Boston

By way of the Universal Hub, we find that Ross Levanto has good news--MA Governor Patrick has signed into law the Green Ticket Law: The law that is now in place (whoo hooo!) will allow the City to better penalize trash scofflaws. The City will now be able to put in place procedures that attach unpaid trash violation fines to a property's tax bills. This will give those violations weight. It will also wake up absentee landlords throughout the city (building owners who rarely visit their properties and check on their tenants). What's critical about these liens is that you can't sell the…
Crime in the urban hellhole known as Boston: 01/11/10 - At approximately 5:29 a.m., officers responded to a radio call for a removal from the French Library, located at 53 Marlborough St. On arrival, police spoke to the executive director of the library (the witness), who stated that a male suspect on the premises was refusing to leave. The witness said that a man had entered the library at around 4 p.m. and asked to speak to a member of the French Consulate. The witness said she provided the man with the phone number of the French Consulate and told him that there was no connection between…
I think this is only part of the story, but it seems that the 'Democratic Machine' in Massachusetts might have slipped a gear: "Nobody likes her" says mom. What she means is, Coakley had no friends in politics. The Democrats in Massachusetts let this happen because - "I don't know" says mom. Maybe they weren't about to let Western Mass manipulate them. Maybe it all comes down to nothing more than who is friends with whom. All Scott Brown did was see an opportunity and turn it to his advantage. There is no deeper national implication. This is not a death knell for the Democratic party or Obama…
This is why I love Boston: Duty calls for an East Boston resident. Someone is getting called for jury duty...but it's no human. A family is trying to figure out how their pet cat was summonsed for jury duty. And, if you're wondering, the owners do have to appear in court to show that their cat is ineligible....
For those who haven't read the Judge Dredd stories (I'm not referring to the movie), they take place in a dystopian future (other than Star Trek, do sci-fi stories occur in any other kind of future...) where the predominant theme is that, due to technological advances, very few people have jobs, creating huge urban megalopolises (megalopolae?) where crime is rampant. With that cheery introduction, we note Matthew Yglesias' assessment of the news bidness: You hear a lot of talk about different kinds of ideas to bolster revenue models or get people to read more. But the reality is that the web…
You might think that a bill winding its way through Congress which would lift the ban on organizations using federal funding for needle exchange programs would be a good thing. And it would be a good thing, except for this little provision: A bill working its way through Congress would lift a ban of more than 20 years on using federal money for needle exchange programs. But the bill would also ban federally financed exchanges from being within 1,000 feet of a school, park, library, college, video arcade or any place children might gather -- a provision that would apply to a majority of the…
There's an election Tuesday in Massachusetts, and here's who the Mad Biologist endorses. U.S Senate: This is tough. Both Rep. Mike Capuano and Attorney General Martha Coakley have strengths and weaknesses. Both are reliable liberals, but they have different emphases. Capuano has very good constituent services, and he understands the importance of scientific research to the MA state economy. He does, however, have some shady fundraising associations with Rep. Murtha. Coakley has a very good record as Attorney General, including bringing successful suits against Wall Street firms for…
One of the enduring mysteries of Boston's transit system is why is the Red Line always fouled up. I can understand why the Green Line is squirrelly: parts of the Green Line run above ground and intersect with traffic, the above ground stops take much longer at the stations (to prevent people sneaking on without paying, only the front door of each car opens), and, inbound, there are four different Green Lines that merge into one. In other words, the Green Line is a guaranteed clusterfuck. But the Red Line has none of these problems. So why is it almost always screwed up, even when it…
...put down bad owners instead? From Boston's Universal Hub: Boston Police report seizing a pit bull on Talbot Avenue in Dorchester Tuesday morning after its owner allegedly tried to sic the animal on the young daughter of a neighbor with whom she's been feuding. Police say the dog may be the same one involved in an incident earlier this month, during which a woman on Talbot Avenue allegedly laughed as her pit bull attacked a girl waiting for a school bus. Police report on Tuesday's incident: While the officer spoke with the caller, a black female appeared with an un-muzzled pitbull. The…
Walking is a form of mass transit. Use it wisely. I read that the phenomenon of visitors to cities who don't realize that walking is a legitimate form of mass transit is not unique to Boston: Now, I realize that most suburbs and exurbs are allergic to building sidewalks, and so the use of sidewalks is confusing and possibly disorienting to suburbanites. And I appreciate that some of them tackle the fact that they may have to walk from a quarter to a half a mile from their car to the stadium with a sense of adventure, similar to the kind that one might have when sky-diving or trying a strange…
...for pedestrians? The Boston Globe reports that Boston is trying to implement a citywide bike sharing program: They intend to roll out what would be the nation's first citywide bike-sharing system next spring, making hundreds of bicycles at dozens of stations across Boston available to anyone who can swipe a credit card. If all goes as planned, Bostonians and visitors will ride these bikes to run errands, reach their workplaces, travel from tourist site to tourist site and from meeting to meeting. All of this, officials say, will make drivers and bikers more respectful of each other, and…
By way of Universal Hub, I came across this video of Boston in the 1920s. Not only is neat to see a lot of the same buildings, but I find it really interesting that Boston is described as conservative (whereas today, according to the Real America Propaganda, we are Homofascist Horde central). Of course, Boston is conservative in many ways: it has a strong sense of history, and it isn't particularly wild and crazy (it's fun, but it's not Vegas either). Anyway, here's the video: You have to love the announcer's voice too.
