Dan Kennedy

DePetro does it again

John DePetro, the ratings-challenged former WRKO Radio (AM 680) talk-show host, is at it again. Ian Donnis explains that DePetro, now back on the air in Providence, blurted out a few remarks in an appearance on MSNBC that indulged in some pretty raw racial stereotypes.

DePetro, of course, was fired by WRKO after he referred to 2006 gubernatorial candidate Grace Ross as a “fat lesbian.” Thus did he show that he had forgotten the first rule of talk radio, which is that you can only get away with stuff like that if you’ve got the numbers.

Mashpee meltdown

Cape Cod Today reporter/blogger Peter Kenney writes (link fixed) that a dissident faction of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe is preparing to renew a 30-year-old lawsuit against the town of Mashpee.

The suit, which is said to challenge “the validity of virtually every title to property in Mashpee,” was to have been laid to rest under the terms of an agreement reached by town officials with Glenn Marshall, the disgraced former leader of the tribal council.

Could this have an effect on the proposed Middleborough casino? It’s hard to say. But the Marshall-Mashpee agreement would have prevented the Wampanoags from building a casino in Mashpee. If the agreement is void, then a Mashpee casino would be on the table again.

My standard disclosure.

Jeff Lawrence speaks

The Boston Daily Blog has posted an interview with Weekly Dig publisher Jeff Lawrence about last week’s mysterious removal of Dig editor Michael Brodeur. “Michael is a phenomenal writer. He’s not an editor,” Lawrence is quoted as saying.

I don’t know Brodeur, and I don’t know what constraints he might have been working under. But I do think the Dig has lacked some of its customary panache since the previous editor, Joe Keohane, departed for Boston Magazine (yes, home of the Boston Daily Blog) earlier this year.

Dan Rea replaces Paul Sullivan

No surprise, but it’s good news that veteran journalist Dan Rea has been named to replace the late Paul Sullivan as the evening talk-show host on WBZ Radio (AM 1030). Rea will continue in the tradition of Sullivan and his predecessor, the late David Brudnoy — that is, he’ll host a show where the conversation is civil, and where news and interviews take precedence over ideology.

Now, as Brudnoy always said, if we can only get the Bruins off WBZ, we’ll be all set.

(Via Universal Hub and the Herald’s Messenger Blog.)

“Little People” is now online

Today I have an exciting announcement to make (exciting to me, anyway). The full text of “Little People,” my 2003 book on the culture of dwarfism, is now online. You will find it here.

Why did I do this? About a year ago, my publisher, Rodale, took “Little People” off the market and sold its inventory to remainder houses. Despite a flurry of favorable reviews and national attention, sales had never really taken off. Given that the book is now officially out of print, the rights have reverted to me, and I decided to make it available for anyone who’s interested.

You’ll find everything online that’s in the hardcover edition — even a Flickr slide show of photos from the book. (I did have to make some substitutions to deal with copyright issues. But the result, I think, is a better selection.) I’ve changed the subtitle; it’s now “A Father Reflects on His Daughter’s Dwarfism — and What It Means to Be Different,” which is a mouthful, but which more accurately describes the contents. There’s also a new, online-only introduction.

Finally, I’ve issued “Little People” under a Creative Commons license, which allows anyone to make copies or even adaptations, as long as it’s for non-commercial use and (ahem) I get the credit.

I actually posted “Little People” over the summer, but, like Andy Card, I believe you shouldn’t introduce new products in August, whether it’s a war or an e-book. Now feels like the right time.

My hope is that some enterprising publisher will take new interest in “Little People” and contact me about bringing out a paperback edition. (E-mail me!) I also hope this helps me sell a few hardcover copies out of my basement. (New condition! Signed by the author!)

Even if that doesn’t happen, though, this means that “Little People” is still in circulation. And, ultimately, that’s what every author wants.

Living in the fishbowl

Students already know — or, least, they should know — that their Facebook and MySpace profiles can and will be used against them when they’re looking for a job. Now Ross Kerber reports in the Boston Globe that personal information posted to employment services such as Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com is ending up in the hands of marketers.

Which has me thinking about LinkedIn, a professional social-networking site that I joined about a year ago at the invitation of citizen-journalism pioneer Lisa Williams. As best as I can tell, I haven’t gotten any sales calls due to my LinkedIn profile. But I suppose it’s only a matter of time. We’re all living in the fishbowl now.

“Yes” to gambling; “no” to casinos

If nothing else, today’s Boston Globe poll on casino gambling shows that though there may be support for the idea of casino gambling, it’s going to be rough sledding for any particular casino proposal.

Overall, 53 percent of those surveyed say they favor Gov. Deval Patrick’s plan to build three casinos in Massachusetts. Dig deeper, though, and you can see that they really don’t.

The story, by Andrea Estes, gets at this dynamic here:

The poll raises the prospect of a “not in my backyard” backlash, one in which residents favor casinos but fear the traffic and crime problems associated with large-scale resort-casino developments. Fifty-four percent of those surveyed who live in metropolitan Boston said they think casinos should be located in rural areas, while 36 percent of those living in Western Massachusetts said they believe casinos should be in cities.

“I think if it’s in your backyard, you’re not going to want it,” said Ron Hull of East Boston, a teacher. “I’ve read that crime does go up in areas with casinos, and there is the traffic I’m worried about, too.”

