Posted on 11/27/2011 6:12:24 AM PST by raccoonradio
Howie thread for the week starting with his Sunday Boston Herald column
Sun. column ping. Of course the opinions that follow are those of Mr Carr and do not necessarily reflect those of
FR, me, etc. :)
Thinning the herd
Be very careful, it’s deers ‘n’ beers season once again
By Howie Carr | Sunday, November 27, 2011 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Hot damn! Shotgun deer hunting season starts tomorrow at dawn in the commonwealth.
And every dad-blamed Jed Clampett in the state will be traipsing around in the woods, three sheets to the wind, blasting Bambi ... and each other.
OK, I admit not every hunter will be drunk. But if you have the misfortune to be out in the wilderness during the “harvest” this coming week, chances are you’ll hear these chilling words, “Here Bubba, hold muh beer!”
Can there be any sadder words inscribed on one’s tombstone than these: “Mistaken for a deer.” One Massachusetts man has already died this season in New Hampshire because of his apparent resemblance to a white-tail. It happened the same day a hunter target-practicing in Raymond, Maine, was shot in the stomach by another nimrod, who, hearing the shots, apparently mistook the first guy for a gun-toting buck.
Next consider the sad case of Clifford Sanchez of New Mexico, on whose tombstone may be inscribed: “Mistaken for a bull elk.”
At least that’s the story his killer, Gilbert Sanchez (no relation) told the cops after he recently shot the other Sanchez off the back of an ATV.
According to the Taos News, the shooter Sanchez “claimed to see antlers, which he may have confused with the ATV’s handlebars.”
Across the nation, toothless rednecks are asking one another: What in tarnation are they chargin’ that boy for, Billy Bob? Was them handlebars wearing orange blaze? What the Sam Hill is this here country comin’ to?
Sanchez expressed regret because “he didn’t like to miss and he was shooting an elk, which turned into a human being.”
Try not to let this destroy your faith in the sobriety of the nimrod community, but in Sanchez’s pockets the cops found an unmarked bottle containing Valium, oxycodone and Zantac. Sanchez informed the local constabulary he was “pretty sure” he was on Valium but “couldn’t remember” what other treats he’d been sampling.
Next stop, Merlin, Oregon. An 11-year-old boy was waiting for his school bus in the morning. Can you guess what happened next?
“(The hunter) said he didn’t see the boy, who was standing less than 100 yards away from the house.”
Here’s one from British Columbia. Two 22-year-olds were camping out when one of them heard what he thought was a black bear trying to get into the tent. So he give that thar bear what-fer... Only it turned out it wasn’t a bear, it was the other guy he was camping out with, returning from a call of a nature. He’s recovering from bullet wounds to his face.
Moving along to Steamboat Springs, Colo. Jerry Cox is a guide and, oh, the stories he could tell you — after he gets out of the hospital, that is.
“The hunter, from Delaware, said he mistook Cox for a coyote from 120 yards away,” according to reports. What, does Cox have a bushy tail? Oh, by the way, the hunter “had just finished his hunting safety course two weeks earlier.”
Ever hear how sometimes hunters get two kills with one bullet? Happened in Illinois last weekend. A 53-year-old nimrod from East Dubuque opened fire, killing a 44-year-old father and wounding his 15-year-old son.
There’s more, so many more, one for every Budweiser can you’ll find in the woods this week. Here Bubba, hold muh beer!
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1383959
The depiction of the “Drunken Hunter” is so overblown it is ridiculous. No one I hunt with or ever hunted with ever drank when out in the woods. That is not to say there wasn't mass consumption AFTER the day was over.
And Howie is too much of a pussy to get a gun himself. His wife won't let him ... we know where his giblets are keep.
PS: Hitman ... GREAT book! Can't wait for the movie (or a movie about the Brothers Bulger).
Thus the disclaimer I put up.
Supposedly there are 2 or 3 Whitey Bulger-related movies in the works and one may well be based on Hitman, we’ll have to
see. Howie has a novel coming out around Jan. or Feb. called
Hard Knocks.
Maybe we’ll see a weekly series about Boston gangsters on Howie and Max’s new Monkey Business channel.
