BY DAN
KENNEDY
Notes and observations on
the press, politics, culture, technology, and more. To sign up for
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For bio, published work, and links to other blogs, visit
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For information on Dan Kennedy's book, Little People: Learning to
See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
click
here.
Friday, June 13, 2003
Don't ask, don't tell, don't
live your life, just go away. Last month I wrote about a
heartening decision by Philadelphia scout executives to adopt a
nondiscrimination policy to protect gay
Boy Scouts and scout leaders.
Well, so much for that. Today's
Boston Globe carries a story from the Philadelphia
Inquirer reporting that the Cradle of Liberty Council had
ousted
an 18-year-old scout for
publicly coming out in the course of protesting against the national
Boy Scouts of America's discriminatory stance. Reporter Linda Harris
writes:
"He [scout -- uh,
former scout -- Gregory Lattera] decided to hold a
press conference to come out as a member of the gay community and
also a potential employee and past employee of the Boy Scouts,"
said [council leader William] Dwyer, who signed the letter
to Lattera. "Our staff knew he was gay and never made a big deal
about it. He decided to make a big deal about it. The don't ask,
don't tell policy is pretty clear."
The local antidiscrimination
policy approved in May, however, has no mention of don't ask,
don't tell.
Harris's suspicions concerning
"don't ask, don't tell" turn out to be well-founded. Because the news
in today's Inquirer is quite a bit worse: the Cradle of
Liberty Council has reversed
its antidiscrimination policy
after the national office, in Irving, Texas, threatened to revoke its
charter.
This is disturbing, of course, but
it's also puzzling. Surely council executives knew they were going to
have a fight on their hands when they decided to break with national.
If they were prepared to stop discriminating, then presumably they
were prepared to go it alone and set up some sort of alternative to
the national BSA.
As a Boy Scout volunteer and the
father of a scout, I was watching with great interest. I suspect that
plenty of councils -- perhaps even Boston's Minuteman Council, which
announced its own "don't ask, don't tell" policy last year -- would
have been prepared to join them.
According to the Inquirer,
the new policy reads: "Applications for leadership and membership do
not inquire into sexual orientation. However, an individual who
declares himself to be a homosexual would not be permitted to join
Scouting."
Here is the
BSA's press release on the
Philadelphia story. And here is the Cradle
of Liberty Council's position
statement.
What's also disheartening is that
the Philadelphia executives are apparently gutless as well. Note that
point two of the council's statement says:
This non-discrimination
disclosure was directed to the use of United Way funds in the
Learning for Life program and was not, and was not intended to be,
an indication of any desire by the board to depart from the
National Council policies nor should it be construed as any
indication that Cradle of Liberty Council will fail to uphold any
policies of the Boy Scouts of America.
Yet here's what council
president David Lipson told
the Inquirer several weeks ago: "We disagree with the national
stance, and we're not comfortable with the stated national policy.
That's why we're working on a solution that works for everyone." He
added: "We'd like to move the discussion to standards for sexual
conduct rather than sexual orientation." (By the way, the
Inquirer calls Lipson the council's "board chairman," but the
BSA says he is the "president." I will assume that the BSA can at
least get that much right.)
Do Lipson's remarks sound like it
was all a misunderstanding, as the council's statement suggests? Of
course not. It's clear that the council was prepared to stop
discriminating -- period. Now it's backed off, and it's hung Lipson
out to dry -- as seen in this statement from Irving: "Cradle of
Liberty Council President David Lipson has expressed disagreement
with the BSA's membership policies, as is his right."
Yeah, that's right. It was just one
crazy liberal. Now we can all get back to normal.
posted at 8:44 AM |
comment or permalink
Al Giordano update.
Narco
News Bulletin publisher
Al Giordano has started
a weblog. I have not had a
chance to read it, except for this -- "I think we can cause even MORE
trouble now with a blog." But it looks promising.
posted at 8:44 AM |
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Thursday, June 12, 2003
Forbidden reading on the North
Shore. It can't happen here? Oh, yes it can -- and does. Leonard
Broughton, principal of the Masconomet Regional Middle School, which
serves the well-to-do towns of Topsfield, Boxford, and Middleton, has
decided to remove two gay-theme books aimed at young people from the
school's summer reading list.
"We don't [believe in]
teaching values," Broughton told Ben Casselman of the Salem
News. "When it comes to these kinds of value decisions, they are
up to the individuals and their families."
Did it ever occur to Broughton that
by engaging in such puerile censorship, he's condoning a particularly
harmful sort of values education?
