By Katie Peverada
BU News Service

Boston is home to eight World Series titles, six Stanley Cups, four Super Bowls, 17 NBA Championships and multiple national collegiate championships. Every year, thousands of elite athletes bring their talents to the streets, rivers, ice and playing surfaces of the city in some of the most well known events in sports such as the Boston Marathon and the Head of the Charles Regatta. Boston is arguably known in American history as much for its sports as firing the first shot in the American Revolution, yet some residents don’t want anything to do with hosting one of the biggest sporting events in the world.

In January, the United States Olympic Committee chose Boston to be the bid city for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. As of now, the other cities in contention to host the games include Rome, Hamburg and Paris. Opponents’ fears about bringing the games to Boston have a one in four chance of coming true in 2017, when the International Olympic Committee selects the host nation.

As the debate continues, there’s one bonus that opponents may not be aware of: It’s no secret that competing in a domestic Olympics increases the medal count for the host nation.

“Part of that has to do with the familiarity and ease of the athletes, where they don’t have a lot of inconvenience that they have to deal with traveling in a foreign country,” said Dr. Jim Bauman, the head sports psychologist at the University of Virginia and former Senior Sports Psychologist at the United States Training Center. Bauman believes that removing the logistical hurdles for an athlete, like having a familiar language or time zone or familiar food, creates an atmosphere more conducive to success than competing in a venue away from home.

“You remove all of those things and you really get to minimize what an athlete might worry about as they get set to compete,” Bauman said.

The U.S. has held the Summer Olympics four times, and each time they won the medal count. In St. Louis in 1904, the U.S. won 239 medals and runner-up Germany only 13. The 1932 games in Los Angeles saw the U.S. win 103 to second place Italy’s 36, and the 1984 games in Los Angeles saw 174 U.S. medals trump Romania’s 53. In Atlanta’s 1996 Summer Games, the U.S. had 101 and Russia’s 63 was second most. Simply put, it’s home field advantage on a large stage, but not just for the logistical reasons.

Jimmy Pedro, a native of Danvers, competed in judo at four Olympic Games and won two bronze medals, including in Atlanta, and also coached the U.S. judo team in London. When he competed in Barcelona in 1992, Sydney in 2002 and Athens in 2004, he found a different atmosphere. While the crowd wasn’t necessarily against him overseas, competing in front of the American fans in the U.S. provided something extra.

“In Australia, there’s very few Americans that make it all the way to Australia to root you on, but when it was in Atlanta it was awesome and it was something that I’ll never forget,” Pedro said.

Bauman said that it’s not like an American professional championship where the crowd is split in allegiance.

“If your Olympic city is in Boston, you know nearly 100 percent of that crowd is going to be the U.S., and there will be total support from the whole country, not like the Stanley Cup where it’s 50-50,” Bauman said.

And that crowd can be a very powerful incentive for an athlete.

“During the match the crowd can lift you to a whole other level,” Pedro said. “How could you not fight well when everybody is cheering for you and rooting you on? It’s just really an electric atmosphere.”

It’s hard to imagine that Bostonians are trying to be un-American. Some just don’t want the 2024 games to happen in this American city because hosting the Olympic Games is expensive and Boston isn’t a city with great infrastructure.

A lot of development may need to happen here in order to pull off the Summer Games. The public transportation system – the oldest in the country that is already subject to daily delays – would need a serious makeover. Several venues, including ones for swimming and biking, would need to be built. All of that costs money, usually taxpayer money. Some residents don’t believe that the $4.5 billion cost estimate put forth by the bid group called Boston 2024 Partnership, will remain at that cost.

A recent poll conducted by WBUR found that only 40 percent of registered voters in the Boston area are in support of holding the games here. That number was up from 36 percent in March. Among the concerns is the cost. It took upwards of $20 billion to put on the 2012 games in London and $50 billion in Sochi last year.

Dan Walsh, who rowed to a bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing after serving as an alternate in 2004, understands where the people are coming from. Walsh, a graduate of Northeastern University, was skeptical when he was first approached about Boston 2024, as he couldn’t picture them taking place here. However, he now works with the Boston 2024 Partnership and believes the games could be successful.

“I do feel like some of those initial concerns are just,” Walsh said, “But [opponents] need to stop thinking about what the immediate problems are of the Olympic bid and what the possibilities of the Olympic bid could bring to Boston.”

