October 4, 2013
From our Walt Whitman desk
Thursday’s Boston Herald featured yet another It’s All About Us story, this time with reference to a visiting Antonin Scalia.
Lede:
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who once made headlines nationwide after the Herald photographed him making what he called a “Sicilian” gesture with his hand under his chin, said in Medford yesterday he’s not afraid of the Boston newspaper.
“Can’t scare me,” the famously feisty judge told a Herald reporter yesterday in front of a laughing crowd at Tufts University. “I have life tenure.”
Funny, the Boston Globe Names column forgot to mention the big laugh line in its item headlined “Stars honored by Harvard University.”
Then again, the Namesniks also forgot to mention almost everything else about the Scalia event at Tufts.
Also funny: The Springfield Republican did mention the exchange, but forgot to mention that it was a Herald reporter who initiated it.
The 77-year-old New Jersey native and father of nine served up a number of quips that drew laughs from the audience.
“Can’t scare me,” he told a reporter who got on line with audience members to ask a question. “I have life tenure.”
No wonder our feisty local tabloid has to celebrate itself and sing itself.
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Uncategorized | Tagged: 'Sicilian' gesture, Antonin Scalia, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Names, Namesniks, Sonia Sotomayor, Tufts University, Walt Whitman | 
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Posted by Campaign Outsider
September 3, 2013
This is really disgraceful: For the fourth straight day the Boston Herald has ignored the death of Seamus Heaney, a major literary and local figure who graced Harvard University with his presence for many years.
Here’s who aced out the great Irish poet today:
We know what you’re thinking: How long will the hardflogging staff keep this up?
Tell you what: Assume the Herald has maintained its misguided ways until we tell you otherwise.
UPDATE: Tuesday’s Boston Globe even featured a Names item about Heaney’s funeral.
Poet Seamus Heaney laid to rest in Dublin
DUBLIN — Ireland mourned the loss of its Nobel laureate poet, Seamus Heaney, with equal measures of poetry and pain Monday in a funeral full of grace notes and a final message from the great man himself: Don’t be afraid.
Among those packing the pews of Dublin’s Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart were government leaders from both parts of Ireland, poets and novelists, Bono and The Edge from rock band U2, and former Lebanese hostage Brian Keenan.
Ireland’s foremost uilleann piper, Liam O’Flynn, played a wailing lament before family members and friends offered a string of readings from the Bible and their own often-lyrical remembrances of the country’s most celebrated writer of the late 20th century. The 90-minute service ended with a cellist’s rendition of the childhood bedtime classic ‘‘Brahms’s Lullaby.’’
Sleep the Big Sleep, Seamus.
And sleep fitfully, Heraldniks.
3 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Bono, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Brahms's Lullaby, Harvard University, Liam O'Flynn, Names, Seamus Heaney, Tommy Morrison, U2 | Permalink
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July 30, 2013
From our Walt Whitman desk
Hey, kids! Mark your calendars! It’s Day Two of the Great Herald Radio Countdown.
As the hardreading staff noted yesterday, the Boston Herald devoted two full pages of Monday’s edition to the gala announcement of an Internet radio stream that will debut next week. What we neglected to mention, however, was that one-half of Monday’s Page One was devoted to the glad tidings.
And they’re no less glad today.
Once again, the feisty local tabloid also devotes two full pages to promoting the new venture.
(The e in the Herald’s e-edition must stand for erratic, since those little green numbers pop up entirely at random.)
Anyway, here’s our choice for Plug o’ the Day:
No shit, Sherlock. The Herald just spent two pages of what they laughably call the newshole telling us exactly that.
P.S. Crosstown at the Boston Globe, the Names column has this plug for RadioBDC, the Globe’s Internet ghost of the nearly departed WFNX.
Be interesting to see if some news/talk shows start turning up on the indie rockstream.
3 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Herald Radio, Frank Turner, Fred Smerlas, Herald Radio Countdown, Matt Basir, Names, RadioBDC, Walt Whitman, WFNX | Permalink
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April 26, 2013
From our Don’t Know What to Make of This desk
This is a headscratcher: Carbon-copy photos in the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald, attributed to different photographers.
From the Herald’s Inside Track:
Matt Damon: ‘It’s good to be home’
“(Bleeping) disgusting.”
Matt Damon may be a Harvard man, but when he heard Mark Wahlberg’s reaction to the Boston Marathon attacks, he thought it summed up pretty well what everyone from Boston was thinking.
“Being from Boston, that day is sacrosanct,” the Oscar winner said yesterday. “We’re all out of school … My brother, for the first time in 10 years he wasn’t standing at the finish line with my two nephews. Half the time, he ran it. It’s a very life-affirming day. And I’m sorry to say, but I saw a quote Mark Wahlberg had … and you know, being from this community, that’s the perfect description of what we felt.” Photo credit: Ted Fitzgerald.
From the Boston Globe’s Names column:
Matt Damon receives Arts Medal from Harvard
We’re guessing Harvard won’t make a habit of honoring dropouts, but the school made an exception Thursday for Matt Damon.
