This will probably mostly interest those of you who live in Brookline, Massachusetts, and those of you interested in local politics in general.

Tomorrow is the annual Brookline Town Election, and it's a vital one. We have an actual race for the two contested positions on the Board of Selectmen, and two Proposition 2½ override questions that, if they fail, would require some significant cuts from the budgets of the police and fire departments and the libraries and schools.

If you need to learn more about tomorrow's election, the ballot is currently available from the Town Clerk as a PDF file here. If you don't know who is running in your precinct for Town Meeting, it's a good place to look.

A list of polling places (again, provided by the Town Clerk) can be found here.

And for more nonpartisan information, the League of Women Voters Guide to the election can be found here. (That's a link to a page that includes the guide as a PDF.) Every year, the LWV sends a few questions to all the candidates and prints their responses in the Guide; it can be instructive to see who responds and who doesn't, and how they answer the questions.

As for my own recommendations, I've made the following endorsements.

First of all, in the Selectmen race, I've endorsed incumbents Gil Hoy and Nancy Daly. In my opinion, both have been very good as Selectmen. Gil, in particular, has been a fierce advocate for the town's libraries. As a member of the Board of Library Trustees, I have seen first-hand how Gil's advocacy has aided our library system. (My letter supporting Gil can be found, along with many other letters supporting Gil, here.)

Secondly, when it comes to the override vote, I have endorsed Question 1A, the $5.4 million override, which would fund everything except the World Language program in the elementary schools. Please note that although I have not endorsed Question 1B, I am not advocating against it either. I still think the World Language program is an excellent idea; I'm still not sure if the town can afford it. I'll probably make my final decision tomorrow morning in the voting booth. Yes for Brookline is advocating voting in favor of both override questions, and I should note that both the Boston Globe and the Brookline TAB have endorsed both questions as well.

If you're looking for any other guidance, I urge you to check out the Brookline PAX May 2008 Town Election Endorsements. In my own case, whenever I'm in doubt or uninformed about a candidate or an issue, I can usually rely on the PAX endorsements to guide my vote. (If you want to know what PAX stands for, read Brookline PAX Supports.)

Wherever you stand on the issues, if you live in Brookline, please vote tomorrow. Democracy is a fragile thing, and must be encouraged to thrive.

Tags: boston, brookline, politics

The Boston Globe reported this morning that four towns in Massachusetts had property tax override votes yesterday, but that three of them rejected the increases. (See 3 of 4 towns say no to override for details.)

As I mentioned back on March 14 in the post Override Vote in Brookline, my town is having an override vote next month, and now I'm getting a little worried about its prospects. It's true that things are tough for individual citizens as well as for towns, but I worry that voters are going to reject the override without having a clear understanding of what such a rejection would mean. As an elected Library Trustee, I'm particularly interested in making sure that our townspeople are fully aware of what steps the library is considering taking should the override fail.

So if you're a local citizen, please don't go into the override voted uninformed. Tomorrow (Thursday) evening the Public Library of Brookline is holding a meeting on Library Budget Cuts and the Override. The meeting starts at 7 pm and will take place at the Coolidge Corner Branch. We want to make sure the citizens of the town know what our options will be in the event the override fails. As I noted last month, the list of possibilities includes cutting back on evening hours, closing the Coolidge Corner branch on Sundays, scaling back on children's programs, and eliminating the book discussion groups. Many other options will be presented at the meeting.

So please consider attending. And let me apologize in advance for my own absence from that meeting; I'm attending a training session for my job and so can't be there myself. Don't take my lack of presence as a lack of support; I'd rather not spend the monthly Trustees meeting in May figuring out what goes on the chopping block.

Tags: boston, brookline, politics

While I wait to see if anyone else weighs in on the table of contents for "I Remember the Future," I know that what people really want to hear about is the Brookline override vote. So here goes.

