Joe Fitz: True Love’s Bond Is Stronger Than Ever

October 26, 2014

It’s a sweet story that Boston Herald columnist Joe Fitzgerald tells in his latest piece.

He remembers the first time he saw her.

He was far from his Roxbury roots, living in a small northeast community that reminded him of Mayberry RFD, trying to establish himself in a career that had always been his heart’s desire.

He was sitting at one end of the counter in a popular local eatery when, at the opposite end, he saw her emerge from the kitchen and engage a customer in friendly banter.

He asked the townie next to him, “Who is that?”

He was told she was a college junior, home for the summer, waitressing.

Call it magic. Call it an epiphany. All he can tell you today is that he was swept off his feet that night, enraptured by someone he had yet to meet.

When he shook her hand that first time he did not want to let it go. He was captivated, yet clear-headed enough to ask her for a date.

Nine months later she became his wife.

He was 21, she was 19, and their marriage would flourish for 46 years.

 

He, of course, is Fitzgerald himself. And he lost his great love two years ago yesterday.

But still won’t let go of her.

Friends tell him he needs to get out more, maybe ask a lady out to lunch. He knows they mean well.

But sometime today he’s going to stand before the heart-shaped stone that bears their names and tell that stunning waitress that he loves her more than ever.

 

God love ’em both.


Boston Herald ALS WTF (II)

August 23, 2014

As the headscractching staff noted earlier, the Boston Herald only got half the story when it zealously reported yesterday about the boycott of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge triggered by Jim Rigg, the superintendent of Catholic schools for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.

What the feisty local tabloid missed was the new Anti-ALS Association Ice Bucket Challenge that directs donations to the John Paul II Medical Research Institute in Iowa City, which does not use embryonic stem cells in its research (the ALS Association does).

So now to today’s Herald,  which devotes a full page to the ALS rumpus – a news report by Lindsay Kalter and a column by Joe Fitzgerald – and still no mention of the competing challenge.

 

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Hey, Heraldniks – do we need to come over there and write it for you? If so, you’ve really hit rock bottom.


Boston Herald Goes to Town on Ferguson Coverage

August 20, 2014

The local dailies occupy parallel universes today in their coverage of the ongoing violence/protest in Ferguson, Mo.

Yes, both have editorial cartoons mirroring the unrest in the wake of the Michael Brown shooting.

Boston Globe’s Dan Wasserman:

 

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Boston Herald’s Jerry Holbert.

 

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But beyond that, the papers couldn’t be more different in their opinion pieces.

Former homeland security official/gubernatorial candidate Juliette Kayyem’s op-ed in the Globe about the failures of the law enforcement community:

 

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Globe columnist Derrick Jackson’s piece on the failure of white Americans to, well, get it:

 

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Crosstown at the Herald, though, the failure all belongs to the media.

Call the roll.

Howie Carr:

 

 

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Joe Fitzgerald:

 

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Jonah Goldberg:

 

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One town, two different worlds, eh?


Boston Chinstrokerati Play Jared Remy Blame Game

May 28, 2014

From our One Town, Two Different Worlds desk

Today’s Boston dailies bury the needle on the Contrast-O-Meter in the assigning of blame phase of Jared Remy’s first-degree-murder trial. In the wake of Remy’s preemptive guilty plea, local columnists cast their gimlet eye on very different subjects. Start with Yvonne Abraham’s front page piece in the Boston Globe.

Rampager makes one more  attack on his victim

WOBURN — What a bizarre mix of contrition and blame-shifting we saw in Middlesex Superior Court Tuesday. What a spectacle of the depths to which people can sink. What a vividly detailed map of the wasteland brutality leaves behind.rathe_remy_met07a

Standing in that low-ceilinged, fluorescent lit courtroom, Jared Remy called Jennifer Martel, the woman he murdered with gruesome force at least partly witnessed by their 4-year-old daughter, “an angel.”

He’s the one at fault for killing her, he said. No share of the blame should go to his parents, who his lawyer said had been unfairly maligned, held partly responsible by some for not doing more to rein in a violent son who had been spiralling blatantly out of control for years.

