Letter to the editor: Students should know their civic rights
by Jordan Clark/Huntington News – February 25, 2010

Have you ever heard of racial profiling? What about student profiling? You know, like when a Northeastern University Police Department (NUPD) officer stops you on a Saturday night and demands that they see the contents of your backpack as you walk to your freshman residence hall. Despite the fact that you have been in the library all night studying for you mid-term the following Monday, they assume you have some sort of alcohol in your bag because it is a Saturday and you are a college student and thus you must be heading to a party to indulge in copious amounts of underage drinking.

Incidents like these happen all the time; an officer asks to look in a student’s bag or demands you open the door without a warrant or probable cause. Regardless of whether or not your bag contains your biology book or a 30-rack, students do not shed their Constitutional rights when they agree to attend Northeastern, thus it is important to note that you don’t have to let the officer search your bag. You can say no and ask why; it is your Constitutional right and civic duty to question authority when you feel you are being mistreated.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I am supportive of police officers, but they are not perfect, and it is a sad reality, but police officers on colleges campus’s often take advantage of the fact that students may not be as familiar with their civil rights.
I bring up this topic as I recently filed a report against an NUPD officer for making, what I perceived to be threat; and after failing to provide me with his badge number (though I asked numerous times) I filed a grievance against him with NUPD.

I found this process to be quite troublesome as I not only felt threatened, but was also subjected to intimidation by an officer who, while I was writing the report at the station, proceeded to try and convince me I had no right to make such a claim. As an empowered and educated student who studies political science and taught a semester of civics in a high school, I would like to think I have a basic sense of my civil rights. So, if an officer engages you in any way, and you feel like you are being mistreated; you reserve the right to ask for his badge number. This way, if the officer violates procedure or infringes on your rights, you have the information you need to report a claim.

– Jordan Clark is a junior political science major and a Student Government Association Senator

The passions run high as libraries’ fate debated
By Andrew Ryan – Globe Staff / March 10, 2010

Sell a page from the 556-year-old Gutenberg Bible, one woman suggested. Charge a modest fee for library cards, said another, waving a $10 bill.

One man said that he was a prison librarian while serving time in Walpole and that closing any library branches would be far worse than any of his crimes.

“I may have robbed a bank, but I have never burned a book,’’ said the man, John McGrath. “And that’s what you do when you close a library branch, because they are never going to reopen.’’

Passions ran high yesterday as nearly 400 people packed a lecture hall at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square for an emotional and at times raucous public meeting about the fate of the constellation of library branches that dot the city.

When City Council President Michael P. Ross stepped to the microphone at one point, the crowd roared, and people shouted, “The public goes first,’’ and “Let the people speak.’’

Ross relented, and a constant stream of people took turns, many denouncing a proposal by library officials to close up to 10 neighborhood branches to consolidate resources and change how they provide services in the face of a $3.6 million budget shortfall.

One college gains true diversity
Globe Editorial – March 7, 2010

WHEELOCK COLLEGE is without peer in diversity, with a tenured and tenure track faculty that is 23 percent black and Hispanic. A Globe survey found the percentage of such faculty to be between 3 and 8 percent at Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Boston College, Brandeis, Emerson, Northeastern, and Tufts. Not a single one of those private colleges and universities is even at the 9 percent national average for black and Hispanic faculty, in a nation that is 28 percent black and Hispanic.

Only UMass Boston, the city’s public university, offers Wheelock any competition with 13 percent black and Hispanic faculty. Boston University, the city’s largest private school, is only at 3.4 percent. Harvard may boast some black superstars such as Henry Louis Gates, Jr., but its faculty is only 5.8 percent black and Hispanic.

Wheelock proves that neither rocket science nor an undiscovered Dead Seas scroll is necessary to find the formula to achieve diversity. Wheelock President Jackie Jenkins-Scott, who is African American but says progress was underway well before her arrival in 2004, said that universities have to believe in diversity enough to have “a diversity officer with access to the departments [and] the ability to report situations to the leadership.’’

Grand jury hears claims coach abused teen in ’70s
By Michael Rezendes – Globe Staff / March 7, 2010

It was an overcast Saturday in the summer of 1976 and the Red Sox and Yankees were halfway through a doubleheader. Sam Albano, a New York television producer, was strolling down Lansdowne Street behind Fenway Park when he ran into a friend from home, Bob Oliva, and Oliva’s guest that day, a teenager named Jimmy Carlino.

