Weird Downtown Crossing sight of the day:

Amish-looking types, singing and then preaching outside Macys.

I agree with the old lady. I'm going to miss the horses and I hope they come back.

Tupelo: Louisana meets Cambridge

Boston Globe: There are infinite ways to describe food eloquently, evocatively, lovingly. But sometimes you just want to say “yum.’’

This is the case at Tupelo, a new restaurant serving “comfort food with a Southern drawl’’ in the old Magnolias space in Cambridge.

The term “comfort food’’ has become an old saw, nearly meaningless. It can cover everything from meatloaf to wonton soup.

Here, though, it seems the most apt label: These dishes are truly comfortable and comforting, offering layers of taste and texture you can’t easily pick apart, and don’t really want to. The braised, the fried, the stewed, and the roasted share the stage, an easy ensemble.

There is delicious synthesis on your plate - no need to overthink it.

• 1193 Cambridge St., Cambridge. 617-868-0004. www.tupelo02139.com..
  All major credit cards accepted. Not wheelchair accessible.
  Prices Small plates $5-$8. Entrees $9-$15. Dessert $7.
  Hours Tue-Sat 5-10 p.m., Sun 5-9 p.m.

Kristof: Rising above IQ

In the mosaic of America, three groups that have been unusually successful are Asian-Americans, Jews and West Indian blacks — and in that there may be some lessons for the rest of us.

Asian-Americans are renowned — or notorious — for ruining grade curves in schools across the land, and as a result they constitute about 20 percent of students at Harvard College.

As for Jews, they have received about one-third of all Nobel Prizes in science received by Americans. One survey found that a quarter of Jewish adults in the United States have earned a graduate degree, compared with 6 percent of the population as a whole.

West Indian blacks, those like Colin Powell whose roots are in the Caribbean, are one-third more likely to graduate from college than African-Americans as a whole, and their median household income is almost one-third higher.

These three groups may help debunk the myth of success as a simple product of intrinsic intellect, for they represent three different races and histories. In the debate over nature and nurture, they suggest the importance of improved nurture — which, from a public policy perspective, means a focus on education. Their success may also offer some lessons for you, me, our children — and for the broader effort to chip away at poverty in this country.

Richard Nisbett cites each of these groups in his superb recent book, “Intelligence and How to Get It.” Dr. Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, argues that what we think of as intelligence is quite malleable and owes little or nothing to genetics.

turn of the Once-Rare Beaver? Not in My Yard.

The dozens of public works officials, municipal engineers, conservation agents and others who crowded into a meeting room here one recent morning needed help. Property in their towns was flooding, they said. Culverts were clogged. Septic tanks were being overwhelmed.

“We have a huge problem,” said David Pavlik, an engineer for the town of Lexington, where dams built by beavers have sent water flooding into the town’s sanitary sewers. “We trapped them,” he said. “We breached their dam. Nothing works. We are looking for long-term solutions.”

Mary Hansen, a conservation agent from Maynard, said it starkly: “There are beavers everywhere.”

Laura Hajduk, a biologist with the state’s Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, had little to offer them. When beavers are trapped, others move in to replace them. And, she said, you can breach a beaver dam, but “I guarantee you that within 24 hours if the beavers are still there it will be repaired. Beavers are the ultimate ecosystem engineers.”

That was not what Mr. Pavlik was hoping to hear.

He is not alone in his dismay, and it is not just beavers. Around the nation, decades of environmental regulation, conservation efforts and changing land use have brought many species, like beavers, so far back from the brink that they are viewed as nuisances.

As Stuart Pimm, a conservation ecologist at Duke University, put it, “We are finding they are inconvenient.”

Let's stop women's suffering

HUMAN RIGHTS organizations around the world are starting to demand that governments recognize preventable maternal death as a violation of women's rights. With the United Nations Human Rights Council's June session just around the corner, governments have a chance to prove that they value women's lives by taking concrete action on this issue.

Many governments are already on board. In March, 85 countries called upon the council to take decisive action to contribute to the existing efforts to address maternal mortality. In this critical year leading up to the Millennium Development Goal review in 2010, the council has a historic opportunity in its June session to recognize the need to incorporate human rights into programs and policies designed to combat maternal deaths and encourage international cooperation and assistance in this area.


