The Boston City Council has had 3 extremely remarkable members that are worth mentioning. These people include:

1.

Laurence Curtis was born in Boston on September 3, 1893. Before going to college Curtis served in the Foreign Diplomatic Service for a year and then he entered the U.S. Navy during World War 1. While there he was in a crash where he lost his leg and thus was awarded the Silver Star. He then went on to graduate from Harvard University in 1921. At this same time he was also admitted to the Massachusetts bar. He began practicing law in Boston before going on to do some other great things. One of these things was serving on the Boston City Council from 1930 through 1933. Afterwards he was a member of the State house of representatives from 1933 through 1936 and a member of the State Senate from 1936 through 1941. He was also a Republican member of the Congress from January 3, 1953 through January 3, 1963. Along with these great successes though, came a lot of failures too. He failed to become a member of the U.S. Senate or the Congress anytime after 1963. Nevertheless, he continued to live in and serve the people in Boston, Massachusetts until his death on July 11, 1989.

2.

Sam Yoon was born in Seoul, South Korea. He came to America with his parents when he was only 10 months old. When he was 10-years-old he became a naturalized U. S. citizen. He was then elected to the Boston City Council in November 2005 after graduating from Princeton University with a B.A. And from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. While in school he focused upon community economic development and affordable housing. He also worked for numerous community-based non-profits.

He was the first Asian American to ever run for an elected office in Boston. As such he was an At-Large City Councilor who represented every neighborhood in the city of Boston. This was done with a strong commitment to public education, affordable housing and public safety. It was his goal to make Boston a safer, stronger, more affordable place to live. This was done while he chaired both the Housing Committee and the Committee on Hunger and Homelessness.

The New Majority, which is a coalition of African Americans, Latinos, and Asians, also had Sam Yoon as a founding member. This group joined together to advance the common agenda for the colored people who were living in Boston. Another group for colored people that Sam Yoon is very active in was Viet-Aid. This is a group that serves the Vietnamese community that is located in Boston's Dorchester area.

Most recently, Sam Yoon has served as the Development Director for the Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC). Here he is working on creating affordable housing for people who are living in Boston's Chinatown. Some of the other housing organizations that Sam Yoon has worked for include the Boston Aging Concerns, which is an organization that is focused upon providing housing for families wherein the grandparents are the primary caregivers; The Community Builders, which is the nation's largest nonprofit developer of affordable housing; and Abt Associates, which is a leading public policy research firm.

3.

Anna Louise Day Hicks (October 16, 1916–October 21, 2003) was a United States Irish-American/Catholic politician and lawyer from Boston, Massachusetts. She was elected to the Boston School Committee in 1961. Then in June of 1963 she was a chairperson of the committee when the Boston chapter of the NAACP demanded that there should be an immediate public acknowledgment of de facto segregation within the Boston public school system. She was actually the person on the committee who was holding out on the court ordered busing of students into inner-city schools in order to achieve integration. This caused her to become the most popular politician in Boston within several months. However, as you can imagine, this also caused her to become very controversial as well. As such, it is what Anna Louise Day Hicks is most known for. It was at this time that she started an organization that is called Restore Our Alienated Rights (ROAR), which actively engaged in incidents of massive resistance to school desegregation.

In 1967, Anna Louise Day Hicks came within 12,000 votes of being elected as Boston's mayor. Her slogan throughout the campaign was "You know where I stand." So, while she was the first woman president to be president of the Boston City Council, she was unable to become Boston's first female mayor.

Later on, Anna Louise Day Hicks went on to serve 1 term in the United States House of Representatives.

As you can see, Anna Louise Day Hicks was actually quite conservative in racial matters. However, when it came to other matters, she was very progressive. For instance, she was a member of the National Organization for Women, and while a member of this organization serving in Congress she lobbied for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Throughout time there have also been some women on the Boston City Council. The first woman was Katherine “Kitty” Craven who fought for urban renewal in the 1960s. Then in the 1970s Louise Day Hicks fought for school desegregation. However, it was not until the middle of the 1990s that women had the biggest impact. At this time women actually held 4 of the 13 city council seats. These women were Maura Hennigan, Maureen Feeney, Peggy Davis-Mullen and Diane Modica. They worked together to form a critical mass and then rise to powerful positions on committees where they were able to make way for other women to enter into governmental leadership positions. Unfortunately this was brought to an end in 1997 though because of their individual political ambitions as well as because of Boston’s political culture itself. Since that time only 2 women have held seats on the Boston City Council: Maura Hennigan from 1981 through 1987 and Maureen Feeney in 1993.