 

Right – tell that to the Boston Herald, where columnists Margery Eagan and Joe Fitzgerald engage in a slapfight over Jared Remy’s father Jerry, whose career as a Red Sox sportscaster could be – some say should be – collateral damage in this tragic affair.

Count Eagan among the latter.

 ‘RemDawg’ benefits from a blatant double standard

Jared Remy has spared his daughter Arianna and Jennifer Martel’s family the anguish of a gruesome trial. He has also spared his father AN3V8624.JPGJerry and helped him keep his job behind the NESN microphone broadcasting Red Sox games.

Sox fans are clearly divided over whether the sins of the son should be visited upon the father. But they might feel differently about Jerry Remy’s lighthearted banter if they heard Martel’s murder described in stomach-churning testimony by neighbor Kristina Flickinger Hill.

 

And they’d definitely feel differently, Eagan writes, “if it were Phoebe Remy’s career on the line. If a mother spent thousands of days on the road while all three of her children were having run-ins with the law, they’d say she abandoned her children, cruelly and selfishly, when they needed her most. She’d also lose her job in a nanosecond.”

Fitzgerald, for his part, decries “armchair quarterbacks who have turned the misery of Jared’s parents into a merciless cottage industry.”

“What kind of parents were they?”

“Were they enablers, thus creators of the monster he became?”

“Should Jerry continue as a Red Sox broadcaster?”

It’s contemptible.

 

Actually, what’s contemptible, as Abraham points out, is Jared Remy’s explanation of the brutal murder.

“I always told Jen she could leave,” he said. “But do not threaten me with my child. That night, Jen had a knife in her hand and threatened me with my daughter, so I killed her. I don’t think it’s right when women use their kids against their fathers.”

It was chilling, appalling, this matter-of-fact assertion of cause and effect. His twisted invocations of his rights as a father — he mentioned it once on the stand and again in his statement — mocked all of the lofty talk of accepting responsibility that preceded it. Even as he sat in handcuffs and leg chains, admitting he had done something unspeakably awful, he was blaming his victim.

 

One town, three different worlds, no waiting.

 


Puppy Doe, Puppy Don’t

October 7, 2013

It’s a dog-et-dog world in the local dailies today, with both papers working the canine beat, well, doggedly.

Start with the Boston Herald’s Puppy Doe Jour piece, in this case Joe Fitzgerald’s column.

9/21/13- Laura Hankins dog, KiyaBarbarian who tortured Puppy Doe is among us

More than a month has passed since the pit bull dubbed Puppy Doe was found close to death in the shadows of a Quincy playground, having been dumped there by the barbarian who inflicted such savage abuse that authorities felt the only way to end her suffering was to terminate her life.

Her tongue had been split. Her joints had been pulled apart. She had been beaten and stabbed, and it appeared she hadn’t eaten in a long while.

A month is a long shelf life for most stories; all that can be said has been said, and eventually the public moves on.

Yet papers and talk shows continue to keep Puppy Doe’s story alive . . .

 

Most notably, he might have added, his own paper.  But that’s good, Fitzgerald says, “because the perpetrator still walks among us, 
capable of again performing the unspeakable acts of a very sick mind. ”

Crosstown, the Boston Globe reports on the brighter side of Pit Bull Nation.

Rising pit bull adoptions reflect breed’s changing image

On a summer evening at JFK/UMass Station, police say, a Quincy man robbed a person standing on the platform. The robber’s weapon? The pit bull tugging on his leash.

A few weeks later, Eric Coldwell walked onto the back porch of his Weymouth home and watched as his own 60-pound pit bull terrier, Maizy, tackled his 9-year-old son, Thomas — then slobbered kisses all over him. “If you didn’t know better,” Coldwell said as he watched the scene unfold, “you might have assumed the worst.”Picture 1

Those two incidents frame the question: Is the pit bull an animal to fear, or to love? That question, said Rob Halpin of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, “sums up the fight we’ve been in for years.”

If pet adoption rates are any indication, pit bulls have plenty of love to give. Pit bull adoptions are climbing statewide and, in the biggest surprise, extending into the suburbs.

