Tprussman watches Cardinal O'Malley at the St. Peter's Fiesta in Gloucester.

Three Gloucester student moms knew of no 'pact'.

Beantown Bloggery picked up on a Time magazine article in which 17 teenage girls, 4 times the number as the previous year, at Gloucester High School were found to have made a pregnancy pact and to want to raise their children together. The article explains:

All it took was a few simple questions before nearly half the expecting students, none older than 16, confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Then the story got worse. "We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy," said principal Joseph Sullivan.

Some girls described the desire to give birth to something that unconditionally loves them. Other observers wonder if the in-school daycare and strollers mingling with students in the hallways might be presenting the wrong impression of teen pregnancy.

There's just something about the light in Gloucester, Kathleen Valentine says. She catalogs local blogs that have been posting photos of the port.

Kathleen Valentine loves going to the state fish pier in Gloucester, especially on a sunny day when the fishing boats come in. She describes the scene, including the way the fishermen repair their nets:

... With knives the cut away the excess attachments, with line and large bobbins that serve as needles, they weave the damaged places back together. They move along the pier always bent over their nets working as they go. Some sit on over-turned plastic milk crates. Some stand, some kneel. They spend hours and hours. Sometimes I can hear them talking to each other as they work–-sharing news and gossip, telling stories, discussing politics and keeping the world running properly. ...

Hey, guess whose favorite Beverly drawbridge isn't working again? For the third time in a month? Seems the gearbox that was replaced earlier this month is already scoring high on the Fail Meter.

Cleverest blog title of the day.

Christmas tree made of lobster traps.

Right in front of Tom Bruno's house in Gloucester.

The Urban Pantheist treks through the woods of Dogtown, a Cape Ann village deserted after the Revoluation where Babson College founder (and anti-gravity promoter) Roger Babson later had stone cutters carve various inspirational messages on boulders. He also photographs an ant designed to give you nightmares:

... In between boulders we found an ant nest, in a place where someone had moved a big rock. They were as large as carpenter ants, but were reddish yellow in color. I'd never seen anything like them. They were very sluggish because of the cold, but this one began to perk up after a little while in my hand. When she opened her mandibles up wide, I carefully put her back. ...