Posted on 12/09/2012 3:30:11 AM PST by raccoonradio
Howie tjread for the week starting with his Sunday Boston Herald column
Menino gets snow jobbed
By Howie Carr | Sunday, December 9, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo by Ted Fitzgerald (file)
Laid up at Spaulding Rehab, Mumbles Menino is making like Santa Claus. The recuperating mayor is making a list and checking it twice. He’s gonna find out who’s naughty and nice.
And No. 1 on Menino’s naughty list is his predecessor as mayor, Ray Flynn. You might have missed it, but right after Menino’s first TV interviews, Raybo drove out to Ch. 25 to give an interview to Maria Stephanos about the plight of his dear pal.
Ever since, I’ve been waiting to hear that assessors from Boston City Hall have swarmed over One Flint Place, and that the assessment on Raybo’s house has been jacked up to, say, $10 million.
The piece begins with Maria mentioning that she and Flynn have just watched the interview, in which Menino didn’t look so hot, to put it mildly. Maria says to Raybo, “It was difficult for you?”
He stares straight ahead, in rapt silence. For almost 10 seconds. See, Raybo’s overcome with emotion, or something. Finally Maria says, in her concerned voice, “Are you OK?”
“Yeah,” he says, haltingly, then chokes up again for maybe another three seconds.
Maria finally puts her hand on Flynn’s forearm to console him in his grief.
“It’s all right,” she says.
“All right.” Pause. “Yeah, all right.”
Wow. The average viewer was probably thinking, Raybo must really love this guy.
“I’ve known Tommy for a long, long period of time.” Get that — he calls him Tommy. They must be tight. “To see him as I just saw him, it’s a different Tom Menino than I’ve ever seen before. You know we’ve had our political differences over the years. However, this is not political, it’s personal, and it makes me sad to see him in that condition.”
Let’s consider those political differences.
When Ray returned to Boston in 1996, he wanted to run for Congress. Menino wouldn’t endorse him over a Boston city councilor and a state rep. Ray lost and never forgave him.
After a blizzard, he ripped Menino’s snow removal under a headline, “We did it better.” In 2009 Raybo endorsed Mike Flaherty and Sam Yoon for mayor against Menino. Then this year he went with U.S. Sen. Scott Brown against Menino’s candidate, the fake Indian.
Apart from all that, and a bunch of other disputes I don’t have room to chronicle, the two mayors have always been thisclose.
Maria asked Raybo if he wanted to offer any advice to the only other living mayor of Boston.
“I only can point out, if I had the chance to — I wrote to him, I put in requests to meet with him, maybe this isn’t the time to do that, but if he asked me I’d say there’s a big world out there ...”
And then there was that anti-casino rally in Eastie that Raybo showed up to.
Maria asked Flynn who he thinks is in charge at City Hall.
“I really don’t know. I don’t know how you do that. I used to say you can’t run the city from City Hall, and you certainly can’t run it from a hospital bed.”
If nothing else, with this 3 minute, 58 seconds of videotape, Flynn proved that when he wants to, he can still insert the needle with the best of them. He and Maria started talking about how Menino can no longer move about the city.
“He’s sick, he can’t do it and I think that’s the part — you know, look, it troubles him, there’s no doubt about it. But for me to see that film it’s troubling to me as well — for him — because I know him, I know him well, I respect him. You know it just bothered me to no end.”
If I ever get sick, please don’t let Ray Flynn go on TV to talk about what a great guy I am. It would bother me to no end.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061180554
Menino gets snow jobbed
By Howie Carr | Sunday, December 9, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo by Ted Fitzgerald (file)
Laid up at Spaulding Rehab, Mumbles Menino is making like Santa Claus. The recuperating mayor is making a list and checking it twice. He’s gonna find out who’s naughty and nice.
And No. 1 on Menino’s naughty list is his predecessor as mayor, Ray Flynn. You might have missed it, but right after Menino’s first TV interviews, Raybo drove out to Ch. 25 to give an interview to Maria Stephanos about the plight of his dear pal.
Ever since, I’ve been waiting to hear that assessors from Boston City Hall have swarmed over One Flint Place, and that the assessment on Raybo’s house has been jacked up to, say, $10 million.
The piece begins with Maria mentioning that she and Flynn have just watched the interview, in which Menino didn’t look so hot, to put it mildly. Maria says to Raybo, “It was difficult for you?”
He stares straight ahead, in rapt silence. For almost 10 seconds. See, Raybo’s overcome with emotion, or something. Finally Maria says, in her concerned voice, “Are you OK?”
“Yeah,” he says, haltingly, then chokes up again for maybe another three seconds.
Maria finally puts her hand on Flynn’s forearm to console him in his grief.
