#Boston Facts

[o-the-mts]

St. Botolph's Day

Happy St. Botolph's Day!!! June 17 is the feast day of Botolph, a 7th-century English monk. Actual historical details of Botolph are sketchy, but he had a lot of churches named after him and one church in Lincolnshire became the center of "Botolph's Town," shortened to Boston.

A lot of the Puritans who settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony were from the Boston, England area and named their new hometown after it, which is deeply ironic because the Puritan's were staunchly against "papist" practices like naming places after saints.

Today, June 17 is a legal holiday in Suffolk County, Massachusetts (my kids even got the day off from school until a few years ago) but not for any reason to do with Botolph. June 17, 1775 was the date of the Battle of Bunker Hill in Charlestown, MA and so the day is commemorated as Bunker Hill Day.

People also connect the date 6/17 to Boston because the city's area code is 617.

The Boston Celtics won their most recent NBA Championship on June 17, 2008 and if all goes well, they could win another championship tonight!

[inkskinned]

it's extremely critical that you see the photo of the perp walk for luigi mangione as being propaganda. i've seen so many people wave it off and instead fawn over his looks. and trust me, i know it ended up being kind of pathetic and weird - but please don't brush it off as a "modelling opportunity" for him. it's a fucking terrifying message the police are sending.

i want to make a few comparisons here, in case you're not from the US or familiar with why the perp walk thing is something to pay attention to. just to set the groundwork for why this is a purposeful, unusual, and cruel act by the nyc police - for why this is not a common occurrence and for why that matters.

the prosecution alleges the show of force is due to the charge of "terrorism." for comparison, in june 2015, tsarnaev was found guilty for the boston marathon bombing, which killed 3 people and injured hundreds. his actions are considered to be an act of domestic terrorism. i have spent the last hour looking through google for pictures of similar to mangione's perp walk - and so far, i have found zero. i also just do not personally remember a moment like that, despite living in boston at the time.

they allege that luigi is a stone-cold killer who carried out a longterm plan, making him particularly dangerous. again for comparison: in nyc, recently cory martin was found guilty of the killing of brandy odom. the murder was planned and premeditated to steal insurance money. and yet no staged perp walk. why didn't her life matter enough for a "show of force"?

but mangione gets paraded by a veritable army of police officers as if he is a rabid animal. for a single citizen who allegedly killed one other single citizen, the "largest perp walk ever" occurs.

so what is the "strong message" that the mayor and the police were trying to send here? the mayor speaks as if mangione is already convicted of terrorism. there is a very thin number of people who feel threatened by the CEO's death. none of us felt like mangione needs to be under massive armed guard.

the message is that you shouldn't resist. they are trying to "make an example" of him - that if you behave badly and kill a single rich person, you'll be treated as if you killed hundreds of people. you will be treated worse than a man who was found guilty of terrorism. you will be considered guilty without trial. the message is that the rich are a protected class, and you cannot touch them without massive punishment. they are trying to prevent a revolution by showing dominance and force against you.

the message is that the police are a puppet of the wealthy and that the law is not equally applied across class disparity. it is "some are more equal than others." it is "one life is more precious than another."

the show of force wasn't for luigi. it was for us. it was a warning. they are trying to remind us who is really in control.

[camthecatchameleon]

i know everyone’s doing super cool cultural miku and i’m sure this specifically has been done already but i couldn’t pass up the chance

[catominor]

A 1964 illustrated Satyricon, translated by William Burnaby and illustrated by Antonio Sotomayor

[thatsbelievable]

[marzipanandminutiae]

are there any like

young Boston Brahmins anymore

I mostly know three categories of young people from Brahmin families:

descended from Not That Branch of a family with a Brahmin surname (it's me hi)

descended from Yes That Branch of a family but they moved out of Boston

descended from Yes That Branch of a family but they came from the brother who gambled away his cut of the fortune, so the brooch Isabella Stewart Gardner gave their great-great-grandmother as a wedding present was sold long ago and now they're normal

and I know two categories of Boston Brahmins, ie People from the Brahmin Families Who Still Live In the Boston Area and are Still Wealthy:

elderly and moved to a modern house on the Cape or something

elderly and still clinging to the ancestral townhome on Beacon Hill (YES GOOD FIGHT THE FLIPPERS. IT'S NOT GOING TO BECOME A MUSEUM OR AFFORDABLE HOUSING; THEY'RE JUST GOING TO WRECK THE INTERIOR AND SELL MILLION-DOLLAR CONDOS IN THERE)

