Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

A funny Globe headline. (Funny funny, or funny strange? You tell me.)

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In today’s Globe we find this headline:

Kerry’s spouse nets $5.8m in stock sales

Has Teresa cashed in some of the Heinz fortune in anticipation of her husband’s next presidential bid?

Nope – here’s what the story is actually about:

As Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey engages in a multimillion-dollar ad blitz on behalf of her gubernatorial campaign, her husband has exercised a fresh round of stock options, netting the couple $5.8 million over two days.  That comes on top of at least $14.3 million in similar stock sales during the past year.

Ah – “Kerry’s” spouse, that is, Sean.  Looks like a pretty big gaffe by a headline writer.  But wait – maybe the Globe is trying to be a bit more Herald-ish in its headlines, to, you know, appeal more to the young people.  So for this story, we could have “Deb, Tim, and Andrea ready to throw down” (instead of the painfully dull “Debate is set for Democratic lieutenant governor candidates”), or for this one, “Mitt sends bills to right-wing shills” (so much more eye-catching than “Romney foundation donated $50,000 to two conservative groups”).

Nah.

UPDATE: Alert commenter zadig notes below that the online version of the article now reads “Healey’s spouse.”  But the print version, and earlier this morning the online version, are as described above.

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  1. The Web site you link to now, appropriately, reads “Healey’s spouse…” instead of “Kerry’s spouse…”. Does the print edition really say Kerry? That violate’s the Globe’s own internal style guide of using last names to identify subjects. What bozos.

    • That’s hilarious.  Note, however, that the permalink to the article has not been changed (it still says “kerrys_spouse_…).  And yes, the print version (and earlier this morning the online version) is exactly as I posted it.

  2. A woman candidate down our way gave a fifteen minute kickoff speech on education.  The paper wrote about…her jewelry.  And opinon on gay marriage, from a follow up they did.  Nothing about what she talked about.

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    How do women candidates tell young male reporters, and promoted male reporters who now write headlines, that they are jerks?

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    I happen to think Ann Coulter is rude, but it disturbs me that the evisceration of her has been accomplished almost entirely in sexual, rather than intellectuual, terms.  When is the last time you heard MSM ask if Al Franken was so whiney because he was impotent?

      • Hearing politicians tell us “we” can’t “afford” a tax cut is like listening to a glutton tell you he can’t “afford” a diet. In no other context do people talk about “paying for” money they don’t have. I can’t pay for your refusal to give me money because I need a yacht.

        -A. Coulter

      • It may be annoying, but the rash of hijackings by Connecticut WASP girls surely explains the time-consuming — but still somehow completely useless — examination of my personal effects. We all have to make sacrifices for airline safety.

      • Before the New York Times starts running “Portraits in Grief” of former Enron employees, it’s worth remembering that even after the collapse, Enron stock is still worth more than the entire Social Security “trust fund.”

        • Perhaps I’m mistaken, but shares of ENE are worthless except as collectors items.  The SSA trust fund has $1,975 billion in assets as of June 2006.

            • Oh yeah, the old just a bunch of paper certificates in some dusty filing cabinet argument.  We all would be happier if the SSA assets were invested at a better rate of return (with the necessarily higher risk), but by law, it is not to be.  Do you really believe that the SSA trust fund has no assets?  This argument did not fly the last time your guy trotted it out, so I think you’d better try a different line of attack.

              • No politics or spin:  There simply are no assets in the SSA Trust Fund. 

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                Remember Al Gore’s “lock box”? Wikipedia;Treas. Secretary Paul O’Neil;Heritage Foundation

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                Follow the (your) money:

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                Pretend that you’re saving for your retirement.  You earn a dollar, then loan it to yourself and promise to pay it back to you when you retire and you write yourself an IOU.  Then, you spend the dollar.  Do you have a dollar in trust for your retirement?

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                That’s Social Security.

                • Here’s the problem with your scenario, this “promise to pay it [your own dollar] back to you when you retire” is a scare tactic that makes no sense.  As far as I am aware, the United States (and its government) isn’t planning to retire.  Not only do we expect it to be working fulltime, but we expect it to be earning more – every year (especially those years that Democrats are in charge!)

  3. screen shots.  I wasn’t fast enough to get the online version with the wrong headline.  But here’s what was in today’s print edition:

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    And here’s what’s presently online – note the disconnect between the title of the article, the URL, and the browser title bar:

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