Phillipe and Jorge’s Cool, Cool World
RIP, Yelberton Abraham
For New England football fans of a certain age, the passing of Y.A. Tittle brought back a ton of good memories. Tittle was the famed quarterback of the New York Giants in the early 1960s. He was the NFL MVP in 1963 and held records for most TD passes and yardage back when Tom Brady was a not even a glint in his old man’s teenage eye.
Long before the New England Patriots were formed, this good ol’ boy from LSU (“Went in dumb, come out dumb, too” thank you Randy Newman, but not in Y.A.’s case) was lighting it up in the pros. Those were the days when the Giants ruled the region, with New York City residents coming up to Connecticut to rent motel rooms on Sundays to watch Tittle, Sam Huff, Frank Gifford, Del Shofner and the gang play on Channel 3 from Hartford because the home games were blacked out in the Big Apple. While Jorge was a Giants fan, even though Phillipe was a supporter of the Giants’ archenemies, the Philadelphia Eagles, he had ultimate respect for Tittle. Y.A. was one of the best of a generation of QBs who weren’t athletic freaks, but simply knew how to play football and win games, like his hardass peers Bobby Layne and Norm Van Brocklin, who also wouldn’t surprise you if they cracked a beer in the locker room at halftime.
The iconic photo of Tittle shows him after getting sacked and throwing an interception against Pittsburgh in his final year, blood streaming down his head and looking like a lost soul. But he was a big man in a sport that he helped make America’s favorite. Say hi to Chuck Bednarik when you hit the pearly gates, Y.A.; we’re sure you’ve got some good stories to swap.
Everyone’s Guilty
Hollywood’s ranking fat pig Harvey Weinstein finally got what was coming to him, and it would be true justice if he spent time behind bars for his molestation and rape of actresses whose careers he could kill if they didn’t acquiesce to his depraved come-ons. Join the crowd with other recently exposed swine like Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly.
If anyone thinks Weinstein’s behavior was not known throughout the gossip-ridden film industry for years before he was publicly accused, you still think Tinkerbell exists in real life. Yet the only male actor or executive P&J have seen mentioned as having confronted him was Brad Pitt, and even that was done behind the scenes, because Weinstein had the power to torpedo his career as quickly as he could any young actress. It’s defies belief to think that the community that made “casting couch” an expression could be clueless about carrying on a heinous tradition of exploiting young women that reeks of sex slave traders.
Instead of a parade of women who are now coming out about Weinstein’s vile abuse, which can’t be easy for any of them, where are the male actors, directors and producers who have known about this for decades, and who have tacitly condoned this criminal behavior? Oh, they must still be in makeup. You gutless wimps.
“Don” Rhymes with “Moron” Could there be anything more fun than having incompetent Secretary of State Rex Tillerson outed for having called his equally clueless and embarrassing President Big Baby a moron after a Pentagon meeting? Okay, it is stating the obvious, but kudos to the high level officials who leaked it to the press.
But in the fantasy kingdom of Trumpworld, The Donald immediately labeled the NBC report “fake news,” which is getting real old, real fast when used any time someone points out what a head case and insecure child we have elected as our commander-in-chief. And naturally, the Orange Orangutan showed his lack of knowledge about how TV news stations are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, which is on an individual basis, not by network, when he suggested having the FCC try to take away NBC’s license as a whole. Oops. Now there is real fake news, pardon the oxymoron.
So another week goes by with President Pussy-grabber offending Puerto Ricans in direct contrast to what his chief of staff John Kelly has said and ignoring the disastrous damage wreaked on the island by Hurricane Maria, trying to obliterate Obamacare by a backdoor route using an administrative order, and trying to suppress the freedom of the press. All through the use of tweets, of course, the highest level of informed and intelligent communication our leader can handle.
As long as once reputable people like Tillerson and Kelly continue to suck up to their boss despite his contradicting them and humiliating them in public, The Donald will continue to enjoy a bit of credibility, as people ignore the obvious lack of self control and questionable mental stability. It has become tiring and sad, both for the country and the people in it who care so much about what America has meant on the world stage.
Answer Us “Why?”
As always, after a mass shooting like the one in Las Vegas, Phillipe and Jorge have a simple question: Why are people allowed to buy assault rifles? The answer given is that outlawing them would be the first step toward outlawing all guns. This has as much credence as saying that stopping people from driving 100 miles an hour is the precursor to taking away everyone’s car. The capitulation of politicians to the National Rifle Association is one of the great insults to caring Americans, and along with our president, lessens us in the eyes of everyone. Oh, and please explain it to the families of the victims. Thanks.
More Passages
Your superior correspondents would like to mention two other recent passings of note (both friends of ours from the Vo Dilun music scene). Veteran DJ Jimmy Gray (probably best known for his long tenure as WPRO-FM’s morning drive personality) passed away at the age of 73. He was a great guy, much loved in the RI radio community and a longtime friend of Jorge’s. Less well-known (he was a club performer way back in the ’60s and ’70s) was Hank Turgeon, who passed away at the age of 80. Hank had one of the earliest and best Elvis tribute/impersonator acts in this area. Hank also owned a cab company in RI for a number of years and Jorge would often ride in his cab just to chat with him. Rest in peace, Jimmy and Hank. Dr. Oldie
The Original Southern New England Rock ‘n’ Roll Collectors Convention will take place on Sunday, November 5 at the Ramada Hotel Seekonk, 213 Taunton Ave. (on Rte. 44, next to Tasca Ford). Record collectors and casual rock fans can check out 50 tables of vinyl records, CDs and other rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia on display by dealers from all over New England. In addition to rarities, you’ll find literally thousands of LPs and 45s at cheap prices. At nearly 40 years old, this is the area’s oldest running show. Doors open at 10am and close at 3pm. Early Admission ticketholders can get in at 8:30am to get first crack at the merchandise.
