The Globe self reports that the suspension is without pay - and that he will also be barred from doing any interviews with other media outlets for several months after that. Read more.

WEEI's Kirk Minihane yesterday ripped into Kevin Cullen for two bombing-related columns - one over the weekend, the other a couple days after the bombings. In the first column, he wrote that Martin Richard's father was a runner in the race; in the second, he made it sound like he was at the scene at the time of the explosions.

David Wade reports the Globe is now investigating Cullen's writing on the topic.

Kevin Cullen, who used to be a police-beat reporter, gives Daniel Keeler a sendoff, describing him as a tough-but-fair champion of justice. David Bernstein, who once took a critical look at the BPD homicide unit on which Keeler served, is not quite so charitable.

Yeah, how dare Deval Patrick not excoriate Blue Cross Blue Shield for the $28 million it's paid out to its last two departing CEOs.

Kevin Cullen does a nice job explaining how a company that paid a $50-million fine for supplying substandard concrete for the Big Dig is now getting state road contracts again.

Globe columnist Cullen likens relationship between Globe and NYT Co. to that between debtor and loan shark. Overall, it reads like a resigned realist, laying it out.

This installment of the loansharking metaphor is relatively free of violence, but tune in for the next exciting episode.

Kevin Cullen sticks up for Chuck Turner today, decrying the court order that prevents him from publicly discussing any pre-trial evidence the feds hand over to his lawyers.

Three things:

Is it a bit odd that Cullen is writing about the court order when the Globe itself has yet to report on it? That might explain why he doesn't discuss the part of the order in which the judge slaps around the U.S. Attorney's office for its prosecution of the case to date.

Second, the Caped Columnist really should find his own voice instead of imitating Howie Carr and making up monickers for the people he writes about ("Comrade Turner," how droll).

Third, Tovarisch Cullen places great emphasis on video of Turner allegedly accepting a bribe:

Anybody who hasn't seen that video, or read or heard talk about it, is either dead, deaf, or blind, and in any case is so insulated from everyday life as to preclude them from being qualified to sit in judgment of a parking violation, much less a man's liberty.

Last I checked, I still have a pulse; I can hear you, my loyal reader, whining about me bashing Cullen yet again; and I can see Cullen's lead, something about Kate Winslet, perfectly fine. And yet, I've never seen that video!

Where is it? I've certainly seen the screen capture (or as Clever Kev might call it, "the photo") the feds released, purportedly from a video. But actual movin' pictures of Chuck Turner being handed a wad of bills? Anybody have a URL for that?

Yesterday, Yvonne Abraham brought us to tears with her column about the loving couple married for 62 years who died within hours of each other.

Today, Kevin Cullen tries to get us mad at Vermont because a thug from Charlestown out for some country air or something up there went after a guy with an ax and wound up getting himself killed.

What will tomorrow bring? No doubt Adrian Walker will have us gripping the edges of our seats with his thoughts on Bob DeLeo.

South Shore Pragmatist read Kevin Cullen's column today, at first wondered when the Globe hired Howie Carr, then realized it was just Cullen doing a little play acting, right down to the made-up nicknames for sleazy solons, at least until Cullen realized he still works for the Globe and actually had to write something original, which he finally got to in the bottom third of the column.

They must've been eating their columnist Wheaties, because last week we didn't have a single column about state fairs in other parts of the country or boring thumbsuckers called in at the last moment. They actually worked it. Yay, Globe metro columnists!

Kevin Cullen did what he does best - covering stuff like the mob - then followed up with an outrage inducer about a poor maid who won't be seeing any of that $700 billion.