Interesting elections all around

Folks interested in some of the Concord election stuff can go here: OurConcord.com.
In ManchVegas, Republican Frank Guinta won reelection, with less than 20,000 people voting.
In other races, there are two significant races to look at and, since I lived in both locations, I still keep track of the races.
First, over in Somerville, there is another squeaker in the at-large alderman race, with the fourth and fifth finisher 21 votes apart: ["RECOUNT! Lafuente 'definitely' demands ballots be impounded"].
In Boston, the city's first Latino councilor, Felix Arroyo, goes down to defeat reaching for his third term: ["City of Boston, Election Results"]. More than 3,400 votes separate Arroyo to newcomer John Connolly, so there won't be a recount there. Just 15 percent of the city voted.
Two quick points: 1) Arroyo got trounced, proving hunger strike campaigns don't work, and, 2) again, for the whateverth time, there is no "New Boston."

Sox win!

What a game! What a game! What a game! How about those rookies. Too much. Onto to Colorado!

Howie to appeal

["Howie to appeal; WRKO responds"]

Howie gets nailed

The court rules in WRKO's favor: ["Judge blocks Carr from jumping to WTKK"] and ["Judge rules against Carr in WRKO case"]. Oh, this is going to get interesting.

Oh man: This has to be burning Howie Carr ...

This "Virutal Howie" feature on the WRKO Web site is burning up the New England media landscape today: ["WRKO"] ... while the Boston radio gabber headed into court today to plead his case: ["Howie: Let me be heard on... 'TKK"].
Is anyone taking odds on what the outcome of the case will be? If you are, I want in on the action!
But, if you think about this for a second, WRKO must think they are going to lose. Otherwise, why would they put the Virtual Howie feature up AS A HAND PUPPET!?! If it were just another feature, it would be downloadable tracks, maybe a cute cartoon. But a HAND PUPPET? I know what that tells me. It's humiliating ... and it has to be burning Howie right now.
Question: Do they really think Howie is going to go back and work for those people after that? Well, I guess, if the price is right, he would probably go back. But, maybe not. He doesn't seem to be budging - even with a $7M matching contract offer.
A Google News search on the court case led to this story posted by the Boston Globe about 45 minutes ago: ["Carr awaits ruling on return to the airwaves"].

Oct. 2007 Noise Chart

Reporting stations: WAAF, WBCN, WFNX, WMBR, WMFO, WTCC, WZBC

1. Hallelujah the Hills – Collective Psychosis Begone
2. Receiving End of Sirens – Between the Heart and the Synapse
3. The Campaign for Real-Time – LA Tracks (1933-1969)
4. Buffalo Tom – Three Easy Pieces
5. The Big Disappointments – The Big Disappointments
6. Polyethylene – What Goes On Inside Houses
7. Frank Smith – Heavy Handed Peace and Love
8. Jake and the Jakes – Last Call
9. Tristan Da Cunha – Instanter
10. Cheater Pint – Cheater Pint
11. Reports – Mosquito Nets
12. Dear Leader – All I Ever Wanted Was Tonight
13. The Gobshites – Another Round
14. Johnny Irion – Ex Tempore
15. The Lights Out – EP
16. Brendan Murray & Seth Nehill – Silage
17. Trans Am – Sex Change
18. AKACOD – “Happiness”
19. Cheater Slicks – Walk Into the Sea
20. Je Suis France – Afrikan Majik
21. The Luxury – This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
22. Marissa Nadler – Song 3: Bird on the Water
23. The Glass Set – Something Unknown
24. Prime Movers – back in line
25. Willard Grant Conspiracy – Let it Roll
26. The Daily Pravda – She’s So Mature
27. Desolation Bells – What is Your Trajectory?
28. Atlantics – Atlantics (Live)
29. The Gulf – Chinatown
30. Peter C. Johnson – Yaka Yaka

Howie Carr off the air, for now
Jessica Henslam over at the Boston Herald has all the details: ["Ruling leaves Howie Carr in limbo"]. Here is the Globe's report: ["Ruling issued in Howie Carr case"]. His PR firm released this statement which was sent to the Boston Radio Archives email list:

While we would like to have achieved a complete victory in court, we are gratified that the decision leaves open the opportunity for Howie to work at the place of his choosing. Not only did the Court find unlawful a portion of Entercom's employment agreement, but the Court adopted our argument that Howie cannot be forced to work for a particular radio station.