AltFacts: The Terror of Sinclair
Now that the media-content-franchising, frighteningly biased conglomerate Sinclair Broadcast Group has purchased local WJAR News Channel 10, you can expect Terrorism Watch and other trumped-up segments (like one starring Boris Epshteyn) to invade the minds of those watching local news broadcasts.
Our intrepid AltFacts investigators (who don’t, technically, exist – but neither do unbiased Sinclair investigators), went deep undercover to reveal what other mind-invading media tricks they have up their sleeves. Possible collaboration with the new 94.5 (WChristianRockFromHellWhereBRUsedToBe) has not been ruled out.
Plans to recruit landmarks like the Big Blue Bug and Independent Man appear to have been unsuccessful so far, although we have it on good authority that the Johnston Landfill is fully on board. In fact, mutant garbage that’s spawning in that esteemed environment has recently gained the power of speech and will have a segment on Channel 10 beginning next week.
And in a public relations move like no other, Sinclair is offering to reward any mayors, pundits or higher elected officials (not high in a cannabinoid sense … well, maybe that too … although these folks go more for the coke end of the spectrum), if those officials agree to read prewritten, Sinclair-supplied content. By reading brief, pointed statements at the beginning and end of every press conference (and let’s face it, who’s really listening anyway?) officials can secure financing to ensure reelection and earn exciting bonus prizes from those not claimed on any given day’s screening of “The Price Is Right!”
On the bright side, it is entirely possible that this arrangement will allow the governor (henceforth to be called the conservanor when speaking ex cathedra) to solve RI’s debt problems with one swift, outside- the-box moral compromise, which would make her the most effective moral compromiser in RI’s robust history of moral compromisation. How’s that for playing a trump card?
Phillipe & Jorge’s Cool, Cool World: Sinclair Media, Delays and Secession
Bend Over, JARheads WJAR-TV, Channel 10, the local NBC station, was publicly shamed and disgraced — and rightly so — by The Urinal’s recent excellent front pager by Jacqueline Tempera that pointed out that the JARhead’s Big Daddy, Sinclair Broadcast Group, was forcing them to air pre-packaged promo pieces for President Trump and his policies (read: unhinged, constantly changing rantings).
Nowadays, a media outlet getting pimped out by its corporate overlord is hardly news, no pun intended. Rupert Murdoch, the Australian “Dirty Digger,” rules as king of that strategy, abetted by the twisted genius of Roger Ailes. But WJAR has been Little Rhody’s flagship TV station, and to have them bending over for a carpetbagger like Sinclair is a particularly galling slap in the face to its viewers.
Being forced to run total crap pieces like “Bottom Line with Boris,” a supposed political analysis piece featuring Boris Epshteyn, a former Trump administration Jewish (wait a sec, instantly irate readers, it’s relevant, read on) guy who is “credited” with having written The Donald Duck Dynasty’s offensive Holocaust Memorial statement that didn’t mention Epshteyn’s tribe at all, despite that little matter of unspeakable genocide during World War II, is another headbutt to any viewer with a brain. Add to that the distasteful fear porn of the Terrorist Alert Desk and pieces by a former Sinclair exec named Mark Hyman, which are Trump agenda puff pieces that masquerade as unbiased, and you can kiss Channel 10’s credibility goodbye.
So what happened with the JARheads? One would think that anyone with a degree of respect for their own credibility — and yes, we’re looking directly to the conscience of the station, Frank Coletta, and we love ya, buddy — would simply resign in disgust. Channel 10’s rep has been almost spotless in past years, except for their amusing misspellings on their graphics, P&J’s favorite being the one about their own NBC headquarters in New York, titled “Rockerfeller (sic) Center.”
But the quality at Channel 10 has plummeted in recent years, and institutional knowledge is almost non- existent. Since the days of superior behind-the-scenes management like Betty-Jo Cugini, Lisa Churchville and Jim Martin, the only one left with any standing in P&J’s eyes are the underrated R.J. Heim and assignment editor Artie Tefft, who, if there is indeed a God, will be in the RI Journalism Hall of Fame at some point. Patrice Wood hasn’t left the studio to do a news story in over 30 years and Gene Valicenti has become a joke. Phillipe and Jorge have lauded Valicenti in the past for his reporting skills in the field, brash and confrontational in the best way. Now that he is doubling down with his cross- platform morning radio show on WPRO, he has become a self-promoting blowhard. The most obnoxious bit being at the end of most ‘PRO broadcasts, when he says, “Watch me tonight at six o’clock on Channel 10.” Watch you do what, Gene? Read someone else’s news copy off a teleprompter?
WPRI Channel 12 is not without some blame for being tied to the local Fox news broadcasts, which are flawed at their core. But their investigative reporting team with Tim White, Dan McGowan, et al. blows away the JARheads’ I-Team, which has never been as good as when Jim Taricani, Dyana Koelsch and Polly Reynolds were taking names and kicking ass years ago.