Today’s Brattleboro (VT) Reformer: READSBORO - State Police said a hunter took his own life on Saturday, distraught after accidentally killing his friend in a deer hunting accident.
Troopers from the Shaftsbury and Brattleboro barracks responded to the scene one mile west of Howe Pond Road in Readsboro, where they found Benjamin Birch, 39, and Timothy Bolognani, 49, both of Readsboro, dead from gunshot wounds.
Today’s Salem News:
He called himself an artist, but a man encountered in the woods off Lafayette Street was “clearly” living there, according to police at 2:21 p.m. He was dressed in what police called “hippie style,” including a vest and beads, and complained he was “looking for a place to do some scenery, which will now not be getting done.” Wearing an “Occupy” pin, he threatened to file a complaint with the Marblehead arts council.
My heart feels like an alligator!!
It’s the end of an error. Good riddance to Barney Frank.
Tue special column ping
Christmas in November!
By Howie Carr | Tuesday, November 29, 2011 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo
Photo by Herald file
Our long national nightmare is over. No need for Santa Claus to bring me anything this year, because I got my present yesterday at Newton City Hall when Barney Frank threw in his hand.
Good luck finding a grief counselor today — they’ve all been dispatched to Morrissey Boulevard, where his comrades are on suicide watch, their belts, shoelaces and bow ties confiscated.
Barney spoke “frankly” and “candidly” and “to be honest,” so you can take everything he said with a grain of salt. But it appears that he really, really didn’t like his new district, which contains the “Utah” of Massachusetts — the Attleboros, Bellingham, Seekonk, Rehoboth, Wrentham, etc.
Barney used to win all those staffers’ polls as the smartest man in Congress. Even though he didn’t know his male-prostitute boyfriend Hot Bottom was turning tricks out of his basement, even though he didn’t know what marijuana plants looked like as the cops in Maine were carting plants out of his new boyfriend’s place in Ogunquit. And even though, as he admitted yesterday, he “did not see the crisis coming” with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Maybe, because yet another of his main squeezes, Herbie Moses, had a six-figure job there, after Barney made a call for him. Another nationwide search.
But as Barney told the press conference, despite being “late” to recognizing the unfolding catastrophe, he was always against “loans being given out promiscuously” — a poor choice of words, given Barney’s, uh, personal life. And don’t forget, even though Barney was clueless, he couldn’t have done anything away.
The subprime crisis was all Tom DeLay’s fault. Barney said that twice, in case you missed it the first time.
Barney just got old. I mean, he thought Earl Sholley was a tough opponent back in 2006. And last year, Sean Bielat really was a handful. Barney obviously didn’t want to go out feet first, like Nicky Pockets or Joe Early. Another reason for the unexpected move: Barney has figured out that the Democrats aren’t going to regain control of the U.S. House anytime soon.
He talked it over with his latest life partner — “Jim in Maine.” You know Jim, the guy with the pot belly and the combover who kept calling Sean Bielat “dude” last year.
Well, it’s a whole new ball game in a whole new district. If I were Billy Keating, I’d be moving back to Sharon. He knows Barney’s district better than he knows his own new Cape-Bristol creation, and who’s going to run against him? Setti Warren?
Goodbye Barney. And Bill O’Reilly sends his regards, too. You don’t have to pretend to be nice to us anymore, although come to think of it, I don’t think you ever did, dude.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1384434
Wed column ping but first a bit of Elvis
Kentucky rain keeps comin’ down
And up ahead’s another town that I’ll be
Walkin’ through, with the rain in my shoes (rain in my shoes)
Searchin’ for you, in the old Kentucky Rain.
Welcome to the bluegrass state, Sal!
Hey, Sal DiMasi, quit your squawkin’ and look on the bright side. You’ll be home by Christmas.
Christmas 2018.
A few hacks truly believe that Sal going to the slammer today for eight years (of which he’ll have to serve 85 percent) is some sort of tragedy. Please, the only tragedy here is that his two felonious predecessors as speaker, Good Time Charlie Flaherty and Felon Finneran, aren’t already cooling their heels as well in Club Fed.
DiMasi’s another one of these pols who forgot the old saying, Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. Turns out, Sal was plenty healthy enough to do the crime, but now he’s claiming he’s too sick to do the time.