A while ago, I argued that The Boston Globe is basically useless, and should go out of business. Some people took exception to that, including readers I know from the 'meat world.' And then The Globe published an op-ed by a creationist. Fortunately, ScienceBlogling Jason Rosenhouse blasts the op-edo, so I don't have to (seriously, they're not even trying to come up with novel yet still stupid ideas. It's just the same old shit). Since the op-ed was published, I've received several emails from people who thought I was wrong, but, now, have cancelled their subscriptions. I'll write this…
I think this public awareness campaign should have been called, "Dude, it's not that big": If there were only a campaign for the assholes who hog the entire subway car pole....
By way of Calculated Risk, I came across this Reuters article about apartment vacancies reaching their highest rate in twenty years--and might soon break the record. Currently, the national rate is 7.5%. This matches my impression of the Boston rental market, even in the supposedly 'recession-proof' neighborhoods of Back Bay and Beacon Hill. In large apartment buildings (i.e., not smaller houses that have been chopped up into three to eight apartments), the vacancy rate is higher. Using Google cache, rents in the same buildings are down five to fifteen percent in nominal dollars as…
(from here) The Honoré Daumier exhibit is at the Central Library and is phenomenal. The BPL also has a great online exhibit of old travel posters (the amount of stuff the BPL has is incredible--if only there were more funding to exhibit it all...). Check them both out.
I know I'm going to sound like a broken record, but, once again, a major part of the stimulus should have been to make up state budget shortfalls, which stemmed from the economic recession. Not only is it good economic policy (what's the point of the federal government putting people to work, only to have state governments fire other people), but those state budget cuts reduce services: Franklin Park Zoo, a Boston institution that has drawn generations of city and suburban families, may be forced to close its doors and possibly euthanize some of its animals as a result of the deep budget…
At least when it comes to transportation, it looks that way. The NY Times had an article yesterday about how cities are getting far less of the stimulus package slated for transportation. From The NY Times, here's the issue in a pretty figure: (click to embiggen) The problem--and I say this as a city dweller--is that urban transportation systems, both mass transit and automobile, have reached the breaking point. A while ago, I started receiving email alerts for the Boston T (the subway), largely because I was sick and tired of waiting for 25 minutes for a train to show up after work, when…
I haven't had time to comment on it until now, but one of the local issues rattling around Boston and Massachusetts has been the potential demise of The Boston Globe. Since the NY Times Corporation will receive bids for The Boston Globe tomorrow, it seemed like a good time to reflect on how The Globe wound up losing $50 million last year. The general consensus is that, as a business, The Globe is failing. To the extent people have tried to figure out why The Globe is failing, the usual suspects have been trotted out: labor costs, the recession, the across the board decline in newspaper…
If so, my respect for her just went up a notch. I'm not a huge fan of MA Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz (although she is far better than Wilkerson), in part, because of her unwillingness to protect arts funding in MA. But, in response to the idea that financial literacy should be added to the school curriculum, she recently said something very Boston (italics mine): Committee member Sen. Sonia Chang-DÃaz, D-Jamaica Plain, a former public school teacher who supports the bill, had reservations about trying to stuff more material into a realistic math curriculum. "It was an enormous struggle for me to…