If Boston hosts in 2024, even if taxpayer dollars are spent, the Commonwealth could benefit before, during and after hosting the games. Walsh pointed at success in Munich in 1972 and London where the rowing facilities are still used today by multiple groups. Teams and the public could benefit from not only using the venues before the games, but they could also benefit from the changes to infrastructure around the city, leaving it in better condition than before the games.

One of the things Walsh sees the Olympic Games bringing to Boston is a global humanitarian effort through sport.

“It’s something that brings together countries, different religions, races, beliefs, and it brings them underneath this umbrella of peace and celebration for sport, not just the competition part,” Walsh said.

“The bid really seems like it’s trying to leave Boston [better] than they found it and that’s why I got behind it, and that’s why I think other athletes [will] get behind it,” he added.

Walsh has experienced rowing in Boston and thinks it would prove to be even better if the Olympics were to come here.

“It’s definitely an electrical charge that you get. I can imagine that only being magnified when a sport like rowing is on the world stage in the Boston and Commonwealth area,” Walsh said.

“I think Boston fans are fanatics, very passionate about sports…as an athlete it would have been a dream come true for me to compete in the Olympics in Boston,” Pedro said, adding that he thinks the city could pull off an amazing Olympics.

Walsh agrees that Bostonians stand to benefit as spectators of this world-class event. “In general the city is a sports town and they’re going to get to watch the world championships of almost every other sport in Boston,” Walsh said.

And within those raucous crowds, he feels, might be the people that stand to gain the most from a Boston Olympics and its subsequent legacy.

“Something that we can see the Olympics start to do for sports in Boston is trickling down to the 10-year-olds and 5-year-olds today that would [become] Olympians and Olympic hopefuls. To me it’s worth the investment in the Olympics to inspire a generation of greatness.”

By Shujie Leng
BU Washington News Service

WASHINGTON — A day before the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, one of his grandnephews— Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, D-Mass. — testified before a House subcommittee on behalf of a bill to commemorate one of the late president’s best-known initiatives: establishment of the Peace Corps.

The bill — authored by Rep. Kennedy and co-sponsored by 70 of his colleagues, including 14 Republicans — would authorize the Peace Corps Commemorative Foundation, an arm of the National Peace Corps Association, to build a memorial in Washington, D.C., honoring the ideals of Peace Corps. It would be entirely funded by private donations.

“We will have to work harder, to remember not just President Kennedy’s individual accomplishments, as we do [for] any leaders in our great nation, but the faith and fearlessness that he brought to the people who were in need of someone to cheer them on,” Rep. Kennedy told the House Natural Resources Subcommittee On Public Lands and Environmental Regulation on Thursday. He characterized the legacy of the Peace Corps as “the potential of people who are challenged to change the world.”

A Kennedy spokeswoman said later the monument would not necessarily be located on the National Mall, and that the final site selection would be made by the Interior Department and General Services Administration if the bill is passed.

President Kennedy founded the Peace Corps, a volunteer program, in 1961, to challenge young Americans to serve in developing countries. The initiative was designed to counter the negative stereotypes of the United States in the Third World, where a tide of revolutionary sentiment was building at the time.

The Peace Corps’ first director was another of Rep. Kennedy’s great uncles: the late R. Sargent Shriver.

Since 1961, more than 210,000 Americans have served in 139 countries as Peace Corps volunteers. In excess of 8,000 volunteers currently serve in 76 host countries, with requests pending from 25 countries for volunteers. Congress provides just over $375 million annually to operate the program.

Among the former volunteers is Rep. Kennedy, who worked in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic from 2004 to 2006. Fluent in Spanish, he developed a successful local economic development project in a community near Puerto Plata.

Two Peace Corps alumni, Reps. Sam Farr, D-Calif., and Tom Petri, R-Wis., joined Kennedy at Thursday’s hearing to share their stories and to push for passage of the bill.

This is not the first time that the idea of memorializing the Peace Corps has been proposed in Congress. Since 2010, several bills to do so have been reintroduced in both the House and Senate, but failed to clear both chambers.

This time, a similar bill passed the Senate earlier this year under the sponsorship of Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Mark Udall, D-Colo.

Kennedy was optimistic that it will clear both houses of Congress this time around. “My hope is that we will be able to finally get it done, and everybody that I’ve talked to has been very positive about this,” he said after the hearing.

By Hilary Ribons
BU News Service

Since its doors opened last November, Neighborhoods Cafe has offered area residents direct-trade coffee and organic locally-sourced goods with the goal of connecting locals philanthropically while serving more than two dozen varieties of sweet and savory crêpes.

