Eastie in the news

***An article on The Daily Beast web site talks about the role of East Boston resident Gene Sharp in the recent overthrow of Egypt's prime minister, as well as other non-violent revolutions. Sharp runs the Albert Einstein Institute out of his house in the neighborhood, and his books and pamphlets are read and passed around throughout the world. Update: BBC online also profiles Gene Sharp.


***The Boston Preservation Alliance released a report on places in East Boston that are historically notable and should be preserved, including the First Presbyterian Church on London Street and the Temple Ohabei Shalom Chapel on Wordsworth Street.

***Boston.com notes that the Boston Police of Station 7 in East Boston have been recognized for their work fighting underage tobacco use.

***Ryan Lee, the Eastie resident who found a bag of money and returned it to the rightful owner, was honored today by the Boston City Council.

Photo of  the Temple Ohabei Shalom Chapel courtesy of Wikipedia.

Protests in Iran reach new level

Street protests throughout Iran have seemingly reached a new level, but in general the American mainstream media seems not to have noticed. Today was the Day of Ashura, a holy day for Muslims and a holiday in Islamic countries. Iranians demonstrating against their government have flooded the streets in a number of cities, marching and in some cases attacking the street police and setting their motorbikes afire.

These protests are a continuation of those that unfolded after the national election results last summer, which appeared to many people to have been tampered with to protect the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei backed Ahmadinejad and the protests were met with violence, arrests and show trials.

The determination and spirit of the Iranian people, however, seems to have not been broken, and they are making their voices heard, despite reports that 10 or more of the protesters have been killed. Atlantic Monthly blogger Andrew Sullivan, who followed the summer protests closely and provided an outlet for reports and video from the scene, is on top of the story again. Be advised that some of the images are graphic.

Photo from Kosoof.com.

The revolution will be Eastie-vized

The Globe has a piece today on Gene Sharp, the writer and director of the Albert Einstein Institution -- the small clearinghouse of non-violent revolutionary ideas and publications that is located in Sharp's house here in East Boston.

The story focuses on the role that Sharp's ideas, and those of other American scholars, have played in the popular uprisings that have taken place in Iran in the wake of that country's stolen presidential election. Sharp, 81, has a PhD from Oxford and is a professor emeritus at UMass/Dartmouth. He also played a key role in some of the Eastern European revolutions in the early 2000s.

I've made reference to Sharp on this blog a couple of times, most notably with a small entry back in 2007.