 

The Globe piece, which has a Puppy Doe Index of 1.0  2.0 [we missed Jennifer Graham’s op-ed piece], spends about half its time chronicling horror stories about pit bulls, culminating with this fun fact to know and tell:

 [A] 2009 dog bite study in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery found that over a five-year period in Philadelphia, 51 percent of dog attacks were carried out by pit bulls, 9 percent by Rottweilers, and 6 percent by mixes of pit bulls and Rottweilers.

 

But others, such as animal epidemiologist Gary Patronek,  make the opposite argument. “I’ve simply seen no evidence over the years that pit bulls are any more of a risk than any other breed,” he told the Globe. “In fact, what I’ve found is that the risk rests almost entirely in environmental factors like a dog’s surroundings and how it’s treated by its owners.”

Cue the happy pit bull owners who just want a little love for their pups.

Absolutely. As long as we can do it from across the street.

(Special K-9 bonus: This Globe Page One Metro piece about new regulations that would “ban the adoption of animals with contagious diseases or serious aggressive tendencies.” And so we’ve come full circle.)

 


Local Dailies Go for Hot-Button Hat Tricks

July 10, 2013

The Boston papers play Page One Derby today, with both trumpeting a trio of crime stories.

Boston Globe, front page above the fold:

 

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Boston Herald Page One:

 

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The WhiteyWorld nod goes to the Globe for its bleep you play-by-play. The Herald has a slight edge in the other two headline treatments, although neither is  the feisty local tabloid’s best work.

But while the two dailies load up Page One with all things criminal, Herald graybeard Joe Fitzgerald issues a word of caution:

Boston Marathion ExplosionsHorrific cases threaten to desensitize us

Move over, Whitey and Aaron, and make room for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old kid accused, with his late brother Tamerlan, of the Boston Marathon bombings and their aftermath that wantonly killed four and wounded 260.

Have we ever witnessed such a time when three barbaric cases, totally independent of one another, concurrently competed for our rapt attention?

 

But, Joe Fitz adds, “[r]evulsion gives way to obsession, and infamy grabs our attention as if it possessed a star power of its own.” He points to the Hernandez and Tsarnaev groupies on social media, along with Bulger’s longtime image as the Robbin’ Hood of South Boston.

Don’t expect The Big Rumpus to quiet down anytime soon. Page One Derby doesn’t allow for it.

 


Globe Floods the Zone with Hernandez Coverage

June 22, 2013

Both local dailies are on the Aaron Hernandez whodunit like Brown on Williamson. The Boston Herald devotes half its front page to it:

 

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Inside are double-barreled columns from Ron Borges and Joe Fitzgerald (the latter a Never Mind to a piece Joe Fitz wrote about what a great guy Hernandez was upon his arrival at Gillette Stadium.

 

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There’s also an editorial expressing the appropriate level of outrage (and actually quotes the Boston Globe and agrees with it – stop the presses!).

Meanwhile, today’s Globe also devotes half of Page One to L’Affaire Hernandez:

 

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But it’s what’s inside that elevates the Globe coverage to obsessive levels.

Here’s how they list the reporting of the main story:

 

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They had someone down in Hernandez’s hometown of Bristol, CT talking to his high school friends, and they sent Brian MacQuarrie to Florida to report on a shooting last winter that allegedly involved Hernandez.

And the best part of the Globe’s coverage is this Page One subhede: “Hernandez is largely out of view as rumors outdistance real news.”

Can’t wait for real news to catch up.


A Tale of Two Columnists (Jason Collins Edition)

May 1, 2013

Joe Fitzgerald plays yin to Adrian Walker’s yang in the local dailies today regarding Jason Collins’ coming-out party. Here’s how Walker starts out his Boston Globe column:

Jason Collins’ quiet facilitator

When Jason Collins got in touch with his friend US Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III a few weeks ago, Kennedy had little idea what he wanted to talk about.

The former Stanford roommates agreed to meet in person, before the Marathon bombing upended Kennedy’s schedule. When they finally caught up by phone, Collins had major news: He was gay, and he was going to become a trailblazer, by becoming the first active major-sport American athlete to come out.

