Shriver Will Rest In Barnstable

Published January 19, 2011

Funeral services are scheduled for Sargent Shriver at a church in suburban Washington. The invitation-only ceremony is set for Saturday at Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Potomac, Md.

Family members say Shriver will be buried in Hyannis the Barnstable village of Centerville, next to the grave of his wife, Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

Shriver, who served as the founding director of the Peace Corps and leader of the “War on Poverty,” died Tuesday after being hospitalized for several days. He was 95 and had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.

Update: Nothing confuses me more than the villages of Cape Cod. This correction comes from Molly Connors, a reporter at the Cape Cod Times:

The church, St. Francis Xavier, is in Hyannis, but the cemetery is in Centerville. Both are villages of Barnstable, which I am a maniac about because all of Barnstable and its villages are my beat.

I had thought Hyannis was a town and that Centerville was a village of Hyannis. Wrong.

Accused Mattapan Murderer Pleads Not Guilty

Published January 19, 2011

The last of three men charged in connection with the Mattapan murders of September 2010 has pleaded not guilty to nine charges, including four counts of first-degree murder.

Edward Washington, 35, was arrested in December for the murders of four people, including a two-year-old boy and his mother, on Woolson Street. Prosecutors say Washington was responsible for the murders but that he was not the mastermind.

WBUR’s Bianca Vazquez Toness, reporting from Suffolk Superior Court, quotes Assistant District Attorney Edmond Zabin:

“This defendant and Dwayne Moore marched the people who were inside and marched them up the street to Woolson Street and somewhere around the corner of Woolson and Wildwood Street those individuals were all shot,” Zabin said.

Dwayne Moore was arrested in late November, almost two months after the murders, and booked with four counts of murder and other charges. Edward Washington’s cousin, Kimani Washington, was arrested in October and charged on drugs and weapons counts.

When November arrived, and almost two months had passed since with no murder charges, it felt like the homicides would never be solved. Police reassured an angry public it was a “very active investigation.”

The victims were Amani Smith, 2; his mother, Eyanna Flonory, 21; her boyfriend, Simba Martin, 21; and Levaughn Washum-Garrison, 22. The lone survivor is 32-year-old Marcus Hurd.

(Greater) Boston Blotter: Police Seize Blogger’s Guns

Published January 19, 2011

Hubbub is tracking and mapping every Boston homicide of 2011, so we have a close eye on the police blotters.

Three stories just in:

1.) Arlington police seized guns and ammo from a blogger who suggested, perhaps jokingly, that Rep. Giffords was the first of many lawmakers who ought to be shot. Wicked Local Arlington reports:

(Travis) Corcoran wrote and uploaded a post to his blog, tjic.com, following the Jan. 8 shooting of United States Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tuscan titled “1 down, 534 to go,” suggesting the other 534 members of Congress should be next. In an interview with the Advocate after the post gained wide attention on the Internet but before police became involved, Corcoran compared his post to a joke made among a group of friends in a casual setting.

APD Capt. Robert Bongiorno said the department took his statements made in the blog as a credible threat and took precautionary measures.

(via Universal Hub)

2.) Boston Police and federal authorities arrested Lavonrence Perkins, 20, of Boston, in Providence on Wednesday. Perkins is charged with a murder dating back to May 2010. The victim was Cordell McAfee, 22, of Boston.

3.) Universal Hub reports a man’s body was found partially buried in the snow in Revere Beach:

The Suffolk County District Attorney’s office reports the body of an Asian male believed to be in his early 20s was found around 8:30 a.m. today, “partially buried in the snow,” by the South Bath House. “There were no signs of blood or obvious foul play at the scene,” the DA’s office says, adding an autopsy will be performed tomorrow after the body has sufficiently warmed up.

Wednesday Roundup: Slogging Through The Slush

Published January 19, 2011

Good Wednesday morning — hope your feet are staying dry. Trying to feed a parking meter lately is next to impossible.

A Boston attorney has named publicly 117 priests accused of sexual abuse. The attorney, Mitchell Garabedian, apparently names only those priests involved in cases he litigated. Although the priests named admitted no wrongdoing in legal settlements, Garabedian said he is certain of their guilt.

Friends and public servants are remembering Sargent Shriver, whom President Obama called the “brightest light of the greatest generation.” Shriver biographer Scott Stossel wrote a lovely, must-read remembrance of the man who founded the Peace Corps and helped launch two presidents. I wrote Shriver’s obituary yesterday.

