Boston hopes for Haiti president bid by Wyclef Jean
By Guychardson Destin and Tenley Woodman/Boston Herald – July 28, 2010

Rapper. Grammy winner. Humanitarian.

President?

Musician Wyclef Jean has not officially declared his candidacy, but talk that the former Fugee will enter the presidential race in his native Haiti has young members of Boston’s Haitian community excited.

He is a hero to a lot of people,” said Bendhjy Nazaire, 19, who immigrated to Somerville from Aux Cayes, Haiti, when he was 8 years old.

Jean, 37, was born in Haiti, but has lived in America for most of his life. He returned to his homeland to aid relief efforts following a catastrophic earthquake that devastated Haiti in January, killing an estimated 230,000 people and leaving 1 million homeless.

Jean’s family released a statement yesterday that read, “If and when a decision is made, media will be alerted immediately.”

Pa. woman charged in fake Hynes bridal expo – Similar scams tricked vendors in other states
By Jonathan Saltzman – Globe Staff / July 28, 2010

Federal authorities say they have arrested the mastermind of a scheme that defrauded scores of wedding industry vendors who registered for a bridal show at the Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center in March that turned out to be a sham.

Karen Tucker, 47, of Pittsburgh, was arrested yesterday in that city and charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft, according to the office of US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz in Boston.

Vendors allegedly lost thousands of dollars in the ploy, the focus of a five-month investigation by cybercrime sleuths for the FBI and Boston police.

Tucker appears to have staged similar schemes in at least five other states since 2007, according to an FBI affidavit unsealed yesterday.

“This alleged scheme targeted the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority and cost many small businesses thousands of dollars,’’ Ortiz said in a statement. “Thanks to the tremendous cooperation between the FBI and the Boston Police Department, we were able to unravel a scheme that had a large impact, with victims that spanned across the country.’’

The shaping of things – In her new book, Wheelock professor Gail Dines warns that the prevalence of porn is twisting our attitudes about sex
By Don Aucoin – Globe Staff / July 27, 2010

CHESTNUT HILL– With just a few clicks of her desktop computer’s keyboard in her home office here, Gail Dines travels to a place she wishes did not exist: a pornographic website.

The images seem designed to maximize the women’s humiliation, a point that is not lost on Dines. “If you really watch it carefully, you can see that they’re in pain, exhausted, demoralized,’’ she says, looking somberly at the screen.

For three decades, Dines has been watching the pornography industry very carefully. What she has seen has ignited such a fury and sense of mission that she has made pornography a focus of her research, writing, teaching, and activism. As she has emerged as a leading anti-porn advocate, Dines has also become a target of venomous attacks: In one of the criticisms that can be printed in a family newspaper, a writer called her a “blind, delusional, opportunistic hack.’’

Her critics will not be pleased to learn that Dines is escalating her campaign with a new book titled “Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality’’ (Beacon Press). In particular, she is sounding the alarm about the ubiquity of “gonzo’’ porn, an extreme form of pornography that specializes in the degradation of women and that is available 24/7 on the Internet.

Sox ailing on airwaves, too – TV, radio ratings down sharply, threatening profits, as team’s on-field frustrations mount
By D.C. Denison and Alexandria McMahon – Globe Staff | Globe Correspondent / July 28, 2010

A lackluster season is taking its toll on the Boston Red Sox — on and off the field.

TV and radio ratings have fallen dramatically this season, along with many of the team’s marquee names. As the injured list has grown and the Sox have settled into third place in the American League East, more listeners and viewers seem to be finding other ways to spend a few hours on a summer evening.

The shrinking audiences could affect business — for the team as well as for other companies that have long relied on Red Sox fervor to drive revenues.

After a six-year run as the baseball franchise with the highest rated local telecasts in the country, Boston has tumbled to the fifth spot. Ratings for Red Sox games on NESN in the first half of the season fell almost 36 percent from the same period last year, according to an analysis of Nielsen Media Research data by the SportsBusiness Journal.

Ratings for Red Sox games broadcast on WEEI-AM were down 16.5 percent, to 107,500 listeners. Listenership among 25- to 54-year-old males was down even more — by 28 percent.

Boston neighborhoods offer a variety of pizza pies
[This is one of those annoying features in which you have to keep opening a new page to find out the next pizzeria on the list.  It's included here because Woody's Pizza on Hemenway St. made the list, most deservedly. - ed]

1868 – The 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is passed, establishing African-American citizenship and guaranteeing due process of law.  More anniversaries.