As its one-year anniversary approaches, the small cafe, one of the few independently owned coffee shops in Fenway, continues to buzz with customers. It was featured on an episode of HGTV’s House Hunters and sales have increased every month since it opened, said owner and Fenway resident Betsy Hill.

Hill said she never thought she would own a coffee shop. A Boston University graduate, she took a job working at Starbucks in Fenway as a temporary position while looking for a job in her chosen field of international relations. She stayed through the first three years of her marriage and the birth of her three children because she enjoyed the coffee—and the sense of community working there offered.

Hill said when she left Starbucks, a lot had opened up at 96 Peterborough St., where Neighborhoods now stands.

“I would take my kids to play across the street from that park, and look and say, ‘Why on earth is no one putting in a really good coffee shop?’ I tried to get other people to do it, and they wouldn’t, so I wrote a business plan, and I did it,” said Hill.

Through preliminary research, Hill found there was a desire for a coffee shop to be opened and that the target “coffee-drinking” market was present in the neighborhood.
At the time the lot opened up, Hill and her husband were deciding whether to buy a house in the suburbs with a yard, or to stay in Fenway and open the coffee shop. They chose to stay in Fenway to open the shop and because of their love for the area.

The shop is located on a stretch of Peterborough Street in Fenway filled with other small, independent restaurants including El Pelón Taqueria, in addition to a Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and Panera in close proximity—though the closest independent coffee shop is over a mile away. Neighborhoods has seven tables lined up against a wooden booth that stretches the length of the wall with chairs on the other side of the tables. Its small size often encourages customers to share tables with one another.

“We wanted to create a place for people that were part of Fenway, not just part of Boston,” said Hill. “A place where it was O.K. to say ‘hi’ to the person in front of you in line. That’s not strange here.”

Neighborhoods serves local, organic and fairly traded items. Even the crêpes, made from a recipe Hill got from her host family from a year she spent abroad in Paris in high school, feature cage-free chicken and eggs. The crêpe menu highlight is called “sweet simplicity” with 100% fair trade Belgian chocolate hazelnut spread with strawberries or bananas, topped with a dusting of powdered sugar, said Hill.

Neighborhoods gets its coffee beans from George Howell, a local coffee roaster and connoisseur who sold his well-known chain of coffee shops to Starbucks in the 1990s.

Howell is known as the person who pioneered responsible sourcing.

“He’s the first person who cared about the growers and tried to improve the taste of coffee based on growing practices,” said Hill.

Besides serving local, organic and fair trade items, Neighborhoods further builds its community feel by featuring products from local entrepreneurs every month and donates the proceeds towards a cause. This month’s entrepreneur sells homemade coffee breakfast bars, and the proceeds will go to The One Fund.

According to a 2013 National Coffee Drinking Trends study, published by the National Coffee Association, there was a 5% increase in coffee consumption over the past year alone. However, business across the board is still slower than pre-recession times.

“We haven’t seen post-2010 a significant upturn in business formation. It’s been increasing steadily, but not like former post-recession times,” said Erik Molander, an executive in residence and a member of the Strategy and Innovation Department at Boston University’s School of Management

He added that the success of businesses like Neighborhoods can be attributed to how receptive the business is to the community’s needs.

While Hill said her decision to serve local, organic and direct-trade items was based on the desire to operate a business she could be proud of, the cafe’s success may be partially attributed to how well this business model fits the desires of Fenway’s residents. Molander recognized Fenway as home to, among other demographics, students and young professionals.

“The movement towards being a ‘locavore’ in your food habits has started with precisely those groups—students and young professionals that demand locally grown or fair-trade items. It resonates very deeply with them,” said Molander.

Small businesses like Neighborhoods have an advantage over chains because it can customize offerings to the needs and wants of the community.

“They have more flexibility in where they source and pay more attention from whom they source,” said Molander.

Neighborhoods also fosters a community atmosphere. “I once had a customer tell me she comes in here because the employees smile,” said Charlotte Mosinki, manager, member of the team that opened Neighborhoods, and Hill’s long-time friend.

“We try to create a home element in a coffee shop,” said Hill. “We want people to feel welcome in our ‘house.’”

Indeed, Neighborhoods has a loyal following of regulars, who are often greeted by name at the door.