The books in question -- Nancy
Garden's Annie on My Mind and Marilyn Reynolds's Love
Rules -- are said to be aimed specifically at teenagers, which
makes Broughton's decision all the more inexplicable.
The Salem News website is an
enigma, but if you click here,
you should be able to read the story until sometime this afternoon.
After that, try this.
posted at 8:19 AM |
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New in this week's
Phoenix. With Boston Globe editor Marty
Baron's name prominently in
the mix as the next executive editor or managing editor of the New
York Times, staffers at 135 Morrissey Boulevard ponder what's
next.
Also, readers
respond to -- and vent over
-- my May 9, piece, "The
GOP Attack Machine."
posted at 8:19 AM |
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Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Beacon Hill freezeout.
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation president Michael Widmer is
the best kind of conservative, a numbers guy who knows what he's
talking about. His take on the state budget is invariably more
credible than those of the legislature and the governor. So what does
the Romney administration do? Why, freeze him out, of
course.
According to Boston Herald
columnist Cosmo
Macero (subscription
required), Widmer can't get his calls returned because he's had the
temerity to point out that, though some of Governor Mitt Romney's
reform ideas may be worthy, they don't add up to nearly enough money
to close the budget gap. Widmer has also reportedly let it be known
that he holds Eric Kriss, the secretary of administration and
finance, in low regard.
Widmer tells Macero: "What I found
in working with other A&F secretaries is that if you build [a
cooperative] relationship, it can be helpful all around. We're
trying to help solve problems. It may be [Kriss] is not
comfortable having that kind of relationship. That's his call. I
certainly understand that. But I've been puzzled."
Widmer could be Romney's staunchest
outside ally. That he is not says more about Romney than it does
about Widmer.
posted at 7:46 AM |
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Back to mum. For the past
couple of weeks, the formerly talkative pitcher known as Pedro
Martinez has been talking again as he rehabs from a muscle pull. He
was especially loquacious in the Globe this morning,
expressing concern to columnist
Jackie MacMullan about
pitching coach Tony Cloninger, who's being treated for
cancer.
But no more, apparently. Because
Martinez tells the
Herald's Tony Massarotti
that, now that he's pitching again, he's zipping his lips. "After
[tonight], no more talking again," Martinez says. "Back to
normal."
Despite an utter lack of pitching,
the Red Sox continue to hover around first place. Yet this is somehow
a distinctly unlovable team. Martinez's silence isn't the whole
reason by any means, but it's part of it.
posted at 7:46 AM |
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A memorable pan. I have not
yet read Hillary Clinton's Living History, so I can't judge
the fairness of Michiko
Kakutani's review in
yesterday's New York Times. But I can say this: it's really
mean, and it's really entertaining.
A highlight: "Overall the book has
the overprocessed taste of a stump speech, the calculated polish of a
string of anecdotes to be delivered on a television chat
show."
posted at 7:45 AM |
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Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Life after Finneran. The
Boston Globe's Joan
Vennochi has a good column
today on state representative Harriett Stanley, who was stripped of
her leadership position earlier this year after crossing House
Speaker Tom Finneran. Stanley went from being a Somebody to a shunned
backbencher who can't even get a trash can delivered to her
office.
What's ironic about all this is
that Stanley really has something to contribute. The evidence: a
recent award she won from the Pioneer Institute for what is described
as an innovative health-care-reform idea. I'll take Vennochi's and
the institute's word for it, since the idea isn't actually described,
although it has something to do with "re-engineer[ing]
Medicaid."
As Vennochi observes, Finneran's
love of power has grown so intense that he now routinely puts
politics over policy -- something that would have been a surprise to
anyone who was following his career 10 years ago.
And Finneran is still pushing for
even more power, as the Globe's Rick
Klein explains.
Meanwhile, Boston Herald
columnist Wayne
Woodlief (registration
required) takes on the sorry state of the Democrats, noting that by
booing state attorney general Tom Reilly at last Saturday's issues
convention, they were booing one of their strongest potential
candidates for governor in 2006. All because Reilly wants (gasp!)
UMass president Bill Bulger to resign.
Woodlief compares the rude
reception Reilly received to Finneran's characterization of 1998
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Scott Harshbarger as part of the
"loony left," an outburst that contributed to Harshbarger's
defeat.
At least state Democratic chairman
Phil Johnston has a grasp on reality, telling Woodlief: "If Reilly
decides to run he'd be very strong. He's viewed as a straight-shooter
and a suburban reformer, not a captive of Beacon Hill politics.
That's the type we need to beat Romney."
