Posted on 05/06/2012 4:32:23 AM PDT by raccoonradio
Howie thread for the week (back on the radio tomorrow) starting with his Sunday Boston Herald column
Sunday Column ping
Wise guy’s bad fortune
Old-time gangster cashes out with mysterious bag of dough
By Howie Carr | Sunday, May 6, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo
The gangster du jour is William Coyman.
It’s not often a hoodlum’s career peaks at age 75 when he’s lying on his back on the platform at Penn Station in New York City, dying ... of natural causes.
But that’s what happened to the Charlestown plug-ugly last August, because in his backpack, when he suffered his fatal heart attack, he was carrying $179,980 in cash, bundled with rubber bands.
What a score — almost 180 large in cash, and the cops turned it in. There must have been a lot of witnesses at the train station that day.
Billy Coyman was never a big-money guy. Check out this prison mug shot — even by the straitened standards of 1969, you can tell from his clothes that he’s a small-timer.
Other guys from Charlestown and Somerville robbed banks and armored cars. Coyman specialized in package stores. He did a stretch in New Hampshire for knocking over a department store.
In death, William Coyman made the national Associated Press wire last week. The DEA is trying to seize the 180 large, which had cocaine traces all over it. His family wants nothing to do with the dough, although they did remember him fondly as someone who loved singing Irish songs whenever he was home from prison.
A lawyer from Rhode Island has stepped forward and claimed the money on behalf of one Joe Burke, also of Charlestown. The AP described him as a bank and armored car robber — you’re shocked, I know. His probation was revoked two weeks ago after he failed a drug test.
Burke’s lawyer in Rhode Island did not return a call from the Herald on Friday.
The last time we mentioned Coyman in the Herald was December 2009, when we ran the MCI-Walpole mug shot. I wrote, “Whereabouts unknown.” Actually he was in prison, in New Hampshire. He’d been running a cocaine distribution ring from his cell.
His criminal record dated back to 1955, which meant he was around for the entire so-called Irish Gang War between Charlestown and Somerville.
The Townies never had a prayer. They had colorful nicknames — Punchy McLaughlin, Suitcase Fidler, Rockball O’Rourke. But they were lousy shots, they didn’t play well with others and they always lingered one drink too long at the bar.
Coyman came out of an underworld milieu that produced at least three thugs who made the FBI’s Most Wanted List — Georgie McLaughlin, Joe McDonald and Whitey Bulger. But Coyman was strictly a ham-and-egger. He never made waves, which is probably why he also never made anybody’s hit list.
For a while 20 years ago, he was one of the stick-up guys on Teamster Local 25’s movie crews. He worked for Jimmy Flynn, who came out of the McDonald-Jimmy Sims wing of the Winter Hill Gang. But then the feds got wind of the movie racket, the legit job vanished, and soon Coyman was back in the can.
That’s about it, not nearly enough for a book, but if a magazine or website wants to do a story, I’ll sell them Coyman’s mug shot for $200. Coyman wouldn’t mind. Everybody’s gotta make a buck, right?
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061129535
Wed column ping
Granny’s race card was a real joker
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, May 9, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
The Beautiful People still can’t figure out what all the fuss is about over Granny Warren’s family “lore.”
The other day, The Washington Post ran a lengthy story about the 62-year-old Oklahoman’s sputtering campaign. Would you care to guess how far down you had to read to find the first mention of the fake-Indian fiasco?
The 21st paragraph.
The problem the elites have understanding the power of this story is simple. They’ve never been passed over for a job they were qualified for because of some allegedly disadvantaged person who wasn’t.
Nobody ever leapfrogged over a moonbat’s kids into a good school because of the racial spoils system. As Michael Barone put it yesterday, the upper classes have no comprehension of the “rottenness” of this system. (And even if they did, it would be un-PC to bring it up).
The Herald broke the fake-Indian story, and the Globe didn’t even follow it up immediately, not just because Warren is one of them, a carpetbagger, but because the bow-tied bumkissers couldn’t possibly grasp its significance.
Someone passed over for a job because he’s white? But Chauncy, don’t the ads always say “Equal Opportunity Employer”? Must be another of those anecdotes our eminently qualified governor Patrick is always talking about.
Liberals are all for affirmative action ... in the police and fire departments, because they know their kids won’t be working there.
Oh sure, someone in the Harvard counseling office might sadly inform a young Trustafarian that he might have a problem getting into the law school. But then Someone who knows Someone picks up the phone and young Throckmorton suddenly bumps a kid from Quincy with higher LSAT’s who never knows what hit him, although he probably has his suspicions.
Guys grew up around here figuring they’d be the third, maybe even fourth-generation cop in their family. Now they’re pounding a beat ... at the mall.
The racial spoils system doesn’t reduce the number of legacies in the freshman class, but it damn sure decimates the population of working-class whites and Asians. It’s as if the old white-shoe outfits have dusted off their old “No Irish Need Apply” signs. Only now they say, “Celebrate Diversity.”
Granny’s fellow multimillionaire academics may pooh-pooh it this summer on the Vineyard, but this is going to be a problem for Pinnochio-hantas. Nobody who ever lost out, or thinks they lost out, on a good school or job because somebody played the racial trump card on them is ever going to vote for that person. Especially if they know the card was a joker, and that it was up her sleeve.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061130274
It is the heavily Catholic "Blue-Collar-Class" that has paid the price for Affirmative Action.
Dusting off my Passamaquoddy Ancestor as we speak.
If Howie's original points were that Affirmative Action candidates are promoted over more-qualified non-AA types; or that Trustafarians only support AA because they know they won't be adversely affected by it, then this wasn't the most apt example of either.
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