“I’ve been coming since they opened,” said Joli Divonsaraf, a long-time Fenway resident who works at MIT. Besides the cappuccinos and crêpes, Divonsaraf cited the ambience for why she frequents Neighborhoods. “It just feels like a very neighborhood-ly kind of place,” she added.

Katie and Colton Owsley of Brighton make trips to Fenway just for Neighborhoods.

“I like the coffee and the atmosphere. And the crêpes, of course, are delicious. It has a lot to offer,” said Colton.

Charles Johnson, who recently moved to Fenway, can often be seen sitting at one of the cafe’s tables with an iPad, a laptop, and a fresh cup of coffee. New to Fenway, Johnson has already identified Neighborhoods as his favorite spot.

“This is the go-to,” said Johnson, over a Spanish latte, his favorite. “This is, I would say, the best coffee in the neighborhood. Not that I’ve explored as much as I should, but the staff is super friendly, the coffee comes from George Howell, very high quality beans.”

Johnson runs a sales team at a local MIT-based start-up and comes to Neighborhoods during work breaks.

“It’s a great break,” he said. “It’s a great place to hang out, get caffeinated, relax for a minute, deal with stuff on the computer and then get right back into the thick of things.”

This article is being published under an arrangement between the Boston Globe and the Boston University News Service.

By Frankie Barbato
BU News Service

BOSTON —The long process some bars and restaurants face in securing a liquor license could change early next year under a new law that would transfer state control to local officials when it comes to issuing licenses.

“Towns or cities know best about how many liquor licensees are needed,” state Sen. James Eldridge said after a Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure hearing Tuesday.

Eldridge, D-Acton, testified for his bill that would allow city councils and town selectmen, rather than the state, to determine the number of licenses to distribute to local businesses.

“It would have an economic impact all over our communities if we could provide more liquor licenses across the commonwealth,” Eldridge said.

Under current law, the state distributes licenses based on a municipality’s population. Once local officials support the license, it moves to the Legislature for final approval.

Eldridge said cities and towns must apply for additional licenses and oftentimes that process can take from six to nine months.

“For anyone who opens a restaurant it’s already a very tough business and this would create more predictability,” Eldridge said.

Eldridge said restaurants can face a tough time surviving without a liquor license. He said however, that more liquor licenses could change the value of the sought-after licenses.

“There is concern that if you are adding more liquor licenses how will it impact cost or value of the license,” Eldridge said.

Eldridge said he does not expect the bill to pass until the Legislature returns from its holiday recess.

Ayanna Pressley, a Boston city councilor, testified in support of Eldridge’s bill.

“The main thing for me is that I want control to be returned to municipalities,” Pressley said after the hearing.

Pressley said the legislation is long overdue and that more liquor licenses for smaller businesses could generate local economic growth.

“Municipalities should be determining how best to revitalize their neighborhoods,” Pressley said.

Rep. Carolyn Dykema, D-Holliston, is proposing a bill in the House that would allow Westborough to bypass legislative approval to get additional liquor licenses, Dykema said in a telephone interview after the hearing.

Dykema said if Eldridge’s bill passes, she would not have to move forward with her separate legislation because Westborough would fall under his bill.

Dykema said both bills would remove an unnecessary administrative step and shorten the application process. She said her bill would help bring more local restaurants to the town, creating more economic growth.

“I really don’t see any benefit to the state having final say over this type of thing,” Dykema said.

This article first appeared on The MetroWest Daily News

By Shelby Carignan
BU Washington News Service

WASHINGTON – Splitting from the Obama White House, New Hampshire Democratic Reps. Carol Shea-Porter and Ann McLane Kuster Friday afternoon voted to back a Republican-sponsored measure that would delay for a year the cancellation of health insurance policies that do not comply with the requirements of the Affordable Care Act – so-called Obamacare.

Shea-Porter and Kuster were among 39 Democrats who joined with 222 Republicans to support the measure, which cleared the House Friday afternoon by a 261-157 vote.

Of 19 New England House members – all Democrats — voting on the bill, 16 of them voted against it, including Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine. Besides Shea-Porter and Kuster, Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-Conn., was the only New Englander to vote for the measure.

Shea-Porter, Kuster and Esty all were narrowly elected in competitive House districts last year, and are facing tough re-election battles in 2014: A recent article in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call characterized Shea-Porter as one of the 10 most vulnerable House members nationwide in next November’s election.

Shea-Porter announced her tentative support for the bill earlier this week. “My goal of helping Granite Staters receive quality, affordable health care continues, and I do not see that as a Republican or Democratic issue,” she said in a statement released after the vote.

