Adrian Walker

Globe metro columnists finally have a good week

adamg — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 12:06:05 -0400

They must've been eating their columnist Wheaties, because last week we didn't have a single column about state fairs in other parts of the country or boring thumbsuckers called in at the last moment. They actually worked it. Yay, Globe metro columnists!

Fact-checking Globe columnists

adamg — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:49:45 -0400

Yesterday, we had Kevin Cullen declaring Delaware a Confederate state.

Today, Elias finds two factual errors in Adrian Walker's pointed, if schizo column on the former firefighter running for Jim Marzilli's seat (pointed because it's a poke in the eye of Boston firefighters, schizo because two-thirds of the way down, Walker tells us that voters in that district, which does not include Boston, don't care about the firefighter issue, and so he suddenly veers into education):

Honestly, does anyone fact check anything anymore at the Boston Globe?

I wonder what Yvonne Abraham thinks about Manny?

adamg — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:56:16 -0400

Is there some virus going around the Globe newsroom that makes metro columnists start writing about sports? Yeah, I get it, sports is the lifeblood of this town, so, OK, write about Manny Ramirez because you can't be bothered to leave your desk to actually find something new to write about, but sheesh, at least say something original.

Why are the Globe's metro columnists so lame?

adamg — Tue, 27 May 2008 10:46:59 -0400

John Gonzalez weighs all three of the columnists and finds them wanting:

... In a city that needs bold opinions, particularly now that Bailey is gone, who among them is up to the task? Walker is inconsistent. So is Abraham, who just returned to writing this spring after spending much of her first year as a columnist on maternity leave. Cullen, meanwhile, exhausted much of his first year finding his chi. What kind of cattle prod does it take these days to make a Globe columnist earn his feed? ...

He also provides the rules for the Kevin Cullen drinking game. Yes, you get points for every Irish reference.

Imagine if Adrian Walker's column were translated into another language, then translated back into English

adamg — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:32:11 -0400

Not a clue why somebody would do that, but somebody did - with his column from today. Can you notice a difference?

The column itself is a plea for the legislature to pass a same-day registration bill for voters. Sounds good to me, although does anybody know what the president of the League of Women Voters was studying in grad school back in 1986? Because I'm finding it difficult to believe somebody who'd gotten to grad school would not realize that if you're registered to vote in Amherst, you can't just show up and vote in Cambridge (at least, not yet). If it's anything related to political science, or sociology or any other field that requires some working knowledge of our political system, she might want to find another example to use to push the bill.

The answer is no

adamg — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 08:43:03 -0400

And the question is: Does Adrian Walker's column provide any new insights into Boston Fire Department scandals?

Howie Carr does the same basic column, only better, aside from a couple of Shaughnessy-like references to events that happened 30 years ago that have absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Isn't it nice to live in a city that's eliminated poverty and crime?

adamg — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:07:15 -0400

With Hendry Street condos going for record prices and soup kitchens and drug dens long since converted into chic bistros, it's just a wonderful time to be in Boston - unless you're a metro columnist for the Boston Globe, in which case it's become so hard to find local stories that you find yourself writing about poor people in Uganda and Catholic food pantries in Washington, DC.

For those of you seeking more information on today's column

adamg — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 08:01:50 -0400

Credit to Adrian Walker for not regurgitating last week's news in his column today, which tells us how one mother channeled her grief over her son's murder into a foundation trying to stop more murders. So it's probably being really nitpicky to ask if it would have ruined the column to provide a link for people who might want more information about the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute. He was probably just following corporate edicts against using URLs that don't start with boston.com...

I don't have anything to say about Adrian Walker's column today

adamg — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:35:40 -0400

That's because Joe Keohane does a much better job, explaining why today’s Adrian Walker column is sub-par, even for him:

... [T]oday's column on Deval Patrick’s book deal not only contains the most lazily pedestrian takeaway imaginable (Deval needs to prove he's going to stick around and govern), but comes about a week and a half after BZ's Jon Keller broke the story in the first place, and, I would argue, five days after the rest of the press stopped intensively covering it. ... Why, oh lord, do the good ones always take the buyouts?

The return of Adrian Walker

adamg — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:07:57 -0400

On the one hand, his column today tells you absolutely nothing you either couldn't have read in a news account or couldn't have already thought to yourself, given a spare 30 seconds (this is just a terrible, terrible tragedy and how many more little kids have to die before we, as a society, do something about it?).

On the other hand, he did write a column about actual breaking Boston news that people are actually talking about (as opposed to some issue several days after the fact that most people could care less about), so give him a hand for that.