Boston Herald Reveals Identity Of Underage Sexual Assault Victim

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

From Thursday’s Boston Herald:

Bully laments role in ‘sick’ sexual assault

A Canadian prep-school punk yesterday apologized to the classmate he assaulted as an obscene videotaped “joke” during a Hub field trip, assuring him, “I used to be somewhat of a bully, but I am working hard to make myself a better, more caring person.”

The boys from the prestigious Ashbury College boarding school in Ottawa were visiting Boston in November 2007 when Armin Ruzbie, now 19, entered the 16-year-old victim’s Midtown Hotel room with four other students.

Assistant Suffolk District Attorney Leora Joseph said Ruzbie laid face-down on the victim’s backside, pressing against his buttocks while a second youth held the victim down. Ruzbie then pulled down the victim’s pants and assaulted him, yelling, “Take it!” as the episode was filmed. Joseph said Ruzbie later told the victim, “It’s just a joke.”

Above the story in the dead-tree edition of the Herald are two photos: one shows Ruzbie, the other shows the “Assault Victim” (although we won’t, and the Herald website – surprisingly – doesn’t).

So, to review . . . the Herald doesn’t name underage assault victims, but running a photo of one is okay?

Huh?

This is the second time in the past several days the hardworking staff has been led to question the Herald’s policy on covering sexual assaults.

Something’s out of whack at the feisty local tabloid.

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Sad State Of Affairs At Boston Herald

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

From Tuesday’s Boston Herald:

School guard faces rape rap

Cops say he had affair with 14-year-old

A Lawrence school security officer and basketball coach had a yearlong illicit love affair with a teen girl at his school that unraveled after Salisbury cops nabbed him driving drunk while packing a pistol, police said.

No.

There’s no such thing as an affair with a 14-year-old girl.

The correct word beginning with “a” is abuse, a.k.a. statutory rape.

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F.B.I.=Federal Bureau of Idiots

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

Sometimes you just gotta reprint – er, report (Fair Use-wise) – a newspaper piece in full.

From Tuesday’s New York Times:

F.B.I., Challenging Use of Seal, Gets Back a Primer on the Law

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has taken on everyone from Al Capone to John Dillinger to the Unabomber. Its latest adversary:Wikipedia.

The bureau wrote a letter in July to the Wikimedia Foundation, the parent organization of Wikipedia, demanding that it take down an image of the F.B.I. seal accompanying an article on the bureau, and threatened litigation: “Failure to comply may result in further legal action. We appreciate your timely attention to this matter.”

The problem, those at Wikipedia say, is that the law cited in the F.B.I.’s letter is largely about keeping people from flashing fake badges or profiting from the use of the seal, and not about posting images on noncommercial Web sites. Many sites, including the online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, display the seal.

Other organizations might simply back down. But Wikipedia sent back a politely feisty response, stating that the bureau’s lawyers had misquoted the law. “While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version” that the F.B.I. had provided.

Michael Godwin, the general counsel of the Wikimedia Foundation, wrote, “we are prepared to argue our view in court.” He signed off, “with all appropriate respect.”

An F.B.I. spokesman, William Carter, said that such letters go out “from time to time” from the office of general counsel.

“You can’t use the F.B.I. seal, by law, unless you have the permission of the F.B.I. director,” he said.

Cindy Cohn, the legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, called the dust-up both “silly” and “troubling”; Wikipedia has a First Amendment right to display the seal, she said.

“Really,” she added, “I have to believe the F.B.I. has better things to do than this.”

Really.

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Articles The Hardworking Staff Didn’t Finish (pat. pending)

Posted on August 3, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

(With apologies to The Weekly Standard’s “Sentences We Didn’t Finish“)

From Daily Beast diva Tina Brown:

Why America Needed Chelsea’s Wedding

Chelsea Clinton’s nuptials weren’t just a celebrity-free PR triumph. They were a happy throwback to the carefree 1990s.

Celebrity-free PR triumph? Really?

Tell that to every couple that didn’t spend $2 million-to-$5 million on their wedding.

Does Tina Brown even live on this planet?

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New Word o’ the Day (pat. pending)

Posted on August 3, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

Here’s one the hardworking staff hasn’t come across before (via MediaPost):

A suspected malvertiser — a group buying online display ads as a means of distributing malicious code – appears to be posing as a bona fide advertising agency representing legitimate brands.

Malvertiser.

I like it.

(Mock me all you want, Netniks. I can’t read everything.)

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Free The Textbook 101

Posted on August 2, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

The cost of college textbooks is high on the radar screen of the Elite Mainstream Media lately, probably because Elite Mainstream Journalists have a lot of college-age kids.