Howie looks forward to taking some well-deserved time off from one of his three careers and to joining WTKK in the very near future.

This entire thing has been pretty interesting to watch but I can't honestly see how it will all turn out. In the end, I think Entercom is going to lose this one and, knowing that, they probably should starting thinking about a future without Howie and start making the necessary changes to the station lineup.
Matching an agreement isn't just about money. In the case of radio, it is also about signal strength and time slot. While Entercom could match the monetary offer Greater Media made to Carr, WRKO is AM, not FM. The signal isn't as strong. They can't match that. They also can't match putting Carr on mornings without a total restructuring of the entire line up, something I doubt they would do. They could move former Speaker of the House Tom Finneran to another time slot. But, they are reportedly paying him a lot of money. They could give Howie mornings and Finneran afternoons, but I doubt that they would do that. The publicity buy alone to let everyone know of the change would be extremely expensive.
I just saw Howie on WBZ-TV 4 and boy, as he would say, he is one fat bastahd. Note to Howie: Like Tony Soprano once said to Big Pussy: "I have one word for you: Salads!" Come on, Howie. Get back on the treadmill, man.

Dodd gets big endorsement ... but will it really help?

I don't know. But the IAFF, representing tens of thousands of firefighters, could help in some key states. It might give Sen. Dodd a few extra points. I just don't see him getting much more than that out of this. He, frankly, is too far down in the polls at this point to really factor in. He is barely middle tier, if there was a middle tier. Richardson is middle tier, alone. Dodd is barely a blip on the screen, a point or two above Gravel. Unlike John Kerry, who was in the top tier of candidates when he received the IAFF endorsement.
Anyhow, here is some video from the endorsement:



Bubba's $$$
I was sent this link from an aquaintaince who thought I might be interested in Hillary Clinton's financial disclosures. I wasn't, really, but clicked through anyway. Here is the link: ["U.S. Senate Financial Disclosure Report"]. What shocks me about this disclosure is that Bubba is making $150k to $250k a speech! No wonder everyone wants to be president!! The post-presidency speaking fees!

I love this woman
Katherine Prudhomme-O'Brien, rightwing trollop or gadfly Goddess? You decide, but I know what I think: ["Inquisitive NH Voter Reacts to Giuliani Remark"]. This is the same lady who asked Al Gore in 1999 during a town hall meeting what he thought about Juanita Brodderick's rape allegations against Bill Clinton and Gore looked dumbfounded and said, Hmm, hmm, alot, without really saying anything. Had he had the stones and said he believed her or thought Bubba should apologize or something relevant instead of looking like a mannequin, he would have shown he was a true leader ... and champion of women's rights, too.

Short cuts
* Someone punk'd Rove's car: ["White House pranks punk Rove's car"].
* Ted Nugent was a chickenhawk!: ["Facing a draft, Nugent wet his pants"]. For all his big, bad-ass talk about machine guns and Democrats, and he found a way to get out of it. He should shut up and play his guitar.
* Interesting potential czar find: ["Find Could Be Russian Heir's Remains"].

* While this tart is out of jail after one day, the guy who stole the slice of pizza and it was his third strike, is still in jail: ["Lohan Gets 1 Day in Jail on DUI Plea"].
* A cartoon about Mormon history: ["What Mormon Theology Is Really All About"]. I love the bit about the "Mormon Jesus" and his wives and how blacks are neutral in the war between the "Mormon Jesus" and Satan and that is why they are black. Oh my word.
* Hmm, this is interesting: ["Hannity's "Freedom" concerts are reportedly a money scam"]. I wonder how much money is actually getting to the kids.
* I got a nice mention in Chris Lovett's piece on whether or not Boston should cancel its preliminary election during non-mayoral race years: ["For Council at Large: Later and Less Often"]. Civil Boston, Lovett's blog, is a good read.
* The Weekly World News is now, officially, defunct: ["Weekly World News"].