On Tuesday night, the Board of Selectmen of Brookline, Massachusetts approved two Proposition 2 1/2 tax override ballot questions that will go to the town voters in May. For those of you who don't live in Massachusetts, Proposition 2 1/2 was a ballot question passed years ago by the citizens of the commonwealth. It states that towns cannot raise property taxes by more than 2.5% in any given fiscal year unless the voters of the town approve the larger increase in a referendum. So this year, when the town of Brookline finds itself in financial straits, we have no choice but to go to the voters if we want to fund the annual budget to the levels we'd like.

After months of discussion and debate, including an excellent report from an override study committee, the Selectmen approved two override questions. Voting yes on the first question would cover budget deficits, infrastructure repairs, and a longer school day. The second question, if passed, would also fund a world language program at the elementary schools.

(For more information, see the article "Brookline voters gets choice of $5.4M, $6.2M or no override" by Jessica Scarpati on the website of the Brookline TAB.)

Since I am a Town Meeting Member and elected Library Trustee in the town, people want to know where I stand on the override. Very simply, I have already endorsed the $5.4M override package, but I have not yet decided where I stand on the $6.2M override package.

And the main reason I support at least the lower level override vote is that I know how the budget deficit would hit the library. And the answer is that it would hit it hard.

On the evening of April 3, the Board of Library Trustees will hold a public hearing to present to the citizens of the town some of the options on the table for dealing with a budget deficit. And it doesn't look good. The list of possibilities includes cutting back on materials, but also cutting back on services. Right now the main library is open until 9 pm Monday to Thursday; cutting back its hours to close at 6 pm those nights would save a lot of money. So would closing my own branch library in Coolidge Corner early; right now, it's open late on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Closing the Coolidge Corner branch on Sundays is also on the list, even though many people (myself included) rely on its Sunday hours. And let's not get started on the possibility of cutting back on children's programs, Brookline Readers, the book discussion groups...

In short, if the citizens of the town want the library to continue to provide the levels of service they've come to expect, an override vote is going to be necessary. I'm going to do what I can to convince my fellow Brookline residents to pass the override.

Tags: boston, brookline, politics

Thirty years ago today...

On Monday, February 6, 1978, a blizzard covered the northeastern United States. causing snow to fall for about 36 hours straight.

One of the major problems with the Blizzard of 1978 was that it was not widely forecasted. In areas where the storm had been well reported in advance, some people chose to ignore the reports, since New England meteorologists were notoriously inaccurate with many of their reports regarding snow storms. Because of this, people did not have enough time or will to prepare properly for the blizzard.

Many people were stranded in their cars along roads and highways throughout the New England region. Several people perished on Route 128 as snow piled high enough to prevent the exhaust from escaping from their running, idle vehicles. Over 3,500 cars were found abandoned and buried in the middle of roads during the clean-up effort. This figure does not include the countless other vehicles buried in driveways, on the sides of streets, and in parking lots.

While many people had been caught in the storm while driving, most others were trapped in their homes or offices with snow drifts of up to 15 feet in some places blocking the exits.

There was also the issue of flooding along coastal areas. The fierce winds from the storm combined with the precipitation forced the water up over the land along the Atlantic, Long Island Sound, Cape Cod Bay, and other bodies of water.

Personal note: At the time, I was a kid. The Blizzard hit New York City with as much snow as New England, but I don't recall it being a problem. What I recall was how delighted my brothers and I were to have so much snow to play in. We built huge snow forts and threw lots of snowballs. I think school was cancelled for the whole week. Yay!

What do you remember about the Blizzard?

(For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States_blizzard_of_1978)

Tags: boston, history, nyc, personal

Nomi and I voted first thing this morning.

We enjoy voting before work for a few reasons. The obvious reason, of course, is that it's nice to know that we've gotten the task out of the way and don't have to rush back home in the evening to vote. But we also enjoy voting early because we just like to exercise our franchise.

As we waited on an actual line before seven o'clock this morning, I had a few thoughts. One thought was that we're very lucky to be living in a country where the government doesn't send people with cameras to photograph you and make sure you're voting the way they want you to. The other thought was that come May, Brookline will have a very important town election due to a Proposition 2 1/2 override vote being placed on the ballot. And it always saddens me to think about how few people will come out for that election compared to this one, especially given how much more impact the town election is going to have on people's taxes and quality of life.