The second in command at the state’s Probation Department has resigned in scandal, following her boss’s resignation at the end of last month. “I submit this resignation so my family can begin to move forward,” said Elizabeth Tavares.

Today is Boycott A Meeting Day.

Sargent Shriver, Peace Corps Founder, Dies At 95

Published January 18, 2011

R. Sargent Shriver, who founded the Peace Corps during the Kennedy administration and launched an ill-fated campaign for vice president, has died. He was 95.

Shriver’s family said he died Tuesday in Bethesda, Md., where he had been hospitalized for several days.

President Obama called Shriver one of the “brightest lights of the greatest generation,” a World War II veteran who embodied the idea of public service during his long and distinguished career.

Shriver announced in 2003 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. His daughter, former California First Lady Maria Shriver, became a champion of the cause.

“He lived to make the world a more joyful, faithful, and compassionate place,” the Shriver family said in a written statement. “He worked on stages both large and small but in the end, he will be best known for his love of others.”

Shriver co-founded the Special Olympics with his late wife, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. She died in August 2009, just weeks before the death of her brother, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

In 1961, after President John F. Kennedy created the Peace Corps by executive order, Shriver served as the first director. The government agency celebrates its 50th anniversary in March.

Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams said Sargent was a “distinguished public servant and a visionary leader.” Williams said the Peace Corps has deployed more than 200,000 volunteers to 139 countries.

Former NPR president and Peace Corps official Frank Mankiewicz, who worked closely with Shriver, paid tribute to his friend in an interview Tuesday with All Things Considered.

“I’ll be surprised if there’s anyone who served as a Peace Corps volunteer or a staff member, either, for that matter from … 1961 to 1965 who isn’t grieving today and who didn’t see Sarge as a kind of an embodiment of the idealism that created the Peace Corps,” Mankiewicz said.

Shriver led President Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” later in the 1960s. He served as U.S. ambassador to France between 1968 and 1970.

Shriver would go on to become Democratic Sen. George McGovern’s running mate in a doomed 1972 presidential campaign, after vice-presidential candidate Thomas Eagleton abruptly withdrew from the race. Massachusetts was the only state to vote for the McGovern-Shriver ticket.

Four years later, Shriver sought the Democratic nomination for president but dropped out after a disappointing showing in the New Hampshire primary.

In 1994, Shriver was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.

“Sarge was a crusader for social justice and racial equality, a vice-presidential nominee who fought for peace, and a father who instilled a deep sense of duty in all of his children,” said Sen. John Kerry in a statement.

Give Us Your Best (Worst) Commute Nightmares

Published January 18, 2011

This isn't real, but it might as well be.

This isn't real, but it might as well be.

I’ll start!

My colleague and neighbor in Harvard Square, WBUR’s Lisa Tobin, was kind of enough to give me a ride this morning. Traffic was moving through the square and on Memorial Drive. Then we arrived at the entrance to the BU Bridge rotary.

After staying in one place for 78 minutes, I reluctantly bailed on my poor driver and walked. I expected carnage at the other side of the bridge, an accident so horrific that the holdup could be forgiven. Nope, just one (1) Boston cop directing traffic.

Another Cambridge colleague, WBUR’s Joe Spurr, said he was not allowed onto the BU Bridge. He was redirected down Mem Drive, where he had to cross the Harvard bridge and then drive back up Comm. Ave.

Lisa finally arrived at work, 110 minutes after she left Cambridge. If hell ever froze over, Boston this morning is what it would look like.

And the Boston Globe reported yesterday that BU Bridge construction won’t be finished till December.

Your turn: Share your best (worst) commute nightmares in the comments. Hey, it’s good to vent.

Bobbie Cartlon (@BobbieC) tweeted:

So frustrated 2 hours in traffic to go 2 miles, gave up,#workingfromhome. Will try again later.

If we get enough good stories, I’ll share them today on Radio Boston.

Tuesday Morning: I Almost Wrote Monday

Published January 18, 2011

Good morning! It will be messy out there today as a storm brings a mix of snow and freezing rain. But hey, at least it will warm up a little.

More than 130 schools are closed across the state, and more than two dozen flights out of Logan Airport are cancelled.

A Boston Foundation report is recommending teacher raises be tied to student performance — not the length of a teacher’s service — upsetting the teachers union and emboldening administrators, who are about to engage in contract negotiations.

NPR’s Chris Arnold has a really nice explainer on the recent Ibanez decision in Massachusetts, which invalidated hundreds, maybe thousands, of foreclosures. Meanwhile, on Beacon Hill, a bill introduced this week would require a judge to review all foreclosures and would protect former homeowners from eviction.