From Sunday’s New York Times:

$200 Textbook vs. Free. You Do the Math.

INFURIATING Scott G. McNealy has never been easier. Just bring up math textbooks.

Mr. McNealy, the fiery co-founder and former chief executive of SunMicrosystems, shuns basic math textbooks as bloated monstrosities: their price keeps rising while the core information inside of them stays the same.

“Ten plus 10 has been 20 for a long time,” Mr. McNealy says.

Early this year, Oracle, the database software maker, acquired Sun for $7.4 billion, leaving Mr. McNealy without a job. He has since decided to aim his energy and some money at Curriki, an online hub for free textbooks and other course material that he spearheaded six years ago.

Then there was the Boston Globe piece about Boston University’s new program to rent textbooks:

As college text prices soar, students get a rental option

(Full disclosure: I’m an assistant professor of mass communication at BU.)

And to top it all off, here’s a recent report on NPR.org:

The Nation: How To Make Textbooks More Affordable

Full disclosure: None of the textbooks for my BU courses cost more than $20.

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It’s Good To Live In A Two-Newspaper Town (John Kerry Yacht Edition)

Posted on August 1, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

Friday’s Boston Globe:

Kerry says he always intended to pay tax

WASHINGTON — Senator John F. Kerry yesterday acknowledged for the first time that he mishandled the political fallout from questions about taxes on his new $7 million yacht berthed in Rhode Island, but insisted that he always intended to make the $500,000 payment once he had registered the boat in Massachusetts.

“Our fault,’’ the Massachusetts Democrat said in an interview. “I don’t think I dealt with it fast enough, effectively enough. There’s nobody to blame but myself for that.’’

Last Friday, Kerry issued a less-than-definitive statement about the matter, saying, “If I owe taxes, I will pay promptly.’’ That was followed over the next few days by a series of similar comments, fueling a stream of media reports about whether the senator was trying to dodge Massachusetts taxes.

Saturday’s Boston Herald:

Loose lips …

What John Kerry and his aides have said on the senator’s neverending yacht flap:

July 23: “The boat was designed by and purchased from a company in Rhode Island, and it’s based in Newport at the Newport Shipyard for long-term maintenance, upkeep and charter purposes, not tax reasons.”

July 24: “My wife is the majority stockholder of this, eh, holds it, and she’s a Pennsylvania taxpayer, so let’s not get silly here.”

July 24: “Sen. Kerry and his family always comply with tax law, and if any taxes are owed, of course, they will be paid.”

July 27: “That depends on who owns it.” (When asked if he’d ever docked the yacht in the Bay State.)

July 27: “Let’s get this very straight, I’ve said consistently we will pay our taxes, we’ve always paid our taxes, it’s not an issue. Period. . . Can I get out of here, please?”

July 28: “We’ve reached out to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue and made clear that, whether owed or not, we intend to pay the equivalent taxes as if the boat’s home port were currently in Massachusetts. That payment is being made promptly.”

July 30: “If you guys think that John Kerry doesn’t have enough sense of either propriety or common sense, that I’m going to be sailing my boat around Massachusetts where I’m highly recognizable but it’s going to somehow stay in Rhode Island and I’m going to avoid a tax . . . I’d be crazy to think that I’m going to be doing that, and that was never our long-term intention here.”

Your yacht goes here.

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Maxine (Dirty?) Waters’ Boston Connection

Posted on August 1, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

First it was New York Congressman Charlie Rangel (D-How Many Rent-Stabilized Apartments Do You Have?). Now it’s California Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Can You Help My Husband Out?) in front of a House ethics committee.

From a Saturday New York Times report:

A House ethics subcommittee has charged Ms. Waters, 71, a 10-term congresswoman, in a case involving communications that she had with the top executive of a bank that her husband owned stock in while it was applying for a federal bailout in 2008

Here’s the Boston connection:

Ms. Waters, at the time the investigation by the House ethics panel began last fall, was accused of intervening on behalf of OneUnited, a Boston-based [black-owned] bank. The Times reported last year that Ms. Waters called Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. in 2008, as the economy was in a free fall, to ask him to host a special meeting with executives from black-owned banks.

Just doing the Mister a solid.

But rough Waters ahead.

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Peggy Noodnik Strikes Again

Posted on August 1, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

From Peggy Noonan’s current Wall Street Journal column about Ronald Reagan’s 1980 co-opting of the John Birch Society (“Well, he said pleasantly, they said they support me, I didn’t say I support them”):

He cared about reality, about the facts of the world, and bothered to know them.

That’s rich, considering how often Reagan created his own reality, mostly sculpted from black-and-white movie scenes in which he had appeared.

Then again, reality has never been Ms. Noodnik’s strong suit.

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