People reading here last week know that I, as a former John Edwards supporter, was torn between voting for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in the primary. For the past few days, I've been asking everyone I can for advice and suggestions. Last night, Nomi and I ran into Nancy Daly, the chair of the Brookline Board of Selectmen, at the supermarket (imagine running into your mayor at the supermarket, and having her greet you first), and I asked her who she was voting for.

And then it occurred to me. The one constituency I hadn't been polling have been other local former Edwards supporters.

So I called up a friend and fellow Town Meeting Member I've worked with who also happens to be a former Selectman. Like me, he had been an Edwards supporter, and I discussed my dilemma with him. He felt that a vote for Edwards now would be a waste, and he was amused by my idea of voting for either myself or Stephen Colbert. I asked him which candidate he was voting for now and why. He told me his choice, went into details on how he had come to that choice, and in the end, although he wasn't trying to urge me to vote his way, in the end that's what I decided to do.

So this morning, for better or for worse, I voted for Barack Obama.

Tags: boston, brookline, personal, politics

Over the past few days I've discovered that I've been mentioned a few times in various places.

First of all, I am somewhat flabbergasted to discover that I'm mentioned in the latest edition of the Encyclopedia of American Jewish History. The editors of that encyclopedia had asked shsilver to write their article on "American Jews and Science Fiction," which runs from page 507-511 of volume 2. shsilver has given me permission to quote the relevant passage here:

Similarly, "Kaddish for the Last Survivor" (2000), Michael Burstein's tale of a Holocaust survivor's granddaughter who is struggling with issues of assimiliation, reflects on what it means to be Jewish, perhaps as no other story since William Tenn's "On Venus Have We Got a Rabbi" (1974).

While the Holocaust is often at the core of stories of wish fulfillment, it has also been used to highlight questions of Jewish identity. Burstein's "Kaddish for the Last Survivor" indicates that the Holocaust has created a new urgency in the maintenance of Jewish identity, for, if Jews forget who they are, the Nazis will have won.

Burstein's "Kaddish for the Last Survivor" and Carol Carr's "Look, You Think You've Got Troubles" (1974) both take a serious look at intermarriage, one of the major issues of American Jewish identity. Both address the issue of a Jewish woman marrying a non-Jewish man, and, although they come to very different conclusions, both reaffirm a sense of Jewish identity.

I've known for a while that I had a Wikipedia entry, but to be mentioned in a print encyclopedia...it boggles my mind.

My second mention has little to do with me and much more to do with someone else. Yesterday's Boston Globe ran an article, True Stories by Kathleen Burge, all about the Boston paramedic who writes the blog Other People's Emergencies: Random Thoughts of an Urban Paramedic. I've been interested in the work of paramedics and EMTs for a long time, since my older half-brother Danny worked for many years as a paramedic on the night shift out of Harlem Hospital. The Globe reporter noticed that I'd commented a few times in the Urban Paramedic blog, and so she contacted me to ask why I read the blog. Here's what I said:

"I keep being fascinated by his stories," said Michael A. Burstein, a writer and editor from Brookline who says he reads Urban Paramedic nearly every day. "I'm probably one of his many readers who thinks that some publisher out there ought to offer him a book contract immediately."

Finally, the most personal mention I've had recently was by a good friend, scarlettina, who just published a brilliant story called After This Life in the science fiction webzine InterGalactic Medicine Show. She comments on the story over on the associated webzine blog, at Side-Show Freaks: "After This Life" by Janna Silverstein, and she notes the following:

It was science fiction writer Michael Burstein who led me to reading more thoroughly about the theory behind real teleportation. If I was going to write science fiction, he insisted (and quite wisely), the science had to be there. Part of me rebelled; I just wanted to write the story, dammit, and not bother myself with all that pesky research. He was right, of course. The reading was fascinating. In the end, the horror of what I discovered—that every teleportation would be a death—took me that last step toward making this story what it ultimately became when I submitted it to IGMS. Edmund’s insightful revision requests made me think about who would be willing to sacrifice lives to develop such technology.

