James McBride, Song Yet Sung Friday, February 8, 2008 7:00 p.m. St. James Episcopal Church 1991 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02140 Sponsored by Porter Square Books In an interview with Time magazine following her 1988 Pulitzer Prize win, Toni Morrison described thinking of Beloved as "the least read of all the books I'd written because it is about something that the characters don't want to remember, I don't want to remember, black people don't want......

While on Meet the Press, when Tim Russert wasn't waving flip-flops in his face, Mitt Romney got teary when recalling the time in 1978 when he learned the Mormon church would accept black people. Some news outlets focused on the crying, such as the Boston Herald and Boston Daily. (At least one black Mormon wasn't impressed with the show because Romney didn't apologize for the church's discrimination.) Bostonist shrugged and figured all politicians have......

Evolution is on trial again. A former postdoctoral fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has sued the Cape Cod research center, claiming his 2004 dismissal resulted from his religious beliefs. Nathaniel Abraham was dismissed from Mark Hahn's research lab after refusing to work on the "evolutionary aspects" of his assigned project, according to the Globe. Hahn is a senior research scientist known for studying the effects of toxins on aquatic animals, using a hybrid......

Michael Beschloss will read from Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989 tomorrow, Tuesday, June 19, at 6:00 pm at Coolidge Corner Theatre. Tickets are $5 and available at Brookline Booksmith. When a president dies, who are the networks gonna call? Historian and brainy talking head Michael Beschloss. Beschloss' latest book evaluates the moments when a president made a lonely, unpopular, and ultimately correct choice. Many of the leaders we admire were......

Sure, you can spend your time dealing with the celebrity implications of Tom Brady's recent...prolific spree. But at Bostonist Sports, we're really looking forward to that 2031 NFL Draft. We can just see Mel Kiper III now, projecting that 12 of the first 13 picks will be quarterbacks with Tom Terrific's championship DNA. (The other pick will be the Detroit Lions, who will still be looking for a top-flight WR for Charlie Batch Jr. to......

Bostonist is no security expert and we don’t really know any either. We are a bit suspicious of a couple of new initiatives that we think may either jeopardize our civil rights or safety. As we reported earlier this week the legislature was considering a bill (it has since passed the House) that may open the door to some fourth amendment concerns. Today we get word that Massport will be expanding their “register traveler” program.......

While Monday is the holiday, Sunday is the actual birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Bostonist realizes we don't really need a Boston connection to talk about him, what with the effect he had on the national stage (including the Commonwealth, of course), but it always bears mentioning that he did a Ph.D. at Boston University, which is cool (as is the memorial statue dedicated to him at BU, shown at right - it has......

Remember when the SJC ruling allowing gay marriage was still brand new, and the Governor wanted to use some legal procedures to keep it from going into effect, but Attorney General Tom Reilly refused to play along, saying that the court's decision was the law and it had to be respected? "How principled," Bostonist thought to ourself at the time, "Reilly is admittedly against gay marriage, but he respects the role of the courts......

Bostonist spent yesterday listening to the “I have a dream” speech and watching clips of the good doctor fight for civil rights. Today there is a chance to see another modern great mind, only without the marching. Tonight at the First Parish Church in Harvard Square Noam Chomsky will speak. The $7 - $15 entry fee will benefit Mass Global Action and will discuss the negative effects of globalization on Massachusetts. Originally recognized as......

JFKennedy that is. Kerry spoke about voter irregularities this morning at the MLK breakfast slamming the Republicans for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in Iraq to bring democracy there but left minority voters in the US waiting in line in the cold and rain because of uneven voting machine distribution. In a release from the JFK Library in honor of Martin Luther King’s birthday Kennedy expressed his distress about the state of civil......