Posted on 08/01/2009 8:35:38 PM PDT by raccoonradio
Howie thread for the week; I will post his Sunday Herald column when it goes up on the Herald site
Stay tuned for Howie’s column which I will post once it goes up online...I will be here all next week incl. Sat. but will be gone from Sun 8/9 thru Fri 8/14 or so. GQuagmire will run the ping during that time (and thank you).
btw the URL to find the Howie ping list in case anyone is
curious:
http://raccoonradio.freehostia.com/howieping.html
hmm, still no Howie column on Herald site—day off for him?
here it is, sorry for delay
Tom Menino *licks* to continue his *ong* reign
By Howie Carr | Sunday, August 2, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Mumbles Menino, your mayor for life, is on the campaign trail from dawn to dusk. Everything depends on his re-election in the fall - his own $175,000-a-year salary, not to mention the six-figure city jobs of his son, daughter-in-law and God only knows how many worthless, unemployable, getting-ready-to-go-out-on-disability hacks.
As we join Mumbles this morning, let’s begin with a word-association game. I say a name, Mumbles, and you tell me the first disease that pops into your, uh, mind.
The name is Justin Barrett, the BPD officer suspended last week after his “banana-eating jungle monkey” e-mail. I “ax” you, as Barrett put it, to name the disease you associate with Officer Barrett.
“It’s like a cancer,” Mumbles said last week. “You don’t keep the cancer around. Get rid of the cancer right away because the cancer is, uh, could cause other cancers.”
What was that disease again, Mumbles?
“I just say that we want to rid our, our department, the police department, of that cancer, and that’s what we did, rid the department of the cancer and, uh, I know a lot of police officers, most all the police officers I know don’t condone any of that information.”
Can we quote you on that?
Another recurring theme in Mumbles’ campaign this year is his desire to extract more money from the city’s “nonprofits,” i.e., colleges. That cheeseburger tax that kicks in Oct. 1 will not be enough to keep the hackerama humming in a fifth term.
As for the city’s universities, as Mumbles put it recently, “They’ve had a free ride for too ong.”
Not for too long, for too ong. But never fear, your mayor for life is always assessing how well the universities are delivering for Mumbles and his pals.
“I look at scholarships for kids, opportunities for the city, how they use their staff to help us, do some projects in our city. I lick the whole range of things.”
And who better to lick the whole range of things than Mumbles Menino?
Crime, a perennial problem in the city. But once again, Mumbles is licking a whole range of things.
“We had to do something about that and we’re trying to do that in one of our neighborhoods. We’re take a 10-block area and put a VIP program - violence intervention, uh, team, in there, uh, uh, violence intervention program in those neighborhoods where people are out knockin’ on doors, talkin’ to people, sittin’ in their kitchens, see what they need for help and we’re gonna help those neighborhoods. Those 10 neighborhoods’ crime is down and it was very valuable to us.”
And “it” must be working, right? No 12-year-old girls have been shot in Dorchester by gangbangers with AK-47s for almost a week now.
It’s not all doom and gloom as Mumbles stumps for a fifth term. The other day, he was on a TV news show getting needled about the perennial confusion in Charlestown between Breeds Hill and Bunker Hill.
“Oh?” Mumbles said. “Bunker Hill Memorial’s on Breeda Hill? I mean, what do you want? I mean, a - I didn’t do that. Somebody else did. I get blamed for enough things around here.”
Some say Mumbles has been mayor for far too ong, I mean long. But you tell me, who’s gonna lick him?
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1188551
As I understand it colleges and universities make "payments in lieu of taxes" to the city/town in which they're located. I was also told (by a friend in grad school with connections to a local college) that if they should actually need, say, the fire department, they're billed for it . . .
Now if Menino could come up with a way to grab "payments in lieu of taxes" (or whatever name would suit!) from all those state and federal buildings in Boston soaking up valuable real estate, well, then he might have something! ;-)
Howie is mentioning the death of Rev Ike now. Yup I’d heard of him and Howie has mentioned how he used to say “don’t get your pie in the sky, by and by—get it now”
A charlatan? How dare they!—Howie
from Wikipedia entry on Rev Ike:
>>He was best known for the slogan “You can’t lose with the stuff I use!”