And today’s news reporters are abysmal. Their sole goal in life seems not to be good journalists who are insulted by merely being asked to cover car crashes in Burrillville, but to get their faces on TV. The best and most visible example of that syndrome is NBC’s “Today” show, which features a gaggle of embarrassingly desperate-for-attention mental midgets talking over one another as loudly as they can to grab the spotlight. Oh well, we doth protest too much.
The loathsome Steve Bannon’s Breitbart news operation is a mere pimple compared to the smallpox outbreak of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, and now, Sinclair, that have defaced journalism. And seeing how Channel 10 has become yet another Chump for Trump, P&J know we will be doing our viewing elsewhere.
Governor Gigi’s Bridge
Here in Rhode Island, “The ‘Expect Delays’ State,” Governor Gigi Raimondo has felt it to her benefit to use RI Department of Transportation signage about road construction as another form of campaign posters. They usually tout how well RIDOT has been improving our streets and highways, and Gigi thinks that she can grab a few votes from folks who aren’t having their teeth rattled or hubcaps popped by roads that look like the way out of Kabul.
Now we have the Newport Bridge construction, which is a bit geo-centric and maybe not relevant to most Vo Dislunders’ cares, wants or needs. But it is a living nightmare to anyone who has to cross the span at any time of day. A recent back-up of a half an hour on a Sunday night at 6pm makes a convincing argument to Phillipe and Jorge.
What is even more frightening is the public safety risk. A pal recently told us that if he has a heart attack in Jamestown, take him to South County Hospital, because he’ll die in traffic if the ambulance tries to go over the Newport Bridge. Likewise, if there is an accident going either way on the one-lane portions, because since Jersey barriers were installed, there is no way to turn around, unless you are driving the Batmobile or Agent K’s supersonic Elvis-blasting megacar in Men in Black. But Rhode Islanders are such renowned good drivers that could never happen, right?
Since Gigi doesn’t have to deal with this hot mess every day, let’s give our not-so-warm and definitely- not-cool governor the attention she craves, and put on every road sign that includes the words “Expect Delays” about the Newport Bridge, “Brought to you by Gov. Gina Raimondo.” She certainly deserves it.
Rest in peace, Claiborne.
RI Harbored the Best If you know anything about college sports (and P&J certainly do: Phillipe was an All-American in soccer athlete back in his Brown days and is in the Brown Athletic Hall of Fame). You know that the current college basketball scandal in which Rick Pitino, the former PC head coach, has lost his job as head men’s basketball coach at Louisville is about par for the course. The world of college sports has always been primarily about money and has nothing to do with education. This is even more egregiously obvious with the influence of the money from athletic shoe companies thrown in. The main difference between Pitino and many other big time college sports coaches is that he’s been very successful at it. College sports on the big-time level is inherently corrupt and corrupting. P&J have been saying this for decades. Jorge recalls that as a student at URI in the early ’70s, he wrote a column in the school paper (the Good 5 Cent Cigar) suggesting that rather than having sports teams to generate income, URI should create a film department, hire as professors directors like Francis Ford Coppola, and give scholarships to students who want to become actors or directors and let them make movies that the school can produce and distribute. Scarier than Halloween
With the victory of the gun-waving, Bible-toting bigot Roy Moore in the Alabama GOP US Senatorial primary, we have further proof that Bizarro World is on the rise in many parts of the US of A. So much for “progress” in our lifetimes. Your superior correspondents now have to seriously consider how Casa Diablo can successfully secede from the Union. Sleep tight, America.
Passages
Our hearts go out to the family and many friends of Judge Walter Stone, who passed away recently. Judge Stone was a major figure in not only RI legal/judicial circles, but a true trailblazer on a number of levels. He was indeed one of the Biggest Little’s best and a truly an admirable man.
Alt-Facts: Far-I-Ners
A foreign country, far, far away, full of far-i-ners, seems to want our help. At least that’s what about half of Americans seem to believe – possibly including our President, at least up until he was briefed on the fact that Puerto Rico is, in fact, part of the US. Since he used to golf there, you’d think he’d know better. A recent poll (by morning Consult, cited in The NYT) found that only 54% of Americans knew that people born in Puerto Rico are US citizens. And ratings on the Weather Channel – which set records during hurricane Irma – attracted roughly 1/7th as many viewers for Maria coverage, even though the decimation may be more extreme. In fact, the 3.4 million people living there, citizens since 1917, would make it the 30th most populous state, if we could break that 50-state barrier. This perception by Americans that our island-based countrymen are “other” makes a difference – that same poll found that more than eight in 10 Americans who know Puerto Ricans are citizens support aid, compared with only four in 10 of those who do not. And a fair number changed their minds about supporting aid when they found out.
The damage to the electrical infrastructure will leave much of Puerto Rico dangerously in the dark for weeks or months. That doesn’t mean the country needs to voluntarily stay in the dark about what’s happening there.
In other news about fear of “others” gaining unfortunate traction, Germany has joined France, Britain and America in being completely blindsided by the popularity of conservative anger in their political make-up. Of course, when it’s Germany, history makes it that much more frightening and disconcerting – but welcome Deutschland to the club of divided Western nations, as their far right AfD party grabbed the votes of 13% of Germans, proving that a healthy economy is no protection against xenophobia.
