Jay Severin's first column for the Herald, a defense of Don Imus, ran in today's paper. Hey, who said Howie and Jay wouldn't be working for the same employer? :)
Posted on 12/09/2007 5:35:33 AM PST by raccoonradio
Howie Carr thread; talk related to his radio show plus we post some of his columns if not all (we'll start with his Sunday Herald article from today)
Howie Carr column ping
Gov gives generously to 100G gang
By Howie Carr | Sunday, December 9, 2007 | http://www.bostonherald.com
One thing we can all agree on about Gov. Deval Patrick - he’s a very special guy.
What we didn’t know is that he presides over an equally special staff.
How special are they? Well, according to the Herald’s Find-a-Hack Web site, the globe-trotting governor has 16 “special assistants” on his payroll.
And yes, they are special. These specialists specialize in making between $65,000 and $115,000, with seven over $100,000. Call those in the six-figure club special, special assistants.
As you read in the Herald earlier this week, of the 70 people on the governor’s payroll, 11 are making more than $100,000.
By way of contrast, consider those at the Registry of Motor Vehicles, who basically get the job done. Of the Registry’s 831 employees, two make more than $100,000.
Then there’s the Lottery. It’s having major problems competing against casinos, but it still makes millions and, of its 431 employees, six make more than 100 large.
Which brings us back to Gov. Patrick. What exactly has the guy accomplished in his first year in office? Other than the Cadillac, I mean. Not that I’m complaining, you understand. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. First, do no harm.
Still, you have to wonder how much you have to pay people who basically sit around all day and do nothing except calling UMass trustees asking them to oust Steve Tocco six months early.
Let’s go down the payroll. First Deval, at $140,535, followed by Lt. Gov. Tim “Lefty” Murray at $124,920 - not too shabby for a former Worcester city councilor who once dreamed of becoming the next Ditto Dan Foley.
Next comes the chief legal counsel, one Ben Clements, at $120,000. Most people at the State House couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. Presumably he at least assisted in the nationwide search that ended with moonbat Margot Botsford on the Supreme Judicial Council after her spouse donated three times the legal limit to Deval’s 2006 campaign.
Batting cleanup is David Morales and, yes, he is a special assistant, acquired on waivers from Team Travaglini after his boss Bobby Trav resigned as Senate president.
Morales makes $115,000; ditto Charlotte Golar Richie, whose qualifications are impeccable. She used to be a state rep, from Dorchester. Then she made a decision that almost ended her career at the public trough: She went to work at City Hall for Mumbles. Now, sadder but wiser, she’s home for the holidays at the State House.
Next come a couple more special assistant newcomers at $105,000: Ron Marlow and Lily Mendez-Morgan. That hyphenated last name is a nice touch - whoever she is, Mendez-Morgan is going places in this ultra-PC administration.
Also at $105,000 is David Simas, who used to be Bristol County’s elected register of deeds in Taunton, which brings us to another interesting contrast. Most of the registers of deeds are now vassals of Secretary of State Bill Galvin. Galvin has 629 employees and only three make more than $100,000. He has at least three registers of deeds who are veteran hack pols, ex-Mayors Dick Howe and Gene Brune ($97,270 a year) and ex-Sen. Andrea Nuciforo ($86,092). That Galvin. What a cheapskate.
The next $100,000 “special assistant” is James Leary, another dim-bulb state rep hired by his fellow three-watter from Worcester, Lefty Murray. They could make a movie about those two flyweights. Alas, the title is already taken - “Dumb and Dumber.”
An assistant legal counsel is parked at $100,000, which is also how much Doug Rubin makes. Of course Rubin is a “special assistant,” but he’s also Deval’s chief of staff, presumably of all the staff who make less than 100 grand. Rubin was involved in Deval’s campaign, and before that he worked for Treasurer Tim Cahill. Ditto Michael Morris, still another “special assistant” at $95,000. Also at $95,000 is Ron Bell, who used to be a community activist of some sort before he became . . . special.
Bill Veeck, the late baseball executive, used to say that it wasn’t the high cost of talent that was destroying the game, it was the high cost of mediocrity.
As baseball goes, so goes state government.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1049659
Howie nails it as usual.
Meanwhile, the library at my alma mater, Salem State, is
closed down due to structural problems...has had various problems—most likely
built by friends of hacks and okayed by hack politicians.
