Readers' Choice: Best Place to do Taxes in the South End?

This week's edition of Patch's "Best of Reader's Choice" Awards will be given to the best tax preparers in town, as voted by you, the readers.

Taxes. One of life’s few certainties, as the old adage holds. For most of us, they are an unavoidable eventuality. A yearly fact of life. We want to know, who makes this annual encounter with the dreaded IRS as painless as possible? Do you have a preferred tax professional in the South End? Vote, comment and leave a review to help them earn the honor of becoming the South End’s Best Place to do Your Taxes, 2012. Here are some of our favorite places, but if we're leaving one off of the list, please let us know in the comments and we'll add it: Back Bay Accounting & Tax LLC Cheryl Clark Gordon E. Parry, C.P.A. Charles P. King H&R Block—205 Mass Ave. Lourie & Cutler H&R Block—530 Columbus Ave. O'Toole & Co. Goll Insurance Voting in the poll …

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Should It Be Legal To Film On-Duty Police Officers?

The City of Boston is paying Simon Glik $170,000 to settle a civil lawsuit resulting from his arrest on Boston Common in 2007 for filming police officers. What's your take?

Recent law school graduate Simon Glik was walking across Boston Common in 2007 when he saw Boston police officers forcefully arresting a man.  He pulled out his cell phone to videotape the incident, (part of which is viewable in the Youtube video connected to this article) and shortly afterwards found himself in handcuffs, arrested for felony illegal wiretapping and disturbing the peace. He fought the criminal charges and they were dismissed four months later, according to the ACLU, but he then filed a civil rights suit with the city.  Per the ACLU, the suit argued that the City of Boston "is responsible for not adequately training, supervising, and disciplining officers who arrest people under the wiretap statute for openly recording the …

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Mom Talk

Clingy Kids Do Leave the Nest

Sometimes it takes a leap of faith to raise a child with a labor-intensive approach like attachment parenting.

The nurse had wrapped the baby snug as a burrito. In the darkened hospital room, my husband and I watched as she nearly tossed our bundle in the air, trying to soothe the cries of someone so new to the world that she sounded as if she regretted entry, and was wondering about the alternatives.  The way this expert dressed in scrubs knew she was in for a challenge gave me a sense of foreboding. After the safety of the maternity ward, what was to come? How wanted this baby had been, how completely grateful we were that she had arrived, did not ease the sense that I had just given birth to a handful. We waited over the next few weeks, then months, for this child to seem more happy than tearful to be here. We sang our favorite songs, we danced…

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Ten Ways to Kick Yourself Out of a Bad Mood

Turn your frown upside down with these easy tips.

Are you having one of “those days?” You’re feeling blue or sad and you don’t know how to get yourself out of it. Or, maybe you recently had an awful day and you ate your way through an entire bag of Pepperidge Farms cookies and still didn’t feel better. When we live in close quarters with people, we notice mood shifts. Not only in those we love but our in our neighbors, co-workers and the people we come in contact with on a daily basis. When we have a bad day, sometimes we let everyone around us notice it. But how can we shift our mood? Here are some easy tips: One of the foundational principals in yoga is the idea of transience. This is the idea that things are shifting on a daily basis and nothing is ever stable. We might notice this …

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St. Patrick's Day at The Beehive and More on the Food & Dining Scene

All the latest for South End foodies.

St. Patrick’s Day at The Beehive   Corned Beef & Cabbage at Franklin Café   Guest Chef Mondays at Stella   A Taste of Argentina at South End Buttery   Women’s History Month at Darryl’s

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10 Signs that Stress is Harmful to Your Health and 10 Positive Changes You Can Make

Prevent stress by taking these steps towards better health.

I know a lot of entrepreneurs. These are people in my neighborhood that left working in a corporate position to work for themselves. In every case, they were unhappy with their lifestyle and passionate about something else, so they created an opportunity to start their own business. I see them often in my local coffeehouse and we talk about business ideas and how things are going. You might think that when you make a move such as this, you leave stress behind. This actually is not the case. Speaking from my own entrepreneurial experience, I can say that stress is a daily factor of my life. Juggling many different things regularly, completing daily activities as well as making time for future planning all can create stress. But, the one …

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Mom Talk

Too Fat or Too Thin – Can The Law Help?

If we recognize that eating disorders are related to obesity, lawmakers in Boston and in Massachusetts can help more kids at risk.

“Mommy, I’m fat,” says my daughter, all 40-something lbs. and 40-something inches of her. I see a perfectly smooth belly, and a body that is all little-kid taut. She looks in the mirror and manages to stick out her tummy a bit farther by arching her back. “You’re not fat,” comes my truthful response. It's a conversation that goes on. As much as kids are their parents’ parrots, I hope my child is not copying my own body concerns – since I have my metabolism and city walking to thank and I’m not overweight. But to blame her behavior on any media is all too easy. Yet talk about fat we will – from Michelle Obama to Tom Menino, Disney World to City Hall, the conversation is hard to escape. Half of the adults and a third of Boston’s children are…

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Jack Kelly: Could Iran Join Forces With Russia?

With a possible conflict between Iran and Israel, could Russia and Iran form an alliance? Don't rule it out.

With Israel openly discussing a possible attack on Iran, the thought of revisiting the cold war seems, for some, a frightening idea and, for others an unfinished fight that deserves a second look. The recent (and controversial) Russian Presidential election that propelled Vladimir Putin back to the throne has highlighted some worrisome trends in Russia. Russia is still a country that attracts the attention of average U.S. citizens. In fact, in the 2008 Presidential election, Arizona Sen. and presidential candidate John McCain said that he saw “ the KGB” when he looked into the eyes of former and (newly) elected Russian president Vladimir Putin—as opposed to former President Bush, who said he had seen Putin’s soul. With two American …

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Taste of the South End and More on the Food & Dining Scene

All the latest for South End foodies.

Taste of the South End   Cooking for Hope   Workshop at SoWa Winter Market   Sugar Shack at The Beehive    $1 Tapas at Estragon

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