I’ve heard this pop up in blues and soul lyrics (only it’s “I can’t lose”)
.>Ike also made a guest appearance on Hank Williams, Jr.’s late 1986 single “Mind Your Own Business,” which was a Number One country hit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverend_Ike
I worked for an Edison spin off, some of our Southie/DOT types went to work for the Universities Down Town. Several of them begged to come back, no more liquid lunches at Meatballs, have to show up every day, with the pee in a bottle requirement coke usage went down, most of them had a significant weight loss.
Special Tue column ping
Nonprofit fits no-profit Globe
By Howie Carr | Tuesday, August 4, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought The Boston Globe already was a nonprofit newspaper.
The bow-tied bumkissers lost $50 million last year and, until the recent cuts agreed to by their dainty, precious, hissy-fit-throwing little guild, they were on target to drop another $85 million in 2009.
That’s not nonprofit, that’s NON-profit.
Actually, I suspect producing a newspaper so clearly on the back nine of history is just the way most of the sheet’s blow-in drifters from New York prefer it. Producing a real newspaper with “news” in it would be just so . . . tiresome. Better to just lounge around the office and wing it, the way they did Sunday afternoon when they posted a story on their Web site about a double homicide outside a bar in Dorchester near “Columbia Boulevard.”
Surely they meant to say Columbia Road? Maybe all those guys in the newsroom in their Yankee caps ought to keep at least one person around who knows his way around Columbia Boulevard, I mean Columbia Road.
The nonprofit Boston Globe. What would Uncle Dudley say?
Personally, I think it’s a marvelous idea, having rich businessmen subsidize what remains of the Boston establishment’s parrot. I’m sure they can round up a few more marks because what’s not to like about the concept? You throw some money into the pot, and all of a sudden, you get taken care of in the paper, like your name was Kennedy or Barney Frank. No more exposes, only puff pieces.
Think of it as an insurance policy. Ask John Kerry and Deval Patrick how it’s worked out for them.
They used to call this sort of thing a “protection racket.” Now it’ll be a “nonprofit.”
Already, two would-be saviors are stepping forward, and can you say, “A fool and his money are soon parted”? For starters we have Steve Pagliuca - and how ’bout them Celtics? And who says Bain is going to lose its shirt in the Clear Channel deal?
Then there’s Jack Connors, and boy, is that Partners Healthcare a swell company or what?
Yes sir, Mr. Connors, we’ll fire the Spotlight Team - what’s left of it, that is.
But when you’re bleeding more than a million bucks a week, the Globe will need more suckers, I mean investors. I’d like to nominate John Fish - and lay off Mumbles’ kid, would you? How about Joe O’Donnell, and by the way, what’s with this Puritan obsession about carding everyone who wants to have a simple glass of beer at a ballgame?
The problem for the Globe is, they’re already in the satchel for most of the Beautiful People in this city, the ones who are legends in their own minds. Fawning is the Globe’s perennial fallback position - just ask anybody in the congressional delegation, or the mayor, or the Red Sox, or the Patriots.
The nonprofit Boston Globe. It’ll do boffo box office - on Columbia Boulevard.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1188906
Columbia Boulevard, that’s priceless, Globe = NON profit and CLUELESS.
Fawning over liberals is sooooo yesterday.
Newspapers’ “teacher’s pets” don’t work. For the sake of credibility drop Clinton knee pad dreams, Obama Luv, and dem fawning. It’s tacky.
Run pictures that tell a story that’s not “your” story...
Piling on someone - like Sarah Palin - because you “don’t like her” is unseemly. Post a sigh in the newsroom that says, “Grown ups work here”. Look at it daily.
Keep the print readable - newspaper readers are older - if the paper’s good, the young will grow into it... if it’s not you’ll never get them anyhow.
Explore new technology - Bill Gates can design a down-loadable flat sheet - don’t fight technology - bend it to your needs.