>>The library, Cady noted, has been plagued with problems from the beginning. Initial construction began in the 1960s during an infamous period of corruption in Massachusetts that shortchanged a number of public works in the state. “The building has always had issues,” Cady said, recalling corrective projects started immediately when the library opened in 1969. “There was a lot of remediation work in the 70s, and through the years specific areas have always been problematic,” Cady says. “We have done a lot of patchwork analyses and fixed problems in various parts of the building.”
http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6492564.html
(incorrectly calls SSC a university; not a univ. yet)
>>an infamous period of corruption in Massachusetts
which hasn’t ended
“began in the 1960s during an infamous period of corruption in Massachusetts”
I was born in 1960, I don’t think it has ended.
I used to Listen to Howie all the time in his old time slot on FM. Even won some pretty good prizes (2) on a Friday crime/police beat type article (forgot the segment name). Plus, missed the airing and got tracked down via e-mail had won.
Now, with new HD radio (not “high def”) AM will sound like FM and FM, CD quality. Difference being between satellite, it’s free, no subscription. Many stations are already in HD format plus will run stock market etc across the bottom of the screen.
Guess, I have no idea where he is on the dial now or when. I listen only in the car during the day, maybe early evening.
Thought Howie had a great show $ staff.
AM680,AM560 3p-7p
Thanks..guess I stay on FM as my car radio takes some digital configuation when driving to switch to AM in the same change over mode as if adjusting balance, etc so
takes my focus off the road.
I will check it out..it was just about the inconvenience of pulling up AM.
Howie’s affiliates to the best of my knowledge (AM
unless indicated otherwise):
WRKO 680 Boston
WXTK FM 95.1 Cape Cod
WHYN 560 Holyoke
(No longer on WCRN Worcester)
WVMT 620 Burlington VT
WNTK FM 99.7 New London NH
WUVR 1490 Lebanon NH
WGAN 560 Portland ME
WVOM-FM 103.9 Howland/Augusta ME
WEGP 1390 Presque Isle ME
Also
from today’s Inside Track in the Herald:
http://bostonherald.com/track/inside_track/view.bg?articleid=1049649
“Tracked Down:..WTTK (sic; actually it’s WTKK) Best & Brightest ringmaster - and soon-to-be Herald op-ed columnist (debut Wednesday!) - Jay Severin chatting up the National Security Fellows at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard about the presidential campaign...”
The Monday ping. Michael Vick gets 23 months. Cue
Sen. Byrd: “God created the dog...Poor dog died.
Died, died, DIED...the dog...died...”
Howie Carr
Monday is Max Robins Day! Call in and ask our TV Guru any of your nagging boob tube questions.
MONDAY DECEMBER 10
1st Hour
2nd Hour
3rd Hour
CHUMP LINE! Call 617-779-3469 and leave Howie, Sandy or Happy a message about today\’s stories or anything else buzzing around your bonnet and we may play it back on the air!
Max Robins the TV Guru will be with us to answer all of those nagging questions about your favorite show on the boob tube...
4th Hour
first hour.
1st Hour
Quarterback Michael Vick was sentenced to 23 months in prison for plotting to run an interstate dogfighting ring this morning. Was this sentence excessive?
Max’s new site—absolutely, Howie
“You Got A Radio? Inside Dope on TV Biz Monday on Howie Carr
By Max - Posted on December 6th, 2007
Why is “Lost” so lost? “Heroes” down for the count? Is there a “The Sopranos” movie in the works? Post your questions here and we will give you the real deal. Listen pal, if you want the real inside on the Hollywood writer’s strike, tune in to “Max Robins Mondays on the Howie Carr Show on WRKO — AM 680” or listen on line at HowieCarr.com. That’s where Howie and yours truly will dish dirt on friends and enemies alike. We kid because we love. We can’t give answers without your questions.
Wow, Howie and Sandy are goin apes*t on each other today.
I came in late. Sandy did certainly have an edge to her voice. I got what I thought was a comm problem, and it was them bleeping out Howie, and her “request” for him to watch his language had a nasty tone to it.
I heard the silence for his “bleep”...wow, did he say
“feces” or words to that effect! :)
Evidently. I can’t remember if it was before or after a caller brought up Penn&Teller’s cable show.
