Lowell Street bridge opens area’s future
By George P. Hassett

    The Lowell Street bridge was closed one more time Tuesday afternoon
when politicians, neighbors and state highway workers met to celebrate
the official opening of the overpass after six years of inactivity.
    ‚ÄúThe Zakim bridge went up faster than Lowell Street,‚Äù said Joseph
Lynch, president of the Magoun Square Neighborhood Association. “But
now that it’s open it’s the best bridge around.”

This old diner

By Benjamin Witte

Along an old country road

Tucked away in the green hills of Vermont is a small, quaint town called Hartland, population 3,223. There‚Äôs not much to Hartland ‚Äì a road leading into town, another leading out. Where they intersect is Damon Hall, a 1915 brick construction that now houses the town offices.  From Damon Hall, a country road, Route 12, snakes its way through a typical rural New England landscape; past a collection of cottages, farmhouses, a couple of demolition yards. Eventually the old highway crosses with another road, and there, next to a small antique shop, is an eye-catching, odd little structure with a mysterious past and an even more uncertain future.

Smoked: 75 pounds of marijuana seized in drug bust

By George P. Hassett

  A Malden man was arraigned this morning in Somerville District Court after allegedly being caught with 75 pounds of marijuana and $247,200 in cash.

Tufts scientists make “solid” breakthrough
By Benjamin Witte

Taking their inspiration straight from the natural world, scientists at Tufts University have created a new, ultra-strong material that could potentially be used for bone and tooth repair.
  Led by Professor David L. Kaplan, a team of student and faculty investigators developed the brand-new material by successfully fusing two of nature‚Äôs strongest materials: spider silk and diatom glassy skeletons. Though maybe not immediately apparent, spider silk ‚Äì cobwebs, basically ‚Äì are incredibly sturdy. According to Kaplan, ‚ÄúIf you compare it on a weight basis, it‚Äôs stronger than steel. That‚Äôs why it‚Äôs unusual.‚Äù Diatoms, for their part, are microscopic marine organisms whose incredibly durable skeletons are ‚Äúbasically glass,‚Äù said the professor.

Reality Bites by James Norton for the week of July 5
Fireworks, phallic devices and berets – some of the topics of discussion at lunch

I was out the other day having lunch with three movers and shakers around here ‚Äì enjoying their company and talking about goings-on around the city.  It was refreshing and enjoyable to be able to talk freely and not have someone worry about whether something he said would be repeated in the paper. Or would it?
  Three people reading this just gasped a little.  Relax.

News Talk for the week of July 5

Congratulations to Mayor Joe for three years in a row of some great fireworks. Most people we spoke to thought it was just  spectular last Thursday evening ‚Äì a huge crowd and everyone had a great time. Family day on Saturday was well attended; both these events are great for Somerville Pride and we here at the Somerville News are happy Mayor Joe started this up again.    
                                                     *******
But whose bright idea is it to rope off Broadway from the Ball Square Bridge to the top of Winter Hill at 6 p.m. at rush hour for fireworks that didn‚Äôt begin till 9 p.m.? Who thinks of this stuff, ‚Äúhey lets screw up the city and close down the main thoroughfare for three hours right in the middle of rush hour.‚Äù The Police? The Mayor‚Äôs Office?  Or was it the DPW Commissioner himself? Whoever it was, that was a very dumb move and it disrupted everyone‚Äôs travel home without warning.   

Happy Independence Day!

We wish everyone a happy and safe holiday today – The Somerville News will be on the streets on Wednesday as usual.  We have had many requests over the past few weeks for additional distribution points across the city – if you don’t see the paper somewhere that would be convenient for you, then give us a call or send us an email and we will add it to the 150+ locations we have now.

Let us all take time from our busy schedules to look back on our nation’s history with pride and honor – and remember the events that took place which allow us as citizens (and some non-citizens) to enjoy the liberties we seem so eager to take advantage of these days.

  Concord Hymn – Ralph Waldo Emerson at the dedication of the Obelisk,1837

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled;

Here once the embattled farmers stood;

And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,

And Time the ruined bridge has swept

Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,

We place with joy a votive stone,

That memory may their deeds redeem,

When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

O Thou who made those heroes dare

To die, and leave their children free, —

Bid Time and Nature gently spare

The shaft we raised to them and Thee.

From Prospect Hill Publishing, the Editor and Staff of The Somerville News

Union Square asks, ‘What the Fluff’?
By George P. Hassett

   As Archibald Query mixed corn syrup, sugar, dried egg white and vanillin in his Union Square kitchen in 1917, he probably never imagined his sticky-sweet confection would one day be at the center of a strange political controversy and an even stranger public tribute. But Archibald‚Äôs creation has garnered international attention lately and one Union Square non-profit organization has devised a clever way to promote the man and the square that gave birth to Marshmallow Fluff.

City loses case, Senesi’s job threatened
By George P. Hassett

   The City of Somerville should not have hired Frank Senesi as its director of veterans‚Äô services and must appoint another applicant to that position with full back pay, said Middlesex Superior Court Judge H.J. Smith in his June 19 decision in City of Somerville vs. Somerville Municipal Employees Association (SMEA).