UPDATED to reflect that the indecent involved a pedestrian, not a motor vehicle as I first thought.

The 9:30pm outbound Kingston commuter rail struck a man near the Essex Street crossing in Whitman Thursday night; the first emergency call was received at 10:06 pm, according to chatter heard on a police scanner. I cannot confirm whether or not that this incident was fatal.

Curiously, I can't find one mention of this in local media - not even the local South Shore papers. I guess T accidents after daylight hours don't give good enough photo ops to make the news.

Yes: any substance that has harmful effects on a players’ health should be banned. And Harrison should be punished for breaking the rules. And I’d love to see harmful steroids and supplements eliminated.

First, many of us break the rules every day - stealing from work, lying on taxes, speeding, intentionally running red lights, watching or listening to copyrighted material online, bloging at work thus stealing company time, etc, and no one calls us "liars, cheaters, and thieves" - yet we are.

The fact is many of our favorite players use steroids, HGH, banned performance-enhancing substances, etc - they just haven't been caught (I'd bet a large sum that Harrison isn't the only well-loved Patriot who has used questionable substances). I'd also wager that almost all championship teams of the last 20 years across all leagues include prominent users, so the Pats’ record is no more or less tainted than anyone else.

Steroids were prevalent in baseball during the 70s. But up until the last few years, testing in baseball has sucked. This means it is possible that many of your 70s & 80s "pre-steroid era" baseball heroes juiced. Yet they will never be held accountable because we can't go back in time and test them. All the while they can act "shocked" and "disgusted" that today's players juice up.

As of 2:20 pm, the Virginia Tech shooting death toll stands at 32, according to MSNBC TV.

I typically don’t jump into the second guessing fray until I have immersed myself in facts and commentary from opinion makers whom I respect. But I am too damned bothered by one thing about this shooting: the first shooting occurred just after 7:00 am – the second shooting occurred after 9:00 am in a building where classes were being held. Why the hell was the campus conducting business as usual two hours after the initial shooting?

"It's a grubby, violent, dangerous world. But it's the only world they know. And they're the only friends Eddie has."

1973's The Friends of Eddie Coyle starring Robert Mitchum and a young Peter Boyle is the lost gem of Boston movies. Based on Rockland native and Boston-based federal prosecutor George V. Higgins's novel, this contemporary of Scorsese's Mean Streets features solid performances and a calculated plot involving Irish criminals and betrayal, making Eddie Coyle a fine precursor to 2006's Best Picture, The Departed.

Of all the branches in all the trees in all of Dorchester, this hawk (red tail?) landed on the branch next to my window, prey in tow, for a lunch break.

It was a fascinating sight for which I am thankful to have witnessed. But if any Dorchester-area hawks read Universal Hub, a small request: I am happy to host you for lunch, just please clear your place. Staring at a red clump of leftover bird ruins my view (I’ll take graffiti any day!)

From Wikipedia:

"Mandela was a proposed city that would be formed as a result of some districts seceding from Boston...including parts of Roxbury, Dorchester, and the South End....The name was inspired by Nelson and Winnie Mandela, popular South African anti-Apartheid activists. The proposal was defeated in 1986."

Watch a report from WGBH's 10 O'Clock News from October 30, 1986. [Quicktime]

Currently, civil rights are a Massachusetts hot button, with gay marriage and Jimmy Kelly penatrating the headlines and blog fodder.

Today being Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day of reflection on civil rights, I present two brief snapshots from Boston's voluminous civil rights history:

First, many people don't know that Dr. King first met Coretta Scott, a New England Conservatory student, during his time pursing a doctorate at BU. While here, he rented a room at 397 Mass Ave, where a small plaque still stands to commemorate his time in the Hub.

Dr. King was assassinated April 4, 1968; eight years and one day later, Boston was drenched in busing-induced racial turmoil, and from a rally at city hall was born an iconic, Pulitzer Prize winning photo: Joseph Rakes, a white student spearing black attorney Ted Landsmark with an American flag.

State Senator William Owens (D-Boston) stated on the WGBH 10 O'Clock News, April 6, 1976:

"People of color are not safe to come here to Boston and we are asking people across the country, of color, to stay away'.

WGBH has archival news casts from that day:

Click here to watch the original report on the vicious Landsmark assault and Senator Owens statements.
Also: Ted Landsmark's press conference.
[Quicktime]

[Note: The WGBH archive contains a treasure trove of old news clips from 1976-1991. I know there are a few people here that will, like myself, get lost for hours there.]