The $7M man?
Could be: ["WTKK deal may make Carr $7M man: Ratings bonuses would boost pay"].

September Noise Chart
Reporting stations: WAAF, WBCN, WFNX, WMBR, WMFO, WTCC, WZBC
1.Hallelujah the Hills – Collective Psychosis Begone
2.Buffalo Tom – Three Easy Pieces
3.Frank Black – The Best of Best
4.Polyethylene – What Goes On Inside Houses
5.Reports – Mosquito Nets
6.The Big Disappointments – The Big Disappointments
7.Willard Grant Conspiracy – Let it Roll
8.The Atlantics – Atlantics Live
9.The Luxury – This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
10.Everyday Visuals – Things Will Look Up
11.The Gobshites – Get Bombed
12.Trans Am – Sex Change
13.Various Artists – “History of Boston Rock, Here and Now”
14.Sarah Borges and The Broken Singles – Diamonds in the Dark
15.Cheater Pint – “Control Freak”
16.Dear Leader – The Alarmist
17.Frank Smith – Heavy-Handed Peace and Love
18.Three Day Threshold – Against the Grain
19.Viva Viva – Art, Sex, Death, and Time EP
20.Brown Bird – Such Unrest
21.Desolation Bells – What is Your Trajectory?
22.Frog Eyes – Tears of the Valedictorian
23.Girls Guns & Glory – Alt Country Extravaganza
24.The Lavas – Wall to Wall
25.Don Lennon – Radical
26.Prime Movers – back in line
27.Martin Sexton – Seeds
28.Various Artists – “Knock from the Underground – The Best of Underplayed Boston”
29.Dreamers Wanted – “End War Now”
30.Auto Interiors – Let’s Agree to Deceive Our Best Friends

Scondras pleads guilty, gets slap on the wrist
My former city councilor pleaded guilty to enticing a child under 16 and was ordered to register as a sex offender in Cambridge. Here are the details: ["Scondras: Guilty sex plea protects my family"].
I find this completely outrageous. Some of my comments are posted here: ["Scondras pens book, has to register as a sex offender"]. I don't have to repeat it but I will: If he were a 61-year-old man targeting girls instead of boys, he would probably be in jail. Here is a previous post about Scondras: ["My former city councilor"].

WRKO responds to Herald hit piece

In the ongoing, and amusing, media battle down here in Boston, here is the PD of WRKO responding to a Herald hit piece: ["Unfair to Finneran"]. Here are some of the responses over at radio-info.com: ["Jason Wolfe vs. The Boston Herald"].
I'll report on the fab Cheap Trick/Squeeze show in Boston last night in the next day or two. I might include some comments about all the changes at the South Boston Seaport District too, which are pretty impressive.

Well, this had to happen
["WRKO sues Howie Carr"]

Some more thoughts on the Carr deal
First, so much for "frivolous lawsuits," eh?: ["Carr files suit against WRKO for trying to stop deal with rival"].
Next, Dan Kennedy has a great overview of the decline at WRKO here: ["WRKO's long, painful decline"]. I agree with his point that giving Eagan and Braude the morning slot would have been a better move. This way, they could have offered Howie the Noon to 3 p.m. slot, where he would have easily creamed 'RKO's drug-dealing addict hypocrite Rush Limbaugh. WTKK would be a more powerful station than it already will be with Carr's morning show.

Lastly, before getting back to work, I'm going to rant a bit. I would be remiss if I didn't give Kennedy [and myself] a pat on the back for talking about this issue and the problems with talk radio more than 10 years ago: ["The Death of Talk Radio"]. Yours truly is quoted below:

Teaching people to think and act for themselves, and to take charge of a political process that they normally look at as something done to them, is a powerful thing. And in today's decadent talk-radio environment, that's happening less and less.

Take Anthony Schinella, who wants to talk about empowerment but finds himself shut out. Schinella got involved in talk radio through Jerry Brown's 1992 presidential campaign and the 1993 debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement. He's a bright, articulate guy, and he espouses a hard-edged political view that's seldom heard these days. He's beside himself, for instance, that not one Boston talk show chose to focus on the recently announced layoff of more than 100 workers at Osram Sylvania, in Danvers, whose jobs are being moved to Mexico thanks to NAFTA.

