What? Oh, phew, he's just using it to slice a mutant July Fourth cake, not Michael Flaherty.

Earlier:
The mayor gave me a cupcake.

Menino tells Banker & Tradesmen that maybe a bit of sophistry is involved when BC says it'll house all its undergrads on campus, then turns around and buys a high-rise apartment building on Comm. Ave. that isn't on campus.

Via Michael Pahre, who notes that BC officials are careful to talk about "university-controlled" housing rather than "on campus."

Tom Menino sure pulled a good one on him, slipping $2 million into the city budget to study moving City Hall to South Boston, which Flaherty managed to vote for even though he opposes the move, because, well, it was on page 342 of the budget:

In an interview after the hearing, he said that he did not realize he had already voted to approve the funding for the studies.

As a reporter, I once covered a similar issue in Natick - when one selectman realized he'd been similarly, if not quite so back-of-the-bookishly, bamboozled, he said "If I'd realized what I was voting for, I would have voted against myself."

No offense to Natick, but shouldn't we expect more from Boston councilors, who, after all, get paid full-time wages? Surely a man who would be mayor of Boston would realize he has to be on guard when it comes to the man who is mayor of Boston - even if he does have a point about spending $2 million on a study like that in times like these.

Because he was awfully calm after a woman hit him while he was riding his bike on River Street in Hyde Park last week:

He fell off his bike and suffered a small cut to his ankle, but told the flustered motorist to "just get going, and don't be late for work," Joyce said.

Interesting: The Boston Department of Public Works is under investigation because of workers allegedly falsifying time cards, but the DPW director gets suspended because he did something to encourage an employee to do her work.

Oh, sure, that something was letting her telecommute from Venezuela for awhile, but there's no indication she did anything wrong or didn't do her work (even the city mouthpiece acknowledges she faces no punishment because she asked for permission).

As somebody who telecommutes, I'm thinking Hizzoner doesn't really get this whole computer-networky thing. If this woman's job consisted entirely of working on servers - and she was a systems analyst, not somebody whom the public would ever contact - it doesn't really matter where she is physically as long as the phone lines stay up. A server doesn't care if you're accessing it from down the hall or the other side of the hemisphere. VPNs truly are wondrous things, as are reliable phone links.

Gosh, who would have thought the FAA might object to an 80-story tower right across the harbor from Logan?

Mike Ball is all in favor of bicycling, but says Mayor Menino needs to stop dressing like a grumpy Care Bear:

... That's doubly unfortunate in that he was doing something vaguely athletic and he was quite jolly at the time. ...

Don Martelli writes the photo of the biking mayor reminds him a bit of that infamous video of Mike Dukakis in a tank.

Mike Mennonno, normally an inveterate bike rider, is thinking of taking the T to work:

... Because the problem with encouraging more bicycle commuting before you've got adequate infrastructure in place for it is it may end up having the opposite of the intended effect. Add to that that there are plenty of Massholes among the ranks of cyclists, too, and Bike Week in Boston is a recipe for anarchy. ...

Oh, yeah, Masshole cyclists.

Casey reports on her first bicycle commute:

... When a Prius passed me, I laughed. "You think you're green? Ha!" ...

Adam Pieniazek reports Bike Week news, including:

... Yesterday I was biking through Cambridge and Somerville, via Hampshire and Beacon Street and noticed a new feature on the Beacon Street/Somerville side of the trip. Bike lanes! ...

Let's see if I can do this ...

As I type, City Councilor Maureen Feeney, who helped organize the thing, is opening the event - 400 people in attendance. Wants to revitalize civic discussion and participation in Boston. Only 11% of Bostonians voted in the last election. The city now is supported by "hands too few and too tired." Local groups and neighborhood watches act in isolation.

"Not about potholes and paving sidewalks. It is about political positioning." Positive discussion about civic health and vitality.

The Herald digs up an old photo of Tom Menino flashing the same sort of finger symbol that got Paul Pierce in trouble.

For a few minutes, at the least. He's slated to address participants at this Saturday's Boston Civic Summit between 12:55 and 1 p.m., according to a draft agenda (not the one on the Web site).