Posted on 06/29/2008 5:13:15 AM PDT by raccoonradio
Howie Carr live ping starting with his Sunday Herald column
New nominees for Lawrence Hall of Shame
By Howie Carr | Sunday, June 29, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Ethics-wise, 2008 is shaping up as a banner year for the city of Lawrence. In the eight months since last November’s municipal elections, only 20 percent of the 15 victorious politicians have been arrested.
You know what they call that in Lawrence? A good year.
In the Merrimack Valley, everyone shrugs off all the busts. It’s just Lawrence being Lawrence, same as it ever was. In 1956, Lawrence had a congressman named Thomas Lane who went to prison for income tax evasion. He was paroled just in time to be re-elected.
Let’s run down the 2008 Hall of Shame nominees. First comes the Rev. James Stokes, who briefly served as a school committeeman this year until it turned out that his vaunted military record (20 years in the USMC) was a fraud. His niece dimed him out and he was arrested. Then it turned out the Rev. Stokes’ criminal record (larceny and forgery) was not fraudulent; he had done a couple of short stretches in the can.
The Rev. Stokes pleaded guilty to falsifying military records and can no longer call himself a veteran, although he apparently still is a member in good standing of the clergy.
Then there is City Councilor Michael Fielding. He was busted last Christmas Eve in Salem, N.H., for alleged drunken driving and possession of prescription drugs without a prescription. He claimed it was all a misunderstanding due to the fact that he had spilled beer on himself while tapping a keg at his girlfriend’s bar.
The OUI and drug charges were dropped last month after Councilor Fielding copped to negligent driving and paid a $500 fine.
For the record, both Stokes and Fielding were elected from the same South Lawrence neighborhood - District F? No one seems to know where the “F” came from, but under the circumstances it may well stand for “Finneran.”
Which brings us to Grisel Silva, the second-term Lawrence city councilor. She was busted Wednesday night after she crashed her vehicle into the back of a car in which her estranged husband, Nelson Silva, and his new girlfriend were riding. The husband claims he was rammed. The city councilor, who was sobbing, told police Nelson braked suddenly and she couldn’t stop. The cops decided to arrest her on charges of assault and malicious property destruction.
Prior to the accident, according to a police report, Grisel had been tailing Nelson while furiously texting him messages, which the police quoted verbatim: “I no (sic) what your (sic) doing.”
“No,” I assume, means “know,” and “your” is “you’re.” The English language is not Grisel’s strong suit, but that’s not really a drawback in a city where the school superintendent repeatedly failed an English-language proficiency test and will never “ask” anyone a question if he can “axe” it.
The newspaper that has really enjoyed this latest Lawrence scandal is the monthly Valley Patriot. The Patriot is run by Tom Duggan, who used to be on the Lawrence School Committee before an ad appeared on the Internet under his name soliciting “discreet girls” who “want to have some fun.”
At the time, Duggan said it was a bad joke by his ex-girlfriend.
It was a funny story by Lawrence political standards. More often, candidates are being grilled about whether they’re up to date in their child support payments, or whether they’re trying to score a disability pension, or how much is Deval Patrick paying them in their hack state jobs? Then, of course, there’s the oldest question of them all: Do you still really live in Lawrence, or have you moved out to Methuen or Andover like everybody else?
On his newspaper’s Web site, Duggan gleefully pointed out that Silva said last year that she was a “role model for the people of my district.”
Did I mention that in 2006, the then 17-year-old daughter of the councilor, who just celebrated her 35th birthday, was found to have a .22-caliber revolver in her bedroom? A cop was called and he took the gun without bothering to report the incident for 10 days, an oversight that resulted in a $2,000 fine by the State Ethics Commission.
Grisel Silva, the role model, said she was cleared. But this latest embarrassment may be the last straw - haven’t there been more than enough fender-benders in Lawrence? So this morning she may be pondering the eternal question that all dodgy, bust-out pols must eventually “axe” themselves:
Is WRKO hiring?
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1103880
Howie ping
Howie is great!
I really ‘preciate you're (sic) pings, but if you excerpted these articles, the Herald might register a few clicks...
maybe I should...
I am back btw
Former WRKO talk host Moe Lauzier is doing some fill ins
for WPRO (630 AM/99.7 FM) in Providence. See
http://moeissuesoftheday.blogspot.com
Also if you’re a fan of the film A Christmas Story check
out the following pix I took last Thu in Cleveland. Go past
the “radio museum” pix to see them. “You’ll shoot
your eye out, kid”
http://tinyurl.com/4x9sf4
Monday ping, back in Beverly
Tue ping
For those in Champlain Valley: WUSX 93.7 (Addison) has just changed
from country to oldies (Cruisin 937). First few
songs: 409/Doo Wa Diddy Diddy/You Don’t Mess Around
With Jim
Howie column ping
http://bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1104514
The $1-per-pack increase in the state cigarette tax is retroactive.
Odd, isn’t it, how a tax cut is never retroactive, only an increase is. But then, we don’t have tax cuts around here anymore, do we? This is how it works now in the bluest state: The Legislature needed an extra day to decide which corporate loopholes to close, mainly because so many lobbyists were buzzing around, shouting, “Another round over here!”
