News

Salinger’s eternal cone of silence

The death of a genius; rocking for Nicole; the General Assembly goes transparent
With the death of J.D. Salinger, nearly every obituary featured some quote or reference to his American masterpiece, The Catcher In the Rye , and rightly so. If you don't know the name Holden Caulfield, you don't know ding about literature.

By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | February 03, 2010

Teach for America and the power of ideas

Pedagogy
Teach for America, which arrived in Rhode Island this week, will be offering a relatively small crop of fresh-out-of-college instructors for the state's public school system: 90 teachers over the next three years.

By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | February 03, 2010

After Fort Thunder, the zine lives

Media
Last week, friends of the zine Taffy Hips gathered at Ada Books on Westminster Street to celebrate the sixth issue: robot comics, prints of giant tsunami waves, and an interview with Chicago-based cartoonist Anya Davidson.

By ABIGAIL CROCKER | February 03, 2010

How birds got their songs

Film
Wakinyan RedShirt has made three films in his life: Lego Star Wars , Bionicle Heroes , and The Wolf Show . But perhaps his greatest flick, he says, is his latest.

By ELIZABETH RAU | February 03, 2010

A wake-up call

Ranting about money and media; musical musings; and notes from the road
Some months back, Judge Richard Posner, a prolific author and longtime leading figure in the laissez-faire-oriented Chicago school of economics published his latest tome, a little bit of conservative heresy titled A Failure of Capitalism .

By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | January 27, 2010

In Pawtucket, a Haitian-American family anxiously waits

Dispatches
Their roof is a blanket held up by sticks, their bed is dirt. Every morning, they wake — the grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews — and begin their journey on foot to search for something to eat and drink.

By ELIZABETH RAU | January 27, 2010

A nation hooked on cars

Vroom! Vroom!
The car is at the center of many of our troubles — our addiction to oil, the warming of the planet. Car accidents do incalculable damage.

By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | January 27, 2010

Trying times for Obama

Tough times for the nation
It was only a matter of time before President Barack Obama turned into a deficit hawk. But it is a measure of the desperation sparked by Scott Brown's election to Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat that Obama hatched before the conclusion of the 2010 congressional elections and unveiled a spending freeze.

By EDITORIAL | January 27, 2010

A memoir, a tour, and a state coming to grips with slavery

History Dept.
The latest turn in Rhode Island's complicated dialogue with its slaveholding past: a yearlong project encouraging locals to read a memoir by the son of a freed slave.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | January 27, 2010

What’s next for Cicilline?

After a couple of tough years — and some jabs from Buddy — how bright is his political future?
Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline rode into office seven years ago as the fresh-faced anti-Buddy. Bleach for a soiled City Hall.

By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | January 21, 2010

Does Scott Brown’s victory mean doom for RI Democrats?

Fallout
Republican Scott Brown's stunning victory this week in the race for the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts has created something approaching panic in the ranks of Congressional Democrats.

By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | January 20, 2010

Hail Mary pass?

Nothing says Super Bowl Sunday like an anti-abortion ad; Ripping Rush; and more
Phillipe and Jorge noticed an interesting tidbit in the sports section of the New York Times recently.

By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | January 20, 2010

Rhode Island’s own stab at health reform

Get Healthy
Health care reform, if it survives the election of Republican Scott Brown to Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat, will make insurance accessible and provide a slew of new consumer protections for millions of Americans.

By MARION DAVIS | January 20, 2010

Tea-bagger Brown triumphs

Obama must rally independents
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley may be a good person and a dedicated public servant, but thanks to her gut-wrenching loss to tea-bagging Republican Scott Brown in the race for the US Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy, Coakley is now — quite rightly — a figure of local scorn and national derision.

By EDITORIAL | January 20, 2010

Boston organization fighting good fight in Haiti

Quake Response
Good news from Haiti: the catastrophic earthquake that struck this Caribbean nation last week did no damage to the 10 Haitian-run hospitals and clinics aided by the Boston-based charity Partners in Health (PiH). Each of the 10, which offer free care to all comers swung into action immediately after the quake struck.

By JEFF INGLIS | January 20, 2010

Disaster, then détente

Politically speaking, Hurricane Katrina this was not
From the first days after the earthquake struck Haiti — long before anyone knew how dire the situation was, let alone how the US government would respond — pundits were wagging their tongues about the potential political implications. A poor response, they said, would invite comparisons to the Bush administration's bungled handling of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | January 25, 2010

How Brown won

While Massachusetts Democrats assess blame for who lost the Senate seat, the truth is that Scott Brown won it
As the Massachusetts US Senate election unfolded yesterday, all that the pols and pundits wanted to talk about was how Martha Coakley managed to lose the race. And there is plenty there to dissect. But there is another part of the story, and that is how Scott Brown managed to win it.

By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | January 22, 2010