It crossed his mind that it was odd to find Oliva with a 14-year-old, but Albano quickly dismissed the thought. And over the next 30 years, the two men became even closer friends, sharing a passion for sports as Oliva built a reputation as a standout coach for the powerhouse basketball team at Christ the King Regional High School in Queens.

Now, however, Albano is cooperating with Boston prosecutors presenting evidence to a Suffolk grand jury that Oliva repeatedly molested his teenage companion all those years ago, while staying at the Sheraton Boston Hotel. And in the aftermath of those allegations, Oliva has resigned from the job he held at Christ the King for 27 years, roiling the New York City high school sports community.

“This is a guy I looked up to, trusted, and had a lot of faith in, and even believed in when the initial allegations surfaced,’’ Albano said in a Globe interview. “However, because of his personal conduct there’s no way I can support Bob anymore.’’

They’re fighting to stay on top at Latin – Students rallying for honors courses
By James Vaznis – Globe Staff / March 6, 2010

Students have collected more than 500 signatures on a petition. Hundreds have joined a Facebook group. And their parents have been firing off letters to school administrators.

They are rallying behind a push to save honors classes at Boston Latin School, following the school’s announcement last week that it would scrap the classes and instead focus on expanding access to more rigorous college-level courses.

The move to drop honors classes next year has caused a stir at this most competitive of public schools, where even the slightest deviation in a grade point average is a cause of alarm for many students.

Supporters of the honors classes say the courses have served as a good middle ground for generations of students whose skills are above the level of standard courses but are not ready for college-level, or Advanced Placement, classes.

They also worry that the loss of honors courses will damage students’ chances of admission to top colleges. Grades in honors classes are weighted more heavily in GPAs than standard courses, but not as much as the college-level work.

Brookline pitch may hit Sox fans in wallet – Town ponders raising parking meter rates
By Brock Parker – Globe Correspondent / March 6, 2010

BROOKLINE – Red Sox fans may not get a free pass to park in Brookline on their way to Fenway Park this summer.

Officials in Brookline are warming to the idea of extending the hours that parking meters operate near Fenway Park and charging about $10 to park in the spots during games.

In past seasons, parking has been free at meters in Brookline after 6 p.m. Sox fans could hop on the Green Line to get to Fenway and avoid parking fees near the stadium that can cost up to $35. But as a result, customers at some businesses – such as those near the St. Mary’s MBTA stop on Beacon Street – often could not find a place to park.

“Our regulars will not come down here when it’s a game day,’’ said Paul Walsh, general manager of the Beacon Street Tavern, who said at least 50 percent of his patrons drive to the restaurant.

Brookline selectmen appointed a committee to consider hiking meter rates and extending the hours for metered spots until 10 p.m., said Bill Schwartz, a cochairman of the committee.

The changes could affect more than 100 parking spots around the St. Mary’s stop and the 1000 block of Beacon Street.

Where ideas can flow – MIT’s Media Lab moves into $90 million building designed by Pulitzer Prize-winning architect
By Hiawatha Bray – Globe Staff / March 6, 2010

CAMBRIDGE – It took more than 10 years, but the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s famed Media Lab has finally moved into its new digs.

The gleaming aluminum structure on Amherst Street in Cambridge officially opened yesterday. Media Lab director Frank Moss said its large central atrium and glass-enclosed laboratories are ideal spaces for the lab’s collaborative research projects.

“It delivers on the vision of a unique way of doing research,’’ Moss said. “No boundaries, no walls, a flow of interdisciplinary ideas, and plenty of space to build and invent.’’

The new lab’s Pulitzer Prize-winning architect, Fumihiko Maki, called it “one of the best buildings we ever produced in my long career, both in Japan and in the United States.’’

The plans for the new Media Lab were announced in 1999, as part of a major building campaign for the MIT campus. The most famous of the new buildings, a computer science center designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, was completed in 2004. But Maki’s plans for the Media Lab were put in a drawer after the Internet boom of the late-1990s faded and corporate financing for the project dwindled.

DNA clues hunted in ’90 art theft – FBI hopes technology can yield lead in Gardner Museum case
By Stephen Kurkjian – Globe Correspondent / March 4, 2010

On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the theft of masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the FBI is resubmitting evidence taken from the crime scene for DNA analysis in hope of gaining a long-sought break in the case.

Because of advances in DNA analysis since the 1990 robbery, the lead agent in the case, Geoffrey Kelly, decided to send evidence to the FBI’s scientific laboratory in Quantico, Va., a spokeswoman in the FBI’s Boston office said.

