Wrong about Middleborough (again)

I’d like to ease off on posting about casino gambling, but the media won’t let me. Today, the Boston Globe’s Andrea Estes manages to make two mistakes in one sentence in reporting on Gov. Deval Patrick’s plan to require binding referendums in communities before a casino can be built.

Estes writes: “Middleborough voters have already voted in favor of a Mashpee Wampanoag casino for their town in July.”

No, and no.

First, there has never been a referendum in Middleborough on casino gambling. On July 28, a massive town meeting was called to consider the Mashpee Wampanoag proposal. More than 3,700 residents took part in what has been described as the largest town meeting in state history.

Yet that number is paltry compared to what would be expected in a townwide referendum, which is what Patrick wants. There are 14,652 registered voters in Middleborough. If turnout were just 50 percent — and I wouldn’t be surprised if it were much higher than that to vote on a casino proposal — then more than 7,000 voters would show up at the polls, approximately double the number who voted at town meeting.

It would also be fair to infer from Estes’ sentence that Middleborough wouldn’t even have to have a referendum, as it has already taken care of business. Wrong.

Second, the July 28 town meeting voted only to approve a deal the selectmen had negotiated with the tribe over amenities that would come to the town if a casino were built. In a separate, nonbinding question on whether people even want a casino in Middleborough, the answer was what Estes’ Globe colleague Sean Murphy, writing in CommonWealth Magazine, has reported was “overwhelming against a casino.”

Can we please start getting a few of these basic details right?

Friday morning update: There’s a trackback in a sidebar on page B8 this morning. Christine Wellgren, who covers Middleborough for the Globe and who does understand what happened on July 28, mentions the second town-meeting vote. I’m pretty sure this is the first time the Globe has mentioned the second vote since a Web update filed by Wellgren and another reporter shortly after the town meeting. By the next day, the second vote had somehow disappeared.

My standard disclosure.

Judge Hopkins’ shocking decision

Superior Court Judge Merita Hopkins issued a shocking decision yesterday. By stopping WHDH-TV (Channel 7) from reporting on autopsy reports that allegedly show two Boston firefighters killed in an August restaurant blaze had abused drugs and alcohol, Hopkins violated the most basic of First Amendment protections — the protection against prior restraint. (Boston Globe coverage here; Boston Herald coverage here and here.)

The courts — right up to and including the U.S. Supreme Court — have consistently ruled that when a confidential document ends up in the hands of the media, there’s nothing that can be done about it. The legal responsibility is on the keepers of those documents not to release them; the media, by contrast, have no legal obligation not to report on them.

There are many cases I could point to, but consider that of Jim Taricani, an investigative reporter for WJAR-TV (Channel 10) in Providence. A few years ago Taricani broadcast videotapes of an aide to then-mayor Buddy Cianci taking a bribe. The tapes had been sealed by a federal judge, Ernest Torres, and thus it was illegal for anyone to give those tapes to Taricani — a perfect analogy to the situation involving the autopsy reports yesterday.

Taricani was in big trouble with Torres — but not for broadcasting the material. That, the judge made clear, was absolutely protected by the First Amendment. Instead, Torres insisted that Taricani reveal his source, because it was that person, not Taricani, who had violated the law. Taricani refused, and was sentenced to home detention. (The source, later revealed to be defense lawyer Joseph Bevilacqua Jr., was punished as well.)

It could very well be that the journalists who revealed the contents of the autopsy reports in the matter of the Boston firefighters will be pressured to give up their sources as well. Those of us who champion a free press ought to be concerned about that, but at least it’s well-established legal terrain.

Judge Hopkins, on the other hand, ought to be sent to her corner and forced to repeat 50 times: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

More: Here’s the text of Near v. Minnesota, the 1931 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in which prior restraint was deemed a violation of the Constitution in almost all instances. The exceptions — national security, obscenity and incitement — are narrowly drawn, and obviously do not come within a mile of the Boston case.

Not either/or

Personally, I wouldn’t mind paying a higher gasoline tax. As Boston Globe columnist Steve Bailey points out today, the state gas tax hasn’t been raised for years, and is now lower than it is in most nearby states. Besides, it’s good public policy — it would provide a disincentive for gas-guzzling SUVs, and a boost to public transportation as well.

But I have to disagree with Bailey when he writes, “Saying no to gambling is not enough; opponents must be willing to offer an alternative.” Massachusetts ranks 28th in state and local tax burden. So yes, 27 states take away more of their residents’ income, but 21 take away less. That puts us in about the middle.

So even if a higher gas tax makes sense, it’s wrong to say we’re so undertaxed that we absolutely have to do something about it. And certainly not on a day when a story like this appears on the front of the City & Region section. As a private-school teacher patiently explained to Tom Finneran on WRKO Radio (AM 680) this morning when he tried to defend this outrageous expenditure on pension-fund bonuses, most people in the private sector don’t even get pensions.

Bailey has been steadfast in his opposition to casino gambling, and I especially like his nickname for Gov. Deval Patrick: “Governor Slots.” But he’s wrong about this being an either/or proposition. Casino gambling is bad for the state, and opponents do not need to apologize or come up with alternatives. After all, it’s Patrick who proposes to sell out our future, not us.

Obama’s cell-phone problem

Is technology costing Barack Obama points in the polls? National Public Radio yesterday broadcast a fascinating report on the looming meltdown of polling as we know it.

Officials with the Obama campaign believe their guy is receiving disproportionate support from young, black and Hispanic voters. All three of these groups are more likely than the rest of the population to have ditched their land lines in favor of a cell-phone-only lifestyle. And pollsters rarely call cell phones, for obvious reasons. (How would you like to receive a cell-phone call from a pollster?)

According to the NPR story, polling experts believe the cell-phone conundrum isn’t out of hand yet, and that the sampling population can be adjusted by weighting it differently. Clearly, though, technology is changing the face of polling. If Obama does better than his polling numbers in New Hampshire, we’ll know one of the reasons why.

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.