But Schinella can't break in. He just left a once-a-week gig at Tufts University's tiny WMFO, and is starting a Sunday-morning show at the slightly larger WUNR (AM 1600). Yet he has few illusions about breaking into the big time. "There's no Triple A farm system," he says. "There's no place for me to go. There's a wall there." And he wonders who, in the post-Jerry Williams era, will talk about the Big Dig, a new baseball stadium, or any of a host of local issues. "When you limit the number of voices, you limit the real news that people get," he says. "You don't get news from Dr. Laura."

If I may say so, I think I made a good point back then and it only rings that much louder today. The chickens, as they say, have come home to roost. It just took a bit longer to happen. No farm teaming of local talk talent has left a shell of a station and has kept competition in talk broadcasting in the Boston area, the cradle of liberty, the Athens of America, from fomenting.
It may seem like tooting my own horn by running this quote again, but whatever. The point is this: Programmers could have given me - or many others in the Boston area - the opportunity to compete way back when, even on a small scale. But they didn't, despite the quality programming I/we had to offer. If they had, they might not be in a hole right now, mighten they?
There are holes everywhere, as Kennedy notes.
Instead of continuing to bang my head against a wall in Boston's radio business, I delved more into politics and later, got into the newspaper business and started working in that medium [I never really gave up radio or talk. I looked at every possible opportunity, from leasing local time to leasing satellite time to offering to sub for free, trying to come up with some way to get on the air. Nothing worked. It just wasn't meant to be, as they say].
When I found out about blogging in 2002, I started this site, which has been a ton of fun. All this work led me back to radio in New Hampshire, as a reporter, news director, program director and then, station manager, all in 2.5 years. And now, thankfully, I'm back in newspapers.
In the end, it all worked out. But for us radio fans out here, what shortsightedness, eh? Maybe I should copy and paste the entire "The Death of Talk Radio" article for posterity's sake on the site. It is a great example of media journalism.

More on Carr's jump
Tons of people are talking about Howie Carr's plans to leave WRKO for WTKK.
First, WRKO is saying they aren't going to let Howie go that quickly, via a press release from George Regan to the updated Herald story.
Over on the Boston Radio Archives list, there is a lot of talk about what Carr's New England affiliates are going to do. Doug Drown suggests that some stations might jump at a Carr morning show. Others noted that many of Carr's New England affiliates lost Imus and don't have permanent replacements yet.
The Radio Equalizer says WRKO PD Jason Wolfe went ballistic: ["PD Trashes Office"]. Somehow, I doubt this, but who knows.
Media Nation also has some chatting going on: ["Carr talk on WTKK"].

The Noise Top 30 Chart

July 2007: Reporting stations: WAAF, WBCN, WFNX, WMBR, WMFO, WTCC, WZBC

1. Polyethylene – What Goes on Inside Houses
2. Shadows Fall – Sounds from the Underground
3. The Sterns – The Sterns
4. The Bags – Mount Rockmore
5. Bon Savants – Post Rock Defends the Nation
6. Hallelujah the Hills – Collective Psycosis Begone
7. Frank Smith – Red on White
8. Willard Grant Conspiracy – Let It Roll
9. Electric Laser People – Straight Talk on Raising Kids
10. Three Day Threshold – Against the Grain
11. Dinosaur Jr. – Beyond
12. Medicated Kisses – Medicated Kisses
13. Mary Timony Band – The Shapes We Make
14. Trans Am – Sex Change
15. Auto Interiors – Let’s Agree to Deceive Our Best Friends
16. Girls Guns & Glory – Pretty Little Wrecking Ball
17. Prime Movers – back in line
18. Reports – Mosquito Nets
19. Wheat – Everyday I Said A Prayer For Kathy and Made a Once Inch Square
20. Gene Dante & the Future Starlets – Gene Dante & the Future Starlets
21. Girl on Top – “Superman”
22. Hooray for Earth – Hooray for Earth
23. Sarah Borges & The Broken Singles – Diamonds in the Heart
24. Tiger Saw – Tigers on Fire
25. Corin Ashley – Songs from the Brill Bedroom
26. The Glass Set – Something Unknown
27.The Information – Natural Language EP
28. Don Lennon – Radical
29. Emergency Music – You’ll Be the Death of Us All, Honey
30. The Kin – The Kin