Reilly is also pretty conservative
-- maybe too much so for a party that needs to distinguish itself
from the Republicans. But at least he's got a backbone.
posted at 8:21 AM |
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Names and faces. The
Globe today withholds
the name and photo of that
nine-year-old kidnap victim from California now that police are
reporting she was sexually assaulted, inserting this into an
Associated Press story: "The Globe's policy is not to identify
victims of sexual assault without their permission."
The print edition of the
Herald runs both her name and photo, although -- as I write
this -- neither has been posted on the paper's website.
As with the Herald,
the
Washington Post's website
runs the AP story with the girl's name. The photo, though, is of a
police cruiser in front of the suspect's house.
The New
York Times ran the AP
story with the girl's name, but with the sexual-assault charge edited
out. The print edition -- but not the Web version -- includes a photo
of her.
The girl's hometown paper, the
San
Jose Mercury News,
withholds both her name and the sexual-assault allegation,
although it does get her last name out there by identifying
her mother. (I am relying
on stories that the Mercury posted on its website yesterday,
and which are still up this morning. Perhaps today's print edition is
different.)
So what's the right answer? This is
a difficult call, given that everyone knew her name as recently as
yesterday. I'm withholding the name here -- even though you can find
it out just by following some of the links I've posted -- because if
I had to choose, it would be on the side of nondisclosure.
The victim and her family are not
public people, and, even though her name and face had briefly been
everywhere, they will quickly be forgotten -- as they should be, and
as I'm sure they want to be.
A terrible thing happened to a
nine-year-old girl. Now that she's home, the best thing to do is to
restore her privacy as quickly as possible.
posted at 8:20 AM |
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Monday, June 09, 2003
The Anywhere Times.
As New York Times scandals go, this is pretty minor. But
surely some readers -- especially NYC expats -- are going to think
it's scandalous that the paper has decided occasionally to
publish
different editorials in its
national and metro editions.
In "A Note to Our Readers," the
Times says:
Today, for instance,
readers in the New York metropolitan area will see an editorial
about the need for reform of the lobbying laws in Albany in the
place where national readers have an editorial on policies toward
the homeless. Both pieces can be read on the Times Web site, and
both will be included in the paper's permanent databank under
today's date.
In Boston, we get neither the
national nor the metro edition but, rather, the New England edition,
which is beefier than the national but thinner than the metro. The
note doesn't address which editorials we New Englanders would get,
but I checked and, sure enough, there's one on homelessness and none
on the shenanigans in Albany.
Although some ex-New Yorkers will
never get over no longer being able to get the full hometown paper
here, the saving grace had always been that all editions had the same
front pages and -- until now -- the same editorial pages.
I understand the impulse not to
bore a national audience with matters of strictly local concern. But
one of the charms of the Times is that it's a New York
paper. Take out the NY, and it's less interesting. One of the things
that David Remnick has done to improve the New Yorker, for
instance, is give it more of a New York feel. Even a staunch
Bostonian such as Media Log appreciates a sense of place.
Besides, the Times has taken
one large step toward rezoning hell, where you never know what good
stuff you might be missing. Yes, I know I can go to the Web, but in
that case, why do we get the Times delivered at
home?
Editorial-page editor Gail Collins
needs to rethink this one.
posted at 1:38 PM |
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Trouble for DeLay? Maybe it
will come to nothing. But the overweening arrogance of House majority
leader Tom "The Exterminator" DeLay may finally be getting him in
trouble, according to the Washington Post.
On Friday, the Post's
Thomas
Edsall reported that DeLay
was one of four members of Congress who split $56,500 from a troubled
Kansas-based company called Westar Energy. Building on reporting done
by the Kansas City Star, Edsall wrote about company e-mails
stating that the donations to the four Republican lawmakers were
aimed at getting them to vote in favor of repealing a federal
regulation that was not to Westar executives' liking.
In a follow-up
on Saturday, Edsall and Juliet Eilperin noted that, last September,
the Wichita Eagle reported that repeal of the regulation could
have brought $27 million to two Westar executives.
DeLay's office has strongly denied
that there was any quid pro quo. But this story bears
watching.
Also on Saturday, Post
reporter R. Jeffrey Smith had a long recap of the efforts of Texas
Republicans to chase
down fleeing Democrats so
they could get a quorum in the legislature and ram through a
redistricting bill.
The story centers on the way three
federal agencies -- including the Department of Homeland Security,
which is supposed to track terrorists -- were used to find the
Democrats, many of whom had crossed the border into Oklahoma so they
couldn't be dragooned back to Austin. DeLay's involvement is
recounted in quite a bit more detail than I've seen
previously.
Records, you will not be surprised
to learn, have been destroyed.
posted at 7:36 AM |
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MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