Kennedy told him, “This has been a long week, but you just put a smile on my face,’’ the congressman recalled in a telephone inter view.

 

Later in the piece, Joe K 3.0 says “Jason is a great guy and a great friend . . . He is someone I’ve literally and figuratively looked up to. He’s a historical figure now, but he’s still the same great friend I know.”

Crosstown at the Boston Herald, Joe Fitzgerald isn’t so impressed:

STON3693.JPGJason Collins isn’t courageous; just trendy

In telling the world of his sexuality through a cover story in Sports Illustrated, a now openly gay NBA journeyman named Jason Collins is being hailed as courageous and heroic, two weeks after we saw what those words really mean here on the streets of Boston.

Courageous? Heroic? Please.

 

Later in the piece, Joe Fitz elaborates:

Collins took no risk at all, knowing he’d be the darling of the media, indeed the personification of political correctness. He now has the admiration and affection of multitudes who didn’t know his name two days ago.

That’s heroic? No. Honest? OK. So he’s honest.

But, let’s get real: Being gay in 2013 is no more daring than being a Rotarian.

 

Yeah, maybe. In Boston. But get back to us after Collins has finished his next road trip.


Hark! The Herald . . . Ignores Itself! (Wingo Square Edition)

April 8, 2013

Some of the Boston Herald staffers got together yesterday at the feisty local tabloid’s former South End headquarters to kiss the old dump goodbye. It’s slated for the wrecking ball this week, so about 30 current and former staffers gathered and reminisced at what was once known as Wingo Square, named after the incessant numbers games the Herald ran back in the ’80s to goose circulation.

Surprisingly, today’s Herald has no story about the reunion. But crosstown rival Boston Globe does.

07heraldphotos03Boston Herald veterans salute building’s passing

The old Boston Herald headquarters in the South End will stand for just a few more days, but memories of the colorful characters and feisty spirit that filled the squat brick building on Harrison Avenue for five decades will have a much longer shelf life.

That was the message from about 30 former Herald staffers who met across the street from the building on Sunday afternoon to reminisce before demolition begins on Friday to make way for an apartment and retail development called the Ink Block .

“The esprit de corps here was extraordinary,” said David Weber, a Herald reporter for 17 years who left in 2005. “We were a powerful underdog. That’s the way we felt.”

 

That seems to be the way Heraldniks still feel, except in a nicer building.

Regardless, the Globe reports that “[a] formal farewell is planned for Thursday, when speakers, including Herald columnist Joe Fitzgerald, will pay tribute to the site.” Hard to believe the Herald won’t cover that one.

Tip o’ the pixel to Dan Kennedy’s Facebook post.


Herald’s Joe Fitz Kisses Phoenix Goodbye

March 18, 2013

From our Late to the (Going Away) Party desk

Last week the Boston Phoenix got its front-page Ave atque Vale from the Boston Globe’s Joseph P. Kahn. (It also got a mournful editorial and this spiffy op-ed by ex-intern Joe Keohane, among other coverage.)

The Boston Herald? A whopping five paragraphs.

Until Saturday, that is. And from the unlikeliest of sources: Columnist Joe Fitzgerald, who notes the anomaly straight off.

DSC_8269.JPGWhen a newspaper dies, we all lose

You can add this column to the list of mourners now grieving the passing of the Boston Phoenix, even though its publisher, Steve Mindich, made no bones about his disdain for this writer.

The feeling was mutual, but that’s not what this is about.

It’s bigger than that.

You may question the objectivity of this observation, considering its biased source, but nothing serves a community the way a newspaper does.

It’s informative, annoying, provocative and vigilant, constantly stirring the pot of civic awareness, constantly poking at apathy, or at least that’s what it’s supposed to do, and the Phoenix did it well.

 

Fitzgerald adds that the Phoenix was also radical, rude, and impertinent, not to mention prone to “push[ing] the boundaries of good taste.”

Of course, leave off the “radical” and you have a pretty good description of the Herald as well. Not to get technical about it.

Regardless, it was good of Fitzgerald to send the Phoenix off.