News

We're killing the oceans

Is it too late to save the seas that sustain us?
I meet world-renowned undersea photojournalist Brian Skerry at Legal Seafoods, across from the New England Aquarium, where he's the explorer in residence. He orders a chicken Caesar salad.

By MIKE MILIARD | November 18, 2009

A ’stache grows in Providence

Sex Confident Dept.
Beards are easy. Almost any guy can grow some scruff, and in some circles, it's almost de rigueur. But a mustache — that takes work, and it takes guts. A mustache is bold.

By MARION DAVIS | November 18, 2009

Governor Ghoul

Sinking to new lows
Phillipe and Jorge are coming late to this fight, as last week’s column was already filed when the announcement was made that Governor Donald Carcieri — Governor Ghoul to you — had vetoed a bill giving domestic partners the right to claim the bodies of and make funeral arrangements for the people with whom they shared their lives.

By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | November 18, 2009

Kennedy, Catholic Church, and Politics of Compromise

Reform Dept.
US Representative Patrick Kennedy's confrontation with Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin over abortion and health-care reform has soaked up quite a bit of ink.

By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | November 18, 2009

Taxing Catholics

Should the Church lose its exemption?
Should the Roman Catholic Church, and the various subsidiary groups and organizations that exist under its umbrella and operate at its direction, be entitled to state- and federal-tax exemptions?

By EDITORIAL | November 18, 2009

Holy terror?

Cutting through the muddled thinking about Nidal Malik Hasan's faith and its role in the Fort Hood shootings
On the afternoon of November 5, Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan walked into a building at Fort Hood, the sprawling military base in central Texas; sat briefly in solitary silence; and then opened fire with a semi-automatic pistol, shooting roughly a hundred rounds and killing 12 soldiers and one civilian.

By ADAM REILLY | November 16, 2009

Has Obama peaked? Yes, he has

Yes, he made history. Unfortunately, it’s all downhill from there.
To listen to some pundits, Barack Obama's public image began taking a serious beating when the off-year election returns came in a week ago. Or maybe it was the undeserved Nobel Prize, his approach to the war in Afghanistan, or when he revved up his pursuit of national health-care reform.

By STEVEN STARK | November 12, 2009

Has Obama peaked? No, he hasn't

Obama’s days of greatest power and popularity lie before him. But be warned: he might not do what you want with it.
Barack Obama's popularity should not be judged by the day-to-day, media-driven vagaries of politics — nor by the wishful thinking of his opponents.

By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | November 12, 2009

Fight for your right to party

Civil Liberties Dept.
Rhode Island's tragic collision with teen drinking in recent years has heightened concern about substance abuse in the state's school districts.

By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | November 11, 2009

Easy Ed strikes again

More propaganda from Achorn. Plus, legislative musings and more.
It’s always easy for Ed. That’s “Easy Ed” Achorn, the Other Paper’s deputy editorial pages editor who is the equivalent of a right-wing P&J.

By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | November 11, 2009

A neighborhood theater is reborn

The Arts
It took quite a while, and north of $10 million, but last month the long-closed Park Cinema in Cranston opened as the ambitiously named Rhode Island Center for Performing Arts.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 11, 2009

Phattening Providence lyrics

Beats and Rhymes
The flyers appeared on coffee shop message boards and street corners. "We Phatten Rhymes," they read, and "Brown/RISD Rappers: Get Your Lyrics Doped."

By ABIGAIL CROCKER | November 11, 2009

Make-believe Main Street

Lifestyle centers create public squares in private places. Can a nation undone by sprawl be saved by the Mall?
WaterFire, bocce, oh my!

By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | November 10, 2009

A turbine grows in Warwick

Windy City
If all goes well, Shalom Housing in Warwick, a division of Jewish Seniors Agency, will be the home of a 100-kilowatt wind turbine, part of new federal “green” stimulus award of up to $1.5 million from the US Housing and Urban Development to retrofit the 30-year-old, 100-unit low-cost senior housing project.

By RICHARD ASINOF | November 04, 2009

Black and gay in Rhode Island

Getting Out
It’s hard to imagine a tangle of identities more marginalized than that of the black gay man in Rhode Island.

By ELLEN CUSHING | November 05, 2009

Newspapering the hard way

As the ProJo Turns
Tom Heslin, executive editor of the Providence Journal , does not say much in public about the broadsheet. And little surprise. The ProJo , which demands transparency elsewhere, has issued a long string of “no comments” about its own affairs.

By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | November 04, 2009

Paging Dilbert

Fonting around at the Urinal. Plus, celebrity karaoke, and more.
What’s black and white and re(a)d all over? Certainly not the Providence Urinal, whose circulation has been falling faster than a 1000-pound safe pushed out of a sky-scraper window.

By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | November 04, 2009

Noir comes to Providence

In Cold Blood
Former Providence Journal reporter Mark Arsenault’s new novel, Loot the Moon , is the second in a series focused on obituary writer, inveterate gambler, and investigator Billy Povich.

By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | October 28, 2009

Pints And Blood On A Saturday Night

The undead
The Reverend Al Zombie, organizer of the Providence Zombie Pub Crawl, climbed on the bar at Fatty McGee’s as the event kicked off Saturday night to offer a disclaimer.

By ABIGAIL CROCKER | October 28, 2009

Judging the Judge

Committee Doubting Thompson. Plus, The Bish, Rush, and more.
After reading Sunday’s front page BeloJo story, “Support for R.I. Judge not unanimous,” your superior correspondents have to suspect that everything — absolutely everything — is thoroughly politicized.

By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | October 28, 2009