Herald Hits Tsarnaev Trifecta

December 17, 2013

The hardworking staff predicted, the feisty local tabloid delivered.

After yesterday’s buckshot, today’s Boston Herald aimed its big guns at the stately local broadsheet’s Pulitzer-seeking takeout, The Fall of the House of Tsarnaev.

Start with Yin ‘n’ Yang Twins (we know – it doesn’t make sense, does it?) Howie Carr and Margery Eagan.

Carr’s drive-by:

OH, BROTHER! WHAT A DOOZY

Globe pens ‘Joker’ of a tale on suspects

The Boston Globe is 
going for a Pulitzer Prize — in Political Correctness.

And if some other 
money-hemorrhaging broadsheet does manage to out-moonbat the Globe, well, there’s always the consolation prize — the Profiles in Courage award, for being courageous enough to take the wrong, but fashionable, position.

The Globe’s take: the Tsarnaevs are “homegrown” terrorists. Yes, they were. Their home was a Third World backwater overrun with savages like themselves — Muslim terrorists.

 

Nuts graf:

The headline was “The Fall of the House of Tsarnaev,” although a more 
accurate title might have been “The Fall of the 
Sect. 8 Apartment of Tsarnaev.”

Welfare, though, is one of the parts of the family’s U.S. history that the Globe just sort of skates over, only once mentioning their Temporary Aid to Needy 041513blastaftermath3Families, welfare that is disbursed in, you guessed it, EBT cards.

“Even with that,” the Globe mourns, “money was in short supply.”

Perhaps they could have … worked? But why should they have? By God, these foreign freeloaders were victims.

 

And etc.

Right below Carr’s piece, Eagan checks in with this:

Paper’s report sheds some light on darkest hour

If it makes you feel better, call this Boston Globe report pandering to liberals and making excuses for terrorists. Tell yourself, “If 
we only ditch the PC 
and get tough on radical Muslims,” these attacks will stop.

But you’d be deluding yourself. And some of us would like to know why the Tsarnaev brothers did what they allegedly did.

The Globe did provide details on Tamerlan, 
always the easier to explain. His increasing alienation, anger, religious radicalism. Trolling Jihadist websites. Ditching his snazzy silver boots and fur hat for a Muslim prayer cap. Raging at fellow Muslims for such outrages as celebrating Thanksgiving.

 

No easy explanation of Dzhokhar, Eagan writes, but the Globe report “did cast doubt on an 
expected defense strategy: that he was the dupe of his big brother.”

For the tiebreaker, we go to the Herald’s editorial page and find this beauty:

Those of us who know the cost of newsprint and reporting and artists to draw portraits of the imagined world of the Tsarnaev clan can only express dismay at this shocking waste of resources and its often fawning portrayal of two terrorists — “Jahar’s soft features and mop of hair,” the report card that remarked on his “heart of gold” and Tamerlan, the “gifted athlete” who was “flamboyant, occasionally doing handstands and cartwheels in the [boxing] ring.”

The media spotlight is a powerful thing. There was a time when the Globe used it wisely to ferret out public corruption, not to write tone poems to terrorists.

 

Feisty local tabloid indeed. And 100% irony deficient.


All Helle Breaks Loose at Boston Herald

December 12, 2013

Our selfie-obsessed local tabloid is back at it again today, as if yesterday’s examination of Barack Obama’s shutterbug diplomacy at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service wasn’t enough.

Today’s Page One:

 

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From there readers got the usual left-right punches from Margery Eagan and Howie Carr, along with a thumbnail sketch of Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the dame who started the whole rumpus. Topping it all off: a piece that featured the local chinstrokerati tsk-tsking that Obama should have known better.

Uh-huh.

Crosstown rival Boston Globe has been more selfie-possessed: The stately local broadsheet ran a New York Times wire story yesterday and has pretty much given the Great Dane the air.

But cruise down I-95 to the Big Town, and the New York Post more than makes up for the Globe’s selfie-restraint.

 

NY_NYP8

 

Post firebrand Andrea Peyser really unloads on Obama’s merry memorial. We’ll skip right to the climactic conclusion:

Thorning-Schmidt attempted to laugh off the whole thing, saying, “It was not inappropriate.’’ Not inappropriate?SAFRICA-MANDELA-MEMORIAL

Pairing a black suit and blue tie is not inappropriate. Giving your wife grounds for divorce might be seen as otherwise.