So, all in all, it's been a good day for my ego. :-)

Tags: boston, jewish, personal, science-fiction, writing, writing-advice

gnomi and I had a fun time at Arisia this past weekend. As usual, our time was filled with being on panels; interestingly enough, the only two program items we tried to attend that weren't our own had too many people in the rooms for us to fit.

We had a good time at the Friday night dinner, and many people came by to wish Nomi a happy birthday at her open house on Saturday night. Sunday, as is our custom, we checked out early from the hotel so we could bring everything home and eat breakfast at Rubin's. Since we were back in Brookline anyway, we managed to make it to a birthday party that friends were throwing for their one-year-old twins. Then it was back to Arisia for our Sunday afternoon panels.

By the end, we were exhausted, Nomi had a headache, and we both had to work today. So we went home and stayed home (except that I took a brief trip out to get us dinner.)

A fuller report may be forthcoming.

Tags: boston, brookline, conventions, personal, science-fiction

Today is the 89th anniversary of:

THE GREAT BOSTON MOLASSES FLOOD

"Shortly after noon on January 15, 1919, a fifty-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses collapsed on Boston’s waterfront, disgorging its contents in a fifteen-foot-high wave of molasses that traveled at thirty-five miles per hour. When the tide receded, a section of the city’s North End had been transformed into a war zone. The Great Boston Molasses Flood claimed the lives of twenty-one people and scores of animals, injured more than a hundred, and caused widespread destruction."

The above is quoted from author Stephen Puleo, who has published a wonderful book about the flood called "Dark Tide:The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919." It tells the story of what happened and also places the event in historical context. For more information on the book, you can visit his website at http://www.stephenpuleo.com.

Tags: boston, history

Yesterday I got the CD of music from the movie Juno. I've already praised the movie, and part of what made the movie the best one of 2007 was the soundtrack. The songs fit the mood of the movie's scenes perfectly, and apparently part of the reason was because Ellen Page, the film's star, decided that her character would most logically listen to the music of the Moldy Peaches, a band that includes singer Kimya Dawson, who performs many of the songs on the album.

I'd never heard of Dawson before, probably because I'm not too up on indie rock or the anti-folk movement. But I can understand why her songs are appealing to me. I'm probably not the best person to try to describe her music, but what the hey. Her lyrics are somewhat surreal, her style is acoustic, and her voice is real. There's an idiosyncratic feel to what she's doing, and as I listen to her songs I feel like I'm enjoying an orthogonal view of the world around me. I think it's because the music is filled with bouncing rhythms and catchy tunes, while the lyrics range from simple, sweet observations of life to the mocking of those very same observations.

Okay, that didn't make any sense. But the music is still cool. And if you're in Boston, there's a great opportunity coming up.

I looked up Dawson on the Internet and found, much to my surprise, that she'll be performing locally next Thursday night, January 17, at Newbury Comics. So if there's anyone else out there who was as enchanted by her music as I was, let me know. Maybe we can get a small group together.

(For my friends in NYC: she's in Brooklyn next Tuesday.)

Tags: boston, movies, music, nyc

In the past few weeks here in the Boston area, we've had three snowstorms that left a lot of snow piled everywhere. It's made it difficult to get around without boots or YakTrax. A few nights ago, though, it did warm up a bit, and we can all get around again much more easily – at least, until the next snowstorm.

According to an entry in the Brookline TAB Blog four days ago, an elderly woman saw a man using "a robot and a truck" to clear out a parking lot. The TAB located a picture of the likely robot on another blog and linked to it; it looks like a yellow round dome thing with treads and two big eyes.

My only question: will the robot do a better job of following Asimov's First Law of Robotics than some of the current drivers of the snowplows?

For more information, see Brookline TAB Blog: She just wanted to say thanks for the robot.

For a photo of the robot in question, see Newton Streets and Sidewalks: Sidewalk Snowplowing Solution

Tags: boston, brookline, science, science-fiction