In local facts, we have better news than on the national front: The RI Oyster fest went off on a beautiful Saturday a week ago, where Providence Oyster fans, including Mayor Elorza and his dad and a full set of Motif writers, managed to consume several boatloads – over 13,400 oysters, according to co-head- shellfish-wrangler Frank Mullen. On the same day, Providence’s Open Door project blew away their own expectations, with a self-reported more than 4,100 participants taking a peek into the normally restricted nooks and crannies of the capital city. Too bad Puerto Rico couldn’t be included on the tour, or more folks might realize it’s part of the country. Who Was the Mysterious Columbus?
Christopher Columbus has become a controversial figure: He is simultaneously honored by the Italian- American community as their foremost symbolic personage and reviled by Native Americans as the bringer of near-genocide.
In Providence, Columbus Square features one of the nation’s most recognized statues of Columbus, refabricated in bronze a year after the display of an identical statue in silver designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, whose most well-known sculpture is the Statue of Liberty, for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1892, intended to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus discovering America in 1492.
Not so fast, some say: America was not “discovered” because there were already people here before Europeans arrived. Rhode Islander Steve Ahlquist summarized the objections in his 2014 article: “Christopher Columbus was a monster. He saw people as commodities to be bought and sold. He destroyed lives for personal gain. His crimes include rape, murder, torture and genocide.”
There is ample historical documentation for Ahlquist’s claim, and Columbus was unquestionably a 15th century man who acted according to 15th century principles and morality. Only a generation after Columbus, European mistreatment of natives in America and Africa, including slavery, would come under its first attack as unethical and cruel by Bartolomé de las Casas – whose father sailed with Columbus and who was himself friendly with Columbus’ sons.
What is surprising is how little we really know about the historical Columbus before he became famous. The uncertainty even merits its own Wikipedia article, “Origin theories of Christopher Columbus.” The most common view is that he was from the Republic of Genoa in what is now Italy, but in the 15th century “Italy” was a vestigial political concept that had become nearly irrelevant since the Middle Ages and the language we know today as “Italian” barely existed. Liguria, the region around Genoa, was a focal point for conflict and competition between Spain, France and Milan, all of which had their own problems as well. In other words, if someone was looking to obscure their identity in a mass of confusion – and there is evidence this is exactly what Columbus tried to do – Genoa would have been a good place to do it.
While there are many documents attesting to the presence of a Colombo family in Genoa, the question is whether those named are connected to the explorer – who changed the form of his name to mesh with local custom whenever he moved, for example calling himself “Cristóbal Colón” in Spain. Anyone looking at the surface of Columbus’ life would conclude that he was at least culturally Spanish: He wrote only in Spanish, his expedition was carried out under the flag of Spain, and he was rewarded with the high honor of “Admiral” by the Spanish monarchy. When Columbus’ son Ferdinand writes a biography of his father, it includes genealogy both plausible and obviously fanciful; worse, the Spanish- language original has been lost and all that survives in a 1571 translation into Italian. It is even possible that Columbus hid his true background and his name, whatever it was, from his own sons.
We also know that Columbus did many strange things that are difficult to explain. On his first voyage, he brought along Luis de Torres as a Hebrew translator, but why? Columbus thought he was sailing to Asia, and most of what Europeans knew about that distant foreign land was derived from the writings of Marco Polo 200 years earlier and a few subsequent accounts by other traders – and they certainly never described anyone speaking Hebrew. The best explanation, bizarrely, is that Columbus was hoping to encounter the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, even today a favorite of lunatic conspiracy theorists, but at the time it was often popularly believed that the Native Americans were somehow descended from the Jews of antiquity captured by invading Neo-Assyrians in 722 BCE – more than 2,200 years before the voyage of Columbus. One of the arguments by de las Casas in favor of better treatment for the Native Americans is that he believed they were the descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes.
Jews faced enormous obstacles: A recent scholarly paper employs a database of 1,366 acts of European anti-Jewish persecution between 1100 and 1800. After long campaigns of forced conversions – including de Torres – finally Spain expelled all of its Jews in 1492, a fact noted in the opening sentence of Columbus’ diary of his voyages.
Many Jews and Muslims made common cause against the states that expelled them, and seafaring became inherently political. Heyreddin Barbarossa was a slightly younger contemporary of Columbus: to the Muslim Ottoman Empire he was a loyal naval admiral, but to the Christians of Europe he was a pirate; Barbarossa’s chief naval strategist, the Spanish exile Sinan Reis, was Jewish.
Much of the technology of navigation of the era was the work of Jews, especially the then-famous Abraham Zacuto who was born in Spain, fled to Portugal in 1492 to become royal astronomer, fled again in 1496 when Portugal expelled its Jews, and spent the last years of his life in Tunis in North Africa and eventually in Jerusalem. Zacuto’s innovations included instruments for taking measurements of the sun and stars while at sea and the publication of tables for calculating corrections for magnetic compass without the need for astronomical observations. Columbus is known to have carried a copy of Zacuto’s tables, and according to his diary used them to predict the lunar eclipse of February 29, 1504, scaring the natives.
One of the important controversies of the day in astronomy and navigation was the length of a degree of longitude: if short enough, as Zacuto and others believed, it would be possible to reach Asia from Europe by sailing westward across the ocean. The whole reason for the voyage of Columbus in the first place was to reach Asia and ease the trade in spices and other valuable goods: it turned out to be pure dumb luck that Zacuto and others got it wrong, with the result that an entire continent previously unknown to Europeans was exactly where Asia was predicted to be. Nor was Columbus funded by the government of Spain: Three Jewish merchants and financiers (Louis de Santangel, Gabriel Sanchez, and Don Isaac Abrabanel) made interest-free personal loans in hope of opening a lucrative Asia sea-trade route.