It was just before the caller brought it up. There was the silence then Sandy pointed out that Howie had swore on the air (”did we cut it out?” asked Sandy and she replied yes, and
the next caller asked about Penn and Teller’s show which is
called Bulls—t, though he said ‘it’s a word we can’t
say on the air... )
From today’s Herald, Inside Track:
“And that if you’re really jonesing for chocolate this holiday season, word is there’s boxes, boxes and more boxes of “Carr Bars” wasting away at WTKK! The talk station reportedly commissioned the candy when they thought they had Howie Carr signed up as their new morning man. But the radio bigfoot beat feet back to WRKO. Paging Building 19 . . .”
The Tue. ping. Howie said yesterday he’ll read off the
“Yuppie Christmas letters” during his last show before
Christmas break, a week from Friday.
I can’t wait to hear the yuppie letters, they are always entertaining.....!
While Howie was away, Feinberg gave Sandy waaaaaaaaay too much power, kept calling her “the boss” I think it went to her head, some days I can’t listen to her, she sounds like a whiney little cry baby, seems like if she can’t have her way she will whine til she does, other days, she does make good contributions but I still think she’s got too much power.
What about the hockey rink at Salem State? Was that built around the same time?
I think the UMass library was built during that period.
That is truely one of the great stories in America.
“lets build a library and forget to figure in the weight of the books!”
I didn’t listen to Todd all that much during that period but I have heard complaints like this.
Lightweight writers write lightweight books.
>>“lets build a library and forget to figure in the weight of the books!”
Not sure when the Rockett Arena at SSC was built; poss.
around same time. It was there when I started in ‘80.
I have been part of the SSC radio station since ‘80 (first
show I did actually in early ‘81). Moved station from
Sullivan Bldg. to College Union in around April of ‘84. A long room in the back was used as the record library and we got some bookshelves from the SSC library. One night soon after,
I was there helping another DJ when we suddenly heard a loud crash. The shelving had collapsed! We managed to save the vinyl, store it temporarily in the production
studio, and later wooden shelves were built. Now most of
what WMWM has is CDs—we sold off much of the vinyl
at Salem Willows during the Salem Jazz and Soul Fest in
August (plus some other people came in and got some
vinyl cheap from us)
(oops, I mean O’Keefe Center—Rockett arena is part of it)
I am heading up there to visit family on Saturday.
I am doing everything I can to get to Champions in Peabody for some steak tips.
"He BRINGS his body in as he raises his eyebrows"
That stuff sounds like it's right out of a romance novel.
All is right with the world.
God is in heaven — and Howie’s on the radio...
Oh that’s Great!!They have the guard talking over a bed of “Give it to me baby” by the great Rick James.
Pension after pension after pension!!!
Ah good—I haven’t been there lately but their steak
tips are not too bad.
Howie’s Wed. column
Fall River race for rep is one for the bookies
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, December 12, 2007 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Things are finally looking up in Fall River. They’re having a special election for state rep and only 60 percent of the likely candidates are either convicted felons or have been linked to organized-crime syndicates.
In Fall River, if you’re indicted, you’re invited.
Of course, the convicted lawbreakers who would be lawmakers don’t consider themselves cons. What’s a few poker machines in your diner, or taking bets for a gangster whose nickname is “The Bat?”
Let Fall River be Fall River, for goodness sake.
Here’s what happened. Two state reps ran for mayor last month. The winner was Bob Correia. The voters were looking for a fresh face - Correia is 68 years old. At the State House, Correia’s nickname was Deputy Dawg. Next month, Deputy Dawg becomes Top Dog.
But that means Deputy Dawg’s $58,000-a-year House seat is vacant - good money for a part-time job, especially if you’re an ex-con. The primary election is Feb. 5.
Let’s begin with the two convicted felons. Obviously, in Fall River, they must be considered the favorites. They also would have a leg up arriving on Beacon Hill. As felons, either would immediately have bestowed upon him the honorary title of “Mr. Speaker,” in honor of their crooked predecessors.
The felons are Normand Yelle and City Councilor Leo Pelletier. Yelle was the guy who brought the 2004 World Series trophy to Fall River for a fund-raiser without telling the Red Sox [team stats] that he’d pleaded out to federal gambling charges involving the mob run by Timothy “The Bat” Mello, now known as #24463-038. The Bat has since moved out of the district, to the Devens federal prison. Projected release date: Oct. 26, 2013.
