Boston

I have been in my office at 99 Chauncy St for less than a year, and in that time have come to hate the gloomy air shaft my wondow overlooks. I’m on the 5th floor of an 11-story building, so not only is the “air” in this shaft is of rather dubious quality, but the window itself barely hints at the existence of an outdoors.
The AC wasn’t working well this morning so I was sitting out in the office library. When I returned to my office a few minutes ago, I was greeted with cheery, bright, direct sunlight! I checked my watch — sure enough, it’s noon. As I write this, I can already see the light fading away from my window, but on this day, the longest of the year, my office window was in cosmic alignment.

A week ago I attended a Mass Highway presentation on restoration of the Longfellow Bridge, which I attended representing the Metro-Boston chapter of MassBike.
The Longfellow Bridge is a vital connector in Greater Boston’s bicycle
infrastructure: back in July we had done a petition drive on the
Boston-bound side of the bridge during the morning rushhour and
collected 81 signatures in 90 minutes for infrastructure improvements
on the bridge for cyclists (we counted double that number pedaling in
from the Cambridge side of the bridge, many from farther away than
Cambridge or Somerville).

At
the presentation, bicycle advocates were, I daresay, strongly
represented in the audience. Many who were commenting on behalf of
other interests, including environmental and artistic causes, also
threw in a good word for bicycles. (The other main interest group in
attendance were comprised of Beacon Hill / Back Bay abutters who were
primarily interested in boosting their land value). At one point I had
asked a question of the chief engineer of the project, who made an
unequivocally strong statement in support of planning for bicycles on
the Longfellow Bridge.

I suddenly realized that I should have brought my iRiver, which
based on my research seemed to be the best balance between price and
recording quality (particularly for podcasting).
I had used it the week before to record part of a training session
using just the built-in speaker, which was acceptable in quality but
not great, so the next day I immediately bought this lapel microphone, with the thought that although a more professional journalist’s mike
might be better in quality, I would never bother to haul it around. I
don’t plan on switching to podcast format (heck, it’s hard enough to
remember to blog more than once monthly!) but I’ve been thinking more
about podcasting as a tool for activists. (Not a new idea, I know!)

Pedaling
home from work yesterday, I came upon this fairground ride set up in
the middle of Boston Common. According to the City of Boston’s official
press release, “The AeroBalloon will give Boston’s residents and
visitors a bird’s-eye
view of the city while our partnership will help support the programs
offered through the Fund for Parks and Recreation.”

and kerryandmitt come
running from health care and
taxes and it’s
summer

when the world is hazy-hot-humidful

the queer
marriage activists protest
far         and         wee

For years now I have been trying to acclimate Rachel to the
pleasures of bitter melon. Well, perhaps “pleasures” is not quite the
word. In any event, I am now finally vindicated with the kickoff of Bitter Melon Week,
a combination food festival - performance art event taking place in
Boston’s South End. Asian and Gringo restaurants alike are encouraged
to incorporate bitter melon, which is grown in community gardens in the
neighborhood, into their menus.
Even dogs will have their own bitter melon dish.

The event is actually the culminating event in a year-long
community-exploration effort intended to bring the South End together.
As the official website proclaims, “Unity through bitterness!” But whether the event develops real roots or ends up being a one-off half-joke remains to be seen. Personally, I’m looking for who’s selling the bitter melon ice cream.

It’s not just Big Bird Haters
who think that PBS and NPR are a haven for lunatic liberals. In
the past few years I (and I’m speaking as a lunatic liberal here) have
found WBUR’s On Point
notably partisan. Tom Ashbrook relies far too heavily on prompting his
guests, “How about that?” to keep the conversation going without
betraying any knowledge of the subject. But the real problem is his
guest pundit and liberal lap-dog, Jack Beatty, whose uninformed opinion-spinning and tendency to twist any topic into an attack on George W. Bush makes him (and his Atlantic Monthly) a cornerstone of the reactionary left.

I mention this now because WBUR, apparently struggling to make ends meet, has been forced to cut back its programming and took the axe to The Connection. Now The Connection
may not be what it was in its Christopher Lyden days, but the show is
at least unemcumbered by a partisan hack sidekick. If WBUR had to find
some way to save money, why not sack the apparently underemployed Atlantic Monthly editor?

A final thought: searching for “WBUR” on Google puts The Connection one rank ahead of On Point.

(For the record: I am a card-carrying, dues-paying WBUR member.)

WBUR
reported this morning on the decreasing likelihood of recent
Boston-area graduates to put down roots in the area. Sadly, on the same
day as this report our friend Sozi announced that he was taking a job
with a law firm in Philly, where the real estate prices are, if not
cheap, at least within the realm of comprehension.

There’s only one way to reverse this brain drain and its disasterous
consequences for our local economy, which is to build more housing
stock. And, let’s be honest, what that also means is getting more local
communities that oppose development to shoulder their part of the
problem and figure out a way to let more housing get built.

It’s no deep secret that many communities work hard to keep families
and their tax-spending kids out. It’s time we took power out of these
obstructionists’ hands.

Biking to work this morning I got to cruise down part of the Patriots’
parade route (down Boylston Street). Boy were there a lot of cops out
today! I didn’t even know we had that many police. What a good day to
be a criminal.

Later on I was walking to a meeting, and parade detritus was still all
about. Red and blue confetti in the snow. (Sorry, no camera today).

Wow… Middle Eastern terrorists backed by Chinese chemical
mercenaries. It’s like Orcs teaming up with Goblin suicide bombers… what will those wacky extremists think of next?

And hey, notice how two of the four Chinese chemists are women? Take that, Larry Summers!

“Biking” to work this morning was awful, as the entire Charles
River bikepath upriver from the B.U. Bridge was entirely unplowed. It
was warm enough that the snow had slushed, and so the new studded tire
I was eager to test out was useless.

Sure, public clearing of roads isn’t perfect,
but at least they try, if only because it makes economic sense. The
problem with segregated bike paths is that when the budget ax falls, it
falls on second- and third-class commuters: cyclists. I’ll certainly be giving the MDC, er, DCR or whatever, a piece of my mind.

I’ll be taking the plowed streets home this evening, which I should have taken this morning to begin with.

Addendum: Some additional information about the DCR from the MassBike listserv:

The
DCR Urban Parks and Recreation Division is split into three regions.The
SW Corridor, which has been plowed, is in the Harbor Region; the
Charles River is in the North Region. Theoretically, the Regional
Deputy Commissioners (I think that’s their correct title) have
near-complete control over the DCR facilities in their region. 
The DCR Urban Parks web site does not mention the regions (nor does it
mention the Southwest Corridor Park, which seems to be the only DCR
urban park without a web page, but they were only announced in early
December.  The third region is the South region which includes the
Blue Hills and other reservations west and south of Boston (and in
southwestern Boston, too).

I attended about an hour of the public hearing at Boston City Hall on the need for a bike czar in Boston. In addition to the usual suspects, representatives from Walk Boston
and Zipcar both testified in favor of creating this new position who
would fight for cyclists from “within the bureaucracy” (such an
appealing way to describe it, even if true!). As a resident of
Cambridge, not Boston, I didn’t quite feel empowered to speak, even if
only half the speakers seemed to live in Boston; there were over 50
names on the list, and I’m sure I had nothing new to say, really.

Just that I hope that Boston does hire a bike czar and re-form the
bike committee that withered from lack of funding 2 years ago.