News

Artful dodger

Keep the RISD Museum open in August! Plus, the weirdness on C Street.
Phillipe and Jorge are quite disappointed to see that the Rhode Island School of Design Museum will be closing for the month of August, largely due to its endowment being down due to the economic recession.

By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | July 15, 2009

IndieArts' sensory overload

Taking it to the streets
If Providence is to become the "Creative Capital" of Mayor Cicilline's latest marketing campaign, it will take more than a few orange P's affixed to politicians' lapels and plastered on signs about town.

By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | July 15, 2009

He all lives in a yellow submarine

Will Sean Bagge's one-man submarine last or will it swallow him whole?
In just over a week, the Brown University senior will batten down the hatch and take the submersible on its first major voyage: dropping into the murky depths of Massachusetts' Long Pond.

By ABIGAIL CROCKER | July 15, 2009

On the farm

Market Mobile supplies the demand for local food
The menus at Chez Pascal in Providence often feature local meats, fish, and produce, but on Mondays, owner-chef Matt Gennuso goes all out. A recent menu featured burgers from Aquidneck Farms; greens from Arcadian Fields; clams from Matunuck Oyster Farm; ricotta from Narragansett Creamery.

By MARION DAVIS | July 15, 2009

Yankee Doodle Cohan

Favorite son
The hipsters ambling past the new George M. Cohan bust at the corner of Wickenden and Governor streets this week seemed more concerned with ducking out of the July rain than gazing upon statuary.

By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | July 09, 2009

Maxed out?

The push to establish a credit card ceiling
Rhode Islanders have grown accustomed to a certain amount of silliness in the General Assembly. It was only a few months ago that members of that august body were debating the merits of an official state ice cream.

By CHRISTOPHER COLLINS | July 08, 2009

The Iquitarod

Sarah says 'no mas.' Plus, the United States of Goldman Sachs.
Phillipe and Jorge wish they could claim to have coined that headline about professional loony Sarah Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska prior to her first term being completed, but full points go to Geoffrey Dunn of The Huffington Post .

By PHILLIPE & JORGE | July 08, 2009

Loan Groan

A new federal program aims to help overburdened student borrowers
Each month, with miserable certitude, the snail-mailboxes of middle-class twenty- and thirtysomethings are stuffed with student-loan bills, from both federal and private lenders. The balance seems to remain stagnant, even as we mail in check after check.

By DEIRDRE FULTON | July 08, 2009

The 12th Annual Muzzle Awards

A look at the dishonorable enemies of free speech and personal liberty in New England.
With the era of repression and secrecy fostered by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney finally over, this should be the best of times for freedom of expression, open government, and civil liberties. Yet change comes slowly.

By DAN KENNEDY | July 10, 2009

Muzzle Awards: Collegiate Division

New England campuses muzzle free speech
In a 1957 Supreme Court decision upholding the free-speech rights of university professors ( Sweezy v. New Hampshire ), Justice Felix Frankfurter quoted prominent South African scholars on the importance of academic freedom.

By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | July 10, 2009

Robert McNamara, RIP

Memories of Vietnam should speed Obama's exit plans for Iraq and Afghanistan
As secretary of defense under President Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert McNamara prosecuted the Vietnam War on a day-to-day basis, just as Donald Rumsfeld orchestrated the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for George W. Bush.

By EDITORIAL | July 08, 2009

Hail to the chief

The supreme Suttell. Plus, Newport news, and more on Michael.
Phillipe and Jorge are delighted to see that Paul Suttell, our pick for Chief Justice of the Vo Dilun Supreme Court, smoothly sailed through the General Assembly to assume that grand position.

By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | July 01, 2009

Moving Off the Plantation?

Rhode Island's identity crisis
Rhode Island, whatever its obsession with history, has only lately begun to come to terms with the darkest stain on its past: slavery.

By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | July 01, 2009

Artistic vision

Providence bets on creativity
The vision is grand and ambitious, both in the big picture and in the details.

By MARION DAVIS | July 02, 2009

Michael Jackson and his fears

Solo contendere
At the dead end of a decade when everyone was too discouraged to wonder if pop had a center, Michael Jackson's Off the Wall (1979) gathered up disillusioned factions of fans as confidently as it punted four singles into the Top 10.

By MARK MOSES | June 26, 2009

Local news blues

With layoffs, plummeting revenue, and dwindling viewership, TV news departments are getting desperate.
There has been plenty of hand-wringing, in these parts, over the decline of the local broadsheet. The Providence Journal is the paper of record, after all, the agenda setter. And the agenda is decidedly thinner these days.

By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | June 24, 2009

Living Colour, Michael Madsen, and Rhody's new media

Rhode Island has seen its share of media strife in recent years.
The travails of the Providence Journal are the stuff of coffee house and talk radio chatter. And the troubles afflicting the local newscast fill the pages of this week's Phoenix .

By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | June 24, 2009

After a half-century, a theatre crumbles

Looking Glass Theatre closes
The spotlight has dimmed, sadly, on Providence's Looking Glass Theatre. The company, a small crew of three to four actors and a musician, entertained elementary school students across the state for nearly 50 years, at one time performing hundreds of in-school shows per year.

By CHRISTOPHER COLLINS | June 24, 2009

Our Pazmanian Devil

Vinny's early days. Plus, a lame land grab, and more budget madness.
Phillipe and Jorge often think of how nice it would have been if Warren Zevon's "Boom Boom Mancini" ("Hurry home early, hurry on home/Boom-Boom Mancini's fighting Bobby Chacon") had been about local boxer Vinny Paz, nee Pazienza.

By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | June 24, 2009

Of Twitter and Cassettes

Global Watch
There has been plenty of breathless reporting on the goings-on in Iran. And rightly so. The protests surrounding the recent presidential election are historic — the heavy use of Twitter and social networking technology a breakthrough.

By CHRISTOPHER COLLINS | June 24, 2009