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Murphy: "There was a feeling in South Boston that people were unfairly labeled as racist if they were opposed to busing, and it was really this anger that a judge — a federal judge — was telling them that, 'Your children will be bused out of the neighborhood across town to a neighborhood that's higher in crime with schools that [have been] found are inferior.'

"So there was this feeling of being put-upon, and so while [Whitey's brother] Billy Bulger became one of the most outspoken political opponents of busing, Whitey was working behind the scenes ... And what we found from talking to some of his former associates is that one of the things he did was drive over to Brookline — to President John F. Kennedy's birthplace — and firebomb his birthplace. Part of the motivation was Ted Kennedy at the time was a very outspoken proponent of the need to desegregate the schools. He was very outspoken about it. And Whitey went over, and he wrote in chalk on the sidewalk, spray-painted on the sidewalk, 'Bus Teddy.' "

On the Debra Davis killing and investigation

Murphy: "It's very strange how this whole thing played out. You have this notorious gangster. He's dating this woman. She vanishes without a trace. And they did put a report in the FBI national computer database listing her as a missing person, and then mysteriously, suddenly there's an update to that report that she's no longer missing. She's been spotted somewhere in Texas, which is a complete lie. So [Davis' mother] knows someone in the FBI went into that database and altered that report."

More On Whitey Bulger

Opinion

How I Remember Whitey

Gretta Harley arrived in Seattle in 1990, when grunge was redefining the city. Bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden were turning Seattle into the epicenter of the music world. Harley was a punk rock guitarist searching for her tribe, and in Seattle's thriving music scene, she found it.

"I lived in a house with a bunch of other musicians," Harley says. "And The Screaming Trees lived across the street, Gus Huffer lived around the corner, and Gorilla lived around the corner." While living in close proximity to so many popular Northwestern bands, Harley soon co-founded her own. She and Tess. Lotta formed Maxi Badd, which later became the Danger Gens. Almost 25 years on, Harley is still in music. She teaches and she performs as half of the duo "We Are Golden" with singer Sarah Rudinoff.

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Has there ever been an age that was so grudging about suspending its disbelief? The groundlings at the Globe Theatre didn't giggle when Shakespeare had a clock chime in Julius Caesar. The Victorians didn't take Dickens to task for having the characters in A Tale of Two Cities ride the Dover mail coach 10 years before it was established. But Shakespeare and Dickens weren't writing in the age of the Internet, when every historical detail is scrutinized for chronological correctness, and when no "Gotcha!" remains unposted for long. Photographers using flashbulbs in 1919 in J. Edgar? Transatlantic twin-engine jets in Argo? Really — it totally took me out of the movie!

In a climate of insistent authenticity, there's nothing harder to get right than a period's vocabulary. The past speaks a foreign language that even those who grew up with it can't recover. The producers of Mad Men take pride in fitting out their characters with the correct ties and timepieces. But as the Boston Globe's Ben Zimmer observed, they can't seem to keep anachronisms out of the scripts. Were we already saying "keep a low profile" in 1963? Actually, no — it didn't catch on until 1969, but who can remember these things?

Other writers don't even seem to make an effort to get the dialogue right. Spotting linguistic anachronisms in Julian Fellowes' Downton Abbey is as easy as shooting grouse in a barrel. "I couldn't care less," Lord Grantham says. Thomas complains that "our lot always gets shafted." Cousin Matthew announces he has been on a steep learning curve, a phrase that would have gotten a blank reception even in the Sterling Cooper boardroom.

Television

I'm Just Sayin': There Are Anachronisms In 'Downton'

In a business where effects-laden movies helped Hollywood make a record-setting $10.8 billion last year, many of the studios that create those effects are barely staying afloat.

Visual effects have been a part of the movie industry ever since Georges Melies went on his famous Trip to the Moon in 1902. These days, VFX studios do everything from putting a tiger in a lifeboat on an ocean voyage to choreographing the destruction of a New York City being defended by Earth's mightiest heroes.

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