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THE HERALD'S INSIDE TRACK girls dropped the following item last Thursday: "We hear that Boston magazine is working on a hatchet job-slash-profile of Tom Brady's Guy Friday Will McDonough. FYI, Willy, those boobs never let the facts get in the way of their idea of a good story ... "

And the Track girls, apparently, never drop a grudge. It's now been two years since the magazine ran a hatchet job-slash-profile of the gals—one that dubbed them "evil" and accused them of growing "lazy, arrogant, and complacent," of running "a protection racket" where favors are banked and enemies punished, and of "pandering and bullying and backroom dealing"—and they're still vengeful and cranky. Wagh! Sounds like somebody needs their diaper changed.

RENEE MARCOU HAS ACTED as a pitch-girl for Baby Safe Haven. (Baby! Safe Haven! Baaaaby! Safe Haven!) She's with the Lowell-based record label that's responsible for some guy who was in Making the Band 4. These facts, according to the Herald, make her worthy of being written about in the Herald. By her former babysitter, mind you.

And look how proud the babysitter is! Marcou, it seems, "Has serious skills as a singer and dancer," and avoids "churning out tired tunes about falling in love or kicking it in the club." She has "a pair of hot singles ... on the way to radio." (They're not there yet, but sit tight and be patient.) One of them even "sounds better than anything on the radio right now—and that's not just her ex-babysitter talking." Really? Because that's kind of exactly what it sounds like.

Hey, Pat Purcell, Media Farm's half-retarded puppy makes the cutest face when it farts. Your readers will looooove it. Can you send a photographer over here, like, right now?

THE NEW YORKER published a magazine last week. That magazine, as many do, had a cover with pictures and stuff on it. It depicted a hot-ass Michelle Obama dressed as Angela Davis (Media Farm likes its women in camo and AKs) terrorist-fist-jabbing her not-so-secret-Muslim husband, who has taken the liberty of burning the American flag in his fireplace and hanging a portrait of Osama bin Laden in the Oval Office. The country's collective response to this bit of cartoonery illustrates, for anyone who's been curious, just why it is that the Farm breathes fire and hates everybody ever.

A sampling of the responses on Blue Mass Group—a crowd that, we assume, is familiar with the New Yorker's brand of politics: "I'm more concerned that people will just catch a slight whiff of this story or see the magazine on a newsstand and think to themselves 'well if the New Yorker is worried too, then he must really be questionable ... '"; "Obama's strategy for victory does not include satire and I do not blame the campaign for being hostile to anything that is off-message"; "Without a headline on the politics of fear, or better yet on debunking the politics of fear, the image stands as a reinforcement of every smear that has been put out there"; "Why are we talking about a bad joke when we have an economy in full melt down. PLEASE WAKE UP!"; "Let's get our priorities straight. We have an out-of-control law-breaking administration. We have a do-nothing, enabling, congress whose only interest in [sic] getting re-elected. Together they are pillaging the wealth of the country for themselves and their financial backers."

The problem, it seems, is that the past seven years have been so psychologically traumatic, and so full of all sorts of outrageous outrages, that humor has been rendered obsolete. If you're not shouting down Gitmo or encasing your Subaru in Obama bumper stickers or holding vigil outside an armed forces recruiting office or boycotting all forms of telecommunications to protest the corporate fat cats who kowtowed to FISA or skull-fucking an Al Gore blowup doll in Arlington Center, then you're letting the fascists win. The populace must be reminded how serious shit is right now. And it's not just enough to recognize the evils around us—they must be conspicuously, continually condemned for the benefit of like-minded thinkers.

The death of humor is nothing a breathlessly earnest Phoenix editorial or 10 can't fix, though. Keep at it, guys. Sooner or later, one of those things is sure to shake the war machine to its fucking core!

Funny still exists, if you know where to look for it. For instance, this month, Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens allowed himself to be waterboarded. If you thought Hitchens getting his back waxed was funny, just wait till you see him being drowned for withholding state secrets!

