Reignited ire buffets Muslim students  – Despite tensions, many hold to their belief in America
By Lisa Wangsness – Globe Staff / September 6, 2010

WELLESLEY — Laila Alawa fiddled with her cellphone, pretending she hadn’t heard what an apparently intoxicated man near her on the MBTA had said about “her people’’ wanting to build the “ground zero mosque.’’

Growing up in a large Muslim family in upstate New York and New Hampshire, Alawa had often drawn stares because of her headscarf, and sometimes endured harassment from neighborhood children. But this summer, as she shuttled between research jobs at Wellesley College and MIT, the looks and questions from strangers about where she was from seemed to come more often, and with a sharper edge.

“Every day I wake up, I just really want to put it out there — like, we’re not going to hurt you,’’ Alawa, a 19-year-old Wellesley student, said in an interview last week. “We are normal people, with fears and aspirations.’’

Seiji Ozawa’s Return to the Stage
By JAMES R. OESTREICH/NYT – September 5, 2010

MATSUMOTO, Japan — It was not exactly the return he had hoped for, but the conductor Seiji Ozawa scored a triumph of a limited sort here at the Saito Kinen Festival on Sunday afternoon as he returned to the public stage for the first time since surgery for esophageal cancer in January.

He opened a program of the festival orchestra (he was supposed to have led all of it), conducting the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. Then, because he was experiencing sciatic problems that recurred as a byproduct of the surgery, he stepped aside to let a younger conductor, Tatsuya Shimono, take over.

A progressive voter guide for JP and surrounding neighborhoods
By adamg / UniversalHub – 9/5/10 – 10:44 pm
The Jamaica Plain Progressives posts answers to questionnaires sent to candidates in the 2nd Suffolk state senate race (Sonia Chang-Diaz and Hassan Williams), the 15th Suffolk state rep’s race (Jeff Sanchez and Jeff Herman) and the 6th Suffolk state rep’s race (Russell Holmes and Divo Rodrigues Monteiro; other candidates did not reply).

Best brunch on Mission Hill
By adamg / UniversalHub – 9/5/10 – 10:31 am
Meesh says give it up for the Mission on Huntington Avenue.

1847 – Henry David Thoreau leaves Walden Pond and moves in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord, Massachusetts.  More anniversaries.

Two styles of leadership
By Adrian Walker – Globe Columnist / September 4, 2010

Walking up to Hassan Williams’s campaign headquarters in Roxbury, you’re greeted by an unusual tableau: Polaroid shots of storefronts in depressed parts of the Second Suffolk Senate District with heavy iron grates over the windows.

Another set of Polaroids tells a different story. It depict the bright lights of the South End and Chinatown. It is, quite literally, a stark tale of two districts.

“I want every community in this district to look the same,’’ said Williams. “To me, that’s what this campaign is about.’’

The major issue in this race seems much the same to his opponent, incumbent Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz. “It’s tough times out there,’’ she said in an interview this week. “People are really hurting.’’

But a shared interest in economic issues might be the only thing that links the rivals in this race, in which Chang-Diaz is running for her second term.

Frame it for young eyes – A brief museum foray can bring artworks to life for a curious child
By Sebastian Smee – Globe Staff / September 3, 2010

Museums, it’s easy to forget, were once for adults. High-ceilinged places with a muffled, whispery ambience, punctured sporadically by the echoing clack of adult shoes, they were ideally suited to illicit rendezvous on rainy days or courtly, courtesy-filled outings for retirees.

Now, every museum this side of Tbilisi sees it as central to its “mission’’ to function as a kind of day care for kids and a crutch for desperate dads and moms hoping to kill a few hours and provide — against all odds — something culturally edifying into the bargain.

Well, I’ve done my fair share of it, too — but, up until recently, almost never willingly. Exposing one’s children to great art in great museums is all very well for most people. But for me, a professional art critic, I’ve long suspected it’s the dumbest mistake in the book.

Mine are only 5 and 3, but already I can see the writing on the wall. “My old man was an art critic,’’ I can hear my son yelling from the top of the fireman’s pole as his crew gears up to respond to a shrieking fire alarm at the Museum of Fine Arts. “I spent my whole childhood being dragged through museums. Let the damn place burn!’’

Body of artwork – Witch City Ink owner believes tattoos are finally getting some respect as a form of creative expression
By Joseph P. Kahn – Globe Staff / September 4, 2010

Tattoo artist Natan Alexander, owner of Witch City Ink in Salem, is producing the ninth annual Boston Tattoo Convention, happening this weekend.

Q. What’s on tap for this year’s convention?

A. You’ll get to see over 150 tattoo artists, some great vendors and special events, fashion shows, even a bikini contest. You can get a tattoo while you’re there, too.

Q. You recently spoke at the Institute of Contemporary Art on the art of tattooing. Give us a synopsis.

A. My message was: Tattoos are an art form, and it’s time for them to be respected as such. That artistic tattooing should take its rightful place in the arts community, because in 10 short years we’ve gone from the back rooms to the city’s cultural institutions.

Q. Tattooing wasn’t even legal in Massachusetts before 2000. What was the biggest obstacle to its acceptance?

A. Biggest legal obstacle was a lack of regulatory mechanisms. In cultural terms, it was changing public perceptions of who tattoo artists are, what sort of people get tattooed, and how safe it is. We had to overcome a lot of negative stereotypes.

1998 – Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University.  More anniversaries.

ER doctor killed in motor scooter crash – Award-winning mentor taught at Harvard
By Sean Teehan – Globe Correspondent / August 28, 2010

A doctor from Brigham and Women’s Hospital was killed yesterday when the motor scooter he was driving collided with a truck in Brighton, hospital officials said.