they don't control the city anymore, which would be a good thing if not for the fact that now douchebag tech billionaire investors have stepped into fill the gap. but some of them still have money. I think the problem is that wealthy young people nowadays mostly aren't interested in the sort of noblesse oblige, Nothing Ever Changes Except They've Become Genteelly Progressive lifestyle that characterizes Boston Brahmindom

anyway this is why I would make such a good Amory, Lowell, or Warren and one of the families should have an eligible gay daughter who wants kids and will marry me. I would preserve the ancestral manse and redirect a portion of the fortune into investments in green energy. also I would advocate for demolishing Government Center to rebuild Scollay Square, with all store space and housing at the equivalent of the rents in the 1960s when it was gentrified.

additionally I would workshop a less 19th-century-Orientalist term than "Boston Brahmins" among all the other families. they're Genteelly Progressive, so this should go over well. my current proposal is The Sargent Squad

thank you for coming to my TED Talk

[projectjasper]

i love how the show made sure 1) to show us that for once boston was extremely reluctant to make sexual advances on someone and atom absolutely did all the work, and then also blamed boston for not wanting to see him again, despite the clearly established boundaries; and 2) to explicitly frame the fact that boston as a gay man (particularly a promiscuous gay man) is seen as predatory by having chueam verbally frame the situation as the classic deeply homophobic "homosexual preying on the young and inexperienced and turning them to the "homosexual lifestyle"" idea (reflected in anything from 1961's "boys beware" short to the current "protect children from drag queens" moral panic), and y'all are STILL somehow saying that boston is at fault here, just because he is a shitty friend and a selfish person. like i'm sorry, but a leap from these honestly regular human traits to literal blackmail and sexual assault is not as obvious and easy as some of you seem to think.

[ratatatastic]

What did Nico H do to Barky??

This is specifically referring to an incident on Dec 17 2022 where Nico and Sasha were lining up for a face-off where Nico crosschecked his knee in the first period and subsequently Sasha would not start the second and would not come back to finish the game at all.

He would miss 3 games and end up playing again on Dec 29 2022, this was also after the time he came back from pneumonia so he hadn't already played in like 2 weeks so to see him out again wasn't exactly great news which only spurred on what some might call an excessive reaction, not to mention the whole "Dont hurt our Captain!"-ness of it all. Also Matthew was out with illness the game before against the Penguins and had just come back for the game against Jersey and it just felt like the team was always down a couple players due to illness or injury so to have your Captain out AGAIN made this game way chippier than it would've been for perhaps any other team.

Naturally the kitties did not take kindly to what they saw as a dirty play (despite later on Sasha reassuring media he didn't think Nico did it on purpose or that he's a dirty player) and checked him every chance they got, and then the next matchup after that.

And well, if you noticed since then kitties have specifically targetted Nico and have played him a lot harder than other Devs (because he's a great 2-way player you HAVE to play him harder but sometimes you can't help but think if theres something of a grudge there) which is why he ends up in a lot more scrums against us and I'm afraid Matthew seems to have the biggest grudge against him lol Ekky's definitely tied for like 2nd with the way he's always roughing up Devs doesnt specifically have to be Nico just /a/ Dev and it's been 2 years

[riggerbison]

NEO TRAI as BOSTON

in ep. 1 of ONLY FRIENDS (2023)

[i-was-today-years-old-when]

i learned that the smoot is a unit of measure named for Oliver R. Smoot, an MIT student who as a fraternity pledge was forced to measure the Harvard Bridge using himself as a ruler. A smoot is equal to five feet, seven inches. (x)

[gunsatthaphan]

*narrator voice* turns out, he did.

[justag0at]

Bad news everyone

Free speech is dead

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wfla.com/news/polk-county/briana-boston-case-how-would-attorneys-defend-against-threat-accusation/amp/

[jerswayman]

pre-game ritsies for luck (please)

[aerinfrankellove]

TAYLOR GIRARD JILL SAULNIER TRADE??? EXCUSE ME??

[muppet-facts]

Muppet Fact #989

Papa Bear is friends with Keith Lockhart, the conductor of the Boston Pops.

Source:

Elmo's Musical Adventure: Peter and the Wolf. 2001.

[iwantoceans]

“Hearts are lethal weapons. Did you hold mine and feel threatened?”