After 16 years, James “Whitey” Bulger has been arrested in California. Boston Globe coverage. If you go to the front page, the Globe has a quite extensive package, including some of their previous Bulger coverage. Boston Herald coverage. Ditto on the Herald having an extensive package, including commentary by Howie Carr. LAT coverage, but don’t bother. It doesn’t add much.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, Bulger was the leading crime boss in Boston for many years; he built his empire largely through a corrupt relationship with the local FBI office, which covered for his criminal activities because he served as an informant for them. (Bulger’s work as an informant generally involved either providing misleading information, or using the FBI to eliminate his competition and other folks he wanted to get out of his way.)
There are two excellent books on the Bulger case: The Brothers Bulger: How They Terrorized and Corrupted Boston for a Quarter Century
by Howie Carr concentrates on the relationship between Whitey and his brother Billy, a prominent Massachusetts politician. Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob
by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, won an Edgar for “best fact crime” and is pretty compelling, but a bit dated now. If you’re going to read only one book, I highly recommend Carr’s.
One of the first cases I mentioned here at WCD was the Sedona sweat lodge incident. I am mildly pleased to report that James Ray has been convicted of three counts of negligent homicide. Unfortunately, he was not convicted of the more serious manslaughter charges he was facing, but he could still get 30 years on the negligent homicide charges.
Due to being busy and on the road, I’ve been somewhat neglecting “Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark”. From what I hear, the revised version (which is now open, and getting “official” reviews) is actually a vast improvement over the original. (The NYT review is linked from the article I’m about to link; I’m not posting the link here because I’ve used up my free articles for the month on this one.) Anyway, Patrick Healy and Kevin Flynn have an interesting article in today’s NYT on where, exactly, that $75 million went.
Even the producers acknowledge that with such high expenses, at the show’s current earning level “Spider-Man” would need to run more than seven years to recoup what investors have poured in.
At this point, “Spider Man” is bringing in $1.2 million to $1.3 million a week, per the NYT. However, the show’s operating costs are…somewhere between $1 million and $1.2 million per week. And the show owes roughly $100,000 a week on the construction loan they took out to renovate the theater. (I’m not clear if that’s included in operating costs, or is a separate line item.)
Edited to add: By way of Jimbo:
“Globe reporters are already in the sky to L.A.,” Globe features staffer Billy Baker tweeted after the FBI announced the arrest of Whitey Bulger. “Newsroom is going on all cylinders. Historic morning to be a journalist in Boston.”
Meanwhile, you have to dig down to the Bulger page on the “America’s Most Wanted” web site to find any mention of the capture. This seems odd, given the number of times John Walsh ran stories about Bulger, but perhaps they’re holding off until they determine if an “AMW” tip was behind the capture.
Edited to add 2: The LAT coverage on their “LA Now” blog is a vast improvement over the initial LAT story I linked, and is being constantly updated. Kudos to the “LA Now” blog team.
. It occurs to me that someone could write a book called Crooked Cities, possibly without ever leaving California.