More than one woman dies every minute from preventable causes in childbirth, and for every woman who dies as many as 30 others are left with lifelong, debilitating complications. Moreover, when mothers die, children are at greater risk of dropping out of school, becoming malnourished, and simply not surviving. Not only is maternal mortality and morbidity a global health emergency, but it triggers and aggravates cycles of poverty that cause generations of suffering and despair.


But it is not just a hopeless tragedy. We know what is needed to save women's lives; we have known for 60 years what care women need when they face obstetric complications. The reason that women are still dying is because women's lives are not valued, because their voices are not listened to, and because they are discriminated against and excluded in their communities and by healthcare systems that fail to prioritize their needs. Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, which has just launched a global campaign to reduce maternal mortality, are calling on governments to acknowledge that these utterly preventable deaths reflect widespread indifference to women's suffering and pervasive disregard for their fundamental human rights.

With Price, WCVB aims to take back the morning

Randy Price will coanchor WCVB's morning newscast with Bianca de la Garza. He left WHDH recently, a station whose news values he has criticized.

Boston Globe: Longtime Boston newsman Randy Price is returning to TV at a time when there are fewer viewers and advertisers. But can Price's 25 years of experience help WCVB-TV (Channel 5) win the morning news race? Price thinks so.

"We are going to be putting more muscle into the program," said Price from the offices of Channel 5, where he begins coanchoring the morning newscast with Bianca de la Garza on Monday. "You are going to see a difference."

The arrival of Price, who joins WCVB after abruptly departing from WHDH-TV (Channel 7) in February, after 12 years, runs counter to a trend in TV news that de-emphasizes personalities and experience in favor of youth and more of a team approach to covering the news.

Critics picks...

.......For the Tony winners.

From the New York Times.

China battens down hatches as Tiananmen anniversary nears

Beijing blocks Internet social networking sites and rips pages out of foreign newspapers before the 20th anniversary of the crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.

There is no Twittering about Tiananmen Square, or anything else, in China this week.

In a crackdown apparently timed to the 20th anniversary Thursday of the crushing of pro-democracy demonstrations, the Chinese government has pulled the plug on the social networking site Twitter and dozens of other Internet sites and blogs.

Not to neglect the old-fashioned methods of censorship, foreign newspapers sold in Beijing in the last few days have had pages strategically ripped out.

Television screens in the diplomatic compound went black when the British Broadcasting Corp. was airing a report about Tiananmen Square, only to come back on when reports switched to the missing Air France jet.

Even though two decades have elapsed, the demonstrations remain one of the most sensitive subjects in China. The very mention of the date June 4 (when the People's Liberation Army moved in to crush the demonstrations) is banned in the Chinese press.

Randy Price joins NewsCenter 5

Says the Boston Globe:

WCVB-TV (Channel 5) said it has hired longtime Boston newscaster Randy Price as a morning anchor.

Price, who was previously an anchor at WHDH-TV (Channel 7), parted ways with Channel 7 several months ago, according to Globe story from February.

"One of the most respected journalists in broadcast television, Price will begin co-anchoring the EyeOpener newscast with Bianca de la Garza Monday, June 8," WCVB said in a press release. "He will also contribute to breaking news and major event coverage for WCVB, the market’s news leader."

The press release included a statement from WCVB president and general manager Bill Fine.
“Randy is the consummate journalist - dependable, experienced, and universally respected," Fine said. "As a competitor, I have always admired him and am thrilled he is returning on the air as a member of NewsCenter 5. Randy is a great fit for WCVB and NewsCenter 5. Adding him to our already strong team of journalists will further enhance the quality of news we deliver to New England viewers."

In an interview with his new station that was posted on WCVB's website, Price said he was eager to return to “the best station in the business.”

“I am totally excited about getting back to work," he said. "I miss the news business, you know. Sitting at home watching the news is not the same as being there and participating in the process.”

46 states and D.C. draft Common Education Standards

Washington Post: Forty-six states and the District of Columbia today will announce an effort to craft a single vision for what children should learn each year from kindergarten through high school graduation, an unprecedented step toward a uniform definition of success in American schools.

The nearly complete support of governors for the effort -- leaders in Texas, Alaska, Missouri and South Carolina are the only ones that have not signed on -- is key.

Many Republicans oppose nationally mandated standards, saying schools should not be controlled by Washington. But there is broad support for a voluntary effort that bubbles up from the states.

"This is the beginning of a new day for education in our country," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. "A lot of hard work is ahead of us. But this is a huge step in a direction that would have been unimaginable just a year or two ago."