Also on Beacon Hill: A clearer picture of state finances could emerge today. Gov. Deval Patrick and legislative leaders are working out an estimate of how much the state will collect in taxes and other revenue in the next fiscal year. Patrick is due to release his state budget later this month.

WBUR’s Bob Oakes interviewed a high-ranking Episcopal priest who recently was married. She is gay. “We got married because we love each other and because we want to commit to each other. We think it was a sacramental act. And so for people to have an opinion that can be so negative — it hurts your feelings.”

A story about “Netflix for art” is getting a lot of attention. WBUR’s Andrea Shea reports on a Cambridge start-up called TurningArt, which tries to take the fear out of buying art.

Martin Luther King Earned His ‘Dr.’ At BU

Published January 17, 2011

Digging into JFK’s academic career inspired us, on this Martin Luther King Day, to look back on MLK’s connections to Boston.

King became “Dr.” King in June 1955, after earning his Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston University. He studied personalism, the philosophy that man’s consciousness and identity makes him unique in nature. His doctoral dissertation was titled “A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman.”

King would go on to receive an honorary degree from BU in 1959.

“It was this university that meant so much to me in terms of the formulation of my thinking and the ideas that have guided my life,” King said in an interview recorded in the 1960s.

His BU report card shows King was an A/B student, except for a C in logic. He also took supplemental philosophy classes at Harvard.

In 1964, after he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, King realized he was living history and that he needed to get his personal papers to safety. He donated manuscripts, notebooks, correspondence and even his monogrammed briefcase to BU.

The university produced a video retrospective to show off what would become the Martin Luther King Archive.

Monday Morning: Ouch

Published January 17, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEMXaTktUfA&feature=player_embedded

Today is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the holiday commemorating the civil rights activist’s birth. He would have turned 82 on Saturday. Hopefully you’re sipping coffee in bed celebrating the federal holiday.

Around the country, and around the world, people will pause to remember the great man and the great struggle to ensure that all citizens of the United States are treated equally that he helped lead. King, who earned a graduate degree from Boston University, had many connections to Massachusetts. The Globe’s Adrian Walker writes that we should honor King’s memory by remembering King and his compatriots in the civil rights movement today.

Many New Englanders are still in shock, thanks to an awful Patriots loss to the hated New York Jets on Sunday.

With their team bounced from the playoffs, Pats fans are left looking for answers. Some are blaming quarterback Tom Brady. Some say the credit should go to the Jets. Regardless, many say that this loss is even worse than losing to the Lakers.

Any way you slice it, it hurts.

Vast JFK Digitization Is Just The Beginning

Published January 14, 2011

Fenway Park, Boston, April 1946. Ted Williams, Eddie Pellagrini, John F. Kennedy and Hank Greenberg. (Unknown/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library)

Fenway Park, Boston, April 1946. Ted Williams, Eddie Pellagrini, John F. Kennedy and Hank Greenberg. (Unknown/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library)

On Thursday, after digging up President John F. Kennedy’s application to Harvard, I erroneously said the JFK Library had finished digitizing “most” of its presidential archives.

Not even close.

“This is one half of 1 percent of our collections,” said James Roth, an archivist at the JFK Library who joined in the monumental effort.

“We’re expecting to continue on through the next few decades, and hopefully, as technology increases, we’ll be able to put more and more material up faster.”

Decades! The 200,000 pages of documents now online are a fraction of the 48 million pages in the Kennedy archives. While other presidential libraries feature some materials online, this is by far the most expansive digital collection. Local tech companies such as EMC, Raytheon and Iron Mountain donated the hardware and software.

Roth told me it wasn’t so much the scanning that took time — yes, the archivists place every page onto a flatbed scanner by hand — but the meta-tagging. Every film clip, transcript, phone recording and doodle has to be described and indexed. It is arduous. The first batch took almost four years.

But hugely rewarding. “The beauty of seeing all these different documents is that you get a sense that there is no one moment of ‘That’s when a decision was made’,” Roth said. “It’s the process, the context of the documents, and how individual ideas were formed and how they changed.”

One of his favorite examples is the evolution of Kennedy’s famous inaugural address, which was delivered 50 years ago next week. You can see the late Ted Sorensen’s original draft with JFK’s notes in the margins. The famous “ask not” line began as “Ask not what your country is going to do for you…” Kennedy labored over that sentence and settled on “can.”

Now the born-digital generation, raised in the era of Barack Obama and the Internet presidency, can discover a bit of history they might not otherwise have bothered to find.