As far as I know, Salvador de Madariaga in 1940 published the first seriously credible examination of the possibility that Columbus was a secret Jew trying, like many other Spanish Jews of the time, to escape the clutches of the Roman Catholic Church and its Inquisition. Nominated for both the Nobel Peace Prize and Nobel Literature Prize, de Madariaga was no flake: He served in numerous cabinet and diplomatic posts before leaving the Spanish government as a diehard opponent of fascist Francisco Franco.
Many recent historians have noted some of the same odd aspects of Columbus’ life, especially several strange provisions in his will. He provided for one-tenth of his estate to benefit the poor and provided money for anonymous dowries for poor girls, both particularly Jewish customs. He made a specific bequest to an unknown Jew who lived at the entrance to the Jewish Quarter in Lisbon, Portugal. He left money to support an eventual crusade to liberate Jerusalem, especially strange in light of the capture of Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) by the Muslim Ottoman Empire in 1453 that definitively ended 1,500 years of Christian governance in the Middle East; the Christian victory over the Muslims in Granada in 1492 is what made the expulsion of the Jews possible the same year.
Finally, Columbus in his will charged his descendants to use a cryptic addition to their signatures composed of a triangular arrangements of lines and dots, generally understood as a symbol of the “Kaddish,” the Jewish memorial prayer for the dead – possibly providing a cryptic way for his sons to say the traditional Jewish prayer for him after his death.
Columbus may not have been a secret Jew of Spanish origin, but if he was then there is a palpable irony in a man who was a member of a harshly persecuted minority paving the way for the horrific treatment of the indigenous people he encountered on his voyages of discovery – and there would be a lot of shocked Italian-Americans.
Phillipe & Jorge’s Cool, Cool World: Bye, Benny’s, PawSox and the Main Event
Benny’s – Sign of the Apocalypse
It is easy to talk about the impact on local businesses of Walmart, Home Depot and online shopping, but then comes the announcement that 31 Benny’s stores will be closing due to those soulless competitors by the end of year. That’s in-your-face reality, and not so pleasant. In fact, for those who liked to shop there and enjoy the stores’ understated ambiance, like Phillipe and Jorge, it flat-out sucks.
While P&J always prefer to give our custom to local merchants, farm stands and quirky little shops whose only reason for existence was the sometimes deranged dedication and love of their owners, the Big Box Boys and Amazonian Onliners are sucking the life out of community commerce. And Americans seem more than happy to fall for their manipulative marketing tactics, and at the same time, inferior products or stylized “gourmet” or “special edition” items that only a person who believes Donald Trump when he speaks would think are the real deal.
Yes, P&J have succumbed to the everything-on-sale-all-the-time allure of a Walmart, but usually to only buy underwear and golf balls, the latter since most of the local sporting goods stores went the way of Tiger Woods’ career. But the idea of buying a product you can only see in a picture, such as with Amazon, seems insane. It reminds us of the movie “Spinal Tap,” where the demented rockers order up a version of Stonehenge for their stage act, only to find out in reality — and too late — it is proportional to one that might be in a model train set.
Benny’s seemed to epitomize the famed slogan, “If we don’t have it, you don’t need it.” We have bought fishing gear, fireplace logs, beach chairs, outdoor wear and brooms and mops there over the years. And we went to Benny’s to get them because we knew they would have them. And also to have cashiers who could actually ring you out properly, without having to call over the manager because they entered a pack of gum as a flat screen TV and then couldn’t figure out how to cancel.
Adios, Benny’s. Thanks for the memories.
PawSox Passion Play
Let us lead off this item by saying that there are no bigger fans of the Pawtucket Red Sox than Phillipe and Jorge, who have, respectively, thrown out the first pitch at a game and sung the national anthem on the field before the game. And PawSox Vice Chairman Mike Tamburro, a holdover from the Ben Mondor years, is, along with the late Ben, in the running for the nicest person we have ever met.
Now the PawSox ownership is tugging at the heartstrings and emotional attachment folks like P&J have for their team as they attempt to get taxpayer support for a new stadium that would guarantee the club stays here in Little Rhody for years to come. The Senate Financial Committee held a recent hearing for the new ownership’s proposal to build one in The Bucket on the old Apex site. (Hey, it’s Vo Dilun, where all directions and points of reference are given based on no longer extant buildings.) This is largely because Senate President Rubbers Ruggerio is so deep in the tank for the new owners he needs SCUBA gear.
P&J are not financial investment wizards, which besides meaning we actually have consciences, unlike hedge fund and giant vampire squid Goldman Sachs honchos, prompts us to ask a few simple questions as the new owners, led by Larry Lucchino, make their pitch for local and state taxpayer support for their venture.
Now, why don’t the millionaire owners of the club simply foot the bill entirely for a new stadium? Would it prevent them from being able to buy their newest Mercedes (an obscene car, driven only by Beverly Hills plastic surgeons and African cabinet ministers) or 100+-foot yacht? Lucchino boasts that the 54% investment the owners are making is considerably more than the 14 other Triple A or Double A (this is minor league talk, the PawSox are Triple A, one step down from The Show) built in the last decade. So because some other gullible schmucks gave it up for the absentee ownership we are supposed to cave in? (Laughably, RI Commerce Corporation Secretary Stefan Pryor was quoted as saying, “We drive a hard bargain in Rhode Island,” when in fact he and his agency can get rolled like a bowling ball according to the whims of Governor Gigi or Rubbers.)