When he was under oath before the grand jury, Yelle testified that he had to use a Fall River police officer to run his phone bank when he and Kevin Aguiar, another member of the ring and a Fall River school committeeman, had to go to a youth baseball awards dinner. Now Aguiar is reportedly considering a run for the vacant seat, perhaps against his pal Yelle. Is there no honor among bookies?
Despite Yelle ratting him out, Aguiar was not indicted. The Fall River electorate, however, did not hold that against him. They promptly re-elected him.
Neither Yelle nor Aguiar returned my calls. My relationship with Yelle has been strained since I told him he was a member of organized crime, to which he replied, “I don’t look at it that way at all.”
That brings us to the convicted felon in the fight who is definitely running - City Councilor Pelletier, age 62. He was busted for poker machines in his diner in 1983. Shrugging off the felony, he keeps getting elected to the City Council, finally overreaching in 2004 when he ran for sheriff of Bristol County, although he did get 93,000 votes. (They don’t Bristol the Bayou for nothing). Did I mention that Councilor Pelletier is a ninth-grade dropout?
“I paid my fines,” he said yesterday. “I paid my dues, I don’t care about the other guys. If they got arrested for cards, that’s their bag. They gotta live with it. I never hid nothing. Go ahead - put everybody’s record in the paper.”
Will do, Leo. You’re a felon; ditto Yelle. Aguiar - named but not indicted.
“Let me tell you what happened,” Leo said. “This woman complained about the machines to the police chief. So he busts 20, 21 places. Everybody else just had cops arresting them - I had the state police, the FBI, on account of my stature in the city.”
It sounded like Leo’s stump speech. I predict there’s only one thing that can stop Pelletier in Fall River on Feb. 5 - if Tim “The Bat” Mello endorses one of his boys from the Big House.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1050213
Jay Severin's first column for the Herald, a defense of Don Imus, ran in today's paper. Hey, who said Howie and Jay wouldn't be working for the same employer? :)
Ping!
Probably the same person that said Howie and Barnicle would never work for the same employer...
Is Ike Turner in the DP?
If memory serves, he was high school Latin teacher.
I also want to know how Teller could get a US passport with only "Teller" as his name.
I don’t think he was.
The Friday ping.
Big snow on the way. Steroid list to be released by MLB/
Sen. Mitchell, etc.
Also:
http://www.SaveWRKO.com via Finneran’s page:
“A few weeks ago I was diagnosed as having prostate cancer...I will undergo prostate removal surgery at MGH on Friday December 21st and I fully expect to celebrate Christmas at home with my family.”
Best wishes for the former Speaker (We’ll put aside our beefs with him...for now)
OOPS—I mean the THURSDAY ping! I’ve got Friday on my
Mind, as the Easybeats once sang...
Sharpie Sharp (Ingraham’s nickname) upset, lashes out at Feds
http://wcbstv.com/local/al.sharpton.investigation.2.610168.html
There'll have to be a lot about the snow tonight, I think. Looks like there's already at least an inch, and it's only been snowing here about half an hour!
Best wishes to Tom Finneran for a full recovery. They’ll really be scrambling for fill-ins at WRKO with all the vacation time off and now this.
Maybe they should let Howie fill in mornings, see how that works out,,,,Todd from 10 - noon and Avi from 3 - 7,,,,I would not be able to stand 4 hours of Bob Hedlund or Ellen O'Brien or MaryEllen.......
COLUMN PING and SHOW PING
The Friday ping, starting off with a Howie column. (What a day yesterday was—first a bit of unpleasantness in my apt.
building as the apartment underneath me had a fire, but everyone’s OK. Still smells like smoke around here. Then I
leave for work—an 18 mile commute—at 3:15 pm and get there
(N. Reading) at 6:45 pm. After a bit of overtime at the end,
I don’t get back here till 5 am...)
Anyway...
Campaign surrogate follies of the week
By Howie Carr | Friday, December 14, 2007 | http://www.bostonherald.com
They’re not making campaign surrogates like they used to - at least this week.
Just ask Argeo Paul Cellucci, Jane Swift and Billy Shaheen - a former governor, a former acting governor and a governor’s spouse.