Top 30 Noise Chart June
Reporting stations: WAAF, WBCN, WFNX, WMBR, WMFO, WTCC, WZBC

Tie
1. Shadows Fall – Threads of Life
1. Dinosaur Jr. – Beyond
3. Polyethylene – What Goes on Inside Houses
4. The Bags – Mount Rockmore
5. The Luxury – This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
6. Cheater Pint – “Control Freak”
7. The Everyday Visuals – Things Will Look Up
8. The Glass Set – Something Unknown
9. Los Wonder Twins Del Rap – Feast of Steven
10. Don Lennon – Radical
11. Bang Camaro – Bang Camaro
12. Tiger Saw – Tigers on Fire
13. The Underpainting – The Underpainting
14. Spouse – Relocation Tactics
15. Auto Interiors – Let’s Agree to Deceive Our Best Friends
16. Black Fortress of Opium – Black Fortress of Opium
17. The Charms – Strange Magic
18. Hooray for Earth – Hooray for Earth
19. The Vinyl Skyway – From Telegraph Hill
20. The Appreciation Post – Brighter Sides
21. Christians and Lions – More Songs for Dreamsleepers
22. Girls Guns & Glory – Pretty Little Wrecking Ball
23. Hands and Knees – Hands and Knees
24. Mystery Tramps – Cure for the Common Misconception
25. Stephen Brodsky’s Octave Museum – The Octave Museum
26. Reports – Reports
27. The Prime Movers – Back in Line
28. The Winterpills – The Light Divides
29. Willard Grant Conspiracy – let it roll
30. Pernice Brothers – Live a Little

Nice guys finish ...

Congratulations to Eric Moskowitz who leaves The Concord Monitor this week to work at The Boston Globe. Moskowitz will be covering local news at the Globe, according to his co-authored "Capital Beat" column published in Sunday's Monitor.
It is interesting that the Globe would be hiring any reporters after slashing so much payroll and offering buyouts left and right. Although, Moskowitz probably won't be making as much as most of the buyout folks were making, so it is probably a net win. In addition, the Globe needs reporters, so they will continue to hire them, despite saying they are strapped.
Moskowitz has always been commended for being a nice guy. Some in Concord circles have questioned whether or not he has the guts for real, serious reporting. But in the four years he's been here, we've seen it glimmer every once in a while in the pages of the Monitor. And, yeah, he is a nice guy.
But before he goes, two quick exit notes and some free advice, from someone who lived, worked and played politics and media in Boston for almost 18 years:
1) When supposed "disgruntled" employees come to you with information about potential scandals, misuse of funds, or conflicts of interests, ignore your editors and investigate the story, even on your own time. You never know what motives your editors will have for killing the story. And, yeah, they will have motives.
Five words for you: Catholic priest sex-abuse scandal. The Globe editors listened to corrupt individuals within the church and buried this story much to the chagrin of the reporters. The Boston Phoenix's Kristine Lombardi was actually the first reporter to break the story, way before the Globe people even looked at it. After the Globe started sniffing around, then-Cardinal Bernard Law met with the editors and attacked the abuse victims and the story was squashed. Thank God, truly, Thank God for the Phoenix, which continued to produce stories about the problems until the Globe could no longer listen to Law or hold back the story. The stories resulted in some truly evil people being banished from the church. In the end, the reporters at the Globe didn't give up on the story even though their editors did. Later, they would get the grand prize, a Pulitzer, for their coverage and all the glory for the story even though they weren't the first ones to break it.
2) When a Boston area politician - whether it is Mayor Tom Menino, good guy Councilor Stephen Murphy, Somerville Mayor Joe Curtone, or even parking delinquent District Councilor Mike Ross - says there is no story in whatever you are asking them about, there IS a story. Trust me, I'm speaking from experience here. Politicians lie and they're experts at it in Boston. More often than not, it's in their fiber. It's the big time, but they will chew you up and spit you out as fast as you arrive if you aren't prepared. Don't get caught up in that whole "we all want to be friends" crap that pollutes Concord media and politics right now. You aren't their friends: You're the watchdog. There are no friends in Boston, just backstabbers and one-uppers who are trying to keep their heads above water. They will climb all over you in order to keep getting air. Don't let them use you. And remember: A good reporter never gives up a story, no matter what anyone says. Remember that and you will do great things there. Best of luck.