But there was one thing that all the solons could agree on:
Smokers must pay more. After all, smokers don’t have any amen chorus at the State House.
(Read more at bostonherald.com....we want their site to get some hits; btw, I just noticed today the paper is
now 75 cents just like the Globe)
from Patriot Ledger:
Herald newsstand price to rise 25cents
BOSTON – The Boston Herald plans to raise its newsstand price from 50 cents to 75 cents per issue starting on June 30. The Herald’s price increase, which will not affect home-delivered copies of the paper or the paper’s Sunday edition, follows an identical price increase by The Boston Globe in early February. The Herald already costs 75 cents in areas more than 30 miles away from Boston. The Patriot Ledger has charged 75 cents as its newsstand price since 1996.
James Keown, briefly a WRKO employee, convicted of murdering his wife by poisoning her with anti-freeze.
The article should have listed the symptoms of anti-freeze poisoning.
Used as wood bleach.
Also great for cleaning a water-stained dishwasher, btw, with just a teaspoon or so.
The active poison in rhubarb leaves, fwiw.
Damages the kidneys, I believe.
Left on a Sunday at noon, didn't get to LA until midnight. That's 15 hours.
Went from a comfortable, partially full 767 to middle seats on packed 737s, starting in Indianapolis, then Chicago, and maybe another city.
I was not a happy traveler.
My solution to flying problems: Fly Southwest (good rates)...
from Manchester NH. It’s what I did last week (to Pitt.)
and will do in a few weeks (to Oak.) (Ding! You are now
free to roam about the country...)
Thu and Fri show ping—Col. Hunt filling in. Column ping
below (Howie’s a day early for his Fri column due to
holiday)
Marzilli-loving moonbats have their blinders on
By Howie Carr | Thursday, July 3, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com
The moonbats of Arlington can’t stop making excuses for their reputed pervert state senator.
Their hero, the shepherd of their trust-funded, overmedicated flock - Sen. Jim Marzilli, D-McLean Hospital - has been indicted on charges of sexually accosting and harassing four women.
It’s a total frame-up by the district attorney, but what can you expect of a Republican - what did you say, Gerry Leone isn’t a Republican? He’s a Democrat? Er, never mind.
Still, Sen. Marzilli couldn’t have committed all these terrible crimes. The man has a garden. He’s a Socialist. Obviously he can’t be a pervert, he must have a disease. All perps have diseases now, you know. They’re just never diagnosed until after the arrest.
Let’s go straight to the Arlington moonbat Web site, where Deb is asking a what-if question:
“To ALL: What if Sen. Marzilli’s abrupt disinhibition and personality change stemmed from a stroke or tumor?”
To Deb: What if Sen. Marzilli’s “disinhibition” in Lowell last month had nothing to do with a stroke or a tumor, and was instead brought on by the fact that 1) the first time he was reliably accused of perving a woman, his fellow Democrat Leone refused to indict him, and 2) Marzilli knew his Fourth Middlesex District is teeming with idiots willing to let him follow in the footsteps of so many other limousine liberal pols in Massachusetts who’ve been allowed to get away with anything and everything?
Deb continues: “Most government and large corporation employers do have a program of some sort for disability income.”
Disability income? Don’t worry, Deb, Mr. Chairman Marzilli won’t be without income in the years ahead. How much are they paying per license plate at MCI-Cedar Junction these days?
Let’s go down the alleged list of Sen. Aqualung’s suave come-on lines during his spree:
# At 11 a.m., to a woman near the Lowell Health Center: “The sex is sweet, the sex is sweet, you want it, and you want to go with me.”
# At 11:30 a.m., on Jackson Street, after sneaking up behind a woman: “Oh baby, you are so beautiful. Your body is perfect. Your butt is perfect.”
# At 1:15 p.m., on Central Street, he drives three times by a woman waiting for a bus, parks, then walks up to her and inquires: “Do you have any undergarments under that?”
# At 3 p.m., on Middle Street, he sits down on a bench next to a woman and says, “Since I saw you I’ve liked you. You are a very beautiful woman.” Then he tried to grab her and made an “additional sexually explicit remarks.”
And now the state’s impotent Republican Party has set up a new Web site, marzilliwatch.com, urging the state Senate to expel the no-show solon. On Jason Street, this was the last straw. The moonbat militia is mobilizing just like the time Stop ’n Shop wanted to open that pharmacy on Mass. Ave that would have brought “light pollution” to Arlington Center.
Alan posts that he is shocked, shocked that the Republicans could stoop this low with marzilliwatch: “(It) is the meanest and most vicious blow I have ever seen.” Obviously, Alan doesn’t get around much anymore.
“I expect this kind of crap from entertainers like Carr, O’Reilly and Limbaugh who make a living acting like chimps in a zoo.”
Who are you calling a monkey, sucker?
“I can’t imagine what Republican gentlemen like Gen. Eisenhower or Barry Goldwater or Robert Dole would think of it.”
I’ll tell you what they’d think of marzilliwatch. They’d think it was thin gruel, tepid stuff, considering the material they had to work with.
One final question: Do you think they’ll let Marzilli out of the booby hatch long enough tomorrow to celebrate the Fourth of July by burning an American flag?
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1104776
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