The death of Tim Russert, former NBC News Washington bureau chief and moderator of Meet the Press, got more coverage than the last US president to pass away, Gerald Ford. Why?

I understand that Russert was an excellent broadcast journalist, but how many hours can you spend telling viewers in one way or another how great he was? Did he really command that much attention? At 3:30pm on the afternoon of June 13th, a somber Tom Brokaw announced that Russert had died. That was newsworthy. Then the cable networks broke from their regular programming to offer their remembrances of Russert for several hours without interruption. CBS's Bob Schieffer told the Associated Press, "When you slipped one past ol' Russert, you felt as though you had hit a home run off the best pitcher in the league." In a statement, President Bush called Russert "a tough, hardworking newsman." Senators McCain and Obama passed along their condolences on the campaign trail. Even Rush Limbaugh, who often criticizes the "drive-by liberal media" on his radio show, called him "genuine," "the consummate professional" and "the closest thing there was at any of the networks to an objective journalist."

That night, NBC's Nightly News was entirely dedicated to Russert; Dateline NBC was dedicated to Russert; CBS's Evening News devoted about half of their broadcast to Russert, and Sunday's Meet the Press was dedicated to Russert. MSNBC broadcast the private funeral on the 18th. If there's a way to put Russert on the fast track to sainthood, they'll find a way to do that, too. I can picture the moment: "Father, because David Duke appeared on Meet the Press in 1991, Tim Russert exposed him as a fraud and he lost his bid for the governor of Louisiana. We hereby certify this as a miracle."

What these distinguished journalists are missing is the biggest lesson Russert taught them. I think Russert would have wanted his staff to mourn and go forward with enthusiasm and professionalism. He would want them to give sources time to explain their positions so that the public can be more informed, instead of always going for the easy sound bite.

When Russert died, Brian Williams was reporting from Afghanistan. Some of his coverage didn't air for a week and a half. Considering Russert's commitment to covering the War on Terror, it's the sort of reporting he would have wanted viewers to see. The stories are currently on nightly.msnbc.com.

Brokaw was a worthy choice for interim moderator of Meet the Press. He's familiar with loyal viewers, knows Washington well and will be a steady hand in this historic election. However, it's hard to imagine Brokaw trading his retirement to go back to work full time. Andrea Mitchell would be a good choice because, as chief foreign affairs correspondent, she knows her stuff. She's been trained under Russert, and NBC could say they have the preeminent female journalist, instead of CBS boasting Katie Couric. NBC also has to find a journalist of Russert's caliber to run the Washington bureau.

The election is five months away, and Russert is not going to be there to guide us.

James Zipadelli is a freelance writer based in Boston.

In September, the Cambridge City Council will vote on whether to change the zoning law to allow for construction of a new hotel in Porter Square. What isn't there for tourists to like about Porter Square?! A giant MBTA escalator and a 24-hour supermarket?! That's what America is all about! MINUS 1

The MBTA's diversity office is slapped with a discrimination lawsuit after its chief allegedly said lying is part of Latino culture. Racism is apparently a part of MBTA culture, as the office has already experienced heavy turnover, and the T's 37-percent minority and 25-percent female employee base is considered an "improvement." No wonder Charlie looks so white. MINUS 1

It's like watching the Roman Empire crumble: Starbucks announces the closing of seven Massachusetts store locations. Eat that, corporate coffee ( ... drink that?). PLUS 1

House Speaker Sal DiMasi has agreed to a sales tax holiday in August (last month he said the chances of a day of tax-free purchases were "very unlikely"). Get ready to shop like you live in New Hampshire! PLUS 1

The door of a Jewish temple in Haverhill is smeared with kaka. MINUS 1

Sen. Hillary Clinton comes to Boston to address the National Association of Letter Carriers (read: mailmen ... or, uh, mailpeople?), a 300,000-strong union, which was one of the first to endorse Clinton. The week-long convention will also offer workshops in retirement planning, mail delivery abroad and small dog kicking. PLUS 1