Popularity: 8%

Like our counterpart over at DiningOutBoston.com (check out their review of Haru Boston), we were invited to the special Friends and Family opening night at Boston's newest Sushi place, Haru.

Haru is a Sushi restaurant operated by the Benihana company and they just brought a little piece of the Manhattan-based chain to beantown, opening Haru Boston this month.

Being suckers for exclusivity and access, we had a wonderful time that night. We even think we saw Jonthan Soroff (but would he really spike his hair up like that?) and overheard some other patrons mentioning that they'd seen him to. Of course when Soroff shows up, thats when it goes "from a party to an event", so again, we were happy.

Other overheard conversation led us to believe that there were people from Boston magazine around as well on Friday night, but like the Soroff rumor, we've got nothing to confirm that.

The drinks were great, very unique and creative, most of the ones we tasted featured coconut and were blue and green, we suppose thats because Haru's logo is also blue and green. Nice tie-in. And the food, amazing, we haven't had sushi that good in a long time.

The decor is nice, but not too-nice. It doesn't try too hard as many local sushi places have a tendency to do. The ceiling is a little low, which makes for a cozy, if a tad tight, setting, but we'd imagine that has more to do with the Pru than with Haru.

Our waiter, Brandon, was great, very personable and fun. Service is always one of our most important factors when considering a place and here Haru shines.

Popularity: 17%

Well…is anyone still reading this? It's high time we resurrected this site! I'm going to take it upon myself for the time being to try to get some Boston news out to all you good folks out there. Please excuse me if it doesn't pick up entirely quickly — I'll need to get myself back into the swing of things. But do keep an eye on Puritan City, here. I hope you're all as excited as I am!

*Arianna

Popularity: 44%

As much as we are well aware of the obesity problems our nation faces, particularly the generation of children running around (well, not running around is more of the problem…) drinking soda and eating Twinkies, we're glad to hear that the upstanding reputation of the Fluffernutter (one of our favorites) has not been sullied. Earlier this month, Sen. Jarrett Barrios of Cambridge brought up a proposal to limit the availability of Fluffernutters on school lunch menus, awakening a somewhat surprising amount of impassioned debate over the issue. Since Fluff was invented right here in MA, it's really got its loyal supporters.

We're certainly behind Barrios in his concern over the nutrition that children are getting these days. We just love ourselves that marshmallow gooey goodness.

Popularity: 48%

We occasionally find ourselves hungry for some unhealthy food at unhealthy hours. We're talking greasy meat past midnight (that's a great band name). And for all of its other charms, the North End in specific and Boston in general has left us wanting.
One of our favorite hangouts for late-evening eating (but certainly not past midnight) is a place on Boylston we affectionately refer to as the 'Snake (akaThe Rattlesnake Bar and Grill). You can find us many a night tucked away from the crowd in a booth 'neath a painting of Subcommandante Marcos, labeled "El Revolucionaire" (Ya Basta!).
But sometimes, even the 'Snake isn't serving food late enough for us, and in times like these were are often too lazy or too inebriated to fire up the grill or stove and cook our own food, so we starve. Untill the next morning, at least. In one fell swoop this morning, the Globe both gave us new hope and drew our attetion to threats to the commericial viability of this new hope. It seems there are 10 restaurants in Chinatown that are liscenced to stay open untill 4am. Only four of them still exercise this ability, but still: 4am?! That's awesome.

The problem is that apparantly Boston is an old fogey's town (at least says the article), so the demand for late-night dining is diminishing like a receding hairline, and many of these places are finding it hard to economically justify staying open late.
Our new mission, and yours too (should you choose to accept it) is to patronize these places and keep them open. We'll see you there.