But people won’t soon forget the escapades of the people whose salaries they pay.

President Obama has some ’splaining to do. To the woman he married. To his daughters. To the people of South Africa. And to the scandalized folks here at home.

He owes the world an apology.

 

Wow. Talk about selfie-righteous, eh?


Herald Goes to Town on People’s Republic of Brookline

December 10, 2013

This is mother’s milk to the feisty local tabloid.

 

Picture 6

 

(Well, processed mother’s milk, actually – this issue surfaced last month, as a quick scan of the Googletron reveals.)

Regardless, Margery Eagan’s column puts the rumpus back in play in a most Heraldish way.

Battle Brews in Brookline

Town eyes school change on Boston border

 

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Welcome to Brookline, my adopted hometown.

It’s a sanctuary city for 
illegal immigrants. It’s where Town Meeting OK’d non-citizens voting in local elections, put the kibosh on spanking and banned plastic bags and Styrofoam. We’re right-thinking and compassionate in Brookline — unless you live too close to Boston.

If you own a condo or home or rent an apartment that straddles the Brookline/Boston line — sorry, the Kumbayas are out the window. It’s get outta town and don’t try sending your kids to our schools.

 

Yeah, that sanctuary thing comes up every time. But there’s a lot at stake here: the value of the “straddling” homes, the education of kids too young to be in school now (straddler kids can stay in Brookline schools, but no more will get in), the example Brookline’s actions  could set for other towns struggling with school overcrowding. (There are more details in this Herald report.)

What’s the solution?

As a longtime Brookline resident and one of 17 home subscribers to the Boston Herald, the hardreading staff believes it has standing to offer this modest proposal:

Keep everything the way it is now, but when the owners go to sell the “straddling” homes, they can only sell to buyers 65 years of age or older.

Think of it as a two-way Grandfather Clause.

Brookline Town Fath- . . . er, Mothers: Are you listening?


Boston Dailies Play Wedding Bell Walsh

November 7, 2013

Now that Marty Walsh is mayor-elect of Boston, what does that make his longtime girlfriend Lorrie Higgins?

Galpal-in-waiting?

Whatever the label, both local dailies popped the question today: Is there a Boston City Hall wedding in our future?

First, Stephanie Ebbert’s Page One Boston Globe piece.

Eyes turn anew to woman who has long been at his side

marty6-15897

The newly elected mayor of Boston had just shouted out his thanks, calling Lorrie Higgins “the love of my life and my best friend” in his victory speech.

She was right beside him onstage — as she has been for the past eight years, and is expected to be when he takes over City Hall.

“Eight years, she’s been at Thanksgiving, at Christmas,” said Martin J. Walsh’s first cousin, Joe O’Malley. “When [Marty’s father] passed away, she was the rock. She might as well be the next first lady.”

But will she be?

 

Ebbert got the brush-off when she tried to interview Higgins. “[A] campaign spokeswoman took offense at the Globe’s efforts to interview friends and coworkers for a profile about Higgins. ‘Stop harassing Lorrie,’ Kate Norton, spokeswoman for the campaign, demanded of the Globe. The request, she said, was coming directly from the mayor-elect. ‘His family is off limits,’ she said.”

Uh-huh. Until it’s not.

Margery Eagan had a slightly different take in her Boston Herald column.

Marty Walsh can get to ‘yes,’ but what about ‘I do’?

TED_2480.jpg

We heard Marty Walsh say it over and over. When it comes to tough union negotiations, “I know how to get to yes.”

My question: When is the man who gets everyone else to “yes” going to get his longtime girlfriend there?

Can he really “get to yes” with cops and firefighters when he can’t “get to yes” with the lovely Lorrie Higgins? I hear he’s asked her to marry him maybe a half-dozen times. She’s still not at the bargaining table.

She remains: Ms. Not Just Yet.

Should city taxpayers be concerned?

 

Not surprisingly, the Herald commentariat had a few questions of its own.

margie the “progressive” that wants lesbian priests and dogs marrying cats is hung up on a heterosexual monogamous relationship without marraige. Now that’s wierd! When did margie turn into an ultra-social-conservative?