State Lottery revenues totaled $4.7 billion in the fiscal year of 2008, boasting a $237 million increase over 2007. We're riiiiiich! Not only should we be able to fix the Longfellow now, we should pave the motherfucker with GOLD. PLUS 1

A Cape Cod hospital patient is tested for an ailment similar to mad cow disease. Probably caused by tomatoes ... or peppers. To be safe, you should probably just stop eating for a while. MINUS 1

Massachusetts delegates to the Democratic National Convention will offset their carbon footprint (plane fuel doesn't grow on trees) by buying fluorescent lightbulbs to be installed in low-income community housing. All we want is a little love, Al Gore. PLUS 2

The Dark Knight rakes in $155.3 million on its opening weekend. And if you tell me how it ends, I will fucking cut you. PLUS 1

Treasurer Tim Cahill continues picking at Gov. Deval Patrick's every financial plan. As Cahill gears up for a 2010 gubernatorial bid, so does Patrick ... the current gov holds a fundraiser at his 77-acre Sweet P Farm (really), with donations reaching $5,500 a head. It begins. EVEN

THIS WEEK'S TOTAL: PLUS 3

LAST WEEK'S TOTAL: EVEN

"Now, the illness du jour is autism ... In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out ... They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.'"

--WRKO host and conservative messiah Michael Savage, who went on to describe his (clearly stellar) upbringing. 7.16.08

"It's like a cautionary tale."

--Bill Kyros, an internet and technology lawyer who created the voyeuristic car-accidents.com. Gross. 7.21.08

Massachusetts moved one step closer to parity for same-sex couples last Tuesday, when the state Senate unanimously passed a bill repealing a 1913 law prohibiting out-of-state gay couples from marrying here.

The statute, originally aimed at interracial unions, bars Massachusetts from marrying couples who would not be allowed to wed in their home state. Interracial marriages have been sanctioned in Massachusetts since 1843, but in 1913, 30 of 48 states prohibited them.

"Our state ... ought to be in the business of encouraging fair and equitable laws that don't discriminate," said Sen. Cynthia Stone Creem, D-Newton, on the Senate floor. Legislators repeatedly called the 1913 law a vestige of an ugly past.

Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, D-Boston, who championed the repeal in the Senate, called the law "one of the most pernicious statutes on our books," adopted during what was "a dark day in Massachusetts."

Speaker Sal DiMasi has pledged to support the repeal in the House, and Gov. Deval Patrick says he will sign the bill with pleasure if it gets to his desk.

This is not the first time a modern legislature has scrutinized the bill. In 2004, when the state legalized same-sex marriage, then-Governor Mitt Romney invoked the law, which had gone unenforced for decades. Legislators tried unsuccessfully to have it repealed. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the law's constitutionality in a 2006 decision, after a legal challenge by the group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders.

Last week, in addition to contesting the law's morality, legislators touted the economic benefits of striking it down, though they were careful to stress that those benefits were not their primary motivation in calling for its repeal.

Estimates released last month by the Williams Institute, a think tank based at the UCLA School of Law, suggest that allowing same-sex couples from other states to wed in Massachusetts would inject $111 million dollars into the state economy each year, as well as producing $5 million in marriage license fees and other taxes.

A number of local groups, including the Archdiocese of Boston, oppose efforts to do away with the 1913 law. They argue that, among other problems, allowing same-sex couples to wed here regardless of marriage statutes in their home state would infringe on other states' rights to legally define marriage.

"But that's exactly what they voted today to do," said Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI) President Kris Mineau after last week's Senate decision. The MFI has suggested that a successful repeal would necessitate the creation of a federal amendment prohibiting gay marriage.

It's unclear what would happen to Massachusetts-married couples that return home to states that prohibit gay marriage. Gay rights' advocates hope that such situations might prompt lawsuits challenging same-sex marriage bans in those states.

California, the only other state to perform same-sex marriages, allows couples from out of state to wed there.

