Boston Tells Satanic Temple To Go To Hell: The HUB

The HUB is rundown of the stories people in Boston are talking about. Patch publishes the HUB every weekday.

Good morning, Boston! It's Thursday, April 8. Today we're watching traffic back up on the Sagamore Bridge and wondering how a new Massachusetts mom didn't know she was pregnant until she delivered the baby. We're also making reservations at restaurants that have reopened for spring and wondering if Tom Brady can tell us what a non-fungible token is.

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Boston Tells Satanic Temple To Go To Hell

Lawyers for the city of Boston asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit filed by the Salem-based Satanic Temple. The Temple sued the city in January, saying they should have a turn offering the pre-meeting prayer at Boston City Council meetings.

In oral arguments on a motion to dismiss Tuesday, the city's lawyers said no religion is favored over another when invites to recite the weekly prayers are made. A decision on the motion is pending.

In January, Patch's Colleen Martin interviewed Lucien Greaves, founder of the Satanic Temple.

"I think some people see these kinds of disputes that we fight and think that they're petty and prankster-ish. But we don't feel that way at all," Greaves said. "We feel that this cuts right to our fundamental values as a democratic republic that respects pluralism, and part of that is ensuring that our public officials do not show preference for one viewpoint over another, but rule by principle and rule by law."

She Thought It Was A Kidney Stone

Melissa Surgecoff of Massachusetts told NBC's "Today" this week she didn't know she was pregnant until her son Liam was born in her toilet. Surgecoff, 38, was trying to pass what she thought was a kidney stone on March 8 and had her fiancé, Donnie Campbell, call 911. Surgecoff thought she had lost an organ and was "freaking out," leaving Campbell to rescue Liam from the toilet.

Campbell initially thought the baby was feces, but once he saw it was a boy, he cleaned him off with his sweatshirt, following a procedure he had remembered seeing on television shows. The EMTs, who arrived still thinking they were there for a kidney stone, took Liam and Surgecoff to the hospital, where both got a clean bill of health.

"So if you look back on it now, yeah, there are clear-cut signs," she said, adding, "normal moms have nine months to plan to do whatever, to save and get gifts and buy stuff."

Brady, DraftKings Co-Founders Partner Up

Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback (or, as he's known around these parts, former New England Patriots quarterback) Tom Brady has partnered with three co-founders of Boston-based DraftKings to form Autograph, a company billing itself as an "NFT platform that brings together the most iconic brands and biggest names in sports, entertainment, fashion, and pop-culture to create unique digital collectibles."

Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are a bit over our head, so we'll let the Boston Business Journal's Lucia Maffei, who first reported this story, explain it:

"Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are an emerging trend in the crypto and blockchain space. They are pieces of digital content that are linked to the blockchain, the technology at the heart of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

"The difference with Bitcoin is that each NFT is a unique piece of digital content. NFTs are designed to give their buyers ownership of the work; that's why they are often described as the digital evolution of fine art collecting."

For information on getting a coronavirus vaccine in Massachusetts, visit Patch's information hub.

Thursday's Other Top Stories

Hungry? If your favorite Boston restaurant went into "hibernation" over the winter, it may have reopened. Eater Boston has a running list of which restaurants have reopened for spring.

Everywhere — Except Payrolls — Will Be Crowded On Cape Cod: Tourism officials expect record numbers of visitors to Cape Cod this summer as newly-vaccinated people flock to vacation homes and rentals after the pandemic kept them away last summer. But hotels and restaurants, according to The Boston Globe, are having trouble finding workers. "Frankly, we’re nervous," Sarah Robin, owner of the Flying Fish restaurant in Wellfleet, told the newspaper.

Inspection delays continue: The Registry of Motor Vehicles says drivers whose inspection stickers expired last month now have until April 30 to get a new one, as the state inspection remains closed for business. The system has been offline since March 23 as a key vendor works to recover after its system was hacked.

The Rundown

What I'm wearing: My new facemask from Cambridge-based Steele Canvas Basket Corp.

Steele Canvas was founded nearly 100 years ago and makes industrial baskets for tools and construction materials. But when the pandemic started a year ago and construction projects were put on hold, the company was facing the prospect of laying off its 70 employees.

"We all looked at each other and thought, we have sewing machines here, can't we make masks?" said John Lordan, who co-owns Steele Canvas with his brother Paul. Instead of laying off workers, Steele Canvas ended up expanding its workforce to keep up with mask orders. Since the start of the pandemic, the company has donated more than 100,000 facemasks to area healthcare facilities.

I got mine through a partnership Steele Canvas has with Walden Local to donate masks to all of Walden Local's members. It came with our monthly meat share Tuesday and is, hands down, the most comfortable mask I have worn. That's a big accomplishment for a company that had never produced a mask before last year.

• What I'm reading: "Blonde," the 2000 historical novel by Joyce Carol Oates that chronicles the inner life of Marilyn Monroe.
• What I'm watching: "The Last Blockbuster" on Netflix, which feels a lot like watching the killer gives the eulogy at the victim's funeral.
• What I'm listening to: "Wind of Change," a Crooked podcast trying to figure out if the CIA wrote "Wind of Change," the 1990 hit song by the German metal band the Scorpians.
• What I'm eating: Amy's Toast at the Shawsheen Luncheonette in Andover.

Weather

We're looking at a high of 58 degrees with clouds giving way to sun this afternoon.

Dave Copeland is Patch's regional editor for Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island and is filling in for Mike Carraggi as curator of the HUB today. Mike will be back tomorrow.