Technorati Tags: boston, the rattlesnake, late night dining, food, chinatown

Popularity: 62%

I know it's cold and rainy out there, but if you are an ice cream lover, you will certainly want to brave the weather to check out the Scooper Bowl currently being held at City Hall Plaza (aka Goverment Center). Unfortunately, the website reports that the event was closed down today at 2pm due to severe weather (I can't imagine there were many customers to the outdoor event!), but it still appears to be scheduled for tomorrow, from 11:30am-6:00pm. So go enjoy as much ice cream as you can eat (in as many different flavors as you can manage to stomach), all for a measly $7 ($3 for children!) that will go to the Jimmy Fund.

Eating ice cream to help save lives? You can't beat that, really.

Popularity: 21%

In most stores, the Herald and the Globe are displayed side-by-side, which was a perfect arrangement for us to notice the similarity in this morning's headlines:

The Globe doesn't publish its daily cover online, but today's headline is A deluge of woes for region.

Technorati Tags: boston, herald, globe

Popularity: 20%

Artist Bethany Schlegel hosts her opening tonight from 6-9pm at Dr. J Andres Rodriguez's downtown Boston office. Her work will be hanging on loan there for several weeks. Come join us and check out this up-and-coming talent!

Popularity: 39%

Any time a Globe columnist starts a piece off with

Where have you been all my life, Yovette?

we get intrigued. The columnist in question, Steve Bailey, has written about Yovette Markey/Mumford before, and we sense a little self-loathing adoration here. A (rich) entrepreneurial woman who has a history littered with lawsuits against her, including a $6.4 million dollar judgment in a Big Dig fraud case in 2003, she apparently also used to be the sister-in-law of Congressman Ed Markey (who blogs for the Huffington Post). She has had her share of successes, including investing in the company that has since become Sirius Sattelite Radio.

The newest saga unfolding involves an $11.7 million dollar waterfront property, which her jilted alleged lover Haim Zahavi is suing her for "stealing from him." The Boston money bags (who, Bailey reports, drives a black Mercedes with the license plate "Mr Zee"), claims that Yovette used fraudulent tricks (does seduction count?) to "squeeze" him out of the purchase of the property.

A Globe article from last year contains this gem:

Mark Vaughan, attorney for MGM Commercial Wharf, the investor group that purchased the property, said there was a ''handful" of investors. One document names Garron Markey, Mumford's son, as MGM Commercial's manager; MGM's Winchester address matches a publicly listed address for Yovette Markey Mumford.

Garron Markey is also listed as the "Assistant Web Designer" for one of Yovette's projects, SafetyIssues.com. But, as a partial investor in the "trophy property", we figured Garron must be a successful little designer, so we dug a little bit and (drum roll please) found his MySpace profile. The gay 20-year-old includes in his list of interests "extra large condoms," and posted the seductive self-portrait to the right. Rich, young, and attractive Garron is quite the catch, though we'd worry about the baggage that comes with his mom.

Technorati Tags: boston, yovette mumford, garron markey

Popularity: 24%

John J. Schulz is claiming that he merely made "typos" when he fabricated figures on his resume (the one that got him his current job as dean of Boston University's College of Communication), implying he was in a more elite group of students in the Oxford doctoral program than was really the case. Previously, the good dean has been in other academically comprimising situations, reports the Globe:

In 1999, he stepped down as chairman of the department of mass communication, advertising, and public relations after acknowledging he read a passage from a magazine in class without attribution.
…
A 2003 article in The Daily Free Press stated that Schulz was the author of ''several books." He has not published any books. Patrick Gillooly, the student who wrote the article, said he got his information from Schulz, but could not say with certainty that Schulz had made that particular claim.

He is also accused of lying about his participation in the wars in Vietnam and in Afghanistan.

We think Mr. Schulz says it best himself when he was quoted for a December 2005 article in the Washington Post:

"In the very process of preventing misinformation from another side, they are creating misinformation through a process that disguises the source for information that is going out," said John Schulz, dean of Boston University's College of Communications and a veteran journalist. "You can't be creating a model for democracy while subverting one of its core principles, a free independent press."

Technorati Tags: boston, boston university

Popularity: 23%