In this week's Phoenix, I size up the ongoing feud between Herald columnist Howie Carr and "Ernie Boch, III," his mysterious Blue Mass. Group-based tormentor. (Note: EB3, as he's frequently called, is no relation to car magnate Ernie Boch, Jr.) In the process, I argue that Carr doesn't really seem to understand his nemesis--and that, despite some strong ideological and biographical differences between the two, there are some noteworthy similarities as well.

Until today, I thought Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was just a gratuitous European swipe at the Bush Administration.

But now I know better, thanks to Herald columnist Howie Carr, who today identifies the Nobel as the race-based handout it really is:

Barack is a guy who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.

If you heard that Tufts University has an official policy banning student sexual activity in the presence of a roommate, would you be shocked?

Me neither. But if you spice it up a bit, as the Herald does today in a cover story (!) by Laurel Sweet and Benjamin Bell, that innocuous factoid gets way more titillating (all emphases added):

If you read today's Globe write-up of Steve Pagliuca's US Senate campaign kickoff, you know that the former would-be Globe owner's past donations to Republicans--including Mitt Romney--are going to be a campaign issue:

Pagliuca said he had donated to and backed Romney’s candidacy out of personal loyalty, because Romney had hired him at Bain Capital in 1989 and was a personal friend.

I.e., back in the good old days, when it was a "writer's paper." And writers were given...latitude to ply their craft.

Can someone remind me why this guy is presented as an expert on the Globe's alleged decline under New York Times Co. ownership? After all, it's hard to imagine a more biased source.

BTW, if you think Barnicle's description of the Times Co.

That group includes 14-24 year olds who "lack basic skills"; are parents or are about to become parents; have dropped out of school; are homeless; didn't grow up speaking English; didn't grow up in this country; or have run away from home.

Oh yeah--youth with legal problems fit the bill, too.

Howie Carr actually doesn't seem to mind the fact that the program panned on the Herald's front page--a federally funded program for kids of families currently linked to the Department of Transitional Assistance--helps low-income people.

--First, I've got a new Phoenix piece looking at the Times Co.'s plans for the Globe and why the Guild caved on lifetime-job guarantees earlier this week.

--Former Globe contributor Michael Jonas, who's now at Commonwealth magazine, has made a pretty strong case that the Globe is taking too much credit for its "scoops" on MA pension abuse.

Readers of this blog know I've been alternately critical of and sympathetic to Dan Totten--the head of the Boston Newspaper Guild, the sole remaining holdout in negotiations with Globe management and the NYT Co.

Given my own inconsistency, I'm not quite ready to say that today's Herald story proves that Totten is a leech who's been using his post to enrich himself.

According to this year's list of finalists for the Livingston Awards--which honor the best young American journalists working in all platforms--Boston's got five of the top fifty. The lucky (or talented) few: Laura Crimaldi of the Herald; Tracy Jan and Farah Stockman of the Globe; and Paul Kix and Francis Storrs of Boston magazine. Congrats to all.

According to the Globe, the Herald, and several of my sources, the accounting error that's thrown a last-minute wrinkle into negotiations between the Times Co. and the Globe's unions was clearly management's* fault.

If so, what should we make of this? I see two possibilities: A. the number-crunchers handling the negotiations for the Times Co.

The team released the following statement today:

Neither John Henry, Tom Werner, nor any affiliates of the Boston Red Sox are involved in any sales discussions or negotiations with regard to the acquisition of the Boston Globe.

Remember, just a few days ago, Henry struck a very different tone in an email to the Herald:

In today's Herald, Christine McConville reports on dissension in the ranks of the Boston Newspaper Guild as possible closure by the New York Times Co. looms--a subject I've been interested in for quite a while, and that I'll be examining further in a story that'll be online later today.

In a previous post on this subject, I intimated that Guild head Dan Totten had jumped the gun in ruling out certain concessions before tabulating the results of a survey distributed to union members the day before.

You can stop racking your brain over why Philip Markoff--an MD-to-be with a hot fiancee--would commit the heinous crimes Markoff allegedly did. As the Herald reports today, deep down, Markoff is really just a big dork. (The Globe explores his nerdiness, too, but not with the Herald's laser-like focus or lip-smacking relish.