“It’s all right,” she says.
“All right.” Pause. “Yeah, all right.”
Wow. The average viewer was probably thinking, Raybo must really love this guy.
“I’ve known Tommy for a long, long period of time.” Get that — he calls him Tommy. They must be tight. “To see him as I just saw him, it’s a different Tom Menino than I’ve ever seen before. You know we’ve had our political differences over the years. However, this is not political, it’s personal, and it makes me sad to see him in that condition.”
Let’s consider those political differences.
When Ray returned to Boston in 1996, he wanted to run for Congress. Menino wouldn’t endorse him over a Boston city councilor and a state rep. Ray lost and never forgave him.
After a blizzard, he ripped Menino’s snow removal under a headline, “We did it better.” In 2009 Raybo endorsed Mike Flaherty and Sam Yoon for mayor against Menino. Then this year he went with U.S. Sen. Scott Brown against Menino’s candidate, the fake Indian.
Apart from all that, and a bunch of other disputes I don’t have room to chronicle, the two mayors have always been thisclose.
Maria asked Raybo if he wanted to offer any advice to the only other living mayor of Boston.
“I only can point out, if I had the chance to — I wrote to him, I put in requests to meet with him, maybe this isn’t the time to do that, but if he asked me I’d say there’s a big world out there ...”
And then there was that anti-casino rally in Eastie that Raybo showed up to.
Maria asked Flynn who he thinks is in charge at City Hall.
“I really don’t know. I don’t know how you do that. I used to say you can’t run the city from City Hall, and you certainly can’t run it from a hospital bed.”
If nothing else, with this 3 minute, 58 seconds of videotape, Flynn proved that when he wants to, he can still insert the needle with the best of them. He and Maria started talking about how Menino can no longer move about the city.
“He’s sick, he can’t do it and I think that’s the part — you know, look, it troubles him, there’s no doubt about it. But for me to see that film it’s troubling to me as well — for him — because I know him, I know him well, I respect him. You know it just bothered me to no end.”
If I ever get sick, please don’t let Ray Flynn go on TV to talk about what a great guy I am. It would bother me to no end.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061180554
It was a good column, rr; definitely worth reading twice.
thisclose...clever.
Who was it that Mumbles endorsed in 1996?
This only adds to my inability to understand Massholes and their politics and politicians.
Yeah I think I hit the button a second time, or the FR software hiccuped.
Wikipedia says Menino ran unopposed in 97. Entry for
Mumbles:
__
Menino served nine years on Boston’s city council when Ray Flynn left the mayor’s seat to become United States Ambassador to the Holy See. Menino, the council president at the time, became acting mayor for four months. He was elected to his first term in November 1993, defeating State Representative James Brett 64% to 36%. He became the city’s first non-Irish-American mayor since 1930. After running unopposed for a second term in 1997, Menino defeated Boston City Councilor Peggy Davis-Mullen in 2001 for a third term with 76% of the vote[2] and in 2005 garnered 67% of the vote in beating Maura Hennigan, another councilor.
—
etc.
Speaking of the Holy See there’s a pun in the Beatles
movie Yellow Submarine. “Is that the Sea of Holes?”—
“Or the Holy See?”
—
btw I remember Howie used to imply Raybo was a bit of a drinker, on air (speaking of which The Mayor of the Neighborhoods used to have an RKO gig). I don’t know if Flynn was, though. Howie would play a bit of Ray speaking and in the background you’d hear a tinkling piano, mellow a la Floyd Cramer, and finally you’d hear the vocals and realize it was an old ad jingle:
“If you’ve got the time, we’ve got the beer...”
Also Howie brought up on air the pic of Ray as amb. to the Vatican, holding up an umbrella to protect His Eminence. How did Ray look? As Jerry Williams, used to say, he looked...
“...annoyed...”
>> There was no Mayor of Boston until 1822 because up to that point Boston was still incorporated as a town. The current mayor is Thomas Menino.
Mayors since WWII: Maurice Tobin, John Kerrigan, James Curley, John Hynes, John Collins, Kevin White, Ray Flynn,
Tom Menino
And worth pointing out, the last GOP Mayor of Boston was Malcolm Edwin Nichols, who served from 1926-1930 (in between Jim Curley’s numerous terms).
In freaking deed. Any state that would vote down a tax Decrease is phoqued up.
Well, we cetainly have been studying Wikipedia since early this morning.
One bit of trivia I found was when Mumbles was challanged on his promise to only run for two terms as Boston’s mayor. As he announced for a third term, he clarified his promise to only run two times “in each century.”
I wonder what excuse he’ll use next time, assuming he’s still alive?
For some reason, the name Mel King comes to mind in answer to Howie Carr’s obscure reference to the 1996 congressional race. I’ll keep looking.