Ladies first, so let’s begin with Swift. She is campaigning for Sen. John McCain, because she always did have a thing for older men. So Swifty wrote an op-ed piece in the Manchester Union Leader whacking Mitt. The lesson here: It’s OK to have an agenda, just don’t lie about it.
I refer, of course, to the smoking gun in Swifty’s piece: “As acting governor of Massachusetts in 2002, I ended my own campaign for the Republican nomination to give Romney the best opportunity to beat the Democratic candidate that November.”
No, Jane, you ended your campaign because you were behind Mitt among likely Republican voters by a margin of 75-12. That’s right, Jane, you were the incumbent GOP governor and you were trailing among Republicans by a margin of 75-12, which is more than somewhat outside the margin of error.
Being indicted would have been less embarrassing than finding oneself on the short end of a 75-12 poll.
Our next case study involves Swifty’s mentor, Argeo Paul Cellucci. The former governor has practically been camped out in Newton at VideoLink, doing liveshots for Rudy Giuliani. So Wednesday morning, Mr. Ambassador is doing a hit on CNBC’s “SquawkBox”. Back in the New York studio, the guest co-host was Tom Stemberg, Mitt Romney’s former business partner and co-chairman of the Romney campaign.
Lesson here: Never forget who’s in the other box on the TV screen.
Cellucci starts off with some boilerplate about the Federal Reserve and then leads with his chin: “I can tell you during Mitt Romney’s four years the tax burden in Massachusetts went up about 10 percent because he . . .”
Stemberg cut him off, and remember, the guy in the studio always has the home-field advantage: “Governor, that’s not true. Because the fact of the matter is that Mitt Romney did not raise a single tax during his administration and fixed the tunnel you ruined.”
Ouch! Game, set and match to Stemberg. To throw in yet another sports analogy, Mr. On-Time-and-On-Budget was down for the count.
Finally, we come to Mr. Jeanne Shaheen, Billy Shaheen, a Hillary Clinton coatholder in New Hampshire, where her campaign is in freefall.
Shaheen’s lesson: Always make sure you’re off the record before you start sliming somebody, especially with mud that isn’t even true. That way you can blame it on Republicans, the way the Clintonistas did when Bob Novak did a column on their whispering campaign about Barack a few weeks back.
Shaheen’s money quote, on the record to The Washington Post, concerned the questions that might be asked of Barack Obama’s drug use: “When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone? There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks.”
So obviously Billy only read half the memo, the part about blaming the rumors on “Republican dirty tricks.” He skipped over the first part, about how you have to tell the reporter you’re off the record before you start whispering.
What a bleep-up. Who knew? Not just Sununu. Everybody in the world knew, and soon Billy was issuing a statement saying, “I deeply regret the comments I made today.”
And of course the mandatory lie: “They were not authorized by the campaign in any way.”
Right. Next thing you know, Paul Cellucci will be saying the Big Dig is still on time and on budget. And Swifty dropped out of the 2002 governor’s race to help Mitt.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1050686
A few days ago the Herald’s Inside Track mentioned how
Greater Media, WTKK’s owners, were stuck with promotional
“Carr bars” in anticipation of Howie starting there. Today
the Track says that Building 19 considered buying up
these bars for resale but found that not many were left
(prob. eaten by those in the Greater Media building?)
Building 19, for whom I worked (1981-85), is a discount
department store chain in New England, of course, started
in 1964 when Jerry “Ellis” Elovitz and the late Harry
Andler got a stock of salvage appliances (IIRC) and
sold them off at Building Number 19 of the old
Hingham Shipyard. Future stores got fractions:
19 1/2 in Burlington, 19 7/8 in Lynn, 19 1/5 in Haverhill,
etc.
That’s funny Raccoon, I love Bldg 19 the original & the one on Derby Street, now I live near the Norwood one but I still call it just Bldg 19.
Yeah...they used to have one in Hingham just off
Rt 3 (nr Best Chevy) but I think that moved to Weymouth.
And the second store, originally in Woburn, moved
to Burlington (I worked at the Lynn and Burlington
locations)
As we used to say in the circulars (maybe still do),
“Free Coffee—Slight Extra Charge For Use Of Company
Stomach Pump” :)
http://building19.com/locations.htm
I will add that Building 19 is prob. the only store that will sell COAL for parents to put in the stockings of bad
little boys and girls!
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