A newspaper is not a stage for “art-teests” to prance upon - it’s a medium to bring USEFUL information to readers.
Readers interaction with your company happens most often at the circulation level - monitor that department with your life...
Make cartoons larger.
Vanity circulation hurts people who buy ads. Don’t give into it. Offer value and give value.
Reporters and editors should be fired if they make up quotes or accept gifts. No exceptions.
Mix in the best national columnists - again - the paper’s not a stage for local talent - it’s a vehicle for disbursing quality useful information.
Real diversity: Add writers and editors who understand math and science - they have a different and important perspective - hire a good rewrite man to clean up their writing.
(Ever read instructions written by engineers? - almost as bad as “science news” written by “writers”...
Add conservatives for diversity of thought and for the 50% of readers who are conservative.
Man bites dog might be fun to write - but it’s freak show stuff. A little goes a long way. When people say they want “good news” what they mean is news that illuminates and explains their community and world.
Please consider for those of us think breakfast is coffee and a newspaper ...
btw the latest is that the Globe-Democrat, as Michael Graham of WTKK calls them, has finally ended its war with WEEI—
a mere 9 days before the AM sports talk station suddenly gets competition from CBS on the FM dial (the new WBZ-FM 98.5).
Suddenly the bowtied bumkisser sportswriters can now be on
WEEI again (the guys just down the hall from WRKO...you know, the guys who were ogling Jody Applegate a couple wks back.)
Apparently the guy-talk humor on ‘EEI was too much for
the Brattle St. Alert...
I would add: stop the deification of Ted Kennedy.
Good point - the MSM does that to every Kennedy - child of a Kennedy - ex-wives etc etc. Boring.
Wed column ping
Hey hacks, this drunk’s for you
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, August 5, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
What was six-time drunken-driving loser Jason Wetteland doing up in Amesbury on the very night the state imposed a brand-new 6.25 percent sales tax on alcohol?
He’s from Charlton, in Worcester County. That’s where he’s always been bagged in the bag, beginning in 1988 when he was 18 - in North Brookfield, Dudley, Southbridge, Spencer (twice) and Charlton.
But suddenly, the career tosspot is up near the New Hampshire line, a bottle of Mr. Boston blackberry brandy between his legs, a half-full 12-pack of Bud Light beside him.
I guess Wetteland didn’t get the news. Drinking doubles don’t make a party.
With 11 collars, he’s been arrested for OUI eight more times than the Registrar of Motor Vehicles’ ex-husband. He’s been lugged more times than state Reps. Kujawski and Dempsey and Sen. Galluccio combined!
I don’t know what Wetteland does or did for a living, but he ought to think about running for the Legislature. Or maybe applying for a state judgeship.
Mr. Wetbrain, I mean Wetteland, is unavailable for comment, being locked up until his dangerousness hearing in two weeks. A call yesterday to his lawyer went unreturned, so I can’t tell you if he’d been in New Hampshire trying to beat the Legislature’s latest tax increase, on booze. I’d also like to know how big a bottle of blackberry brandy he was swigging from - the old rule of thumb is, the smaller the bottle, the greater the thirst.
We also don’t know who owns the vehicle he was driving, or whether the vehicle is insured.
Not having a driver’s license doesn’t stop anybody from driving, and Wetteland hasn’t had a valid driver’s license since 2003 - after he got busted for DUI in Connecticut. Do you begin to detect a pattern here? He’s lucky he didn’t get charged with impersonating an illegal alien.
According to the police report, when the cop arrested Wetteland Saturday night, the officer asked him if he thought driving drunk was funny. “I’ve been doing this all along,” Wetteland replied. “This is what I do.”
Granted, the Legislature has fitfully tried to toughen the drunken-driving laws - wink, wink. But looking at Wetteland’s record you see how absurdly lenient the state has been. After his first two OUI convictions, in 1988, his license was suspended for two years. But the next year, 1989, he was convicted of drunken-driving twice more, and apparently his additional sentences were concurrent.
