Archive for January, 2007

This post keeps track of the total number of murders and homicides in Boston 2007. Final tally: 66. 2007 homicide rate for Boston: 11.2 murders per 100,000 residents. The list below is not exhaustive but does mention most of the homicides in Boston in 2007: January 1: 14 year old boy shot in Dorchester. January [...]

Michael Felger hands out his 2006 New England Patriots report card in today’s The Boston Herald. He gives the receivers a C and writes: Those believing [a No. 1 receiver] would come from among the tight ends were sorely mistaken, as both Benjamin Watson and Daniel Graham stumbled through inconsistent receiving campaigns (both were excellent [...]

WGBH’s “Beat the Press” is asking why the killing of a white high-school student in well-to-do Lincoln-Sudbury has received far more coverage than any murder in not-so-well-to-do Boston. As I noted a couple of months ago, newsmedia can’t win when it comes to balancing homicide reporting since homicides are so unbalanced in demographic and geographic [...]

During the immigration debates last year immigration-restrictionists frequently made the point that illegal immigration (and, for that matter, low-wage legal immigration) undermines all kinds of labor laws like occupational safety and wage laws. Immigration-expansionists would retort that enforcement of existing labor laws would be a better way to go than immigration-law enforcement. As one could [...]

Michael Gee reflects on the similarities between Paul Brown and Bill Belichick.

New England Patriots’ 2006 season wasn’t quite quite what he had hoped for, but more than could reasonably have been expected. Among the 2006 season’s story lines were quarterback Tom Brady’s “body language,” wide receiver Deion Branch’s departure, wide receiver Doug Gabriel’s coming and leaving, the ups and downs of the offensive line, tight end [...]

Funny little incident in Sweden: A woman of marginal fame recently used her now-defunct blog to accuse some celebrity of being a purchaser of pornography, something he angrily denied. Turns out the woman’s source was of the urban legend kind: A gas-station customer had told a gas-station attendant who told the woman (hey, isn’t that [...]

Did the New England Patriots choke when they lost the AFC Championship game to the San Diego Chargers after jumping to a 21-3 first half lead? Some think they did, among them Jay Fitzgerald who nevertheless wants us to think that “we can agree on this: The Pats were overachievers this year. I never thought [...]

Here’s an interesting correction in The Boston Globe on January 19: Correction: Because of an editing error, a caption in yesterday’s Business Notebook wrongly indicated that a new Dunkin’ Donuts store in Taiwan is in China. Taiwan is an independent nation. I don’t envy the Globe editor who had to tackle that correction. I think [...]

God gave frozen rain to you gave frozen rain to you gave frozen rain to everyone Finally some snow. I’m happy. [Tuesday evening update: It all melted, but I'm still happy from the afterglow of the falling snow]