Interesting about Menino...when you asked about Mumbles in 96 I went off on a tangent about Menino opponents etc.; oops, getting back to that 96 race...not sure who Joe K rang against:
(Ray Flynn):
>>Following his service as ambassador, Flynn ran unsuccessfully for Massachusetts’s 8th congressional district seat that was being vacated by Joseph Patrick Kennedy II in 1998.
Joe Kennedy:
>>In 1986, incumbent Democrat and Speaker of the House Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, who had held 8th Congressional district seat since 1953, announced his retirement. Kennedy decided to run for the seat, which his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy, had held from 1947 to 1953. The Democratic nomination was contested by a number of well-known Democrats including State Senator George Bachrach and State Representative Mel King. However, Kennedy garnered endorsements from The Boston Globe and the retiring O’Neill. Kennedy won the primary with 53%. He won the general election with 72% of the vote. He won re-election in 1988 (80%), 1990 (72%), 1992 (83%), 1994 (99%), and 1996 (84%).
We do vote correctly much of the time. Our elected representatives change our minds for us, ipso facto.
California is about to find out what living under one-party rule is like. It ain't pretty.
I get a kick out of FReepers who denigrate the politics of a certain state, e.g. Massachusetts, California, New Jersey, etc.. When I click on their About page to see which paradise they live in, it usually comes up, oh, I don't know, Michigan or Illinois or even, gasp, New York! j/k
The only place that I've ever lived that passed the smell test is Wyoming. Texas might be close, but I've never lived there.
He’ll be the last GOP MOB for the next 100 years too.
The Glob had an op-ed the other day that said Glove should run for MOB. I got a loud laugh outta that!
It won’t help. I’ll still never understand that kind of thinking.
Smiling ouchie !
Touche, touche, touche !
Perhaps I should rephrase that..............
I'm quite sure it's not your fault, FRiend. There has been lots of "hiccupping" FR software over the past several weeks.
EVERY ping I get from every FReeper is in duplicate or triplicate now. It's ridiculous and very annoying.
Tue column ping
Deval may nix collectors, but he’ll still take your $
By Howie Carr | Tuesday, December 11, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo by Patrick Whittemore
Nice try, Gov. Patrick, but you got it exactly backward.
First we get rid of the tolls, then we fire the toll takers.
Eliminating all those nasty toll takers is a nice little Christmas stocking stuffer. Keyword: little. Kind of like a $5 gift certificate to, say, Ben & Jerry’s.
It’s a moral victory of sorts. But the toll money will still be extracted by the hundreds of millions of dollars from Pike drivers, 25 years after the tolls themselves were supposed to end.
The sad thing is, Local 127 has been keeping its nose clean lately. I mean, it’s been more than three years now since one of the International Brotherhood was charged with dismembering and cooking his cocaine dealer.
That case went into the annals of American labor history, along with Samuel L. Gompers and Joe Hill. Talk about a battle cry that will echo down through the ages: “The union grieves his unjust suspension for the criminal allegation of murder.”
Isn’t it great how so many of the Pike hacks now wear rubber gloves? They want to avoid being contaminated by... taxpayers.
Sure, I’ve had my problems with the Pike toll collectors over the years. One time the president of 127 claimed to have seen me spitting on the coins at the Allston tolls before handing them over to him. Does that make any sense? Why would I spit on my own hand when some of it would have probably ended up on my pants?
Actually, the tolls haven’t been nearly as much fun since they got rid of the exact-change baskets. Back then every trip through Allston was like buying a scratch ticket — you could always win, if the bucket had gotten stopped up and all the scaredy-cat drivers just continued throwing coins, and even bills, into the stuffed-up bucket.
Until I arrived on the scene. I would scoop out piles and piles of change and legal tender and toss it onto the front seat. I wasn’t greedy; I always left some for the next driver to steal. So now Deval wants “open road tolling.” Naturally no toll takers would be fired immediately, not even the handful who aren’t related to State House hacks. The changeover to this automated system would cost only $100 million.
What a bargain.
Have you ever gone through the Allston tolls at dawn on a Sunday morning? Most of the time, they have three booths open on each side. Count ’em, three. Good luck finding two booths open in either direction during rush hour. Democrats, Republicans, nothing ever changes.
The toll collectors may be on their way out, but not the tolls, and certainly not Local 127.
It’s the hackerama.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061181031
Tue column ping
Deval may nix collectors, but he’ll still take your $
By Howie Carr | Tuesday, December 11, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo by Patrick Whittemore
Nice try, Gov. Patrick, but you got it exactly backward.
First we get rid of the tolls, then we fire the toll takers.