 

Marge, “What difference does it make now?”

 

Is this the inside Track?

 

Comments in the Boston Globe were, for the most part, slightly more measured.

Note to Ms. Ebbert:  Next time your editor assigns you to write a story like this (I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you were told to write it) either: a) refuse; b) find a less demeaning angle (demeaning to you I mean).  Two 40 something adults are entitled to their private lives, and I, for one, admire their desire to keep theirs private.  I suggest the press respect their wishes.

 

It’s hardly unusual for a newspaper to profile the spouse/partner of a politician newly elected to a major position.  The people want to know — so, who’s that lady?  I would hardly call it “harrassment”; I mean, this is just a background profile.  Wait’ll the spotlight gets really, really intense.  These Mahty folks are awfully touchy.

 

Let the wild rumpus begin.


Class Notes from Boston’s Op-It Gals

October 24, 2013

Two of the best columnists in town – the Globe’s Joan Vennochi and the Herald’s Margery Eagan (yeah yeah, she’s technically not an op-ed columnist but couldn’t resist the headline) – land on the same square today in their coverage of the Boston mayoral race: The “phony class war” as Vennochi puts it, or the “‘washerwoman’ fixation” as Eagan has it.

From the former:

BOSTON DOESN’T need a phony class war, fueled by labor supporters of mayoral candidate Martin J. Walsh — not when it faces the prospect of a real one.

Forget about new Boston versus old Boston. The real issue is rich Boston versus poor Boston and whether the next mayor cares enough to do something about it.

 

From the latter:

This “washerwoman” fixation is about politicians battling over who’s had a tougher life. That’s supposed to determine which candidate would make the better mayor, senator or governor — though I’ve yet to see any proof.

 

Both pieces are worth reading. Vennochi’s conclusion:

Where the next mayor came from matters less than where he wants the city to go — and how many Bostonians get there with him.

 

Eagan:

[Y]ou can’t fight class warfare if you’re both smart, powerful men in the same class. Vote Connolly or vote Walsh. But prince vs. pauper this race is not.

 

They’re both right.

 


On the Cover of the Roiling Stone

July 18, 2013

First off, it should be noted that the Boston Herald broke this Rolling Stone story on page 3 of yesterday’s edition (don’t ask about the little green numbers – no idea why they keep popping up):

 

Picture 1

 

Today, the feisty local tabloid went for broke:

 

Picture 2

 

The one dissenting voice was columnist Margery Eagan, but she was drowned out by the other coverage, which included a couple of news reports and the always-enlightening comments of Herald readers.

 

Picture 3

 

Our personal favorite among the reader responses:

 

Picture 4

 

But wait – the paper’s not done yet. There’s also a smashmouth editorial, along with a venomous column from Michael Graham:

BomberRollingstoneMagazine’s the picture of desperation

‘McDreamy’ photo won’t get oldies loser Rolling

Hey, Rolling Stone magazine! Next time you want to prove how provocative and edgy you are, put a flattering photo of George Zimmerman on your cover.

Right. Like that’s ever going to happen.

And that’s part of the reason for Boston’s completely righteous anger over the magazine’s “Terrorist Teen Beat” cover featuring Dzhokhar McDreamy. It’s insulting and stupid, and they know it.

But if it sells magazines (or even better — drives up Web traffic), they don’t care.

 

Sounds a bit like the Herald itself.

Crosstown rival Boston Globe has a more evenhanded debate on its front page:

 

Picture 5

 

There’s also a news report and this comme ci comme ça editorial:

[T]he magazine’s advance hype for the story — “a riveting and heartbreaking account of how a charming kid with a bright future became a monster” — hinted at a somewhat more sympathetic portrayal of Tsarnaev than many readers might expect.

Then again, the cover also identifies him as a bomber — going farther in asserting Tsarnaev’s guilt than the criminal justice system has at this point. All of which suggests that Rolling Stone is better at trying to create buzz than at recognizing the sensitivity of a recent incident that led to four Boston-area residents’ deaths and inflicted horrifying injuries on many more. Still, readers shouldn’t assume that a cover story about a suspected evildoer represents an attempt to glamorize him. This issue of Rolling Stone should be judged not by its cover, but on the information that it brings to the public record.

