August 2005 Issue

Other

Convicted of murdering a store clerk and a jail guard, Norman Porter escaped to Chicago, where his many friends knew him as a churchgoing poet. Now his past has caught up with him, and Porter will spend the rest of his life behind bars. Is it no longer po

Norman Porter sits at a small table in a room at MCI?Cedar Junction. He's wearing a dark green prison uniform and, at 65, he's lean […]

Dining out in Boston is expensive—but that may be changing, thanks to a few restaurateurs who are trying a new way to do business.

The debate about where to go to dinner has become an unpleasant nightly ritual for Seth Lieberman and his wife, Julie. The Jamaica Plain couple […]

The Milton Academy sex scandal became national news. Why? Because of the media. Prosecutors. And you.

Patrick couldn't bring himself to walk to the library. It was a beautiful day with a warm sun and a soft, baby-blue sky. Who could […]

A smalltime bar brawl in Jamaica Plain spills into the streets.

If the walls at the Midway Café in Jamaica Plain could talk, they'd probably slur. What passes for décor is a mismatched collection of secondhand […]

Lying hurt, alone, and crumpled on a Boston sidewalk, Joan Kennedy hadbecome the latest victim in the Kennedy family saga of tragedy andpain.

It was the blood that caught the attention of a passerby, a streak running down one side of the woman's face in a long red […]

Even some guys on the crew were afraid of the Northern Edge. On the scallop boat's final trip, off Nantucket, their worst fears came true.

The helicopter crew was eating dinner when the alarm sounded. An urgent voice came over the PA system at Air Station Cape Cod: “Get the […]


Public schools get a bad rap, especially in these days of manic testing. They're little more than warehouses, critics carp, where children are being force-fed […]

A Little Love Story

Jake Entwhistle's mother is losing her mind, his sister is on drugs in Reno, and his girlfriend died on a 9/11 airliner. Just as this […]

Colonial times revisited through the life of a Salem witchcraft trial judge.

Our idea of a Boston Puritan is all black hats and scarlet letters, so this absorbing biography is a welcome correction. Samuel Sewall was one […]

Trophy House

All is well for children's illustrator Dannie Faber until a grotesque McMansion, complete with tower, is built next to her Truro bungalow. Then a mysterious […]

Restaurants

Kiss those tropical umbrella drinks goodbye. And say hello to luscious, alluring sipping rum.

Given the crushing dominance of vodka in bars around this town, it’s easy to forget about rum. And no wonder. All summer it’s dumped into […]