Published October 13, 2010

Hot-air balloons in Hudson (Tyler Trahan/Flickr)

Photographer Tyler Trahan visited a hot-air balloon festival in Hudson (just inside 495) and captured something you don’t often see in pictures — balloons at night. He describes the technical details:

0.8 second exposure at ISO 100, f/10. That seemed to be the best balance between good DOF and having the balloons move visibly in the exposure.

Nice work! I am featuring user photos from the WBUR Flickr group every day on Hubbub.

Published October 13, 2010

Clap Elementary in Dorchester might be closed.

Carol Johnson, Boston’s superintendent of schools, is proposing to close six “underperforming” schools in the city. One of them, Roger Clap Elementary in Dorchester, is tiny — 166 students across seven grades.

Smaller is not always better, Johnson recently told Radio Boston:

Small class size can be important. But if you have small class size or small schools — and you don’t focus on the teaching and learning that’s going on in them and thinking about individual students and how you’re going to respond to their needs — it won’t be enough.

Johnson wants to close the six schools based, in large part, on MCAS data that show consistently poor student performance. (Mayor Tom Menino supports the plan, even though it would mean the closure of three schools in his neighborhood of Hyde Park.)

But Kenny Jervis, whose 7-year-old, Sophia, and 4-year-old, Nigel, attend Clap Elementary, says MCAS can’t capture the kind of education happening at Clap.

Jervis created a Facebook group dedicated to keeping the school open, and he shared with me an open letter signed by Clap parents, excerpted here:

Continue reading →

Published October 13, 2010

Almost two weeks after police arrested Kimani Washington in New Hampshire for weapons violations, prosecutors say one of the guns he carried was used in the murders that took four lives in Mattapan on Sept. 28.

Kimani Washington, left, stands with his lawyer John Salsberg, in Dorchester District Court on Wednesday. (Pool photo by Mark Garfinkel)

Washington, 35, did not speak at his arraignment Wednesday. Washington’s lawyer entered a “not guilty” plea on his behalf.

Washington was charged with weapons violations, drug trafficking, receiving a stolen car and being a career criminal. The judge ordered him held on $500,000 $1 million bail.

His lawyer, John Salsberg, has said Washington “unequivocally denies” hurting anyone. “Mr. Washington’s family and friends remain very supportive of him,” the AP quotes the attorney as saying outside the court.

Simba Martin, 21; his girlfriend, Eyanna Flonory, 21, and her two-year-old son, Amani Smith; and Lavaughn Washum-Garrison, 22, were killed. A fifth shooting victim, Marcus Hurd, 32, is clinging to life at a Boston hospital.

If you missed it this morning, WBUR’s Bianca Vazquez Toness reported on the frustration in Mattapan about press coverage of the killings. It’s a conversation I started here last week.

Update, 5:45: A judge raised Washington’s bail to $1 million cash after prosecutors produced a taped confession from Washington admitting he possessed “one of the murder weapons, the surviving victim’s motor vehicle, and a large quantity of crack cocaine.”