Graffiti's gotten so bad in Wellesley town officials have had to put up signs telling people not to spray-paint things. And somebody promptly spray painted those signs!

Nearly swear-free Wellesley hip-hop concert a success.

John Halamka reports all the extra bird food he's put out and the heated bird bath have attracted plenty of birds to his Wellesley backyard this winter - and not just of the birdseed-eating variety:

I looked up and saw a cardinal eating safflower. I looked up again and saw a Red-Shouldered hawk eating the cardinal.

That would be Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CTO John Halamka, who describes his home weather station, how he got it hooked into Weather Underground and what lessons people who run large, complex computer networks at large, complex health-care providers can take away from it all.

Bella Wong, superintendent of Wellesley public schools, has sent out a letter of apology to parents of students for allowing six-graders to pray while visiting the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC), in Roxbury.

According to the letter, school teachers brought students from the (mandatory) "Enduring Beliefs and the World Today" class on field trips to visit a synagogue and a mosque, and they also visited a gospel music performance and met with "representatives of the Hindu religion". Students had to receive parental permission to attend the field trips.

For the mosque visiting, half the students went one day, the rest the next. On the second day, a representative of the mosque invited students to join them in a prayer. Five students chose to participate.

Yesterday, a video of the Islamic prayer session was posted on YouTube by Boston-based Americans for Peace and Tolerance. (I don't know how to embed).

In Wellesley.

"Not very professional" axmen who were supposed to take down two damaged trees on land belonging to an NBA owner instead whacked down 90 trees along a path on Wellesley conservation land, Wicked Local Wellesley reports. The town's now deciding what sort of fine to levy against the property manager for Atlanta Hawks owner Steve Belkin.

McMansions rip one street asunder.