A heated battle between immigrant advocates and Tea Party supporters erupted yesterday in Chelsea High School's auditorium, as activists gathered to protest the controversial Secure Communities, a federal program that uses data from local law enforcement agencies to track down illegal immigrants.

Welcome to "Meet the Mayor," a segment in which we interview local Foursquare Mayors in their natural habitats.

Boston City Hall Plaza
Paul Pereira

Are you envious of the mayor of City Hall -- either of them?
Menino 's got a hard job. I'm not jealous of him. He's done it for so long, I bet he's pretty good at it, whether people want to believe he is or not.

Demetri Martin is at the Brookline Booksmith on Thursday the 28th

Demetri Martin | This Is a Book discussion | Thursday, April 28 @ 7 pm at the Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Ave, Cambridge | 617.489.0519

Pockets Mo Fuller | Friday @ 10 pm at the Middle East Corner , 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge | mideastclub.

In the 1970s, Chicagoan Elmer Lynn Hauldren became famous as the Empire Carpet Man -- a grandfatherly fellow in overalls, who wanted nothing more but to help you get the best deal on carpeting. In real life, Hauldren wasn't a carpet salesman, or even an actor -- he was an ad man who also wrote the commercial's famous jingle: "Eight-hundred five-eight-eight two-three-hundred -- Empire!"

Welcome to "Meet the Mayor," a segment in which we interview local Foursquare Mayors in their natural habitats.

ImprovBoston Green Room
John Serpico

It smells interesting in here.
It's the smell of comedy, and lots of people seeing comedy. Maybe snacks.

It's not the smell of comedy or snacks.

Former governor (of prostitution scandal infamy) talks government and finance at
MIT on Tuesday, April 26

"Godzilla In Japan And The World" | Godzilla screening and presentation by Japanese historian Gregory Pflugfelder of Columbia University | Boston University Photonics Center, 8 St.

We didn't think it could get better. But it got better.

Not to be outdone by the Patriots Day Twitter meme #PRCMOMS -- a/k/a "Your Mom Is So Cambridge" -- @joegrav and @ChuckGiuffrida today struck back with #YourMomIsSoRevere

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Not since the catholic church scandal have so many revealed so much about .

Before ELLEN BARRY became a world-famous Moscow correspondent for the New York Times, she spent a couple of years as a features writer for the Phoenix. Given that she just won the Pulitzer this afternoon for hard-news reporting in one of the most dangerous places to be a journalist in the world, you could say we wasted her talent.

While one side of the river is either running the marathon, getting drunk and watching the marathon, or stumbling out of Fenway Park after the annual 11am Red Sox game, the other side of the river is enjoying our fakest spring holiday the way nature intended: by starting hyperlocal hashtag memes.

En fuego right now: #prcmoms, which caught us off guard at first -- who knew the Photographic Resource Center had a mom? -- until we realized it was shorthand for "People's Republic of Cambridge Moms."

BILL JAMES infamously changed baseball by applying the science of deep, sustained statistical analysis to the game -- and by proving many of the game's deepest-held convictions to be little more than superstitions. It took a couple decades between the publication of James's first Baseball Abstract and the evolution of Moneyball -- baseball as we know it, based around the Jamesian field of Sabermetrics.

At last weekend's NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MEDIA REFORM, the Free Press folks asked me to bring together a cross-section of our fair city's movers and shakers for a panel called "BIG NEWS IN BOSTON: THE STATE OF BOSTON MEDIA." (You can stream the entire panel here or download it below.) These things typically turn into genteel supper-club conversations at best, and circle jerks at worst.

Welcome to "Meet the Mayor," a segment in which we interview local Foursquare Mayors in their natural habitats.

Raven Used Books
Ed Kammerer

Read any good books lately?
All I read is for my dissertation on law and public policy. I read a lot of boring law books.

Why would anyone want to write such a thing?

TV on the Radio sign copies of their new album at Newbury Comics on Saturday, April 16

Maria Menounos | The EveryGirl's Guide to Life reading and signing | April 15 @ 5 pm at Barnes & Noble at Emerson, 114 Boylston St, Boston | 617.824.8696

"Funk Friday" Featuring E-Mon | April 15 @ 10 pm at Middle East Corner, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge | mideastclub.

News out of Bristol today has Chad Millman taking over as editor in chief of ESPN the Magazine this coming June. It's a great opportunity for Millman, who started with the publication in 1998, and whose work I've always enjoyed. I wrote about Millman -- who does espn.com's outstanding "Behind the Bets" column -- and ESPN's attitude toward its reporters gambling on sports they cover in February (see "Sucker Bet