Marc Solomon, executive director of the LGBT advocacy group MassEquality, concedes that Massachusetts can't override marriage statutes across the nation.

"What it can do, though," he says, "is say any two people can come to our state and get married."

When I called Byron Rushing to tell him he was a Good Bostonian, he said, "The Weekly Dig? What did I do that's so funny now?" Have we become so notoriously cynical that no one believes our annual attempt at sincerity? I guess the answer, "I don't know, but we'll think of something," didn't help.

While you're perusing our picks for nine people who make Boston a better place, enjoy how good it feels to laugh at Joel McHale and the joyous clatter of the Asylum Street Spankers. Please also consider the Second Glass' unsung heroes of grapes and LUPEC's cocktail syrups, which might just put you in a philanthropic mood.

And, speaking of Good Bostonians, we'd like to add one more to the list. Courtney Cox has been bravely reading over raw Dig articles once a week since January. She now joins us full-time (yay!), and can give our ramblings the attention they need. This alone would make her a Samaritan, but she's also donating her time to tutor us in poker. So the next time you see someone from the Dig staff, watch out! We're going to hustle you for all you're worth.

Hey, we can't all be good Bostonians.

Da doo, da da doo, da da doo, da doo, da doo, da doo doooooo. If an ice cream truck passes you, its jingle gets stuck in your head all day. The "Mister Softee" theme song, "Turkey in the Straw" and "The Entertainer" are the signature ice cream truck songs, and when children hear them, they come a'runnin'.

But some Boston residents have had enough. Last week, the Boston City Council heard testimony from locals who complained about ice cream trucks and other food vendors parked outside their homes, continuing to blare music past 9 pm.

Blythe Berents, a resident of East Boston, said the noise is so excessive that her daughter can hear the ice cream truck six blocks away.

"It's a quality of life issue," Berents said. "Everyone has a right to make a living, but you must be respectful of others."

The City Council will vote on an ordinance, offered by Councilor Sal LaMattina, which will prohibit food vendor trucks from playing music unless they are driving. The music must stop when they are parked.

The ordinance is based on a New York City law adopted in 2005.

LaMattina himself says he has heard ice cream trucks after 9pm on a school night from his East Boston home, which is fitted with soundproof windows.

"I think this [ordinance] is an easy solution for enforcement," he said.

Enforcement for noise complaints falls on the Boston Police Department. Food vendor trucks can face up to $200 fines if apprehended, and LaMattina feels the new ordinance would make enforcement easier by simplifying the issue.

One ice cream truck driver present at the hearing, who requested not to be identified, says his business is dependant on people hearing the music. He feels that if he had to stop playing it, people might assume he's left the area and not come outside to his truck.

For Les Blomberg from the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse, a grant-funded research organization in Montpelier, Vt., the music from food vendor trucks is noise pollution: a form of "aural litter" or "audible trash."

"It's a waste product from somebody else being thrown into your yard," he said.

Blomberg advocates a "plainly audible" standard, which is used on motorcycles and car stereos in New York City. That means police officers can use their own ears to identify how loud is "too loud," instead of measuring with meters or counting decibel levels.

Councilor Mike Ross anticipates the City Council will move quickly to pass the ordinance so that it will be in effect before summer's end.

Bob Tumposky of Roslindale certainly hopes so. He and his neighbors hear ice cream trucks from a nearby park at all hours.

"If we have to hear 'Turkey in the Straw' playing over and over, someone in my neighborhood is going to go crazy," he said.

Who invited common sense to the argument?

The members of the MDAA apparently suffer from the delusion that our current drug prohibition actually keeps people from using drugs ("Pot's Shot," 7.2.08). I have yet to see any evidence that drug prohibition keeps anybody from doing anything, though I have seen massive amounts evidence that prohibition exacerbates the harmful effects of drugs on people's lives and contributes greatly to the suffering drugs cause to individuals and to society as a whole.