Would anyone have been surprised yesterday if he’d been taken out of his North End condo (the one with three mortgages on it) on a stretcher, an oxygen mask covering his face, a la the late Mafia boss Larry Zannino?
As Shakespeare once said, “When sorrows come, they come not (as) single spies, but in battalions.”
Or, as Sal would put it, “When it bleepin’ rains, it pours.”
Sal was right about one thing he told Judge Wolf at his sentencing. He is a broken man. But whose fault is that? Again, as Shakespeare once said, “Sometimes, dear Brutus, the fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
Or, as Sal would put it, “You make your own bleepin’ bed, and you sleep in it.”
The cops got him for grabbing $65,000. For a speaker, that’s chump change. After RomneyCare passed in 2006, he could have waltzed into some kind of six-figure sinecure in the health industry, just like his predecessor Felon Finneran did with the Biotech Council, making 400 large.
But Sal and his wife, Debbie, wanted to be in with the In Crowd. They were Beautiful People wannabes. He wanted to be on the TV news every night. She wanted her own TV show.
When the G-men started flipping everybody else, Sal should have copped a plea. Especially when they handed three years to Chuck Turner — a simpleton who got set up by the feds. After the other two speakers walked, the feds had to throw the book at Sal.
And then Sal believed his lawyer Tom Kiley when he said they could overturn the theft of honest services statute on appeal. Please, Sal, it was bribery, OK? I guess it’s easy to believe your lawyer when you’re getting him on the arm, compliments of the taxpayers.
Goodbye Sal. You’ll be having a blue Christmas in the Bluegrass State.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1384721
Wow... Kentucky Rain. I was fortunate to see the composer of that Elvis hit perform it live.
RIP, Eddie Rabbit.
Fri column ping
Mitt, now’s the time to really sweat Newt
By Howie Carr | Friday, December 2, 2011 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
When Mitt Romney was being interviewed earlier this week in the warehouse in Miami, did you notice the beads of perspiration on Mitt’s forehead?
Flop sweat.
After all these years of crisscrossing the country, methodically rounding up endorsements, building an organization, raising millions, learning how to be a glib debater — suddenly he’s behind Newt Gingrich.
Across the Internet you can see the gleeful headlines: “Down Goes Willard!” And in that weird warehouse setting — it looked like a beer distributorship — Mitt let a sympathetic, laid-back interviewer like Fox’s Bret Baier get under his skin.
“Well, Bret, your list is just not accurate. ... You’re wrong, Bret. ... Those are Democrat snippets ... taking things out of context. ... Bret, I don’t know how many hundreds of times I’ve said this. (Nervous giggles.) This is an unusual interview. (Crosses legs.)”
Mitt obviously forgot the words of James Michael Curley: Never complain, never explain.
But maybe Mitt had just seen the latest GOP poll in Florida, where Newt is now leading him, 41-17. In Iowa, Newt’s up 28-12; in South Carolina, it’s 38-15. Newt is even closing the gap in New Hampshire.
Of course Mitt is still the GOP favorite, but this latest flavor of the week must be disconcerting. This fall his campaign staff has been behaving like the French generals who built the Maginot Line after World War I. Only they weren’t preparing for the last war, they were preparing for Rick Perry, the Texas Aggie who turns out to have problems walking and chewing gum at the same time.
Instead of Perry, coming up on the outside ... Newt.
On the radio, I’m noticing that Newt’s supporters increasingly seem to have drunk the Kool-Aid. I ask them about the $1.6 million he grabbed from Freddie Mac, and they shrug, “He was in the Private Sector.”
No, he was actually in the crony capitalism sector. Barney Frank used to say, your base isn’t the people who are with you when you’re right, it’s the people who are with you when you’re wrong. By that calculation, Newt’s base is solid.
Mitt’s dipping his toe into the negative campaigning. He talks about Newt’s “30 or 40 years in Washington.” Newt’s a “career politician.” Mitt has devoted his life to “his family.” Get it?
Willard needs to take off the gloves. When he was running against Shannon O’Brien in 2002, he tried the Mr. Nice Guy approach. By Columbus Day, he was down 10 points. How long’s Mitt going to wait this time?
He can’t rely on Ron Paul to do all the heavy lifting for him.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1385263
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