Today in the Herald, Laurel Sweet takes the still-unfolding story of Amy Bishop in a new direction: Bishop, she reports, loved to play Dungeons & Dragons back in the day...just like Wakefield workplace killer Michael McDermott!

Bishop, now a University of Alabama professor, and her husband James Anderson met and fell in love in a Dungeons & Dragons club while biology students at Northeastern University in the early 1980s, and were heavily into the fantasy role-playing board game, a source told the Herald.

Earlier today, I talked up Brian McGrory's piece on embattled Lawrence mayor William Lantigua, while simultaneously urging the Globe to discuss Lantigua's profane tendencies in greater detail.

Now, though, I'm writing about a claim made in McGrory's piece--specifically, his suggestion that his interview with Lantigua was an exclusive.

At this point, it seems, absolutely no one is disputing that Scott Brown was, at first, totally cool with being sworn in to the US Senate on February 11. So what changed?

The letter sent yesterday by Dan Winslow, Brown's attorney, says Brown decided to hustle after learning about "a number of votes scheduled prior to that date."

Yesterday, the Herald's Howie Carr suggested that the Boston Globe had described Scott Brown's 1.1 million supporters as "thugs" and machete-wielding "goons." Now--after trying and failing to figure out the source of Carr's gripe--I have an explanation from Carr himself:

Alex Beam column referred to goons, postings on message board upped the ante to thugs, then thugs with machetes.

In today's Herald, Howie Carr calls for Scott Brown to be seated immediately in the US Senate--and accuses the Boston Globe of smearing Brown and the people who elected him:

It’s so heartwarming, to pick up the moonbats’ favorite broadsheet and see yourself - and 1.1 million other Brown voters - described as “thugs” and “goons.

Update: Herald editor Kevin Convey explains via email, "The piece didn't develop until after the election. Had it popped up beforehand, we would gladly have run it."

Today's Boston Herald cover story takes a fascinating look at Scott Brown's youthful modeling career--a period Brown would apparently rather not discuss, and in which he didn't yet have the average-Joe-with-a-truck persona that propelled him into US Senate.

The lead story of the moment on FoxNews.com--"BULLIED EVEN IN DEATH?"--deals with nasty comments made the Facebook memorial set up for Phoebe Prince, the South Hadley girl who, apparently, killed herself due after some extremely ugly bullying.

But the Fox story doesn't tell us what those comments were. Similarly, Margery Eagan's column in today's Herald describes the relentless quality of 21st-century bullying, but omits actual comments from Prince's tormentors.

Yesterday on CNN's "Reliable Sources," Howie Kurtz and his panelists sized up the media's inattentiveness--until very late in the game--to the possibility of a Scott Brown win in that US Senate that belongs to the people, but was filled by Ted Kennedy for a really long time.

There's plenty of interesting stuff to ponder in the transcript of Kurtz's show, include WTKK-FM host Margery Eagan's theory that, with the Patriots out of the playoffs, Brown was the beneficiary of energy usually devoted to the team.

Ayla Brown's appearance yesterday on behalf of her father, would-be US Senator Scott Brown, is big news: the Herald gives it the cover treatment, and WBUR currently has a story hooked to Ayla's presser front and center on its web site.

The question is, why? Yes, Ayla is an "'American Idol' startlet" (per the Herald).

Hey, did you hear the one about the Taunton special-needs student who was sent home and sent to a shrink after drawing a picture of Christ on the cross? Verily, the war on Christianity proceeds apace!

Unless it doesn't. Because the Globe's account--titled "Taunton schools rebut report on child's Jesus drawing"--is quite different from the aforementioned Herald story:

Interesting point to ponder in the wake of Martha Coakley's big win in last night's Democratic primary for US Senate: Coakley cruised to victory despite getting no endorsement help from Boston's print media. Remember, the Boston Globe (along with the Worcester T&G, its corporate sibling) endorsed Alan Khazei. And the Herald and the Phoenix went for Mike Capuano.

Suppose you're still weighing who to vote for in next week's Democratic US Senate primary--and then you read this, courtesy of the Globe's Alex Beam:

Martha Coakley is a very good-looking woman, and by far the handsomest candidate among the four Democrats running for Ted Kennedy's seat.

Call it the babe factor.

Interesting, this: the Herald's story on GOP gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker's new running mate, State Sen. Richard Tisei, doesn't mention Tisei's sexuality once.

The Globe, however, takes a different tack. Last week, Frank Phillips cited Tisei's orientation in a piece on Baker's shortlist of possible running mates--albeit in casual terms, as my Phoenix colleague David Bernstein aptly noted

In this week's Phoenix, I size up the ongoing feud between Herald columnist Howie Carr and "Ernie Boch, III," his mysterious Blue Mass. Group-based tormentor. (Note: EB3, as he's frequently called, is no relation to car magnate Ernie Boch, Jr.) In the process, I argue that Carr doesn't really seem to understand his nemesis--and that, despite some strong ideological and biographical differences between the two, there are some noteworthy similarities as well.