Beacon Hill

Boston's largest, most award-winningest newspaper has a handy tip for Beacon Hill parents on Halloween: "Wash any loose rat droppings from your kid's candy before ingesting."

Also alerts us that lots of college students live on Mission Hill and that drug users have been known to frequent Central Square.

Channel 25 rips the covers off this scandal. Or something.

David Flavell, charged with attacking and attempting to rape a woman in a Mass. General restroom on Thursday was ordered sent to a secure unit at Bridgewater State Hospital for observation for 20 days to determine whether he's competent for trial, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports. He's next scheduled to appear in Boston Municipal Court on Nov. 16 for a status hearing.

No, don't fret, Angelo Scaccia of Hyde Park isn't one of them. Josh Dawson reports Rose Staram, a Dorchester Democrat, started a fundraising committee this year for a possible run against Liz Malia of JP, while Marty Walz of the Back Bay, has opposition in Republican Brad Marston, who already has 1600+ followers on Twitter.

Boston Police tweet the bomb squad is at Suffolk University's 8 Ashburton Pl. building.

Karen Sutton explains how a be-robed Governor of the Commonwealth came by to help her son clean up at the State House yesterday.

Earlier:
Sometimes the third graders are a bit more combative.

State Police are at the Longfellow Bridge right now, checking out a "suspicious package," Boston Police tweet. Presumably, it is not made of Lite Brites.

The Globe reports on the first annual Freedom Rally on Boston Common since voters decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Boston Fire Department reports the cause of the carbon monoxide was "a small hole" in a boiler that let the gas escape into the hotel ventilation system. No injuries.

Local 718 tweeted around 10:15 a.m.

Fire crews still on scene at the former Charles Street jail an hour later, when Local 716 tweeted CO meters on multiple floors were showing levels of 20 parts per million (ppm), with peaks as high as 53 ppm. The lower levels are considered a potential problem for young children and people with serious breathing issues; the higher levels are considered "excessive" and anybody exposed to them should be checked by a doctor.

Among the evacuated guests, spotted by Phillip McCarthy:

[A] guy standing at the corner of Pinckney and Charles streets with two diaper-clad monkeys on his shoulders.

Channel 5 reports the monkeys are staying at the hotel while they film "The Zookeeper." No word if they're distraught over the death of their co-star, Tweet the giraffe.

After quite a bit less than a year on the job, and just a few weeks after he engineered the departure of Dan Grabauskas, Transportation Secretary James Aloisi is resigning, says the Globe.

Could it be he dug himself too big a hole this time?

I'm emerging from the blogcave up in the mountain fastnesses next Wednesday, to participate in a panel discussion at the Vilna Shul: Are Blogs and Twitter Improving the Dissemination of Information and News?

Dan Kennedy moderates the discussion with Globe innovation columnist Scott Kirsner, Mass. High Tech Editor Doug Banks, HubSpot CTO Dharmesh Shah, and, well, me. Click the link for more details and to register.

Megan Johnson reports that whenever she goes there, there is always this older guy at the corner, sitting in a Mercedes convertible just reading. Hermoves takes his picture.

Rhea Becker posts photos from last night's Yappy Hour at the Liberty Hotel.

That recent Globe piece on unruly bike riders featured a photo of a bicyclist going the wrong way on Charles Street. Sean Roche explains why the bicyclists had no choice: There is no legal way for a bicyclist to head north from Beacon between the Storrow entrance and Bowdoin Street, because all the roads are one way towards Beacon.

... The picture of supposed biker carelessness is more damning of a city that doesn't provide any accommodation on a stretch that really needs it. But, it's not just bikers who are shortchanged by the configuration of Charles St.

Quite obviously, allocating all the space between the curbs to either parking or auto travel doesn't serve the needs of those on two wheels. Less obviously, the three lanes of one-way travel ill-serve the neighborhood. Three lanes of one-way traffic serve one principal purpose: moving traffic. Local merchants don't benefit from through traffic. Nor do the folks who live in the area. ...

Ed. oldtimer note/question: I seem to recall Charles used to go the other way, but one night, DPW crews reversed the direction on orders of Kevin White, who wanted to limit the flow of hoi polloi on the street. Do I remember correctly?

J.L. Bell begins a new discussion on the colonial equivalent of the Combat Zone:

... So Bostonians were referring to Mount Whoredom many decades before the Revolution, and it was already a site of iniquity—of sorts. On this night the worst behavior the Puritan authorities found was "Nine Pins." (Make your blood boil? Well, I should say!) ...

Deb Geisler directs us to the work of Thomas Sniegoski, who sets his "young adult" books about the battle between Good and Evil in downtown Boston:

... He lives in Massachusetts (Stoughton, I think), but he writes mostly about downtown Boston -- particularly the Beacon Hill area, where I work. In one book, his main character points out that a clear sign of the impending Apocalypse (which that character is trying to avert) is that there is no wait at the Bourne Bridge. :-) ...

Then "Seasons of Love" might have come out as Seasons of Smoot:

Three hundred sixty four point four Smoots and an ear
Three hundred sixty four point four lengths plus a smidge
Three hundred sixty four point four Smoots and an ear
How do you measure the length of a bridge? ...

Channel 4 reports an ad guy from Burlington has put up the $4,000 the guy was ordered to pay for pinching a couple of flower pots from an alley behind some building the quarterback owns.