Chronicling the past week via quick links and pithy commentary (can’t we all get along edition)

Let’s hear it for the slightly less-faceless columnist! Kevin Cullen came out blazing. We knew you had it in you.

Doesn’t anyone know how to get signatures anymore? If so, Jim Ogonowski and Rep. Carl Sciortino could use your help.

The Green Line’s fatal crash: Where do we go from here?

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Like many of you, we were deeply saddened when the Red Sox designated Julian Tavarez for assignment. He won us over by throwing down in a spring training game and cemented himself into our good graces by becoming the object of Manny Ramirez’s affection, and it’s hard to let that go.

Thankfully, Jules is still bringing the crazy all the way from Milwaukee.

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It’s the weekend. You can spend it lamenting the fact that it’s not a three-day weekend, or you can pack all the fun you can into the two days you’ve got. Here are some other suggestions for your precious days of total freedom, prepared for you by Boston Daily.

Tonight
You can pretend all you want, but we know that you love arena rock. Give in to your true desires and check out the Museum of Science’s Laser 70′s Rock.

It’s OK. You can let out a guffaw at tonight’s Laugh for Relief benefit. Some of the area’s best comedians team up to raise money for the victims of China’s earthquake.

The Boston Pops have gone country. Riders in the Sky perform at Symphony Hall tonight.

Ladies, it’s fast becoming frock weather. Pick up a new dress for 15 percent off tonight at Velvet Fly. READ MORE

Each Friday, Paul McMorrow will take you inside the smoke-filled rooms and darkly-lit corridors of government to bring you the hottest and juiciest political tidbits. This week: How hard is it to get signatures, really?; and Michael Flaherty’s war chest gets a little bigger. Plus: Falling asleep during a hearing on drowsy driving, and more campaign finance data.

You’re a state legislator. All you have to do to keep your job is get a couple hundred people to write their names on a piece of paper. Lately, that’s been an astoundingly tall task.

State Senator Dianne Wilkerson was last year’s cautionary tale. She failed to wring 300 good signatures out of a district that sprawls from Beacon Hill, through the South End, to JP and Roxbury. Suffice it to say, there are well more than 300 registered voters living in this district, and Wilkerson’s failure to successfully navigate this routine task brought several rounds of mockery and head-shaking – not to mention a brutal write-in campaign – upon the senator’s head.

So, it’s more than a little staggering that in the election immediately following Wilkerson’s debacle, another legislator has failed to navigate the chore of ensuring continued service in one of the nation’s least competitive legislatures. Rep. Carl Sciortino is now scrambling to keep his job because he didn’t learn from Wilkerson’s mistakes. READ MORE

The Green Line is both the bane of my existence and my primary mode of transportation. I hate it because it’s slow, unpredictable, and almost always packed. I love it because, well, it’s the closest T stop to my house, my office, and most of my friend’s apartments.

Most days, I try to rationalize my 20-minute wait at North Station for a Lechmere train by remembering that the line is over 100 years old and, like my grandparents, it needs a little longer to get things done. But after Wednesday’s fatal collision in Newton, some are asking whether the branch should be sent to the old folks’ home.

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Your condensed guide to today’s daily papers.

Newbury Street gets dissed by one of its own: The owner of Louis Boston says the store will leave its prime Newbury Street location when its lease is up in 2010. Debi Greenberg says, “Here on Newbury Street, the stores are all similar. There isn’t anything new anymore[.]” Ouch. [Globe]

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Your long day of corporate drudgery is over. Get out and enjoy the city! Here are a few ideas to get you started, lovingly picked by Boston Daily.

There’s no basketball and no baseball tonight. Instead of going home and reconnecting with your family before the finale of Lost, why not check out the New England Revolution? The soccer team takes on D.C. United at Gillette tonight.

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