Eliminating all those nasty toll takers is a nice little Christmas stocking stuffer. Keyword: little. Kind of like a $5 gift certificate to, say, Ben & Jerry’s.
It’s a moral victory of sorts. But the toll money will still be extracted by the hundreds of millions of dollars from Pike drivers, 25 years after the tolls themselves were supposed to end.
The sad thing is, Local 127 has been keeping its nose clean lately. I mean, it’s been more than three years now since one of the International Brotherhood was charged with dismembering and cooking his cocaine dealer.
That case went into the annals of American labor history, along with Samuel L. Gompers and Joe Hill. Talk about a battle cry that will echo down through the ages: “The union grieves his unjust suspension for the criminal allegation of murder.”
Isn’t it great how so many of the Pike hacks now wear rubber gloves? They want to avoid being contaminated by... taxpayers.
Sure, I’ve had my problems with the Pike toll collectors over the years. One time the president of 127 claimed to have seen me spitting on the coins at the Allston tolls before handing them over to him. Does that make any sense? Why would I spit on my own hand when some of it would have probably ended up on my pants?
Actually, the tolls haven’t been nearly as much fun since they got rid of the exact-change baskets. Back then every trip through Allston was like buying a scratch ticket — you could always win, if the bucket had gotten stopped up and all the scaredy-cat drivers just continued throwing coins, and even bills, into the stuffed-up bucket.
Until I arrived on the scene. I would scoop out piles and piles of change and legal tender and toss it onto the front seat. I wasn’t greedy; I always left some for the next driver to steal. So now Deval wants “open road tolling.” Naturally no toll takers would be fired immediately, not even the handful who aren’t related to State House hacks. The changeover to this automated system would cost only $100 million.
What a bargain.
Have you ever gone through the Allston tolls at dawn on a Sunday morning? Most of the time, they have three booths open on each side. Count ’em, three. Good luck finding two booths open in either direction during rush hour. Democrats, Republicans, nothing ever changes.
The toll collectors may be on their way out, but not the tolls, and certainly not Local 127.
It’s the hackerama.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061181031
bu-bye, Ray.
BTW,although I cannot understand the Warren selection by Americans, I must congratulate the Indian Maiden for being the first Masshole Pol to pretend to be something other than Irish. I include that fine broth of a lad, Deval Patrick, and that friendly Son of the Ould Sod Himself, John Kerry.
Wed column ping
Bobby Kennedy can’t tune out his delusions
He calls the media a right wing conspiracy, but ...
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, December 12, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo by Bloomberg
What planet is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. living on?
He was interviewed on the Internet last week by some squirrelly guy with what now seems to be the obligatory English accent. And so Kennedy, a convicted felon (heroin possession, 1983, South Dakota) pointed the finger at a new vast right-wing conspiracy:
“(It’s) the right wing control of the American media starting with Fox News. Ninety-five percent of talk radio in our country is right wing ... so a whole section of our country that’s what they’re hearing.”
You don’t say, Junior.
If you subtract Fox News from the TV mix, 100 percent of the television networks, cable and broadcast, are liberal. If you don’t include a handful of metro newspapers, including this one, the New York Post and the Washington Times, approximately 98 percent of the print press is liberal.
As for talk radio, Bobby, do you realize that most of the free speech that so offends you is on the AM band? AM, as in Ancient Modulation, as it’s called on the Internet. Only one-fifth of the population ever listens to AM anymore. The vast majority of people under the age of 30 are about as likely to listen to AM radio as they are to tune in to a shortwave broadcast.
AM radio is dying. Why do you think I’m so desperate to escape the AM band?
And yet ... despite its inferior, outdated technology, AM radio hangs on, with conservative talk its sole raison d’etre. When you’re driving, what’s the alternative — NPR? More snotty English accents delivering more slanted left-wing news.
Yet even with the media deck totally stacked in the moonbats’ favor, this spoiled Kennedy punk still isn’t happy. It’s so much easier to blame everything on Fox and talk radio.
“It’s divided our country in a way we haven’t been divided probably since the Civil War.”
You can understand why Kennedy — and other clowns like Joe Scarborough — hate talk radio so much. Remember what it — we — did to Bobby’s uncle Ted, replaying his references to “Sen. Osama bin — er, Obama.” And keeping Teddy on the air as he slurred his words, attacking the host for spewing “dribble” and being a tool of “Rudolph Murdoch.” And then there was his son Patches, who once said, “I myself have educated myself.”
The Kennedys have been very, very good to talk radio.
But Bobby has another problem. Like so many reformed junkies, he’s gotten religion. Unfortunately, the religion is green. These global-warming cultists have no tolerance for anyone else’s beliefs, the First Amendment be damned.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061181302
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