We made it through another summer.
School starts on Wednesday, Sept. 8 and those who fled the city in the hot summer months will be back next week too.
It was a quiet summer – no elected officials caught stealing this year – but hopefully things get serious in the fall. With mounting budget troubles looming, this city’s elected officials need to think about ways to retain an acceptable level of service while cutting excess spending and building a real commercial tax base.
Welcome back, Somerville

Mark McLaughlin, known as MC Diatribe in local hip hop circles, released this album last year.

By Charles Tarabour

Mark McLaughin might be the first city activist to examine life in Somerville through rhymes and beats.

McLaughlin, a Bridge Over Troubled Waters caseworker and co-founder of the grassroots activist group Save Our Somerville, records and releases hip hop music as MC Diatribe. On his album, A Villen Story, McLaughlin raps about the city and its problems – political, social, and more.

McLaughlin said his music is shaped by his hometown, its working class immigrant communities and battles against heroin and Oxycontin abuse.

The Healey School is working to integrate two different communities into one school next September.

New plan will integrate both learning communities

By Samantha Hutt

As school officials prepare to unify the Healey School from a building with two learning programs into one school community, language issues are being raised.

At Monday’s School Committee meeting concerns were raised that parent participation may suffer due to language barriers.

Committee members cited the Mystic Avenue housing projects as one area for outreach. Principal Jason DeFalco of the Arthur D. Healey School and the committee discussed the importance of translators at meetings where crucial issues were to be discussed.

~Photos by George P. Hassett

By George P. Hassett

A 21-year-old Cambridge man was arrested in a stolen car Sunday smoking marijuana and turning the car on and off without moving for an hour on Moreland Street.

Salnave Berrouet, 21, told police he paid cash to his friend Frank to rent the car which had been reported stolen in Melrose, police said.

Our poet this week is Steve Glines. Steve Glines is a widely published journalist, author of six books and hundreds of articles ranging from computer technology to the effects
of goose poop on football fields. He is the editor of the Wilderness House Literary Review and is Editor in Chief for ISCSPress.

- Photo by Andrew Firestone

By Mike Rubin

After losing the regular season league title to the Malden Bulldogs by a single point, the Somerville Alibrandis earned a bit of revenge.

Following a 7-5 defeat to the Bulldogs on Thursday night, the Alibrandis bounced back and delivered a series clinching 5-3 win in Friday night’s match-up. The Alibrandis who advance to the Yawkey Championship for the first time in two years, faced the winner of the Al Thomas Athletics and West Roxbury Blue Fish series. The series will be a best of seven match-up, which kicked off Monday night at Trum Field.

By Mike Rubin

After finishing last season with a 5-5 mark, the St. Clements football team is looking to make a run at the Catholic Central League title. With a third place finish in the standings last year, the Anchormen are hoping to take the top spot this fall.

Highlights from last season include a 20-14 double overtime victory over Matignon along with a 50-24 win over Burke. Other key wins for the Anchormen included a 14-12 win over Minuteman Tech and a 45-0 win over Trinity Catholic on Thanksgiving Day.

Will Fertman

Being a ritualistic early morning denizen of the Bloc 11 café in Union Square, I couldn’t help but notice a man somewhere in his thirties, with a shock of Harpo Marxish curly brown hair, laboring over a computer like a mad scientist. Another writer in the Paris of New England you say smugly? Well you are right.

Will Fertman, 32, lives in the Davis Square section of Somerville but commutes down to Bloc 11 because he can’t write at home, and the Bloc 11 was on route to his job at the Boston Review, a literary and political journal based in our burg. Fertman and I eventually came out of our respective shells and started to converse. I asked to interview him, and he consented to a 7 a.m. meeting.

By George P. Hassett

A Somerville man who attacked two women with a steak knife stabbed himself and pretended to be unconscious when officers arrived, according to police.

Darci Ribeiro, 36, of 24 Melvin St., became upset when he suspected one of the victims of carrying on an affair, police said. He allegedly grabbed the woman by the neck and threw her to the ground.