The heist, which included three Rembrandts and a Vermeer, remains the world’s largest art theft in dollar value.

Kelly said he could not disclose the type of evidence to be reviewed, but others familiar with the case said it would probably include long strips of duct tape used to tie up the museum’s two night watchmen, whom the thieves overpowered to get access to the artwork.

“If they left any sweat on that duct tape, a sample could be drawn, and with that sample there’s the possibility of a result,’’ said Dr. Bruce Budowle, former senior scientist of the FBI’s Quantico lab.

Former Beth Israel employee convicted of embezzling more than $1m
By Globe Staff – March 3, 2010

A 42-year-old Boston man was convicted today of embezzling more than $1 million from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, federal prosecutors said.

Richard P. Webb pleaded guilty before US District Judge Joseph L. Tauro to one count of health care theft and embezzlement, the US attorney’s office said in a statement.

Prosecutors said Webb worked as a practice assistant in the ear, nose and throat department. From January 2006 through April 2009, he embezzled more than $1 million by stealing checks written to the department and by seeking fraudulent refunds for hearing aids and other items.

Webb and the government have agreed to recommend a 42-month sentence, restitution and forfeiture of more than $1 million, the statement said. A sentencing hearing has been set for June 9.

MIT graduate student wins prize for work in genomics, linguistics
Carolyn Y. Johnson/, Globe Staff -  March 3, 2010

A graduate student who developed a method for sequencing the genome in 3-D, invented a shoe insole to help detect balance problems in the elderly, and studied the evolution of language was awarded the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT student prize today.

Erez Lieberman-Aiden, a graduate student in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, is one of four winners of the prize, for a body of work that includes math, linguistics, and polymer physics.

As an intern at NASA, Lieberman-Aiden invented the iShoe — an insole with sensors that could be used to diagnose balance problems and reduce the risk of injury due to falling among senior citizens. He and his collaborators are currently testing the technology in clinical trials.

More recently, he and collaborators developed a method for 3-D genome sequencing, a technique that helps to explain how the genome folds up to fit into the nucleus of a cell.

He has also studied the evolution of language, finding that irregular verbs are disappearing from English in a predictable way.

Merman’s star power lifts ‘Phantom’
By Sandy MacDonald – Globe Correspondent / March 1, 2010

Ryan Landry and his Gold Dust Orphans are experts when it comes to sending up the grand old theatrical tradition of backstage backstabbing (consider their recent “All About Christmas Eve’’). Funny thing is, the company itself seems to operate without ego. When a drag star of international renown such as Varla Jean Merman happens to make herself available for a monthlong run, everyone graciously takes a step back, the better to showcase the visiting luminary.

In “Phantom of the Oprah’’ (yet another inspired pop-culture mash-up penned by Landry), Merman is very much front and center – and brilliant – as ingenue soprano Christine Daaé: amid bouts of brayed coloratura, she nails a few high notes that could strike fear in Sarah Brightman. From the moment Merman appears (in a pleated plaid parochial-school skirt, besequined and scandalously short – kudos as always to costume designer Scott Martino), she makes an ideal ingenue-in-distress, primping and pouting when not engaging in crude come-ons or suddenly zombified by some unseen force.

That would be Oprah (company regular Andre “Afrodite’’ Shoals), who during her final show – seen in flashback – announces her candidacy for the 2012 presidential race, only to have a mysterious veiled woman hurl acid in her face. Oprah takes refuge in the depths of a moldering historic theatre that she’d intended to turn into the Oprah School of Broadcasting, and the rest of the story you probably know – though not with these hilarious twists.

House of hoarder: Home condemned – Boston firefighters blocked by clutter
By Marie Szaniszlo/Boston Herald – March 3, 2010

A gentle “pack rat” who stuffed his Back Bay brownstone with mounds of clutter had his home condemned yesterday a day after firefighters couldn’t get inside to investigate an oil leak.

The owner, 73-year-old Herbert Hamilton, had to crawl through the debris Monday and out the back door of 32 St. Stephens St., a block from Symphony Hall, authorities said.

“He’s a nice guy, but he’s a pack rat,” said Jeff Maccora, a 27-year-old neighbor, pointing to a mound of debris behind Hamilton’s building, including an old Volkswagen covered by a brown tarp and surrounded by plastic cat-litter cartons. “It’s an eyesore, but it’s his property. I don’t know what you can do.”

Firefighters responding to an oil leak shortly after 6:30 p.m. Monday decided to force their way into the building when no one answered the door or the phone, police said. But they were stopped by stacks of debris behind the door.