There is no New Boston, part, whatever

In continuing to point out the fact that there really is no New Boston, look at yesterday's special election results from District 2, the Southie/South End city council district, where Southie resident and City Hall insider Bill Linehan beat openly out South End resident Susan Passoni: ["City Hall veteran to succeed Kelly"]. It should, however, be noted that 52.6 to 46.5 [that has to be a typo, they don't add up to 100 percent] is hardly a landslide. As Passoni says, she'll look at the election data and make some decisions in the future about November. And, frankly, she should. A higher turnout, especially in a city-wide race, could have boosted her over the top.
In one other nail into the progressives' coffin, Jack Connolly defeated Marty Martinez for the special election at-large seat in Somerville, my other old stomping grounds. Martinez was the darling of progressives there; Connolly is Old Somerville [or Sum-ah-villz, as I like to call it]. The seat was vacated when Denise Provost was elected to the State House of Representatives. There was some pretty good press coverage on this one in the Somerville Journal and the Somerville News online, if anyone wants to check it out.

Update: Chris Lovett, of NNN in Boston, has this post on the District 2 race, including the fact that Eddie Flynn, ex-Mayor Ray Flynn's son, plans on a second run for the District 2 seat: ["District 2: One Decided; Two Undecided"]. I believe it will be Eddie's fourth run at a council seat.

Update 2: I failed to mention what a good guy Lovett is and how impressive his Civic Boston site is. NNN is a great local news channel produced by cable access funds. It's too bad we don't have that quality of cable access service here in New Hampshire. Nice job, Chris!

News round up:
Here are some things going on you may have missed. I probably would have missed them - had I not been looking - because I've been pretty busy these days.

Just as our own Senator John Sununu is getting some faint praise for working out a deal on the PATRIOT Act, another senator comes to his senses: ["Byrd Says He Regrets Voting For Patriot Act"]. FoxNews had this first - probably because they are on the Byrd death watch [they also caught the "white n*gg#r" comment on tape, which Byrd made a couple of years back. Byrd was a former Klansman]. This, of course, is the key point to everything involving this act and other things the government has been doing over the past 10 years, paraphrasing Ben Franklin:

"Ben Franklin, that wise man among the Constitution's framers, perhaps said it most simply," Byrd says now. "'Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.'"

Of course, Byrd has seen better days - and recently incurred the wrath of some Dems for voting to appoint Alito to the Supreme Court. But, it is pretty good having him there because he realizes the big picture.

The Brothers Bulger
Howie Carr has finally released his book about the Bulger crime family, most specifically Whitey, the notorious Southie mobster, and his political thug brother and former Senate President, Billy. Three excerpts were published last week in the Boston Herald, in order to generate some sales interest. Howie has been making the rounds on all of the cable talk shows too. Here are the links:

["Blood Brothers: How Whitey made good his escape"]
["How the state cops let Whitey slip through their hands"]
["Hoodlum wannabe Whitey was Hub hustler"]

I waited to buy "Black Mass" in paperback so I might have to wait for this to come out in paperback too.

