Curtains for Foothills?

Read the reviews of 'Whorehouse' here:

http://www.telegram.com/article/20090316/NEWS/903160368

http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Foothills_Theater_Welcomes_THE_BEST_LITTLE_WHOREHOUSE_314_20090314

Hummus goes upscale at Fresh Pond

There are many places to service your car on New Street, the little road that follows the railroad tracks behind Fresh Pond Mall in Cambridge. You can get a new transmission, buy an air filter, watch the dents get knocked out of your bumper.

Now you can also service your stomach: A squat brick building with exposed steel beams has been transformed into Basha Cafe, a Middle Eastern restaurant that opened a few months ago in this restaurant wasteland.

The food is a mixture of Lebanese and Armenian, with many familiar dishes, like falafel and kebabs, as well as more unusual Armenian sausages and a spicy chicken soup.

At night, the restaurant turns into a nightclub, with bellydancing, salsa, Greek bands, and karaoke on different days.
The prices are upscale, too, and that may be hard to sustain, though portions are colossal.

Video of the Day

George Harrison |MTV Music

Disturbing study: Boston youths blame Rihanna for domestic beating

A Boston Public Health Commission survey on teenagers and dating violence released yesterday offered up some pretty chilling results: Nearly half of the kids surveyed said they think Rihanna was "responsible" for what happened between her and her boyfriend, Chris Brown.

Rihanna, who turned 21 a few weeks after the incident, was beaten severely enough to require hospitalization.

Brown, 19, who reportedly had a history of violence toward Rihanna, turned himself in and was charged with two felonies.

Yet 46 percent of the kids surveyed said that they thought Rihanna was to blame for the beating; 51 percent said Brown was at fault, and 52 percent said that both of them were somehow responsible.

And, according to the survey, a significant number of males and females said Rihanna was now destroying Chris Brown's career.

What the F????

Read the Globe's blog entry about this here.

Mass. Registry, AAA may join on license renewals

The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles is close to completing a partnership with AAA so members can renew their driver's license and vehicle registration at select branches of the motor club.

A Registry spokeswoman said Wednesday a pilot program will likely begin next month at AAA's West Newton and Worcester branches.

It will last for six months before a broader rollout is evaluated.

HOV lanes: old, expensive...worth it?

A driver of the HOV lane maker talks about his job zipping and unzipping high-occupancy vehicle lanes on the "unique" highways of greater Boston.



Before dawn and dusk every weekday, the large, lumbering machines crawl along the Southeast Expressway, gobbling 750-pound concrete barriers at one end and spitting them out in seamless rows at the other.

The heavy lifting required to open and close the so-called zipper lanes on the 6 miles of Interstate 93 south of Boston has become increasingly expensive as the Pac-Man-like trucks get older and a dwindling number of vehicles use the high-occupancy lanes.

On an average day in January, fewer than 7,000 vehicles - cars with two or more occupants, motorcycles, and emergency vehicles - used the zipper lanes, a 20 percent drop from the average peak use three years ago.

The 14-year-old barrier transport vehicles are well beyond their intended lifespan and will have to be replaced in the next few years at a cost of more than $1 million apiece.

As lawmakers debate how to pay for the deteriorating transportation system, the high replacement cost raises questions about whether the state should continue an operation that already costs taxpayers $1.25 million a year.

Last week, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation encouraged state officials to join a federal program to convert the high-occupancy vehicle, or HOV, lanes on I-93 into high-occupancy toll, or HOT, lanes.

The idea would be to allow single-occupancy vehicles to pay a toll to use the zipper lanes. Carpoolers would still drive for free, but solo drivers would pay to use the lanes with transponders.

In tough times, fewer candidates for town meeting

Dozens of town meeting seats up for election in communities from Arlington to Winchester will have no candidates on the ballot in the coming weeks, signaling a shortage of office seekers that local officials say could affect legislative representation amid declining revenues and widespread budget cuts.

Officials blame the shortage of candidates on a variety of factors, from hectic work schedules and waning interest in local affairs to the fiscal realities of these harsh economic times.

"I think it's going to be an unpleasant time to be in a legislative body, because unlike when you can vote on budgets that are moving the community forward, here we're voting on budgets where you're standing still, and that's not a lot of fun," said Reading Town Manager Peter Hechenbleikner. 

"The other thing is, I think as a society, we're more focused on other things right now - like having a job."

Marathon makes peace with host towns

Wellesley Executive Director Hans Larsen has signed off on this year's permit to allow the Boston Marathon to run through town next month, after the race's organizer met with local officials to discuss their budget problems and the escalating costs of hosting the world famous footrace.

Officials in Ashland, Framingham, Natick, and Wellesley had been delaying approval of Marathon permits until they could meet with the Boston Athletic Association to discuss the financial and logistical costs and to point out the impact on local businesses, some of which suffer significant losses during the annual Patriots Day event, observed on April 20 this year.

Catholic population tumbles in New England

Down to one-third of population from more than half a decade ago

The Catholic population in New England, long the most Catholic region in the country, is plummeting, according to a large survey of religious affiliation in the United States.

The American Religious Identification Survey, a national study being released today by Trinity College in Hartford, finds that the Catholic population of New England fell by more than 1 million in the past two decades, even while the overall population of the region was growing.

The study, based on 54,000 telephone interviews conducted last year, found that the six-state region is now 36 percent Catholic, down from 50 percent in 1990.

In Massachusetts, the decline is particularly striking - in 1990, Catholics made up a majority of the state, with 54 percent of the residents, but in 2008, the Catholic population was 39 percent.

At the same time, the percentage of the state's residents who say they have no religious affiliation rose sharply, from 8 percent to 22 percent.

"It's quite an amazing change," said Barry A. Kosmin, one of the study's authors.

Do we need devices to cut clothing next to all escalators?

Sort of like the way there's hatchets and fire extinguishers kept inside public areas under fire code? What I find appalling about this story is that someone did try to go find help -- scissors, nail clippers, a box cutter -- and not only did none of the surrounding businesses offer so much as one pair of shears, the security personnel closed access into the station for anyone who might have returned with a cutting instrument anyway:

Ummm yeah

NYC making parts of Broadway into pedestrian plaza

Two heavily used swaths of New York City's Broadway will become pedestrian plazas in May to help reduce traffic and pollution.

It's an experiment that -- if successful -- could become permanent.

Last summer, the city designated two lanes of Broadway for bikes and a public esplanade between 35th and 42nd streets.

Now, a City Hall spokesman says the concept is being taken a step further. Broadway will be closed to vehicles at Times Square, from 42nd to 47th streets. A couple of blocks at Herald Square, 33rd to 35th streets, also will be closed.

The plan will provide amenities for outdoorsy types, including cafe tables and benches. Traffic still will be allowed on cross streets.

A new accent in Chinatown

Boston Globe:
Mandarin begins displacing Cantonese as dialect of choice


Mandarin speakers now make up a third of the kindergartners and first-graders at the Josiah Quincy Elementary School, up from hardly any five years ago.

At the Asian American Civic Association, across from the Buddha statue on Tyler Street, 23 percent of the clients who enrolled in English classes and other services last year spoke Mandarin, up from 17 percent five years earlier.