Having taken the reins of BU’s contentious College of Communication, Pulitzer winner Tom Fiedler learns to navigate the thorny world of academia
As jobs in journalism-education go, Tom Fiedler’s new gig isn’t bad. Quite the contrary.
By ADAM REILLY | August 20, 2008

The truth is up there

Clouds, sun dogs, and the dream of an atmospheric education . . . How one former TV reporter brought his sky gospel to the people
The sky’s on the move again, he can feel it.
By JAMES PARKER | August 21, 2008

Smoke screens

Does a surge of stoner movies mean America is going to pot?
What does it say about America that marijuana movies are a hot genre right now, perhaps hotter even than in the heyday of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong’s 1978 Up in Smoke ?
By PETER KEOUGH | August 18, 2008

Mix and match

Menu anxiety pays off at the Grill Room
Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert recently demonstrated that having many options to choose from makes us less happy.
By BRIAN DUFF | August 05, 2008

Parody flunks out

Political humor is no longer welcome in Academia as administrators choke the life out of parody
Artist Barry Blitt’s brilliant illustration — which sought to satirize the naysayers who portray Obama as a flag-burning, unpatriotic Muslim and his wife as a black-power radical — cut to the core of today’s political paradox.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | July 30, 2008

Yaddo and MacDowell: Works in Progress

Alone again, artistically: A glimpse of what it’s like to be present at the creation
This article originally appeared in the July 18, 1978 issue of the Boston Phoenix.
By D.C. DENISON | July 24, 2008

AG should probe BPL

Supposedly ‘independent’ trustees receive city funds. Why Birmingham rather than Bulger for the top job?
Political innocents who discount allegations that Boston Mayor Thomas Menino is politicizing the Boston Public Library’s board of trustees so that he can directly control the nation’s oldest free municipal library received a rude awakening recently.
By EDITORIAL | July 23, 2008

Does Boston hate the BPD?

A secret survey shows just how low the Boston Police Department’s reputation had sunk two years ago. Is the mayor listening?
When Kathleen O’Toole served as Boston police commissioner, from early 2004 through mid 2006, she and Mayor Thomas Menino seemed in constant denial of the spiraling violence and shocking police scandals that were roiling the city.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | July 18, 2008

Facebook phobia

Thought high school was bad? Social-networking sites jack up Web-era insecurities
It’s safe to say that Facebook is now an omniscient, all-powerful tool that, in some way, traffics in dirt on nearly everyone you know.
By SHARON STEEL | July 16, 2008

Socks appeal

Drag kings flip the script on gender impersonation. We go undercover to get to the meat of the matter.
Rico swaggers down the aisle of the Art House Theatre in Provincetown, oozing confidence and brazenly flirting with the cheering women who’ve claimed every available seat for the sold-out show.
By CAITLIN E. CURRAN | July 09, 2008

Scarred for life

Writing through the pain of self-harm
There’s evidence that blogging is not merely comforting, but healthy.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | July 10, 2008

Immigrant song

How US terror policy is ruining your summer concert season
You, my young British friend, start a band.
By JASON O'BRYAN | June 18, 2008

Booked up

Several shelves’ worth of summer reads
Summertime, and the reading is easy.
By BARBARA HOFFERT | June 09, 2008

The O'Reilly factor

Letters to the Boston editor: June 6, 2008

By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | June 04, 2008

Will Harvard drop acid again?

Psychedelic research returns to Crimsonland
In a moment of delightful whimsy in the annals of drug history, Albert Hofmann, after purposely ingesting LSD for the first time, rode his bicycle home and experienced all manner of beatific and hellish visions.
By PETER BEBERGAL | June 09, 2008

Springtime for Darwin

The wars of evolution are louder than ever. What Ben Stein, Bad Religion, and a physics professor from Quincy can tell you about where you came from.
There are two stories, and two stories only.
By JAMES PARKER | May 07, 2008

Wheeling through history

Vintage bicycles aren't just for lonely bike mechanics any more
Vintage bicycles, once an obscure subculture’s obsession, are gaining popularity as highly desired collectibles or cheaper, cooler rides.
By ELIZABETH FLOCK | May 07, 2008

Meeting Dad

Sightings
They were in a circle chatting on the edge of the Harvard campus: a petite undergrad, her boyfriend, and her middle-aged alumni parents.
By IAN SANDS | May 07, 2008

Don’t leave me this way

Botanical Forms at Harvard’s Museum of Natural History, Carroll Dunham and more at the Addison, and Renzo Piano at the Fogg
Leaves lead a wild life, and each leaf’s physical structure reflects both its individual biography — revealing the pathways, for example, of insects that have eaten their way across a leaf’s surface.
By RANDI HOPKINS | May 06, 2008

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