The Republican legislation was a response to widespread criticism that has been aimed at the White House in recent weeks, as millions of Americans have received letters cancelling their current health policies – notwithstanding earlier statements by President Obama that the new law would not force Americans to give up existing policies that they wanted to keep.

Trying to contain a political firestorm, Obama Thursday also proposed a one-year delay in the cancellation of policies that do not comply with the law for current policy holders. But Obama’s plan applies only to current policy holders: The Republican bill – sponsored by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton of Michigan  – goes a step further by allowing insurance companies to sell such policies to new customers.

The White House has charged this would undermine the new law by allowing insurance companies to sell policies that do not contain such protections as coverage of pre-existing conditions or benefits for maternity care. Obama has vowed to veto the House-passed  bill, which faces an uncertain future in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

“While I wish that Republicans had allowed a Democratic motion to improve the bill with greater consumer protections, at this moment, the most important thing is to make sure that people are insured in January,” Shea-Porter said after the vote.

Kuster, in a statement following the vote, declared: ““As I have said before, I support good-faith efforts to ensure that people who like their current plans are able to stay on them for another year.”

She added, “I will continue to work with the president and members of Congress to get this right. My priority is to ensure that Granite Staters have access to the quality, affordable coverage they deserve.”

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Nick Hansen
BU News Service | OPINION

In a new commercial for the latest installment of the Call of Duty franchise, a popular first-person shooter video game, a group of four guys take to the streets of a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas with large weapons while Frank Sinatra’s “I’m Going To Live Till I Die” plays in the background.

They proceed to have a playful firefight shooting unseen bad guys. It looks more like a pickup football game than military combat. They bring the firefight to a hotel, the mountains, and even to space. Pinup girl Megan Fox makes a cameo. The commercial ends with one guy shooting down a helicopter with a bazooka. The tagline “There’s a Soldier in All of Us” appears as the guys walk away laughing and unscathed.

I wonder what my cousin Phillip Johnson, Jr., would think of that ad. He flew a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter for the 571st Medical Company in Iraq. He was killed on Jan. 8, 2004, along with nine other men when his helicopter was shot down over Fallujah. He was a committed military man and left behind a wife and large extended family. He is now buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Some Call of Duty players, presumably never left their couch on Monday. There were tweets like this one from user @chet_you_betch8h: “Time to celebrate this Veterans Day like any true Patriot would, CALL OF DUTY.” Or there was this one from user @lil_fredo: “Call of Duty All Day, just to show love to the Vets.”

I wondered how many of those people went and saw their town’s Veterans Day parades, like the one here in Boston.

Boston’s parade showcased the city at its best. There was the Boston Police Department Pipes and Drum band playing God Bless America. VFW posts from Mattapan and Chinatown marched by proudly in their class A uniforms. High school ROTC programs showed off their color guard skills.

The grand marshal of the parade, Private First Class Marshall, who recently returned from Afghanistan, was a polite, sharply dressed, young man who would make any mother proud. The afternoon was a chance to celebrate, honor, and remember.

I hope those Call of Duty fans get a chance meet somebody like Mark Terrell, an army veteran from West Roxbury. Terrell stood on the corner of Tremont and Park streets in a faded green jacket and a black baseball cap after the parade passed. He held a small American flag and some reading material on the US Constitution.

Terrell said he was homeless. He had been stationed at Fort Polk Louisiana in the early 80s and then served in the National Guard in the 90s. He said he tried to re-enlist after 9/11, but was declined due to health reasons.

Terrell said he did have a job at the West Roxbury VA, but was fired because he “started drinking again.”

Terrell was soft-spoken, but there was pride in his voice and a tiredness in his eyes. “I wish people knew about the sacrifices that we make, missing birthdays, weddings, Christmas, family events. It’s a great sacrifice,” he said. “I would die for this flag,” he said as he pointed to the one he was holding. Terrell also said he needed bus fare to get back to Quincy.

The 2011 Call of Duty game, Black Ops II, measures gaming statistics online. As of Tuesday morning there were more than 1.53 billion hours played and approximately 157 billion kills.

When these “soldiers” kill someone, I hope they think of PFC Marshall who had to make real life-or-death decisions while in Kandahar. When they shoot down a helicopter, I hope they think of my cousin Phillip and the empty seat at the Johnson dinner table. And when they finish their gaming sessions, I hope they think of Mark Terrell and his problems which cannot be shut off with the touch of a button.