One would think that if the PawSox ownership is so sure this will be a financially sound investment, based on the revenue they claim they and the city and state would realize, why not pay the full tab? Then they get their profits, Pawtucket and the state get their share via taxes, The Bucket cashes in on ancillary revenue from new development around the stadium (as it is claimed would occur), and we make sure Little Rhody companies do the necessary construction work. Are we just simple-minded, or does this not make sense?
This whole mare’s nest of financial wheeling and dealings that few in the public can actually grasp, and the reluctance of the already filthy rich owners to foot the bill, reminds P&J about how bacon and eggs are made: the chicken’s involved, but the pig’s committed.
Hey Mr. Lucchino: “Sooo-eee?” The Main Event
Wow! What a match-up! “Delusional Donnie” Trump versus “The Korean Killer,” Kim Jong-Un. We can’t wait.
What? This isn’t a wholly contrived Worldwide Wrestling Federation event? This involves the future of the planet? Oops, sorry. Excuse us, but we have a date with a bomb shelter.
Can you think of a worse pair of people to have access to nuclear weapons? Two self-absorbed bubble boys who are so scared of being found to be insecure lunatics that they have to threaten the existence of any world order to serve their narcissism?
Since this is a gigantic comedy and tragedy rolled into one as we go to print (and at the last minute hear of yet another North Korean missile being sent out over Japan), let’s just hope our White House “disciplinarian” chief of staff, former Marine Corps General John Kelly, has the plastic twist ties and duct tape on hand that will be necessary to bind and muffle our wonderfully clueless and over- reactionary president before he can get to the nuclear codes and red button “football” that follows him around.
Has it come to this? Yikes. Sleep tight, Harry Truman.
Passages
Your superior correspondents are among the many who will miss the magnificent Sylvia Moubayed, who passed away recently at the age of 80. Sylvia was the creative spirit/owner of CAV, one of the most unique and fun places in the Providence area. CAV is a fine restaurant that exhibits and sells antiques. They also regularly featured jazz at a time when so few venues would.
CAV is reflective of Sylvia’s taste and style in so many things – a true manifestation of the woman. Phillipe and Jorge were fortunate to have spent time with Sylvia over the years and knew her as a warm and wonderful person. May her soul rest in peace and much thanks for all she did to make life better around here. Jorge only knew Frank Vincent (the television and film actor) slightly – having spent a bit of time hanging out with him on the set of Michael Corrente’s Federal Hill. But he was a nice guy and engaging storyteller. We were saddened to hear that he also passed away recently. AltFacts
Tragic events in Georgia shortly before press time have added an element of gritty reality to the topic of campus shootings. Scout Schultz of Georgia Tech was shot and killed on campus by police. He was encouraging them to fire at the time, armed with an unextended utility tool and, according to notes he left behind, attempting to end his life.
Both suicide and shooting are unfortunately not new events on college campuses, but the willingness of the police to fire into an ambiguous situation represents a host of evolving aggression that’s pervading many walks of life, including college campuses.
The college tradition of shooting your mouth off – and learning when and how to temper your explosions, perhaps channeling impulses into protests and demonstrations – has been taking a dangerously more literal turn as campuses nationwide reexamine open carry laws. With this reexamination comes a raising of the bar on what is considered acceptable use of force.
At least a couple of professors in different parts of the country have responded to new campus gun policies by wearing bulletproof vests to class. After all, who would most students rather shoot than a professor on display at the front of a lecture hall like a paper duck in a carnival booth? It wouldn’t be surprising if these professors started their flak jacket fashion statements on days they were handing back particularly rough exams.
The theory behind looser campus gun restrictions is that the best way to protect people from a lunatic with a gun is for everyone else to have guns too, with which they can shoot him (or, theoretically, her). Nevermind that the average gun holder is more likely to shoot themselves in the foot or behind than to save anyone from anything. Nevermind the training – both physical and emotional – that should come with carrying a potentially deadly weapon, and the fact that the untrained aren’t real likely to hit anything if they try.
Of course, that training doesn’t seem to help some in the police and quasi military organizations of our country to learn when to show appropriate restraint, as so many recent incidents, including the one at Georgia Tech, demonstrate. As gun control loosens up in academia, creating a more potentially combustible environment, police forces continue to up their weaponry game, in some areas now receiving military equipment and training. Park rangers, once trained to educate the leave-it-to-Beaver set and coddle little Yogi Bears are now trained in military-style hand to hand combat (which – don’t try this at home, kids – is decidedly ineffective against bears).
A cycle that increases acceptable violence in various scenarios either comes down from the top, or infects upward. If punching an obnoxious guy at a club is frowned upon, this lowest form of violence is less likely to happen. But if it’s considered okay (and at some shows we sure wish it were), it creates a foundation for higher levels of violence — thinking that makes it more okay to carry weapons at school. That makes it more okay for police to shoot first or wave around bigger weapons with bigger braggadacio, and ultimately that makes it seem more normal and appropriate for a nation to start throwing missiles around because, “You’re not the boss of me,” and for responding nations to make angry, overblown threats.
So don’t punch that punk at the rock show, unless you want to be responsible for starting World War III. In RI, you can open carry long guns; we’re much more complicated when it comes to hand guns, and we’re not one of the states where large numbers of students are toting heat; but if we can prevent this sort of runaway aggression, who knows, maybe it will trickle up and incite some sanity at the national level. And if you don’t want to take that crap shoot, make sure you pile up a healthy stack of educationally appropriate guns in your nuclear fallout shelter (which, hint hint, it might be time to clean out and reorganize).
