Judging from these photos, visitors to Saturday's 2011 Boston Freedom Rally, or the Boston Hempfest, at the Boston Common, ahhh, enjoyed themselves. Fans of hemp included musical performers, basketball aficionados, a guy with a tattoo, and a gigantic eye. We believe a good time was had by all, even the the guy who enjoyed too much of the weed and ended up way too close to the Red Line's third rail at Park Street station. A Brockton teen headed home from the Hempfest admitted he smoked too much, fell off the platform and was rescued by MBTA Red Line Inspector Roberto Russell.
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A snake snuck into a Cambridge apartment to provide an unwelcome morning surprise. [MyFoxBoston]
The Boston Fire Department is getting 60 oxygen masks designed to save pets. [Boston Metro]
Three egg farms in Maine are being investigated for their connection to the producer of the recent salmonella recall. [Boston Globe]
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Over the weekend Mother Nature got angry at homes, cars, power lines and trees across the state. [Boston Channel]
Firefighters and Mayor Menino are still arguing about the contract awarded by the arbitration that the Mayor initiated. [Boston Globe]
If you're wondering whether New Englanders are working on the oil spill in the Gulf, they are. [Boston Globe]
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Some blame Harvard's unfinished construction for the latest rat outbreak in Allston. [Boston Herald]
Former Boston official is collection $162k per year as a consultant to the BRA -- on top of his $97k pension. [Hartford Courant]
Ten people have been accused of embezzling $518k (or two years compensation of a BRA consultant) from the city of Malden. [Boston Channel]
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Microsoft opened a new research facility in Cambridge. Perhaps they'll eventually get "Obama" into Word's spell-check. [Mass High Tech]
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Results tagged “bostoncommon”
At high noon today, hundreds or thousands of sluts will be walking around Boston. Bostonist doesn't usually toss the word slut around. We're making an exception today to tell you all about today's Boston SlutWalk 2011, scheduled for the Boston Common Gazebo.
Natick's Anjali Forber-Pratt is a wheelchair sprinter competing in her first Boston Marathon. Northeastern University's $75-million dormitory project, located behind the Huntington Avenue YMCA, gained earned approval from the Boston redevelopment authority on Thursday. Remember to follow Bostonist on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
Citizens gathered at Boston Common to protest the NATO-led airstrikes against Libya. It looks like Afghanistan amnd Iraq were on the menu, too. Chelsea was represented on one sign, as was BostonAnswer.org.
The WCVB news helicopter made a "precautionary landing" or "emergency landing" on the Boston Common Tuesday night around 6 p.m.
Boston's annual Christmas traditions are well underway now that Thanksgiving has come and gone.
It's the 125th Anniversary of the Boston Pops and they are giving us a gift. Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops will play on Boston Common at 3 p.m. on Sunday, September 26 in a free concert. Not a typo. It's free. The Pops will perform The Dream Lives On: A Portrait of the Kennedy Brothers, a mix of Kennedy quotes set to an orchestral and choral score. Boston's Jeremiah Kissel will narrate the performance. The concert will also pay tribute to Leroy Anderson, feature Star Wars and Harry Potter scores, and Boston favorites "Sweet Caroline" and "I'm Shipping Up to Boston." Renese King and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus will also perform. [BSO]
Yesterday, Sarah Palin gave a Tea Party on Boston Common to protest taxes, and it proceeded in fairly predictable fashion. According to reports, Palin rehashed lines like "We'll keep clinging to our Constitution and our guns and religion - and you can keep the change" and "Let's drill, baby, drill" for an excited audience of astonishingly ignorant people. One infiltrator asserts that "They played taps and I had to tell people to take their hats off," and goes on to provide our favorite excerpt from the protest:
Bostonist correspondent MacDuff Stewart made it out to the Common this afternoon to snap some photos of teabaggers in action. Frankly, it's not as dirty as you'd think it would be.
The big day is approaching and the counterprotests are brewing (ha, HA!). In less than 24 hours, Sarah Palin will be launching the Sarah Palin Network protesting taxation with representation (from Massachusetts voters' favorite son, even) on Boston Common. Scott Brown himself, being the very "representation" taxpayers voted for and are now upset about having (perhaps because he likes benefits too much), has declined to participate.
Apparently spring is not only a time for fires, but also a time for bike crashes. Boston Biker has a detailed post on a pretty big crash that happened earlier today at the intersection of Charles and Beacon near the common. It seems that a car took a left turn too sharp and slammed into a biker, who was taken away in an ambulance. Folks on twitter called the accident sad, nasty, and even gruesome. Be careful out there, everybody, and wear your helmets. [Boston Biker]
We all know that Sarah Palin will be bringing her big hair, tortured syntax, scrawl-covered hands, and legion of racist militia members to Boston this month for a "Tea Party," but what, if anything are we going to do about it? The members of b0st0n.livejournal have cooked something up: Throw a real tea party!
-- A criminal defense attorney who was arrested while videotaping three Boston cops in 2007 while they were making an arrest has filed a lawsuit against the City of Boston for civil rights infringements. The videotaping case against Simon Glick was dismissed before trial. [Boston.com]
It's a good day in the Common when the odor of fried dough is engulfed in the sweet aroma of Saturday's herbaceous guest of honor.
More than previous Boston Freedom Rallies, affectionately known as HempFest, there was much to celebrate.
Bostonist is a pickle maniac. We've been known to take $30 round-trip bus excursions to New York City just to bring back a pint of Guss's pickles. So, when were alerted to the presence of anthropomorphic pickle beings wandering the Common, we had to check it out.
Jennifer Lynn snapped Ben Affleck filming his new movie The Company Men on Boston Common yesterday. Did you see Ben about town, too?
A torrential downpour in Boston this morning swept Swan Boats from the Boston Common into the Public Gardens. The rain amassed many feet, up to the bust of the George Washington statue in what had become the Public Swamp. All sorts of invasive species, including nutrias and tourists, followed in the wake of the cascading waters. The force of the waters sank several of the Swan Boats.
-- Bullets filled the Roxbury air last night as a shootout resulted in an injury to a man driving a van full of children. The shootout happened around 8:00pm on Columbia Road, and police do not believe that the victim was the target of the gunmen, who have not been apprehended. Bullets riddled the driver's van and a number of local businesses, but no other injuries have been reported. [Globe]
-- Wellesley might be the hottest new place to encounter a prostitute, but Brighton's brothels continue to service customers who take the Green Line or the 57 bus. Boston police are tackling online sex rings as a part of "Operation Rubout," an effort to wipe out prostitution in Allston and Brighton that began in 2005. The newest thing in the neighborhood? The emerging market in transexual encounters. There are some things you still can't get in the suburbs. [Herald]
-- Boston police shot a 23-year-old man on the Boston Common yesterday afternoon, after the man allegedly aimed a fake gun at officers. Shawn Craig of Boston led police on a chase through the crowded common, past scores of Bostonians relaxing in the park after work. Police say they had stopped Craig on the suspicion that he had outstanding warrants. At some point during the chase, Craig aimed a pellet gun designed to look like a semi-automatic handgun at an officer, who shot Craig once, in the shoulder. Craig was hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries and faces charges of unlawful possession with intent to distribute a Class B substance, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and being armed while wanted. [Herald; Globe; BPDNews]
--Coverage of yesterday's rally on the Common protesting Chinese repression in Tibet. [BU Daily Free Press, Boston Globe]