1904 – Irish author James Joyce begins a relationship with Nora Barnacle and subsequently uses the date to set the actions for his novel Ulysses; this date is now traditionally called “Bloomsday,”  More anniversaries.

William J. Mitchell, Architect and Urban Visionary, Dies at 65
By WILLIAM GRIMES/NYT – June 15, 2010

William J. Mitchell, an architect and urban theorist who envisioned the modern city as an electronically interconnected network of systems and who, while serving as dean of the school of architecture and planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, enlisted top architects to carry out an ambitious expansion of the M.I.T. campus, died Friday in Boston. He was 65 and lived in Cambridge, Mass.

The cause was complications of cancer, his wife, Jane Wolfson, said.

Mr. Mitchell, who led the Smart Cities research group at the M.I.T. Media Lab and was a professor of architecture and media arts and sciences, was an architect by training but an urban visionary by avocation. Early on, he saw the application of computers to architectural design. His pioneering work in this area, and his books “Computer-Aided Architectural Design” (1977) and “The Logic of Architecture: Design, Computation and Cognition” (1990) profoundly changed the way architects approached building design.

“A lot of what is taught about design and computation in architecture schools today comes from the way that Bill set the subject up,” said George Stiny, a professor of computation at M.I.T. “If he hadn’t been there to inaugurate computer-aided architectural design, architects would probably still not be doing it. Remember, in 1977 it was hard to draw a line on a computer. Bill really had a sense of how much architects could take, gave them a little more, and made it possible for them to take the next step.”

Protesters rally at Fenway Park – Ariz. game draws immigration law demonstrators
By Maria Sacchetti – Globe Staff / June 16, 2010

The Arizona Diamondbacks huddled in the cramped visitors clubhouse in Fenway Park yesterday afternoon, carrying more baggage than the usual bats and balls. On Lansdowne Street, the protesters were arriving.

The team has become mired in the vitriolic national debate over illegal immigration, a symbol of a state under fire for recently passing the most restrictive immigration law in the country. Protests have dogged them in Houston and Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami, and yesterday in Boston, where scores of demonstrators gathered behind the Green Monster before game time to rally against the law.

“It’s been happening everywhere we go,’’ said Miguel Montero, a 26-year-old catcher from Venezuela. “We don’t talk about it.’’

Yesterday’s demonstrators — about 200 people from labor unions, church groups, and immigrant advocates — crowded the sidewalk behind sausage stands to assail the law, which was passed in April and takes effect next month. The law makes it a state crime to be in the United States illegally and allows police to question those they suspect of being in the country without papers.

[see also this photo gallery - ed]

A hermetically sealed dome around Kenmore Square was probably judged too expensive
Universal Hub: By adamg – 6/15/10 – 5:04 pm

Making sure we understand why we can’t have nice things, Boston Police are doing everything they can to keep drunken louts from overturning cars in Kenmore Square (and near Faneuil Hall and the Garden) both today and Thursday (because you never know), in addition to banning freebie newspaper boxes and just generally trying to keep people out of the areas.