News Analysis: RI to Study, not Legalize, Cannabis
Every year a bill is introduced at the RI General Assembly to legalize recreational use of cannabis, regulating and taxing it similarly to alcohol. The state legalized medical marijuana in 2006 and decriminalized possession of small quantities for personal use in 2013, but that was the last major change in the law.
More than two years ago, Motif warned that RI would be forced to respond if Massachusetts (and Maine) legalized recreational use as expected by voter referendum in 2016, which is exactly what happened. We spoke with many of those working on the issue this past April who, despite the absurdities of the legislative hearing on the legalization bill – Hopkinton Police Chief David Palmer, speaking on behalf of RI’s 40 chiefs of police, testified to the committee that legalization would result in more marijuana dealers being killed and dismembered – were optimistic that the radically changed circumstances in neighboring MA would finally convince the RI legislature to act.
Jared Moffat, who for years until just recently had been director of Regulate RI and the state’s political director for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) national lobbying group, told us in December 2015 that he believed legalization had the necessary votes to pass in each chamber of the General Assembly if the leadership would allow it to be put to a vote, a point he reiterated to us as recently as last month.
Perhaps feeling the pressure from MA, this year something new happened: instead of just letting the legalization bills die without so much as a vote, the House and Senate adopted concurrent resolutions to create a study commission: “The purpose of said Commission shall be to conduct a comprehensive review and make recommendations regarding marijuana and the effects of its use on the residents of Colorado and Washington to the extent available, and to study the fiscal impact to those states; and thereafter the potential impact on Rhode Island.”
The prime sponsors of legalization in their respective chambers, Rep. Scott Slater (D-10) and Sen. Josh Miller (D-28), published a joint statement in The Providence Journal in May, saying that the study commission was a sham: “The intent is to delay a vote on legalization for as long as possible. This is the seventh year that legislation to legalize marijuana has been introduced in the General Assembly. It has been discussed year after year in committee hearings, public forums and televised debates. Three out of five Rhode Islanders now want us to end our senseless policy of prohibition. It is time for the General Assembly to vote.” They continued, “To those who call for a ‘study commission,’ we ask, what are you waiting for? The data and evidence are already available to study. We have had decades to see that prohibition is a failed policy that does not reduce the availability or use of marijuana. How many more millions of dollars will we waste trying to arrest our way out of the problem? How much longer will we ignore the majority of our constituents who want reform? When 60 percent of voters support an idea, it’s reasonable to expect elected officials to at least vote on it. So we repeat: it is time for a vote.”
Moffat told us a few days after the vote to create the commission that he and his organizations would not be participating. “While the legislature’s study commission will rehash the same debate asking if marijuana should be legalized, we will move forward by facilitating a more useful discussion about how marijuana should be legalized and regulated,” he said.
Slater and Miller seem to have adopted divergent practical views of whether to participate on the study commission, Miller reported to have accepted an appointment in his capacity as a member of the Senate but Slater telling us in an interview that he had no interest in serving on it because he effectively saw it as a waste of time to continue to debate whether, rather than how, to legalize cannabis.
Motif was unable to get any clear information about the study commission from almost anyone in state government, with calls to the offices of House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello (D-15) and Senate President Dominick J. Ruggerio (D-4) both unreturned by press time: the enabling legislation specifies that the commission meets initially when they call for it to meet, each appoints three members of their chamber to the commission (not more than two from the same political party), and between them they appoint all of the public members who do not serve ex-officio.
The 13 non-legislators on the 19-member commission are specified to be representatives from (1) the anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, (2) “an organization that is a proponent for the legalization of marijuana,” (3) a local chamber of commerce, (4) medical marijuana patients, (5) education, (6) mental health professionals, (7) and a criminal defense attorney, as well as ex-officio (8) the president of the Substance Use Mental Health Council of RI, (9) the executive director of the Rhode Island Medical Socity, (10) the director of the Department of Health, (11) the president of the Rhode Island Police Chief’s Association, (12) the attorney general, and (13) the president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO. At first look the composition of the commission that will make decisions by majority vote seems biased against legalization, especially as the police chiefs and the attorney general have been very vocal in their opposition – even beyond worries about increased dismemberment incidents.
Despite the legislation itself directing the commission to meet “forthwith upon passage of this resolution” – over two months ago, it passed the House on June 28 and the Senate on June 29 – it has not yet met and we were unable to obtain even a list of members. The commission is also charged to report by March 1, 2018, and its mandate expires on July 1, 2018. If Miller and Slater are correct in their claim that the study commission is merely a delaying tactic, it seems to be working.
Opinion: Houston and the Flood
I think we are all saddened and upset about what is happening in Houston. The worst rainstorm in US history. Houston will be years in recovery and we can only hope that the numbers of people who died in the floods remains fairly small. But I am also thinking about how the ruling class in Houston brought this disaster to their city. And what needs to happen if the proper lessons will be learned. Some folks say wait until the disaster relief is over, but I think it’s important to call out the culprits now. Otherwise we shall forget to do it and they will slide by and kill again.