 

Well . . . judge for yourself.


Hack Attack by Boston Herald!!

April 25, 2013

From our Two Different Worlds desk

Luckily for us, our feisty local tabloid has dug deep and unearthed the real villains in the Boston Marathon bombings.

Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts welfare system.

The action gets started on Page One:

 

Picture 1

 

 

Then it really picks up steam on pages 4 and 5.

 

Picture 2

 

 

Here’s a close-up of the bureaucratic sweep:

 

Picture 5

 

 

So that’s five – count ’em, five – reporters on this story, plus his ‘n’ her bookend columns by Howie Carr and Margery Eagan.

Carr:

We deserve to know what our tax $ paid for

It’s time for all the bureaucrats, paper-shufflers and flak-catchers to come clean on the Tsarnaev clan, those chiseling Chechens who tried to kill us last week.

Open the damn books! If somebody tries to murder you, you have a right to know everything about them, privacy be damned. I want to know everything about them, and I want to know it now, right down to the quality of the weed Dzhokhar was peddling down at UMass Dartmouth.

 

Eagan:

Hacks covering own tracks in name of privacy

Here’s what we’re talking about: One accused mass murderer who’s practically confessed to killing three marathon bystanders, plus a police officer, and injuring 260 others. And his brother, killed after a gunfight in which yet another police officer nearly died.

Yet the state and federal government bureaucrats are telling you, me and every taxpayer who mailed their tax checks on the very day of the marathon bombings that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s privacy matters more than our right to know how extensively our tax dollars may have contributed to their terrorist plot.

 

But wait – there’s more! This editorial:

Supporting a terrorist

The Tsarnaev brothers lived in America long enough to understand the generosity of her people. In fact they should have understood that generosity better than most given that they benefited from it personally — and in the form of actual taxpayer cash.

We learned this week that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the apparent mastermind of the Boston Marathon bombing, was until recently supporting his family with the help of a government check.

 

And etc.

Crosstown at the Boston Globe, meanwhile, the welfare issue isn’t even on their radar screen.

The only question left: Which of the two is Bizarro World?

 

 


Hark! The Herald! (U.S. Senate Debate-o-rama)

April 9, 2013

The Boston Herald has officially become a perpetual self-promotion machine. Case in point: The feisty local tabloid 1) co-sponsored a UMass-Lowell debate last night between Democratic U.S. Senate candidates Ed Markey and Stephen Lynch (that’s good); 2) streamed it live on the Web (okay); and 3) devoted six full pages to it in today’s paper (huh???).

Start with the front page:

 

Picture 1

 

Then on page 2 Hillary Chabot provides the basic play-by-play, and a plug for the debate replay .

 

Picture 3

Flip to pages 4 and 5 for columnists Margery Eagan and Joe Battenfeld, plus a helpful Scorecard, plus another plug for the debate replay.

 

Picture 4

Then pages 6 and 7 feature reaction from readers, a focus group, UMass-Lowell junior Corey Lanier, and the Herald’s Peter Gelzinis.

 

Picture 5

Oh, yeah – don’t forget to watch the replay.


Herald Romes Much Farther Than Globe

March 20, 2013

It’s a rare day – and therefore a noteworthy one – when the Boston Herald devotes more resources to a big story than the Boston Globe does.

Welcome to today’s edition of our feisty local tabloid gone global. Note the dateline on Margery Eagan’s column:

Vatican PopePope Francis fever catches on in Rome

ROME — The Roman Catholic Church has been losing the faithful in Italy and much of Europe for decades. Pope Francis has clearly revived interest, if only until his novelty wears off.

Yesterday, for the third time in a week, an estimated 150,000 packed St. Peter’s Square. Police were keeping order in subway stations en route to the Vatican as crowds tried to push onto nearly full trains. Streets all around the Vatican were closed to traffic. But they were filled with what looked like thousands more spectators who showed up too late to fit into the square — meaning they didn’t get here by 7:30 a.m. for a 9:30 a.m. Mass.

