Father Ronan: These 40 Days ...

A weekly column by the pastor of St. Mary-St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Charlestown.

Try as I might, I find it hard to plan for events and programs long in advance. Every time someone tells me, “We have to meet to talk about ...” and the event is several months in the future, it seems silly to me that we are planning today for something so far ahead! One would think I would learn after all these years that several months away is really around the corner, and little happens well if it is not planned well. So to my surprise, we find ourselves on the eve of the Lenten season! On Wednesday, Feb. 13, these holy days begin with the distribution of ashes. We are called to remember our mortality, and this sobering recollection can well place us ready to look to the holy season ahead in a beneficial way. Life is fragile, …

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Letter: Surface Option Would Improve Transportation, Promote Public Health

This letter was submitted by a Charlestown resident.

Since Governor Patrick’s transportation plan was recently announced, discussions on funding for transportation projects seem to dominate the news. In response to the current discussions on Beacon Hill, The Massachusetts Public Health Association spoke out in a recent letter featured in the Charlestown Patch on Jan. 24, regarding the direct impact of transportation on public health and the importance of investing in projects that promote public health. Charlestown has an opportunity to address both public health and transportation, in the reconstruction of Rutherford Avenue and Sullivan Square. The surface option, which is a proposal to reconstruct Rutherford Avenue and Sullivan Square at grade level, is a cost effective plan to improve …

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Letter: Transportation Directly Impacts Public Health

This letter was submitted by the executive director of the Massachusetts Public Health Association.

Although transportation and public health are often viewed separately, transportation has a direct impact on public health. The addition of bike lanes and sidewalks encourages exercise while reducing emissions and the impact of asthma, allergies and other respiratory conditions. Expansion of public transportation allows greater access to parks, jobs, healthy food stores, and health care facilities, which are all intimately tied to well-being. Increased use of public transportation also reduces injuries and fatalities caused by traffic accidents. With the Governor’s transportation proposal currently on the table, it is important to identify policies and projects that will work to improve public health. During this legislative session there …

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Did T Problems Leave You in the Cold Wednesday Morning?

Share your comments on Wednesday's snarly commute.

On the coldest morning of the season so far, hundreds of Boston commuters were forced to wait outside for bus shuttles after two separate issues closed down portions of both the Green and Red MBTA lines. Service had resumed by 11 a.m. on Wednesday, soon enough for the afternoon commuters, but not soon enough for those traveling in the morning.  So Patch wants to know: Were you left out in the cold this morning? How did the breakdowns affect your morning commute? What did you see, what was the mood (we can guess) and what alternate plans did you take? What do you think the MBTA should have done differently? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below.

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Matthew

3:09 pm on Thursday, January 24, 2013

You survived and got some exercise to boot. I walk over three miles round trip from Charlestown to work every day, rain or shine, hot or frigidly cold. I have a car and could take the bus, but getting the exercise in is more important to me. In fact, when it was single digets the other morning, I still walked home after the night shift.   more ›

How Are Charlestown's Grocery Shuttles Working?

Local residents can receive free rides to Stop and Shop, Shaw's and Whole Foods markets in nearby communities.

It's been two months since Johnny's Foodmaster in Charlestown closed, and about the same amount of time since several supermarket companies began offering regular shuttle service from the Bunker Hill Mall area and other spots around town to their stores in nearby communities. Whole Foods Market, the company that is renovating the former Johnny's location with plans to reopen later this year, offers free service to its Beacon Hill market on Thursdays and Saturdays. Shaw's offers free service to its Somerville location on Tuesdays and Fridays, while Stop and Shop brings Charlestown customers to its Medford store on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. So now that the service has been available for a while, how is it working…

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Letter: Marijuana Images Send Wrong Message

This letter was submitted by a Charlestown organization.

With the recent legalization of marijuana in Washington state, pictures were published of young adults gleefully using the drug in public.  We believe this sends the wrong message to our young people, especially pre-teens who typically look up to or admire young adults. Parents should consider pointing out that because something is legal does not mean it is acceptable.  Marijuana is a proven “gateway drug,” and for those who move on to stronger drugs the battle back is difficult and lifelong. The devastation along the way is something that is all too familiar; every effort should be made to avoid it. Mike Charbonnier, CHAD President  Charlestown Against Drugs Inc. Got something to say on this or any other local topic? Email Letters to the …

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Under Our Feet

10 Ways to Find Healing and Peace in Tough Times

Despite the holiday season, many are feeling sadness after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Here are ten ways you can take action to start healing.

These past weeks have been challenging for all of us as we struggle to move through the holiday season after the tragic event that was the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on Dec. 14. This column was going to focus on New Year’s Resolutions and goal setting, but I thought it’d be more helpful to focus on thoughts of healing. Many of the essential teachings of yoga talk about the struggle we have as humans and techniques we can use to ease our suffering. Many of these actions live in the mindfulness realm and emphasize things like meditation and attitudes of forgiveness and compassion. Along with these mindfulness-inspired ideas are other techniques that are inspired by medicine and general wellness. So, as we all work to digest what …

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Mom Talk

From Helicopter to Glider, a Parent Journey

A year after writing a major story on overparenting, Katherine Ozment talks about how she remade herself as a mom.

Give a boy a watch and send him out the door: After her 10-year-old leaves the house, Katherine Ozment may not see her son again until he reads his wrist and knows it’s dinnertime. Today, she’s fine with that.  But one year ago, Ms. Ozment was just coming to terms with her parental hovering habits. Going out to play meant dressing everyone for the weather, packing snacks and water, mom loading the baby into the stroller – a real group activity. Her intense monitoring of her three kids’ every mood and management of their days was, as she wrote, “changing the very nature of their childhood.” So she decided to become a different kind of parent.   Last December, Ozment wrote a story for Boston Magazine about how we overprotect our children, …

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Father Ronan: God's Promise Fulfilled

A weekly column by the pastor of St. Mary-St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Charlestown.

Did you ever have the experience of hearing some piece of music that you liked and, for days after, the melody keeps running through your head? Sometimes that can be a distraction. But at other times, it can be enjoyable, perhaps inspirational, or even evoke a profound and meaningful awareness as has been the case for me this past week. The psalm we sang at last weekend’s Masses proclaimed: The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with gladness and joy! As I moved through the week, and even now recall those words, I keep calling to mind the great things God has done for me and for us. At the heart of what God has done for us, of course, is the Incarnation—the birth of Jesus, Son of Mary in Bethlehem so long ago and still very …

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Mom Talk

World's Largest Science Test Makes Massachusetts Schools Look Good

Why "We're No. 2!" is not a bad thing: High scores on an international science and math exam taken by eighth graders around the world show that Massachusetts students are doing better than American students as a whole.

Our citywide angst over the education of Boston’s children caught a break this week, with the good-news results for Massachusetts from an international study of mathematics and science achievement. The ray of sunshine in these parts is that Massachusetts eighth graders scored second highest in the world on the science portion of the TIMSS, the 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. Just Singapore’s scores were higher. In math, the Commonwealth ranked sixth behind South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan. The test, taken by 600,000 eighth graders worldwide, is meant to show learning trends over time and has been given every four years since 1995. Massachusetts participated at a level which allowed statistical…

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