The actor, who has somehow managed to do all right without ever graduating from the World’s Greatest University — he attended from 1988-1992 — was presented with the 2013 Harvard Arts Medal during a ceremony at Sanders Theater. Photo credit: Bill Brett
Is it just us, or are those photos identical?
How does that happen?
Or is it just us.
5 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Bill Brett, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Harvard Arts Medal, Inside Track, John Lithgow, Matt Damon, Names, Ted Fitzgerald | Permalink
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March 6, 2013
Taylor Swift has made a rapid exit from Cape Cod homeownership, which the local dailies are on like Taylor on . . . whoever.
From the Boston Globe’s Namesniks:
Taylor Swift on serial boyfriends, home buying in Vanity Fair
Singer Taylor Swift tries hard to dispel a few myths — or at least what she’d like you to believe are myths — in the new issue of Vanity Fair.
First, despite many high-profile romances with, among others, John Mayer, Joe Jonas, Taylor Lautner, and Jake Gyllenhaal, Swift insists she is neither boy crazy nor a serial dater.
Yak yak yak . . .
Cut to the real estate portion of the Vanity Fair interview:
“People say . . . that I apparently buy houses near every boy I like — that’s a thing that I apparently do. If I like you I will apparently buy up the real-estate market just to freak you out so you leave me,” she told the magazine. “If there’s a pregnancy rumor, people will find out it’s not true when you wind up not being pregnant, like nine months from now, and if there’s a house rumor, they’ll find out it’s not true when you are actively not ever spotted at that house.”
So did she or didn’t she buy the house? Our sources say she did, and Ethel Kennedy herself called Swift a “neighbor” when we spoke to her last fall. Vanity Fair, likewise, quoting “someone close to the situation,” claims Swift bought the house, but has since sold it.
“It was like a house-flip,” the source told the magazine. “A good short-term investment.”
How good? The Boston Herald’s Inside Track, as usual, provides the details:
A Swift turnaround on Cape property!
From the Rich-Get-Richer File: Taylor Swift, who bought a house adjacent to the Kennedy
Compound during her summer fling with high school junior Conor Kennedy, just sold it at a sweet $875,000 profit —
after owning the Hyannisport manse all of three months!
According to the Barnstable County Registry of Deeds, Swift sold the seven-bedroom waterfront estate on Marchant Avenue for something in the neighborhood of $5.6 million. Nice neighborhood! In November, the pop superstar plunked down $4.8 million for the digs, which originally had been listed for $13 million. Such a savvy businesswoman!
Not so good at dating, though.
3 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Conor Kennedy, Hyannisport, Inside Track, Jake Gyllenhaal, Joe Jonas, John Mayer, Kennedy Compound, Names, Taylor Lautner, Taylor Swift, Vanity Fair | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
February 28, 2013
From yesterday’s Boston Globe’s Names column:
Congressman Joe Kennedy talks to nonprofits
Congressman Joe Kennedy gave a pat on the back to a bunch of nonprofits at a gathering hosted by the Highland Street Foundation. Attendees included Regina Snowden of Partners for Youth With Disabilities,Sana Fadel of Rosie’s Place, Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston CEO Josh Kraft, Joe Abely of the Carroll Center for the Blind, Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts CEO Ruth Bramson, and Highland Street Foundation trustee Holly McGrath.
Yeah – a left-handed pat on the back.
Hey, Namesniks: The guy has his right arm in a sling. You don’t mention that?
(Then again, the hardsearching staff hasn’t found any mention of it elsewhere either. So . . . whatever.)
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Holly McGrath, Joe Abely, Joe Kennedy III, Josh Kraft, Names, Partners for Youth with Disabilities, Regina Snowden, Ruth Bramson, Sana Fadel | Permalink
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February 5, 2013
Patriot party boy Rob Gronkowski is all over the place – literally and figuratively – these days. Except, that is, at the Boston Globe. The stately local broadsheet has a small item buried in today’s Names column.
The feisty local tabloid, though, really goes to town today. Start with the back page:
Inside, Karen Guregian gives Gronk a big helping of what-for:
Time for Rob Gronkowski to cut out some antics
Not such a grand slam
Rob Gronkowski is a 23-year-old single male who loves to have fun and provide entertainment for the masses. The Gronk is a party animal. That’s no secret.
Taken at face value, it’s hard not to appreciate and enjoy someone who so thoroughly enjoys life.
But then you watch the TMZ video of the Patriots tight end at the XS nightclub in Las Vegas on Sunday night, dancing shirtless on stage and lifting up a presumed friend and slamming him to the ground, wrestling-style.
This might seem like harmless fun, except Gronkowski was using his recently re-repaired broken left forearm to help hoist his friend up and over. According to a source close to Gronk, he didn’t appear to do any more harm to the forearm, which was in a long black cast.
But you still have to sit back and wonder what he was thinking.
Probably nothing, which seems to be his strong suit.