Concurrent? He doesn’t have a license, but he drives drunk, and when he’s convicted, they tell him . . . you still can’t drive? Huh?
The spokesman for the RMV says, “He cannot get his license back. No hardship, no ignition interlock device - nothing.”
And that’s going to stop Wetbrain how long?
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1189164
Remember the pumpkin man?
(Use “Entering Dennis” joke here. Do you know the
Pumpkin Man, the Pumpkin Man, the Pumpkin Man.
Do you know the Pumpkin Man, who lives in Dennis Mass.?)
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090805/NEWS/908050323
>>DENNIS — Two years after being released from a New Hampshire prison and moving to Dennis, a convicted sex offender known as the “Pumpkin Man” has been classified a Level 3 sex offender by the state of Massachusetts.
The Dennis Police Department is circulating the photograph and home address of David O. Cobb, 73, to media outlets, schools and libraries, although the former prep school teacher is protesting his inclusion among the highest risk group of sex offenders.
>>Cobb became known as the “Pumpkin Man” after being arrested in August 1995 and accused of trying to lure a 12-year-old boy into the woods near his Farmington, N.H., summer home.
Although the Cape Cod Times wrote about his move to Dennis in the summer of 2007, it took two years for the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board to classify Cobb as a Level 3 sex offender, which allowed the police to release his photograph and address this week.
>>Associated Press reports say Cobb, who at the time was a teacher at the prestigious Phillips Academy in Andover, was carrying a knapsack with children’s underwear, a pumpkin mask, hundreds of pornographic images, and a list of payments for “helping pumpkin” perform sexual acts.
(Cobb thinks this is an outrage! He’s innocent!)
>>”I didn’t do it but I pled guilty to it,” said Cobb, adding that he was depressed and the children had been bribed.
Further on:
>>Cobb tried arguing in court that his pictures, most of which were made by pasting children’s faces from clothing catalogues onto images of naked bodies from adult magazines, were works of collage art protected under the First Amendment...But some photos showed actual naked children, according to The Associated Press.
special Thu column ping
PRIM and improper as usual in hack haven
By Howie Carr | Thursday, August 6, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Charlie Baker and the Republicans have been trying to figure out how to cut state Treasurer Tim Cahill down to size so he can’t run for governor as an independent.
I think this morning we’ve given the GOP Exhibit A against Cahill - the payroll of Cahill’s Pension Reserves Investment Management board. It’s Cahill’s baby, and of the 24 people on it, 13 make between $100,000 and $322,000.
Which wouldn’t be quite so outrageous if the PRIM board last year didn’t lose $12.8 billion - 23.6 percent of the state’s investment portfolio. Bill Veeck, the old-time baseball executive, used to say that it wasn’t the high cost of talent killing the game, it was the high cost of mediocrity.
In the case of PRIM, at this point we’d all settle for some mediocrity, because it’s the high cost of utter incompetence that’s killing the pension fund.
The job descriptions of eight PRIM employees contain the word “senior.” None contain the word “junior,” for obvious reasons. A senior fill-in-the-blank always get paid more money than the junior.
Anyway, now we have this document dump, this payroll-palooza to deal with, and once again, I implore you, the readers, to help us out. Drop a dime. If you work for one of these agencies, and have been frustrated by the sloth and lethargy (not to mention the six-figure salaries) of your better-connected layabout hack bosses, now is your opportunity for revenge.
In the Dreaded Private Sector, it’s been a killing ground the last couple of years. In the hackerama, nothing . . . has . . . changed. Excuse me, one thing has changed - they’re all making more dough.
One exception, and I need to find out today what’s up. Vicki Mucci, the girlfriend of House Speaker Bob DeLeo, is a secretary at the MWRA’s Deer Island treatment plant. I see her recorded as having an annual salary of $47,151.11, and yet her 2008 MWRA earnings are listed as $21,823.19.
Let’s look at Massport. In 2001, after 9/11, the Herald obtained a Massport payroll. Yesterday, I compared the two payrolls, and guess what - all the same old same olds are still in action (or is it inaction?) at the same old stand.
