
Tweet