3 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Gronk, Karen Guregian, Names, Rob Gronkowski | Permalink
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December 7, 2012
Ever since we found out that Mrs. Tom Brady had a Bundchen in the oven, we knew there’d be a race in the news media to announce the arrival of the Littlest Ugg Model.
And on the local dailies front, we now have a winner.
The Namesniks at the Globe beat the Track Gals (without Megan!) at the Herald like a Boston traffic light.
The Globe item:
Sure, the story’s up on the Herald’s website now:
It’s a girl for Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady
Patriots QB/QT Tom Brady [stats]’s supermodel wife Gisele Bundchen took to Facebook this morning to announce the birth of Vivian Lake, a daughter born “healthy and full of life,” at home on Wednesday.
“We feel so lucky to have been able to experience the miracle of birth once again and are forever grateful for the opportunity to be the parents of another little angel,” Gi posted along with a touching photo of her hand holding Vivie’s tiny hand.
Yeah yeah – whatever.
We all know it’s the dead-tree bakeoff that really matters. Score another one for the Boring Broadsheet, eh you feisty local tabloiders?
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boring Broadsheet, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Bundchen, Gisele, Names, Namesniks, Tom Brady, Track Gals (without Megan!), Vivian | Permalink
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October 26, 2012
The Taylor Swift/Conor Kennedy bustup is of course the Main Dish in both local dailies, but as usual, the ingredients vary.
The Globe’s Namesniks are pretty tentative about the whole thing:
Taylor Swift and Conor Kennedy split?
On the same day Taylor Swift released a video for “Begin Again,” a song about starting over after a bad breakup, word comes that the country singer’s romance with Conor Kennedy is kaput.
Citing an unnamed source close to Swift, Us Weekly reported that the 22-year-old “You Belong to Me” singer and the 18-year-old grandson of Robert F. Kennedy have split.
“They quietly parted ways a while ago,” the friend told the magazine. “It was just a distance thing. No hard feelings. They’re fine.”
That sounds like a Kennedy-industrial complex party line, eh?
No such pussyfooting around from the Track Gals (and Megan!) in the Herald:
Taylor Swift/Conor Kennedy fling hits the rocks
Like so many summer romances that burn hot in July and August, Taylor Swift’s fling with Conor Kennedy cooled once the leaves turned and the Hyannisport sun faded.
It was epic while it lasted — all two months’ worth. They frolicked at the compound, where, according to Ethel Kennedy, Tay Tay, 22, was just like one of the family. In fact, Swift and the Kennedy dowager seemed to have a lot hotter romance than the singer and Ethel’s 18-year-old grandson. (“I love her,” Taylor said. “She’s sensational inside and out,” Ethel said.) . . .
Word is, Conor cooled on the relationship because Tay Tay came on waaaay too strong for the frightened Deerfield Academy junior.
“It kind of freaked him out,” a source told Radar Online.
There – that’s the kind of dish we like served up. Fresh and steamy.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Conor Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy, Names, Radar Online, Taylor Swift, Track Gals (and Megan!), Us Weekly | Permalink
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September 17, 2012
The local gossip gangs went their separate ways over the weekend, as their columns revealed today.
The Boston Herald Track Gals (and Megan!) motored west:
Taylor Swift’s romantic western Mass. weekend
Taylor Swift made the journey out to western Massachusetts this weekend to visit her high school honey, Deerfield Academy junior Conor Kennedy, but there were no football games or school dances on the couple’s agenda. In fact, their weekend agenda was more like a middle-aged couple’s than a pair of young lovers …
The duo kicked it off with a low-key dinner at the appropriately named Taylor’s Tavern in Greenfield, where Swift, looking lovely in a green dress, ordered a salad, and even let Conor grab a few bites. He sported the typical prep-school “uniform” of shorts and a button-down shirt, and ordered a burger.
But don’t worry that 22-year-old Taylor is a negative influence on Conor, who’s got to wait a few years before he can legally hit the bars. Staff told the Track that the couple’s beverages of choice were all non-alcoholic.
Okay . . . that’s plenty of that.
Meanwhile, back in the civilized world, the Boston Globe Namesniks went the society route:
John Henry and Linda Pizzuti Henry host a big night for MGH
Red Sox owner John Henry and his wife, Linda Pizzuti Henry (who is pregnant), opened their Brookline home on Saturday night to a crowd of more than 400 Massachusetts General Hospital supporters who have contributed to its $1.5 billion charity campaign. The dinner party included a quick performance by Brandeis-educated Broadway actress Mary Faber (inset), who recently starred opposite Nick Jonas in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” Guests included New England Patriots President Jonathan Kraft and his wife, Patti, Jack and Eileen Connors, Red Sox chairman Tom Werner . . .
And a bunch of other usual suspects.
For some inexplicable reason, the hardreading staff never got its invitation. Maybe next time.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Conor Kennedy, John Henry, Linda Pizzuti Henry, MGH, Names, Taylor Swift, Track Gals (and Megan!) | Permalink
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It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 