She’s the author of such classics as “It’s time to say yes to Walmart,” and of not just one but two columns this week alone in which she shamelessly shills for John Fish and his cabal of cronies pushing Boston 2024. Of course we’re talking about Boston Globe punchline Shirley Leung, the most loathsome writer in New England save for Ben Mezrich and every opinionated bigot at the Boston Herald. Like all devout boosters of unfettered capitalism, Leung was presumably raised to stick up for the bully. In case you missed her April Fool’s Day joke earlier this week …
It must be a confusing time for Fish. Here he is trying to do what he thinks is a good thing, to bring the Summer Games to the city and state, creating thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic development. And along the way, the Olympics just might get us a T that works all year round.
But these days, it seems like whatever Boston 2024 says or does is the absolute wrong thing. Spruce up Franklin Park? No! Deval Patrick as global ambassador? Not for $7,500-a-day?#$! Sponsor a referendum? Those guys are co-opting the ballot process!
If blaming residents wasn’t depraved enough, Leung doubled down this morning. Since everyone must share the blame for imminent Olympic failure except those vying to actually bring the Summer Games to Boston, this time she smacks around the publicists who can’t seem to convince the most educated state in America that up is down, ice is hot, fish don’t stink, and so forth. On Planet Leung, the problem isn’t any of the innumerable issues raised by concerned citizens—it’s that media relations wizards aren’t spinning enough wool to pull over the public’s eyes …
Boston 2024 is awash in problems — and none bigger is the group’s ability to get its message across that the Games can make Boston a better version of itself. The Olympics are supposed to be a feel-good event, but not here. Instead, the Games are toxic, as if organizers are proposing to build a nuclear waste dump on the Greenway.
It’s difficult to entertain this kind of utter bullshit humorously, though lampooning Leung’s fraudulence helps to curb the fits of rage that she provokes. No human could possibly think a lot of the things she writes, like that Fish gives one-tenth of a turd about Franklin Park; as such, the best way to besiege her is to focus on something Leung seems to actually believe: namely, that NIMBYs are the worst, and that people should roll over every time a builder gets a hard-on for their neighborhood. Some examples:
- The first rule of NIMBY Club is that being a NIMBY is always bad, and you never want to be one. Observe in this 2014 piece about the harborfront: “Then there is everyone else, armed with concerns about the project but also conscious of being cast as NIMBYs.”
- As a holiday gift late last December, Leung bravely pitched solutions for dealing with perturbed residents. Also, people who don’t want the whole city looking like the discombobulated Innovation District are fun to piss off: “That should get the NIMBYs going.”
- Sometimes Leung teams with politicians to trash her enemies. From a 2013 heater about East Boston: “Rizzo, 54, gives the councilor this much: The process could have been better, but starting from scratch wouldn’t have gotten rid of the NIMBYs. ‘If they were to scrap these plans and come back and say they wanted to build a mall in East Boston, you would have had people calling Sal and saying, ‘I don’t want a mall,’’ said Rizzo.”
- She may detest ‘em, but NIMBYs rejoiced last June when Leung was kind enough to approve their participation in a process that could potentially transform their city forever: “We need to hammer out these details soon. Yes, this is also an open invitation to naysayers and NIMBYs, whose critiques should be part of the process. Don’t hold back, because the US bid could be decided as early as January.”
All things considered, we feel that it only makes sense to raise $100 million dollars to construct a state-of-the-art skyscraper in Leung’s backyard (final cost estimates are still in the works). It will be called “Olympic Tower,” and it will house college students and artists who will operate the mixed-use development’s 24-7 pot dispensary and heavy metal venue. It won’t be easy, but considering how many executive salads Leung has rhetorically tossed over the years, there may even be a shot of finishing this project without having to use taxpayer money. Please send all donations to the Shirley Leung fan club of your choice.
Finally, we should note that Leung hasn’t always been a publicist for plutocrats. Back in her days at the Baltimore Sun, she even managed to write evenly about people who were fighting off a football stadium. In a 1995 article titled “Stadium fight becomes full-time job,” Leung went so far as to quote a woman saying, “A lot of people think when there is opposition, they dismiss us as a handful of NIMBY types,” and herself noted, “Had the community not rallied, construction would have started already.”
One can only imagine the disdain Leung, then just a reporter, secretly had for the activists in Maryland, those bastards who believed their neighborhood deserved better than to become a fall destination for thousands of inebriated savages. On that note, please give as much as you can swing; if there’s enough money left over, we’d also like to build a new home for the Revolution on her front lawn.
[Media Farm is wrangled by DigBoston News + Features Editor Chris Faraone]
Dig Staff means this article was a collaborative effort. Teamwork, as we like to call it.