When you look at the actual results (PDF), the numbers are even more striking. For instance, respondents were asked, “If Massachusetts were to permit casinos to open, would you want them to be in urban or rural areas?” Check this out:

Those who live inside Route 128 favor rural areas over urban areas, 54 percent to 18 percent.
Those who live between 128 and 495 favor rural areas over urban areas, 40 percent to 23 percent.
Those who live in Central Massachusetts favor rural areas over urban areas, 45 percent to 26 percent.
Those who live in Western Massachusetts favor urban areas over rural areas, 36 percent to 27 percent.
Those who live in “Southern” (which I take to mean Southeastern) Massachusetts, Cape Cod and the Islands favor rural areas over urban areas, 44 percent to 24 percent.

So there you have it. In every part of the state, overwhelming majorities do not want a casino built near them.

My other favorite question: “If you had a child, would you want your son or daughter to work in a casino?” The answer: 46 percent “no,” 33 percent “yes.” This is, of course, another form of NIMBYism, and a particular pernicious one. Why is it all right for someone else’s kid to work at a casino but not your own?

In other casino-related news, efforts to recall three of Middleborough’s five selectmen fell short yesterday. (The New Bedford Standard-Times covers the story here; the Brockton Enterprise here.)

To the extent that casino opponents allowed the recall election to be portrayed as a referendum on the proposed casino in that town, this is an unfortunate development. But I suspect this will prove to be no more than a minor setback in the campaign to keep Middleborough casino-free.

My standard disclosure.

Blumenthal defends Rather

Earlier this week, Sidney Blumenthal wrote a long piece for Salon headlined “Dan Rather stands by his story,” based on the false premise that it’s somehow necessary to rehabilitate Rather in order to believe George W. Bush did not fulfill his National Guard service in the early 1970s.

Several Media Nation readers are using Blumenthal’s piece to attack my Guardian column on Rather. I have posted a response here.

A horrifying symbol

This Reuters photo is destined to become the symbol of the Burmese government’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. Kenji Nagai, a video photographer for Japan’s APFN news service, was fatally shot while covering the protests yesterday.

It’s early, and there are no doubt details we don’t know yet. But according to the photo caption in the Boston Globe, Nagai kept shooting even after he’d been injured. The Washington Post reports that Nagai was taken away by soldiers, but it’s not clear whether he was alive or dead at that point.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has a pretty detailed account that also reports Nagai kept doing his job after he’d been shot. The CPJ’s post includes this statement:

The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns the shootings and the heavy government interference and ongoing harassment of journalists who are attempting to cover the unfolding political events in Burma.

The Guardian has posted a remarkable video of Nagai covering the fall of Baghdad in 2003.

House of cards

Could the Massachusetts House be losing its backbone? Casey Ross reports in the Boston Herald today that, in an informal survey of 111 House members, 65, or 58 percent, say they either support Gov. Deval Patrick’s proposal to build three casinos in Massachusetts or they’re undecided.

Coupled with this Matt Viser story in the Boston Globe, which says that Patrick is now leaning against building casinos in cities (including Boston and New Bedford), it now looks as though the proposed Middleborough casino may not be quite dead yet.

But wait. This Saturday, Middleborough voters will go to the polls to decide whether three of the five selectmen should be recalled. Brockton Enterprise reporter Alice Elwell has the details, as does Steve Decosta of the New Bedford Standard-Times.

For those of you just tuning in, here’s some more of the back story: All five selectmen support the casino, but two of them were elected or re-elected too recently to be subject to recall. One of those two, Adam Bond, has been the town’s main pro-casino cheerleader. There is a very good possibility that, after Saturday’s vote, three of the five selectmen will be anti-casino.

But will they be able to say so? Take a look at Section 22, Parts B and C, of the agreement (PDF) signed by the selectmen on July 28:

B. The Town will support the Project and agrees to actively work with and assist the Tribe and its contractors and agents to obtain any and all approvals, legislation, liquor licensing or other enactments required for the Project from governmental entities and officials of the United States, the Commonwealth and the Town.

C. The Town will reasonably assist the Tribe in responding to negative comments about the Project, reiterating the Town’s support and the basis therefor.

Part C is a doozy. It says, in effect, that town officials are prohibited from speaking out against the casino, and that if they do, they could be subject to legal action. I am reliably told that the anti-casino candidates for selectmen are puzzling over how much freedom of speech they’ll have if they win election on Saturday.

Meanwhile, I would think that no reporter should quote a Middleborough town official saying anything about the casino plan without noting that said official is legally obligated to say only positive things.

On another front, I join Jon Keller and David Kravitz in praising this Weekly Dig analysis by Julia Reischel and Paul McMorrow, which shows that Patrick’s proposal is pretty much a direct lift from a dubious study conducted by Clyde Barrow of UMass Dartmouth. If you can count cars in the parking lot, you, too, can become a casino expert.

Finally, here is a three-part series on gambling addiction published in April 2006 by the CNHI News Service. CNHI’s Massachusetts papers include the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, the Newburyport Daily News, the Salem News and the Gloucester Times — all of them right in the path of a possible casino, given Patrick’s desire to build one somewhere north of Boston.

My standard disclosure.