These thousands watched on at least a dozen Jumbotrons as Pope Francis, just before his inaugural Mass, rode about the square not in the bulletproof glass popemobile, but, unusually, in an open-air model. It allowed him to get on and off and kiss a baby and the forehead of a man who appeared disabled and smiled up at Francis’ face.

 

Today’s Herald also features a thumbsucker on Sean O’Malley’s elevated status after his waltz with the Great Mentioner at the Vatican conclave.

Vatican PopeObservers see O’Malley as papal adviser

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley will return to Boston this week a more influential figure than when he left for the papal conclave late last month — with international name recognition, and possibly the prospect of a role in Rome as Pope Francis aligns his inner circle, religious experts said.

“My sense is that Sean O’Malley is happy in Boston and would not be happy at the Vatican. On the other hand, he is a close friend of Pope Francis. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a role for Cardinal O’Malley,” said Thomas Groome, a theology professor at Boston College. “He’ll have a more enhanced role in advising and leadership than he did under Benedict. He certainly is coming home with an enhanced reputation.”

National Catholic Reporter’s John Allen Jr., whose article on O’Malley prior to the conclave helped elevate the Boston archbishop’s profile, said O’Malley has been rumored to take over as leader of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, which manages the rules governing priests and nuns.

Meanwhile, crosstown at the Globe, today’s edition included only this on the pontiff front:

2013-03-19T141110Z_01_MBH11_RTRMDNP_3_POPEAt inaugural, Pope Francis vows to serve poor

Urges those in power to protect world

By Elisabetta Povoledo, Rachel Donadio and Alan Cowell |  NEW YORK TIMES     MARCH 20, 2013

VATICAN CITY — At the formal start of his papacy, Pope Francis offered a passionate pledge Tuesday to serve ‘‘the poorest, the weakest, the least important,’’ striking the same tones of humility that have marked the days since he was elected last week.

On a raised and canopied throne on a platform looking out from St. Peter’s Basilica to the piazza in front of it, the pope enjoined those in temporal power to protect the world and ‘‘not allow omens of destruction and death to accompany the advance of this world.’’

“Today, too, amid so much darkness, we need to see the light of hope and to be men and women who bring hope to others,’’ he added to frequent applause from some among the tens of thousands of people cramming the square and the broad avenue leading to it from the River Tiber. The Vatican estimated the number at 150,000 to 200,000.

 

A story plucked from the New York Times wire service?  Kinda pales in comparison with the Herald, eh?

It’s possible-to-likely the paper is splitting the cost of Eagan’s Roman gig with WGBH (where she co-hosts a radio show with Jm Braude), since she’s also reported on the papal festivities for 89.7 FM.

Either way, it’s the Herald that’s the papal tiger on this story.


OMG! Herald Columnist Can’t Write!

March 4, 2013

The hardreading staff is nothing if not realistic about the writing abilities at the Boston Herald. Some are terrific writers – Margery Eagan & Peter Gelzinis, take a bow; and some are dreadful – Howie Carr, come on down!

Now comes the feisty local tabloid’s new column OMG!, which definitely qualifies for the latter designation.

Representative sample:

OMG_logosDear OMG,

I have a friend who maybe weighs 110 pounds soaking wet — she looks great. But lately she has been making strange comments: mentioning she is on Weight Watchers, contributing to a recipe exchange with the disclaimer “I’ve been eating healthy lately” (the recipe she linked to had the calorie count posted prominently) and generally making comments about her food intake. I’m average weight, but it makes me really uncomfortable that someone so small is making these statements. Should I say something?

— Eating Dessert

Dear Dessert,

Yes. If it’s making you, an average person, uncomfortable, it’s probably affecting overweight people and others struggling with eating or body image issues as well. Try something jokey at first — if she says “I’m trying to eat healthy” when refusing a tray of doughnuts, you can retort, “Well I’m trying to eat more deep fried lard” and see whether that shuts her down. (After all, aren’t most of us trying to eat healthy at least some of the time?) If it still doesn’t slow her comments, pull her aside and say you’d rather not talk about calorie consumption or weight — not just for your mental sake, but for the sake of bored people everywhere.

 

Really? See whether that shuts her down? Still doesn’t slow her comments? 

Dear OMG: It’s clear idiomatic English you want. Not idiotic.