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DAVID SCHARFENBERG

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Brown’s Weinstein on what literature says about our morning, noon, and night

Growing Up
Earlier this week, National Public Radio's "On Point with Tom Ashbrook" spent an hour picking the brain of Brown University's Arnold Weinstein, professor of comparative literature and author of Morning, Noon, and Night: Finding the Meaning of Life's Stages Through Books .

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | July 11, 2012

Andy Kaufman’s Bohemia West premieres in Providence

Man On the Moon
It's just four days until the premier of Bohemia West and the cast and crew, assembled at black box theater 95 Empire in downtown Providence, are working out some final details.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | July 11, 2012

Rhode Island surf culture: punk rock, gangbangers, and the search for the ultimate wave

Wet and wild
Surfing has been a Rhode Island fixture for decades now. But wander north of Second Beach and terms like "point break" and "south swell" fall out of the vernacular pretty quickly.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | July 03, 2012

Teaching the 'fourth literacy': Codery goes live

Geekery
Call me hacker.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | June 27, 2012

RI’s homeless bill of rights

Liberties
Official Rhode Island's response to the homelessness problem has been uninspiring, on the whole.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | June 27, 2012

Embattled Congressman David Cicilline’s re-election strategy

Win with women?
Standing before a crowd of about 100 at a fundraiser at The Dorrance bar and restaurant in downtown Providence a couple of weeks ago, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards left little doubt about her organization's top political priority in Rhode Island.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | June 20, 2012

New York Times misses the mark with Woonsocket column

MediaWatch
Rhode Island's fiscal woes have attracted plenty of national press, much of it unflattering. But if the locals have grumbled a bit about the stories, they've been forced to concede their basic veracity.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | June 20, 2012

Public records: a little more sunlight

This Just In
Late Tuesday night, as the legislative session came to a close, the General Assembly passed a bill strengthening Rhode Island's deplorable public records law. Governor Chafee, though he has expressed some reservations about the bill, is expected to sign it.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | June 13, 2012

The new Netroots

Activism 2.0
The netroots story — lefty bloggers storming the barricades — can seem, well, so 2006. Little wonder, then, that this year's Netroots Nation conference in Providence didn't receive much national press.

By: | June 13, 2012

Approaching the ‘fiscal cliff’

The Next Fight
The political class may be focused on the presidential race and the fight for control of Congress. But an enormously intriguing — and consequential — tilt lingers on the other side the election.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | June 13, 2012

How the General Assembly decriminalized pot possession

June Surprise
The long-term prospects for decriminalizing possession of a small amount of marijuana always seemed good.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | June 07, 2012

Game Change?

A coalition of net natives crossed political lines to decapitate SOPA and PIPA. Is this the beginning of a new American politics?
The bills, designed to choke off online piracy of movies, music, and pharmaceuticals, seemed greased for passage.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 30, 2012

Your guide to Netroots Nation 2012

Memes and madness
So many panels, so many receptions, so many opportunities to get filthy drunk. It's hard to know where to begin. Well, you've come to right place.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | June 04, 2012

Interview: Oil Can Boyd on playing the game

Baseball ‘takes away a lot of hurt’
This week, I had an hour long chat with Oil Can Boyd.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 23, 2012

The whistleblower in the ‘American Taliban’ case returns to Brown

Truthtelling
John Walker Lindh, better known as the American Taliban, was in US custody in Afghanistan in December 2001. And counter-terrorism prosecutor John DePue had a question: could he be interrogated without a lawyer present?

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 23, 2012

A future less dour

Looking Ahead
Neal Stephenson's novels have been called everything from science fiction to postcyberpunk.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 23, 2012

Who passed voter ID?

Two months ago Hans von Spakovsky of the conservative Heritage Foundation, de facto apologist for a new wave of conservative-inspired voter ID laws, appeared on PBS NewsHour to defend the cause.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 16, 2012

Photos, sound, and teen pregnancy rendered human

Art Dept.
Thirty-five black-and-white photographs ring the exhibition space at TSETSE Gallery on Empire Street in downtown Providence. Here a man with a bushy goatee sitting on a motorcycle, there a woman covering her face with her hair.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 09, 2012

On politics, the media, and Providence’s ‘hidden gem’

Week In Review
It was quite the week in local news and here at Chez Phoenix .

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 02, 2012

Making the RISD Museum sizzle

Can new director John W. Smith polish Providence's hidden gem?
The Rhode Island School of Design Museum is one of New England's — and America's — most underappreciated and underperforming cultural treasures.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 02, 2012

As May Day approaches, a local labor movement at a crossroads

Protest Dept.
May Day, the international workers day, is just around the corner. But organized labor, here in Rhode Island, is not in a particularly celebratory mood.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | April 25, 2012

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