Indeed, prohibition makes drugs MORE available, not less. The reason is not hard to see. Look at alcohol. To buy alcohol, one has to be of legal age and prove it. One can buy alcohol only at licensed, regulated locations. To buy an illegal drug, on the other hand, one goes to some guy on a street corner who will sell anything to anybody, any time. No wonder teens regularly report marijuana is easier to get than alcohol.

The DAs, in citing statistics of drug use, conveniently overlook the rates of marijuana use in the Netherlands, where its use is legal and the drug is readily available. Dutch teens have far lower rates of marijuana use than do American teens. Prohibition, or the lack of it, has little to do with a person deciding whether or not to use marijuana.

I also wonder where the DEA got its statistics about marijuana and car accidents. The reports I've seen have shown no such dramatic effect. In any case, it's irrelevant. Driving under the influence of any drug, be it alcohol, marijuana or sleeping pills, should quite properly be illegal and would remain so whether marijuana is decriminalized or not.

Steve Wellcome

Brunswick, ME

What's worse than Modern Guilt? Hipster guilt

I was overjoyed to read that David Day's opinion of Beck (CD Reviews, 7.9.08) is one of disgust. You see, I can relate. The life of a hipster who "doesn't appreciate" Beck is not an easy one, but then again, he is a scientologist. I didn't know that before the review, but he gets major retard-points for it. I'm waiting to use it as leverage in that inevitable music conversation (you know the one: For what it lacks in depth, it overcompensates in pompousness) that I'm imagining will go like this:

Pretentious Hipster: "Modern Guilt is a sick album, and Beck is my hero."

Me: "No. Beck is perpetual lamesauce, and he practices FUCKING SCIENTOLOGY, man."

Pretentious Hipster: "You are absolutely right and I see the error of my ways. Now may I bask in your awesomeness?"

Me: "Sure, get in line."

Carolyn Wells

Newton

PS I picked up the Dig in Harvard Square this week: "Hmmm," I thought, "that's funny, I think I just creamed myself ..." And then I realized: MATTE'S BACK, BITCH!

Errata

Our DVD review of 1932's The Mummy incorrectly identified Bela Lugosi for Boris Karloff. The writer was driven mad by his incompetence—or for having invoked the anger of the classic horror movie fan base at large.

Manufacturing is the future of Massachusetts' economy, according to a new study shared during The Boston Foundation's (TBF) forum last Tuesday morning.

"A pressure has built up that manufacturing is in the past, not the present, of Massachusetts," said Paul Grogan, president and CEO of TBF.

Prof. Barry Bluestone, dean of Northeastern's School of Social Science, Urban Affairs & Public Policy, has been conducting the study, called "Staying Power: The Future of Manufacturing in Massachusetts," since 2006.

He found that the perception in the state is that the manufacturing sector is deindustrializing. In truth, he argues, more job openings in the field are created yearly, with approximately 100,000 new positions expected by 2016. Manufacturing, the fourth largest employer industry in Massachusetts, according to the state government's Office of Housing and Economic Development, has grown twice as fast in Massachusetts than the rest of the country.

These jobs are viable options for those who lack a college education. Only 1.5 percent of firms surveyed stated that the majority of their positions require a graduate education.

"Massachusetts manufacturing is alive and well, but it needs a little TLC," Bluestone said. "It's not a dinosaur, it's not deindustrializing, and it certainly isn't dead as a Massachusetts doornail."

Bluestone referred to manufacturing as suffering from "Rodney Dangerfield Syndrome."

"This is a sector that does not get a lot of respect," he said. The report's surveys found that in order for the sector to prosper and gain attention, there needs to be reforms in workforce development, health care costs and education.

The biggest challenge today is recruitment to the sector. People remember their friends and family being laid off years ago and are uninterested in entering the industry, Bluestone said.

His 2006 forecast was based on a reasonably good economy, which did not factor the current economic downturn. Bluestone said the manufacturing sector is losing jobs at a slower rate than other sectors, and manufacturing goods in the US is becoming cheaper than nations abroad. "Our forecast could even be pessimistic."