As you know, the boss of the PRIM board is Mike Travaglini, who makes $322,000 a year (before bonuses). His brother used to be the president of the Senate, Bobby Trav, and they’re from Eastie, home of Logan airport, which is run by Massport.
In 2001, I wrote about how a woman named Pauline Sulprizio worked in Trav’s State House office, while her husband, Steve, had a job at Massport paying $71,603. Steve is still at Massport, only now he makes $105,207.
Pauline was replaced in Trav’s office by Karen Buttiglieri, whose brother-in-law is named John. In 2001, John made $52,624 at Massport. Now he’s up to $75,784.65 a year. Did I mention that John’s father, Sonny, used to employ Bobby Trav as a precinct captain in Mayor White’s Ward 1 machine?
Oh, and guess what - in 2009, there’s another Buttiglieri on the Massport payroll. Caroline Buttiglieri, a “public service rep,” makes $41,809. Say, you don’t suppose . . .
Diane Modica used to be the city councilor from Eastie after Trav moved to the Senate. Her cousin Mike was making $52,604 in 2001. Now he’s up to $80,732. Eight years ago, I wrote about a Massport hack couple - Lenore Filipe and Lou Hinckley. At the time, their combined salaries were $204,509 a year.
Now Mr. and Mrs. Hinckley are grabbing a total of $254,657.69 a year. And behind that comes the pensions.
How many people in the DPS get pay raises these days? Damn few. Yet the hacks just keep collecting. Jim Rooney is the boss of the Mass. Convention Center Authority. Nine months ago, we wrote about his brother Joe, who after a nationwide search was hired at the MCCA while his brother was acting executive director. Last December Joe made $70,609. Now he’s up to $72,113.
Okay, that’s not a PRIM-board number, but still, it beats the 8 percent pay cut the bowtied bumkissers on Morrissey Boulevard just had to swallow. Then there’s Mike Kineavy, Mumbles Menino’s $141,000-a-year hack coatholder at City Hall. His aged mom Ann was listed last year as making $2,208 at the MCCA. This year they’ve got her “projected” pay as $22,880. What recession?
You know how the pols running against incumbents always ask the question: “Are you better or worse off than you were X number of years ago?”
To which the hackerama can answer, truthfully, with a resounding “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
The hacks are following the teachings of the late Rev. Ike: “Don’t wait for pie in the sky by and by when you die. Get yours now, with ice cream on top!”
Now it’s your turn. You can bust ’em. Drop us a dime, and we’ll handle the rest.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1189451
So what are your thoughts about “Conservative Tours,” run by our old favorite, Ed Chase? Sounds pretty fruity to me. I wonder if they are paying for the ads or if they have some deal where they have comped Howie and family in return for free advertising?
Free trips for Howie! yeah...
Update on the woman who ran down the 4 yr old in Stoughton
A Canton octogenarian who killed her husband in a 1992 car crash was today sentenced to just six years’ probation and a $200 fine for taking the life of a 4-year-old Stoughton girl in another accident this summer.
“I feel guilty because it was my car who hit this girl. It’s a terrible tragedy,” Ilse Horn, who turns 89 Sunday, told Norfolk Superior Court Judge Paul Chernoff at this afternoon’s change-of-plea hearing in Dedham.
Horn, a German Jew whose mother committed suicide after the family escaped the Holocaust, pleaded guilty to motor vehicle homicide and is forbidden to drive or even own a car.
Diya Patel was pushing a scooter in a crosswalk on Route 138 in Stoughton June 13 with her grandfather and two siblings trailing behind when Horn ran her down without even attempting to brake her Toyota Camry.
The petite white-haired woman, today wearing gold earrings and a lime-green blazer, never told Chernoff she was sorry, but testified, “I was so perplexed by what happened. I wasn’t even aware that I hit anyone. I heard a thud.”
Horn’s attorney Michael Galvin insisted his client is sorry and “she regretted this and she was very apologetic.”
Diya’s family did not attend today’s court proceeding.
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