Sex Pistols won't play!
For years, I have been bitching about the Sex Pistols not being inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame even though the band kept saying they wouldn't accept the honor. Well, they were named this year ... and they aren't showing up: ["Sex Pistols spit on Hall of Fame honor"].
The text was posted on "The Filth and the Fury" Web site, the site of a great documentary film on the band and the time period in England ["The Filth and the Fury"].
Thinking about it now, this is probably the correct decision for them, although I wonder. They are making a bold statement about the pomposity of the music business. It is an industry - always has been - even if it didn't start out to be that way. It is always best to at least attempt to stick to your laurels [Plus, who knew it was $25k for a damn table! Warners has made a fortune from them. Pony up already].
And what would the jam session be like? Steve Jones mocks a pretty good Chuck Berry but can you hear Johnny Rotten trying to sing Blondie's "Call Me" or Skynyrd's "Free Bird"? Ugh. Imagine the ever obnoxious Eric Clapton or some other wank-off trying to follow along to the Pistols' anti-abortion opus "Bodies" or "God Save the Queen" [Clapton could pull of the solo in "GSTQ" but it kinda wouldn't be the same now would it?]. Although, they might be able to pull off Iggy's "No Fun" or The Who's brilliant "Substitute" together. Will Mike Love show up drunk and call Paul Cook onto the stage to jam and have Cook kick over the rack bopping the TM specialist on the head with a cymbal? Love might sue! Sid Vicious could come back from the dead as a ghost pissing in the champagne and shooting bullets from his revolver at everyone to the glorious musical back drop of "My Way." Oh, the horrors ... Better yet, they should just show up and not pay the table fee. Or grab the statue, say "Bullocks!" and bolt.

Depleted uranium
This is an interesting article which didn't get much play recently but might be worth a second look: ["UK radiation jump blamed on Iraq shells"] and a more thorough opinion piece here: ["The Queen's Death Star"].
In 1998, when I ran for Congress in Massachusetts' 8th District, I was invited to a lecture about the dangers of DU usage being put on by local Arab-American activists at Somerville High School. I was the only candidate who responded to their invitation or even showed up to other events sponsored by the group.
The lecture was surprisingly covered by NECN because it was right around the same time the President Clinton was bombing aspirin factories and other such nonsense [I got no play in the coverage but that was OK, the event wasn't about me]. Since most of the candidates were Democrats, and wouldn't speak against their president's actions, I was also the only one who talked about the issue. The bombing campaigns were wrong then; the bombing campaigns were wrong in 2003.
To this day, I can still recall the endless array of photos on display at the lecture of some of the Iraqi victims who had been affected by DU shells. The photos, especially of the women and newborns, were some of the most horrific you would ever see in your life. I won't go into the gory details ... but you can just imagine. The pictures will forever be seared in my mind like a bad dream.
I know in my heart that Jesus would never want anyone to be treated that way. And no one who proclaimed to follow the political philosophy of Jesus Christ would ever allow this to another human being, especially over oil reserves or to get a little intern sex scandal off the front page.
Years later, my father and sister came to visit us in Boston and we made the rounds of some of the tourist sites in the middle of a freezing January day. As we were passing by the Park Street Station, some of those same activists were standing outside with signs as we walked by. "Anthony, Anthony," one of them shouted to me, as we waved and walked over for a quick minute. The guy heaped praise on me for forwarding their cause against DU during the campaign, telling my father what a good man I was. It was a little embarrassing but when my dad looked at me and said, "He sure is," and gave me a pat on the back, it was made all the more meaningful.
It is always important to remember that it isn't whether you win or lose the fight, it is all about what you stand for and the issues you forward as a human being.

Radio
The continuing demise of local radio is covered in this recent piece in the Boston Globe: ["Mixed signals"]. The line about the lady coming in just to read the school lunch menu was pretty funny. Now that is local. Do kids even eat school lunches anymore? And how about that price tag: $4.5 million for two 1,000 AM stations granted, on the outskirts of the Metro Boston market [11th in the country]. Wow. In reaction to the sale of WJDA, the fledging and award-winning WADT on the South Shore is making a play for more listeners: ["WATD to broaden its listening base"].

2001
There is an interesting Flash file here of someone's take on Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey": ["Kubrick 2001"]. Interestingly, this got me thinking about Zacharia Sitchin's books and I did a Google and found his site here: ["Zacharia Sitchin"].

The Village Voice and 9-11
The Village Voice, one of the premiere papers in the country for investigative journalism, has been delving into the 9-11 situation a lot lately. Last week, there were a slew of articles on some of the theories and people trying to advance some "conspiratorial" concepts:
["The Seekers"]
["Conspiracy 101"]
["The Usual Suspects"]
["Your Turn: Ground Zero stories"]