Police responded to a call for an accident involving a scooter and another motor vehicle on Beacon Street in Brighton at about 10 a.m., Boston police said.

The accident occurred when Dr. Andrew T. McAfee, an attending physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women’s and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, collided with a truck, according to Ron M. Walls, chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women’s.

Senator candidates make their case
by Sean Teehan/MySouthEnd.com Contributor – Aug 25, 2010

Three days before Sunday services, about 100 people descended upon an un-airconditioned church on a hot, muggy Thursday evening. Those in attendance, however, came for civic rather than religious reasons.

The Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury hosted the first debate between sitting 2nd Suffolk State Senator Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz and her democratic opponent, Hassan Williams last Thursday, August 19. The debate was sponsored by the Ward 5 Democratic Committee.

Politicians and constituents listened as the two made their cases for why they deserved the community’s support for the Tuesday, September 14 Democratic Primary vote.

The debate format, which the two candidates previously agreed, consisted of three segments. First, the two answered questions from community groups; next, they fielded inquiries from the audience; finally, they asked and answered questions from each other.

Boston enters UFC ring – Fight is test of new rules
By Dave Wedge/Boston Herald – August 27, 2010

The Hub has done an about-face on cage fighting and is ready to rumble, welcoming the wildly popular UFC that was once banned in Boston in what will be the state’s first major test of its new mixed martial arts rules.

“I’m definitely in favor of this,” City Council President Michael Ross said of tomorrow’s UFC 118 pay-per-view blowout at the TD Garden. “I think we tend to be a little more conservative than we need to be. I definitely welcome the change.”

It was just five years ago that city officials banned cage fighting, dismissing it as human cockfighting and a “no holds barred” bloodsport that attracted punch-drunk thugs. But UFC has since exploded into one of the most successful pro sports leagues on the planet and all but eight states now have MMA regulations in place.

1845 – The first issue of Scientific American magazine is published.  More anniversaries.

The Fenway CDC would like to bring your attention
to this important event:

TOWN HALL FORUM

with STATE SENATOR
STEVEN TOLMAN

Tuesday, August 24th at 6:00 PM

at the Fenway CDC/Fensgate community room
73 Hemenway Street (side entrance)

State Senator Steven Tolman will discuss issues facing the Commonwealth, the Fenway and Back Bay.

For more information, contact :
Conor Cahill (617) 851-2125
Steven@TolmanforSenate.com
www.TolmanforSenate.com

For questions about the location only, please contact Margarita at
(617) 267-4637 or cmargarita@fenwaycdc.org

Panel decides not to post hospital mortality rates
By Liz Kowalczyk – Globe Staff / August 21, 2010

Rejecting a request from consumer advocates, a state panel decided this week not to publicly post overall patient death rates for individual Massachusetts hospitals, at least for now.

The state’s health and human services secretary, Dr. JudyAnn Bigby, who heads the group that made the decision, said current methodology for calculating hospital-wide mortality rates is so flawed that officials do not believe it would be useful to hospitals and patients and could harm public trust in government.

“If the reports that are generated from these methodologies don’t give hospitals useful information they can act on, what is the point?’’ she said.

Two years ago, Health Care for All, a Boston-based consumer advocacy group, asked the state’s Health Care Quality and Cost Council to look at making public hospitalwide mortality rates. The federal government and the state now publish death rates for certain individual procedures and conditions, such as pneumonia and heart attacks, but the hope was that one hospitalwide rate for all patients “would be a proxy for understanding the overall quality of care and safety at a hospital,’’ Bigby said.

Boston tea drinkers are an honest lot
Globe Staff – August 20, 2010 02:13 PM

The Hub is a hotbed of honesty. Sure, there may be filchers, frauds, and four-flushers, but Boston’s tea-drinking demographic may be the most honest group of tea drinkers in the nation.

So says a company called Honest Tea, a Maryland outfit that specializes in organic bottled teas.

Starting in June, Honest Tea set out on a just-concluded road trip of seven major cities. In each place, the company set up unmanned kiosks where bottles of Honest Tea could be purchased on the honor system. Hidden cameras were trained on the kiosks to monitor how many people opted to pay a dollar for a bottle – and how many absconded with an unauthorized freebie.

In Boston, the Honest Tea kiosk was set up on Boylston Street in the Back Bay, a company spokeswoman said.

From Universal Hub:  Judge delays Dianne Wilkerson sentencing so news doesn’t affect upcoming Chuck Turner trial

1911 – The Mona Lisa is stolen by a Louvre employee.  More anniversaries.

Dear Friends,

Despite 45 years of dedicated service to the people of my community
and the people of Boston, the federal government on October 12th at
the Moakley Court House will continue its attempt to convince the
public that I am guilty of extortion of $1000 and lying to FBI
officials.

I have no doubt that my legal team of Barry Wilson, John Pavlos,
Michelle Brennan, and Kazi Toure will be successful in proving my
innocence. Also, I believe the trial will enable the public to
recognize the unethical and immoral behavior of those who are
conspiring to silence me.

In addition to exposing the corruption of the government’s actions, my
defense will focus on my 45 years of dedicated service. My lawyers
plan to put on the stand those who can testify regarding help received
from me and whether money ever stood between their needs and my
service.

Those who would like to testify regarding my character please call
617-427-1667 and leave your name and telephone number. You will be
contacted by a member of my legal team.

Thanks for all your support. Remember: Our struggles with adversity
make us stronger and wiser.

Peace and Love

Chuck

Image from supportchuckturner.com