West of 495

After falling far behind other areas during the boom years, Boston has been making up lost ground during the Great Recession. That, at least, according to a new study from the Milken Institute that ranks metropolitan areas by their success at creating and sustaining jobs and economic growth, with a heavy emphasis on technology.

The man, identified in his suit only as John Doe, claims that in 2006, a "Cops" camera crew accompanying some Worcester officers illegally broke into his house and filmed the cops arresting him as he lay in his bed, naked and cowering in fear.

The Worcester PD really, really didn't like a story in the Worcester Telegram about possibly bogus master's degrees held by members of the local constabulary. Daily Worcesteria reprints a police statement, which not only says the department will give first dibs on news to local TV and radio stations but adds:

... Unfortunately, the dark, dirty, and poorly lit newsroom is affecting their neutrality, professionalism, and integrity. Because of this, the media policy of the Worcester Police Department must use all relevant media to get the message out to the community and remain transparent as an organization. ...

If you have followed the decline in the standards at the T & G you recognize their new standard operating procedure. This adopted SOP is based on a dysfunctional hat-trick: hyperbole, fiction, and innuendo. ...

Front page material, even.

It's something I noticed in April of 2008, and wrote again about in March of 2009.

Interesting that new details are coming out, like the fact that a third of their workforce are temporary. I wonder how many of them are "independent contractors"...

The Globe also completely fails to mention that after securing money from the state and letting Patrick brag about the new jobs it was bringing in, Evergreen Solar built a $55M plant in Michigan which they claim will have 100 employees. Evergreen Solar received 2 million dollars from Michigan in tax credits last year.

A state trooper found Carlos Montalvo, 25, and Amanda Montalvo, 24, sitting in their blue Honda sedan in the breakdown lane and stopped to assist.

Come for the Big E, stay for the bank roll.

Right in the story about the crashed plane on 495:

I just want to say that while I'm very grateful that the pilot and passenger are all right, I'm tired of all these pilots acting as though they don't have to obey the rules of the road! Swerving between traffic, ignoring red lights, landing on highways -- it's going to cause a tragedy one of these days!

In conclusion, I hope that everyone will support the creation of more airplane lanes on our streets.

Julie Powell went to Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. She is the Julie in the pair Julie & Julia, the author of the book by that title, and the person Amy Adams plays in the movie by Nora Ephron.

Powell is the young woman who cooked all of the recipes in Julia Child's French Cookbook, one recipe every evening after work at her dead-end office job, and blogged about it. Then she re-wrote the blog into a best selling book.

Powell still keeps a blog. Last week she wrote about the movie premiere in LA, a "screening" she modestly calls it, in a post titled Tales from The Red Carpet. Many of the comments on her blog are readers of her book who took inspiration from it.

Powell also recently wrote this article for The Atlantic's food blog, Being Julie, Not "Julie".

Entire city becoming a giant wildlife park.

It must be true. Forbes wouldn't get that wrong, would it? Who doesn't recognize that Worcester has better culture than Cambridge (or, for that matter, that Baltimore is a better place to live than Boston)?

Via Maureen Rogers, who admits: My first thought was: what were the criteria?

Clearly, availability of interesting places to shop; number of steep hills impossible to drive on during icy weather; and percentage of high school seniors who agree with the statement "I don't care where I go to college, as long as it's somewhere other than Worcester" weren't part of the statistical mix that went into this pick.

Unlike at the Globe, the New York Times isn't telling unions at the Worcester Telegram they need to consider their imminent death, the Boston Business Journal reports. In fact, the Worcester paper seems to be doing pretty well when compared to its big-city cousins down the 'Pike, the Journal says.

Meanwhile, the Journal also reports that the Boston Foundation is holding a conclave today to try to figure out how to save the Globe.

Daily Worcesteria explains why this day is different from all other days: Some alleged dolt apparently facing speeding charges at the old Worcester courthouse got so upset today he knocked over the 147-year-old statue of Moses, damaging it, quite possibly irreparably.

Grafton Times went live today.

Last call would remain 2 a.m., but the tipsy could sit around for another hour to get ready for the ride home.

The NBA store is selling a "St. Patrick's Day" collection with the entire league represented. This may be your only chance to own a green Lakers cap with a shamrock on the back.

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Victory is sweet.

Insemination fight ends in wife's arrest

Berkshire Eagle
Thursday, March 12
PITTSFIELD — A woman who allegedly intended to artificially inseminate her wife with her brother's semen has been charged with domestic assault and battery.
...

Left unmentioned in the article is how a woman happened to be carrying around a turkey baster filled with her brother's semen.

Read the whole thing

Be prepared to go "awww" at photos of a two-day-old giraffe at the Tufts veterinary school in Grafton.

Julia Spitz posts a photo of an electronic signboard outside a Marlborough real-estate office that, instead of telling you the time and temperature, tells you how many foreclosed properties they have available.

Take a look at a couple of dramatic before and after photos of one Worcester street that's had all its trees cut down and ground into a fine powder in the war against the Asian Longhorned Beetles.

Via Daily Worcesteria.

Worcester offers contract to Manny Ramirez:

Worcester, MA January 27, 2009 -- The Worcester Tornadoes Professional Baseball Team has offered a contract to free agent outfielder Manny Ramirez for two years worth $24,000. The deal would pay the 12-time Major League Baseball All-Star approximately $3,000 during each month of the Can-Am Baseball Season. Unlike Major League Baseball, the Can-Am League operates with a salary cap, and the deal for Ramirez would be on par with other veterans in the league.

Via Daily Worcesteria.

And the school closings begin to roll in, and roll in, and roll in.

OK, it's only Somerville, Everett, a coupl'a places in NH, and some little private places. But there'll be more come nightfall, mark my words!

Worcester Beetle Battle Reaches Destructive Phase.

I've probably been following the whole beetle thing more closely than somebody living nowhere near Worcester should, but I must admit I'm linking to that story mainly because, like pretty much every other account today, the headline uses the phrase "Beetle battle" and I can't stop repeating that: Beetle battle. Beetle battle. Beetle battle.

Clearing a tree limb on Apple Blossom Lane, Leo Renauld was reported killed last night. He and a neighbor were attempting to clear fallen limbs that were blocking the road.

Mother Nature always reminds us - perhaps in this case with a touch of irony - that the weather is something to always be respected.

Andy reports from points west - and tries hard to contain his ire at Boston media:

... Driving through Ashby and Ashburnham today was like driving through a post-hurricane scene, only with snow. The tops of 60% of the trees are simply gone along Route 119. I'm a little disappointed that the Boston Globe dedicated only one headline to this crippling storm, despite the hundreds of thousands who lost power, most for days, the multiple deaths reported, and total devastation that has gone through this area (not to mention some jerks conning those without power by posing as utility employees). Watching the NECN or any of the network stations, you would think nothing is happening in this portion of the world since last Friday. ...

The Herald's Dave Wedge goes through Deval Patrick's 32-page wish list of infrastructure projects he hopes to have his pal Obama stimulate and finds several "potential pork projects," including:

$6 million to replace 20,000 trees damaged by "beetle infestation."

Nice use of quotation marks there, Dave. Never heard of the Asian Longhorned Beetle and how the feds are trying to prevent it from spreading from Worcester to, oh, every single maple tree in New England? Perhaps, as Worcester cuts down all those trees (well, the ones that didn't fall down last week), some enterprising arborists will save all the beetles they find and mail them to Wedge. After they've been killed, of course.