Three months as a hostage in Iraq may have earned Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll a Harvard fellowship, but it can't help her escape the disdain of Boston Herald gossip columnists Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa. Indignant at Carroll's refusal to do an interview when accosted in a bar by a Fox assignment editor, Fee and Raposa note that despite Carroll's "pedestrian" education, her new gig at Harvard has made "one rather full of oneself." Probably didn't help that Carroll declined to comment further for the Herald, but really — how long is she going to ride that taken-hostage train, anyway? Note that this is the top gossip item in the Fee-Raposa column. New Yorkers, thank your lucky starlets.

You might mistake the duo at right for a mild-mannered pair headlining an NPR telethon; that would be the last mistake you ever made. The two are in fact Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa — the "Gals" — twin terrors of Boston's gossip scene and lead reporters on the Boston Herald's Inside Track column. A humbugging profile of Fee and Raposa in Boston magazine is amusing on several points, such as how even those who fear them are quick to note that at least things aren't as bad as in New York: