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Extending Benefits to Domestic Partners
On September 10, Boston City Councilor David Scondras wrote a letter to the city’s group-health-insurance director. “We have a non-discrimination policy in this city which includes people who are gay and lesbian,” wrote the city’s first openly gay city councilor.

By NEIL MILLER | November 19, 2009

The Rising Market of Comic Art

At the New York Comic Art Convention
Compared to last year's Con, this year's New York Comic Art Convention went down as smooth as the Ooze That Walked Like a Man. Last year's convention was thick with the angst of dozens of young fans who had scripts and art to show the editors in so-called "hospitality rooms" set up by the large publishers.

By MIKE BARON | October 19, 2009

Father Feeney

A Heretic Courted By The Church
Leonard Feeney, a defrocked Jesuit priest and pretty much of a legend in this city as a result of the “sermons” he preached on the Common every Sunday without fail for eight years, from 1949 to 1957, attracting sometimes as many as a thousand people to heckle and to laugh as much as to listen—Father Leonard Feeney is in the news again.

By DAVE O'BRIAN | October 09, 2009

The Pythons' Gonzo Gospel

Jesus never had a chance
The scene is familiar: the vast blue sky, the expanses of sand, and, atop a distant hill, Jesus delivers the Sermon on the Mount to a rapt throng. But on the fringes of the crowd, His listeners behave like rowdies at a rock concert, yelling at one another and brawling until no one can hear the Savior's words. What's that He said? Blessed are the cheesemakers?

By STEPHEN SCHIFF | October 05, 2009

What's the scam?

Trying to bilk the Scientologists
Back on the morning of June 7, 1982, a man walked into the New York branch of the Middle East Bank on the 25th floor of a Madison Avenue office building and tried to deposit a $2 million check. The man, a native of the United Arab Emirates, left without completing the transaction.

By JIM SCHUH | September 28, 2009

Desegregation Day

Southie: Ugly Crowds at the Trouble Spot
Southie: Ugly Crowds at the Trouble Spot

By TOM SHEEHAN | September 17, 2009

Photos: Boston in the 70s, Part 8

The last installment of Boston in the 70s slideshows on protests and rallies
Photos of protests and rallies from the Boston Phoenix archives

By BOSTON PHOENIX STAFF | September 08, 2009

Remembering 9-11

Eight years later
Eight years ago, on a sunny Tuesday September morning in New York City and Washington, DC, a sickeningly well-orchestrated terrorist attack took flight, in part, from Boston’s Logan International Airport.

By BOSTON PHOENIX STAFF | September 15, 2009

Looking for Trouble

Lisa Sliwa and the Angels find it in Boston
As he does every night, the custodian is riding the red line from Mattapan to his job in Central Square, where he's supposed to start work at midnight. He watches as a group of Guardian Angels leaves the car at Fields Corner, and he confides to another passenger that he can't understand why anyone is so worked up about the Angels and what they did in Mattapan.

By KEITH W. JENKINS AND PETER CANELLOS | September 04, 2009

Boston in the 70s: Part 7

Photos of Allston and Brighton from the Boston Phoenix's archives
From the Boston Phoenix archives

By PHOENIX STAFF | September 01, 2009

Ted Kennedy, 1932 - 2009

In memoriam of the long-standing senator
Blog posts, Tweets, archived articles and photos of the late senator.

By BOSTON PHOENIX STAFF | August 27, 2009

Public and private affairs

The case for making a campaign issue of Teddy's reputation for philandering
Philandering, like heavy drinking, traditionally has been one of those activities that the boys in the press keep mum about when reporting on the boys on the Hill, or the boy in the White House, or any boy, for that matter. The rationales for this silence are curiously contradictory.

By SUZANNAH LESSARD | August 26, 2009

Ted's turn

Clinton caves on crime bill, but Kennedy can still salvage it
A little-known provision in the crime bill now being negotiated by a House-Senate conference committee would greatly expand the number of prison cells available to house violent criminals, and it wouldn't be cost a dime. But it may be doomed unless Senator Ted Kennedy is willing to spend some political capital.

By AL GIORDANO | August 26, 2009

Ted Kennedy's real record

A note on the 32-year-incumbent's accomplishments
When a 32-year incumbent seeks re-election, there is a long and well-documented record that can be examined. So it's disconcerting to note that admit all the miles of newsprint and videotape that have been expended covering the US Senate campaign, little has been said of what Ted Kennedy has or hasn't accomplished.

By AL GIORDANO | August 26, 2009

The annunciations

East Coast, West Coast: It's the Ted & Jerry Show
The broad brush strokes of Teddy Kennedy's presidential announcement may have uplifted liberal hearts, but Jerry Brown's announcement challenged liberal thinking with some pencil-sharp specifics about the role of government in economic planning for the 1980s.

By MARCO TRBOVICH AND CHARLES P. PIERCE | August 26, 2009

Tormenting Teddy

Republicans threaten Kennedy reign
After 32 years in the US Senate, Ted Kennedy remains a force to be reckoned with, both for his legendary family history and his considerable accomplishments.

By BOSTON PHOENIX STAFF | August 26, 2009

Going Mobil

Kennedy hires an idea-marketing man
Washington – If ideology wasn't already dead in presidential politics, the plug was pulled on its support system last Monday, when the Kennedy campaign announced that its advertising and polling would be organized by Mobil Oil's vice-president of public affair, Herbert Schmertz.

By MARCO TRBOVICH | August 26, 2009

Shooting from the lip

Kennedy's gaffe on Iran manages to make a bad image worse
Washington – Edward M. Kennedy's presidential campaign has a serious problem, and the problem appears to be Edward M. Kennedy. During the week in which leadership was transformed from a word in the lexicon of his campaign rhetoric to a measurable reality, Kennedy succeeded in verbally vanishing himself to a political isolation.

By MARCO TRBOVICH | August 26, 2009

Jimmy C. and Teddy K.

An incumbent's lessons and the politics of personality
When the Camelot Caucus convenes in Faneuil Hall this Wednesday, the American presidency will once again become the trophy of a personality joust. In 1968 and '72, there was at least the issue of Vietnam to veil the overweaning ambitions of competing public men. But even that ambiguous nobility is lacking this year.

By MARCO TRBOVICH | August 26, 2009

Gay Activists Work for Ted

Activists note Kennedy's gay rights work
Gay-and-lesbian community activists are heavily involved in what the chairman of the Lesbian/Gay Political Alliance of Massachusetts, Todd Fernandez, calls "a full-court press to ensure that Ted Kennedy's re-elected."

By LIZ GALST | August 26, 2009