More on the Phoenix cuts

I had not realized until yesterday that the two Boston Phoenix editorial staff members who’d lost their jobs were senior managing editor Clif Garboden and theater critic Carolyn Clay. The Boston Globe reports on their departures today.

Clif and Carolyn are among the most senior members of the Phoenix staff, valued colleagues and respected by everyone. The Phoenix is not going to be the same without them. Unfortunately, this stands as further evidence of just how desperate the state of the newspaper business is these days.

It’s all over but the waiting

Not much to say about the ongoing drama at the Boston Globe, and I don’t imagine there will be until some actual news is announced. It’s now pretty clear that this is going to go down to midnight on Thursday, something I hadn’t expected when the New York Times Co. first issued its demand for $20 million in concessions from the Globe unions.

Reuters gives a boost to the John Henry angle, first reported by the Boston Herald. I’m intrigued. I don’t really see any synergistic possibilities between the Red Sox and the Globe (it hasn’t exactly worked out to this point, has it?), but Henry’s obviously a very smart guy. If he thinks he can make a go of it, then that’s pretty encouraging.

Coincidentally (or not), the Globe’s Names column today has some fun with a frothy feature in the new Boston Magazine on Henry’s romance with a much younger woman.

Meanwhile, the Herald reports on tensions between the newsroom and the union leadership. The best quote is from Globe reporter Scott Allen, who tells the Herald, “The union says we need to control leaks. It strikes some of us as Nixonian.”

Lynch’s non-signing statement

Meaghan Maher, press secretary to U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, has sent along the following statement as to why Lynch didn’t sign the Massachusetts congressional delegation’s letter to New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. asking him not to shut down the Boston Globe:

Congressman Lynch felt that, while he respects the decision of others who decided otherwise, given his own position, it was inappropriate and a conflict of interest for him to sign onto this letter.

The congressman who wasn’t there

Every member of the Massachusetts delegation except one has signed a letter to New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. asking that he keep the Boston Globe open past the Thursday deadline he’s set for the Globe’s unions to come up with $20 million in concessions.

The one: Rep. Stephen Lynch of South Boston.

The letter, signed by Sens. Ted Kennedy and John Kerry as well as the other nine House members, reads as follows:

Dear Mr. Sulzberger:

We are concerned over the future of The Boston Globe in light of reports that the New York Times Company is seriously considering shutting the doors of our hometown newspaper.

For well over a century, The Globe has been an immense asset to Boston and all of New England. It’s been the paper of record; a force for positive change and civic activism; a cultural touch point; and a workplace that has always valued the contributions of every employee from typesetters, press operators, mailers and drivers to reporters and editors. It’s been a consistent source of news for the people of Massachusetts, and a constant reminder that the press serves an indispensable role in our free society.

We understand the serious financial challenges facing the newspaper industry today. The ramifications, however, of closing The Boston Globe would far outlive the current recession. The Globe has a long-established public trust with this community and the New England region. Its closure would be an irreplaceable loss for our city, state, and region and for countless readers across the nation.

The hard-working men and women of The Boston Globe know better than anyone that sacrifices will be necessary to continue the newspaper. We urge you to treat The Globe fairly and to work together on a solution to this immediate crisis that preserves the newspaper for the future.

We appreciate your consideration of this request and we look forward to discussing The Globe’s future with you at your convenience.

I’ve sent an e-mail to the Boston Newspaper Guild office, which released the letter, asking about Lynch’s absence. I’ll send an e-mail to Lynch as soon as I’ve posted this. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.

Of course, it hardly needs to be said that the letter is another example of the awkward embrace between Globe staff members and the political establishment that we’ve seen from the moment that this drama began to unfold — something Jessica Heslam and Hillary Chabot wrote about in the Boston Herald last Friday.

The specter of Specter

As a liberal, I can’t possibly not enjoy the prospect of Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s joining the Democratic Party and making it easier for President Obama to enact his agenda.

In the long run, though, it’s not good for the country to have one party that’s straight-down-the-line conservative and another that is entirely liberal. A mostly liberal Democratic Party and a mostly conservative Republican Party? Sure. But hard-edged ideological differences are one of the main reasons that politics today is so unrelievedly vicious.

Looks like the last holdouts are Maine’s Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

Patrick is right on taxes

Jon Keller may be right in observing that Gov. Deval Patrick has completely botched his communication strategy, and has thus rendered himself irrelevant on Beacon Hill.

But who can disagree with the governor when he says he’ll veto the 25 percent sales-tax hike now being considered by legislative leaders if they refuse to reform their corrupt ways of doing business first?

We probably need a decent-size tax increase. We have been lurching from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis for the better part of two decades now, as our appetite for spending continues to exceed our willingness to pay for it.

But even a liberal weenie like me is unwilling to fork over another penny until pension outrages like this, no-show jobs and the like have been eliminated once and for all.

And if Patrick is finally ready to engage and fight, who’s to say this battle can’t be won?

Update: Keller responds.

Singling out Obama for his religion

I haven’t done any research on this, so I’m running the risk of being wrong. But it seems to me that Catholic leaders used to reserve their venom for pro-choice elected officials who were also fellow Catholics. I could point to any number of examples, but you may recall there was some buzz during the 2004 presidential campaign that John Kerry would be denied communion because of his pro-choice stance.

So it strikes me as an unfortunate escalation for Catholics who oppose abortion rights to protest Notre Dame’s decision to invite President Obama to speak at the university’s commencement and to award him an honorary degree. As the Boston Globe’s Michael Paulson reports, Harvard Law School professor Mary Ann Glendon, a well-known conservative Catholic, is the latest to take part in the protest, as she has refused to accept an award on the same platform as Obama.

Trouble is, Obama is not a Catholic, or even a conservative Protestant. Rather, he is a member of the United Church of Christ, a liberal Protestant denomination that supports abortion rights (notwithstanding the fact that he quit his UCC church over statements made by his former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright). Indeed, the UCC is part of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, which issued a statement shortly after Obama’s inauguration praising him for overturning Bush administration policy on global reproductive-health assistance.

Are Notre Dame’s critics — including Mary Ann Glendon — suggesting that a Catholic university can’t honor a non-Catholic if his religious beliefs differ from Catholic doctrine? It certainly sounds that way, doesn’t it? How far do they intend to go with this?

Herald, GateHouse circulation down, too

The Boston Globe has the figures I was missing. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the Boston Herald’s weekday circulation is down 17.4 percent, to 150,688, and its Sunday readership has dropped 9.6 percent, to 95,392.

The Patriot Ledger of Quincy and the Enterprise of Brockton, both GateHouse papers, lost readers as well, but not by as great a percentage.