I went to Houston for a convention last summer at the University of Houston. It was 98 degrees and humid with a blazing sun every day. Even at night it was hot. But I needed to walk and found the local bayou. It was about four blocks south of the university and this particular section was a designated greenway. It was a steep sided concrete waterway with large drain pipes leading from the community to the bayou. Those walls were about 15 feet high above the water level. I do not know how deep they were as I could not see the bottom in the center. In one place there was a ramp leading down to the water, mostly for maintenance and emergency vehicles. Above the concrete V, there was a narrow grass strip then a 10-foot-high vegetated bank. On top of this was a walking path, then the streets and a neighborhood. On the side of the bayou I was on, the neighborhood was flat, like most of Houston. The reason I kept coming back to the bayou was the school of alligator gar in it. Alligator Gar are an ancient (like 300 million years old) fish lineage. They are up to 4 feet long and have a strange bill that reminds one of a small alligator snout. They are intensely cool. Since I was hanging out at the bayou I looked pretty clearly at the infrastructure, stormwater systems being part of my practice for a very long time. And I think about habitat, seeing as I am attempting to restructure a rainwater-fed system in Providence so that it better supports breeding toads.
Early one morning, I talked to an elderly woman walking her dog on the walking path. She was a native of east Texas, but not that neighborhood, though she had lived in the apartment facing the bayou for a number of years. Houston has been hit by big floods in the last few years and she noted that the last biggest one came almost to the doorsteps of the buildings on her street facing the bayou. I am guessing that the whole neighborhood was under water this time, all the way to the tracks of Houston’s new trolley system.
I saw today that environmental justice neighborhoods/ communities of color near Houston’s refineries (and waterways) are breathing lots of really bad chemicals that were released in the hasty shutdowns of the plants. The Houston Ship Channel has a HUGE collection of refineries and petrochemical plants, probably the greatest concentration of such plants in the world. Who knows what has gone into the water and if any pipelines have broken. If any place in the world, other than Saudi Arabia, is the home of the oil and gas-based business, industry and commerce, it is Houston. Houston would be a way too hot and humid small town if Texas did not have oil and gas. And oil and gas interests run Texas. And climate deniers inhabit the board rooms and political theaters of Texas. In other words, the ruling class in Texas and Houston has brought this disaster onto the city, by the policies they demand as climate deniers and polluters, and the commerce in the petroleum that they profitably send around the country to go up in smoke. I know I should not say it, but the ruling class of Houston should be prosecuted for crimes against the Earth, and crimes against humanity, as well as vandalism. Exxon, its corporate cohort and all the executives of oil related industries should pay to rebuild the city.
It is going to take billions of dollars to rebuild Houston, but maybe they should not. It is an incredibly flood prone place, after all most of the city sits on drained and channelized floodplains that drain very slowly due to the clay it is all made of. As the climate deteriorates, the sea rises, and the floods get bigger, Houston is more and more vulnerable. And the infrastructure will never be built big enough to handle what they will face. Maybe they need to move to higher ground? And give up the oil industry., as we can no longer afford to have an oil and gas industry anywhere on the planet if civilization is to survive the next 100 years.
Instead of reinvading Afghanistan, we should allocate all the money we would spend there and all the other places the empire is trying to control the oil supply, along with all the money we confiscate from the oil and gas industries and their executives, and rebuild Houston and rehouse all of its people, in buildings that use zero fossil fuels on higher ground. While completely shutting down industries that contribute to carbon pollution and climate change. At the same time every Texan should vote all the climate deniers out of office. If they will not, they now know exactly what the consequences of their actions are and should understand we may be unable to rebuild them again as so many other places will be facing these disasters as well.
AltFacts: WBRnew
Music fans from throughout the state recently turned on their cars to find Christian rock exuding from their speakers unexpectedly. Even for the conscientious listeners of WBRU, who’d known for weeks that a seismic shift in local broadcast was coming, having your tuned radio suddenly spit out the Christian rock reality when you turn the engine over is a little disconcerting. The new 95.5 is WLVO, which purchased the bandwidth for around $5.6 million. The station is not ad supported, instead relying on donations and private and corporate funding.
While the bandwidth is gone, the student-run broadcasting will continue – with less adult supervision as program director and music icon Wendell Gee departs – online, as wbru.com (which, weirdly, is different from Brown Student Radio, whose site seemed to be down at the time of the switchover). The new BRU online station has two simultaneous feeds for your listening pleasure.
BSR, Brown Student Radio, has also relinquished its bandwidth (WELH) and recently, public radio stations have acquired the bandwidth from Bryant University’s student station WJMF, and UMass Dartmouth lost WUMD. So, news flash – college students are getting their entertainment online. Go figure.
The interwebs are full right now with well-deserved, heartfelt goodbyes and nostalgic missives. And the sign-offs on the last night will produce a tingle in anyone who grew up with BRU feeding them musical gifts and surprises. And yes, in the final hours, there were four-letter words (cause, who’s gonna fire you for that? The FCC can’t exactly take them off the air) and the parting wisdom, “Fuck it up Providence!”
In related news, watch these pages for commentary by the Christian Alt News Network, soon to be the new owners of Motif. All images will be replaced with images of angels, P&J will officially be retitled, “The obit column.” Listings might be shorter, as we’ll restrict them to only wholesome activities happening at venues that have been exorcism-free for at least 10 years. There are not a lot of those in RI, but we’ll make do. The new publishers will bring a hip and happening perspective to the sins of drinking, heavy metal, cannabis and theater, right here in pages you already love. Just with fewer fucking swear words. Fake news forever!