All the news that's fit to print (& centre street)

-Another way to stretch your money if you are a student: Bank of America has 5 years of free checking for any student. Sign up now and save your money!

-I heard that there is someone walking a picket line at the new post office construction site on centre street in west roxbury. Allegedly, the builder has been bringing crews in at night to accelerate the construction process, they aren't union workers, and they may have illegal aliens working with them. Stay tuned.

-Howie Carr was doing an entire show yesterday about "mumbles" Menino. First of all, I'd like to say that although I maybe critical of the mayor on many items I believe it is childish and unfair to make fun of him for his speech defect. If anything, the man should be applauded for going into public service. He is not a stupid man, he knows that he isn't that eloquent. But he didn't let that handicap keep him from a career that he wanted to follow. In addition, he went back to school at age 42, having learned the value of a college education. We teach our schoolchildren not to make fun of people, but then Howie Carr spends days going on and on about it. I called the show up to try and talk about the Forsyth Institute. When the woman answered the phone she said "what do you want to talk about?" I said, "can we talk about something substantive?" she said "No" and hung up on me. As Clara said, these people call into make fun of how the mayor speaks but they speak just like him!!!

-I received a call from the BRA's Rick Shaklik today. Funny how after a month of him not returning my phone calls, when I talked to his boss about it I got a phone call the next day. Another example of fine open, honest, transparent government service. He told me that I "was on his list to call" Probably the list to call in 10 years. Anyway, he said that the zoning amendment was just being reviewed at this time with no timeline. Sure sounds to me like they are waiting until after the election to push this through. I asked again to be on the email list for any future meetings, because somehow I continue to not be invited to the community meetings despite numberous requests to be on the list.

-I hope someone is keeping tabs of all of Ed Flynn's proposals. Last night at the Presentation School meeting in Brighton he proposed a pilot school voucher program. Tonight on BNN he proposed a family living wage minimum wage of $15, 16, or $17 dollars an hour. If you think milk and gas are expensive now, wait until you have to pay a gas station attendant or a checkout cashier $17 dollars an hour. As always, I'd like to see some details about these plans.

-Thanks to Michael for having me on after Ed Flynn on BNN tonight. And thanks to Ed for filling in as I was a couple minutes late.

-I ran into John Connolly at Gibran Rivera's kickoff party in West Roxbury yesterday. We were having some idle chat and I told him how tired I was from the campaign. I asked him if he was tired, and he said "no comment" he didn't want to get blogged. He didn't look tired, as a matter of fact he looked very good.

-Went to a great event tonight at the Children's Museum on Congress Street. It was the welcome to kindergarten event for the new schoolkids and their parents. There were some special needs protesters who I had met earlier from East Boston, and a few parents who still didn't have school assignments. I advised them all to talk to the Mayor and the Superintendent when they got the chance. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. It was good to meet parents from all over town, and to hear that many of them had heard of me and had seen my campaign literature. I talked to the Mayor briefly about my idea to have all the candidates at City Hall for a "Please Vote and participate in Democracy" Public Service Announcement. I think it would be good for the city and a good first step towards combatting any voter irregularity problems. I don't think he understood me, as I don't think I was very clear. Patricia White showed up near the end.

There are many candidates working very hard out there. I see Ed Flynn, Steve Murphy, Matt O'Malley, John Connolly, Sam Yoon, and Patricia White all over town. Less frequently I see Felix Arroyo, and least frequently Michael Flaherty.

Speaking of Patricia White, I heard and read that she had announced she had position papers on every neighborhood in the city. I had heard her personally say she would have a position paper on education and eminent domain. So I went to the website tonight and there are large chunks of the city that she doesn't have position papers on. Funny how they very closely coincide with the poorer and minority neighborhoods. No position papers on Roxbury, Mattapan, East Boston, Mission Hill, Chinatown, the West End, Charlestown and the North End. Not quite sure how you can announce to the press that you have position papers on every neighborhood in Boston without including those neighborhoods. No position papers of substance on education and eminent domain.