You’ve got to hand it to him, Don Chiofaro has certainly knows how to grab everyone’s attention.

What else would you expect from the tough talking former Harvard star football player. Boston’s answer to Donald Trump, Chiofaro defied the odds and rolled out this second International Place tower in the teeth of the brutal early 1990s downturn.

Chiofaro is at it again, grabbing center stage with his proposal to build a pair of towers – roughly 50 to 70 stories – next door to the New England Aquarium, the Globe reported Tuesday.

Of course, in another key detail that is sure to get the activist set frothing at the mouth, Chiofaro’s twin towers would also rise over the beloved/mundane, depending on your viewpoint, Rose Kennedy Greenway.

For its part, the Herald lets loose with a cannonade of angry would-be neighbors and activist types, some of whom probably never saw a new tower they didn’t hate.

But before anyone suffers heart failure here, there two key facts to consider that you won’t find in either story.

Chiofaro isn’t very well liked at City Hall. And if the mayor doesn’t like you, your plan is on a slow track to oblivion.

Secondly, has anyone checked the financing markets lately? Certainly Chiofaro knows there’s little chance of this plan, or any other tower proposal for that matter, getting financed in the next few years.

This then, is a debate over the future of Boston’s skyline. Interesting enough, but hardly anything to push the panic button over.

Just as I was getting disgusted with the lack of media coverage on the state’s sudden shift toward casino gambling, and the Globe had to come along and spoil my rant.

The paper duly reported on Tuesday budding discussions between new House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Gov. Deval Patrick over the possibility of both slot machines at local racetracks and maybe even a casino or two.
I did my own part to shed some light here, with my B&T column on Monday looking ahead to the New England wide gambling war that’s likely to come out of all of this.

Of course, it is still pale shadow to the tidal wave of coverage that greeted Gov. Patrick’s first proposal last year for a trio of casinos.

Times were different then, that’s for sure. But this is a big decision that look like it’s going to quietly slip through without much attention amid all the economic doom and gloom.

It’s a big story, a really big one. But you wouldn’t know it from the coverage it’s getting.

After years of intense debate, casinos are more than likely coming to the Bay State.

But after the media frenzy that surrounded Gov. Deval Patrick’s doomed casino proposal last year, relatively little attention is being paid now that expanded gambling appears to be rushing toward reality on Beacon Hill.

Former House Speaker Sal DiMasi’s departure opens up the prospect of slot machines not just in Massachusetts, but across New England as the region’s other states scramble to keep up with the Bay State.

Sal had kept the cork firmly in the gambling bottle for years.

However, Robert DeLeo, the new House Speaker, has made it pretty clear he plans to push for slot machines at the racetracks and maybe even a full-fledged casino.

DeLeo’s comments, though, have so far been tucked away into overall state budget stories.

I am taking a different approach, with a column in this week’s B&T that predicts a region-wide gambling war.

Whether you think this is a good idea or not – I contend we have nothing else to lose given the economy’s sorry state – beyond debate is that this is a big story.