For the benefit of those who are neither on the Patrick mailing list nor readers of Blue Mass Group:

The Deval Patrick and Tim Murray Rally for Change will be held Sunday, October 15, 2:30pm at the Boston Common Bandstand near Tremont Street.

At the Coolidge Corner Theater today, Eve Ensler of “The Vagina Monologues” fame read from her new book “Insecure at Last: Losing it in our Security Obsessed World”. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review summarizes the new work saying, “Ensler stitches together vignettes from her visits to locales where women are coping with the aftermath of calamities both natural -- the 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami and post-Katrina New Orleans - and man-made - Afghanistan, Kosovo and the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez.”

Ensler’s stage training punctuated the reading, particularly a vignette detailing a Katrina survivor who, after tending to her son’s severed fingertip for seven hours, waded with the wounded boy in neck deep, sewage and chemical filled water to New Orleans’s convention center. The survivor recounts:

”At some point, we decided to stay outside the center. Then someone said water was coming. Everyone panicked and started running. There was a stampede. Knocked down the elderly. I thought my leg was broken. Military suddenly arrived in a truck. The National Guard. I have no idea how many there were of them. They jumped out and put rifles to our heads, ‘Motherfuckers! Bitches!’ they said. ‘Lay down. Don’t move, motherfuckers.’ We lay face down on the asphalt.

“I still have nightmares, all these months later.”

What does UMass do with its $524 M in annual state funding? Why, it generates $3.5 billion in additional economic activity, of course:

"The University of Massachusetts is one of the state’s largest economic engines, generating $4 billion in economic activity each year, with every $1 of state support helping the university generate more than $8 in positive economic activity….If UMass were a private or commercial company, it would not only be a globally competitive firm but one of the state’s largest drivers of economic growth. UMass is a $2 billion enterprise, with 15,000 employees – making it one of the top 10 employers in Massachusetts – $377 million in research and development investments and the site of three recently awarded, highly competitive national research centers."

Kerry Healey, WTF? It is outrageous that our Lt. Governor makes a mere 400 students a campaign issue while refusing to acknowledge the existence of the commonwealth’s 30,000 students currently attending state higher education institutions. That’s 400 students that would pay $40,000 for a degree at the University of Massachusetts Boston - anything but a free ride.

Hey, K. Heal! Talk about people like me! I attend state university. And in state tuition is no gift, take Ryan’s word for it . How does punishing these 400 students help me? 91 classes at UMB were canceled this fall because not enough students were enrolled; clearly, there is plenty of room.

The title is a quote from my new blog.

Projectexist.com collects dynamic accounts of individual spiritual beliefs and disbeliefs, then presents selected accounts as short, blog-length vignettes. Among the most compelling accounts are: the rabbinical student who doesn’t believe in God; a mother doubting that “everything happens for a reason”, and a woman helped by God to see “all are equal”.

Next week, I will publish a brutally honest email-interview I conducted with a 24-year-old Texas woman. Here is a preview:

"My mother was breastfeeding me and was high or drunk a lot. She didn’t realize until it was almost too late that I had lost a lot of weight and was very ill. My parents would want to party or do something. And if I started crying and became a nuisance, they would inhale Marijuana smoke and cup their hands around my face and exhale until I breathed in enough to pass out"

If you check it out, give me your feedback.

On Thursday, UMass Boston Chancellor Michael Collins updated the university community via email on the state of UMB's crumbling garage: 

"I am writing to share a development regarding the original parking garage. Last night, several sections of pipe fell from the ceiling of the Lower Level. Thankfully, no one was injured, and since we had closed the garages on July 19, no vehicles were struck by the debris."

It is frightening that this happened less than a month after the garage's Big Dig inspired closing.  Almost equally discomforting is the statement's ambiguity.  Is Chancellor Collins bragging that no vehicle has been damaged since July 19?  Or did he mean, 'because the garage has  been clossed since July 19, the debris struck no vehicles'?

In all seriousness, I have serious doubts that UMass Boston will exist in ten years.  Yesterday, my target graduation date was 4 semesters from now; today, I just want to graduate before my school is condemned!

Context:  "Survivor: UMass Boston Garage Edition" July 21, 2006

daniel.grabauskas@state.ma.us

I am taking MBTA GM Dan Grabauskas’s advice to heart. I am using blogspace to vent about the T’s inefficiency.

I can state unequivocally that I have never seen any service improvement due to my participation in the T’s “immensely popular” (with Mr. Grabauskas) Write to the Top program. I write to the top and get the same form letter each time.

Since many of us whole heartedly agree with Mike Mennonno’s Herald quote “You just don’t get very much reaction” with Write to the Top, perhaps it’s time we write to the very top?