News Features

Downsizing the Mob

IAN DONNIS — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:10:18 GMT

State Police superintendent Brendan Doherty discusses the fade of OC in RI
The arrest of 17 people last week as part of "Operation Mobbed Up" — as well as the subsequent discovery in East Providence of human remains thought to be those of Joseph "Joe Onions" Scanlon — put front and center the bygone days of the Rhode Island Mob.

TOP COP: Doherty and other members of the state police maintain a close eye on the remnants
of La Cosa Nostra inn Rhode Island.

The arrest of 17 people last week as part of "Operation Mobbed Up" — as well as the subsequent discovery in East Providence of human remains thought to be those of Joseph "Joe Onions" Scanlon — put front and center the bygone days of the Rhode Island Mob.

In its heyday, the operation run by Raymond L.S. Patriarca from an Atwells Avenue storefront controlled organized crime in all of New England. Yet by the time when Brendan Doherty joined the Rhode Island State Police in the mid-'80s, the once-fearsome strength of Italian-American gangsters was already in decline, thanks to RICO prosecutions, Mob turncoats, and law enforcement wiretaps, among other things.

As the superintendent of the Rhode Island State Police, a post he moved into last year, Doherty seems more concerned these days about the prevalence of youth crime in Providence and the Ocean State's other cities.

As it stands, the Rhode Island branch of La Cosa Nostra is down to eight or nine reputed "made" members, about a third of the size of the membership during the heyday of the Patriarca family, and some of them are more or less retired, Doherty says. While the colonel maintains hopes of completely stamping out organizing crime in the state, doing away with juvenile violence will remain far more complicated.

The following interview was condensed from Doherty's November 23 appearance on WPRI/WNAC-TV's Newsmakers (in which questions were also asked by host Tim White and my co-panelist, Arlene Violet), and from a separate interview with the superintendent.

WHAT LED YOU TO PURSUE A CAREER IN LAW ENFORCEMENT?
My grandfather was a detective in Taunton, Massachusetts. His name was Jack Flynn. I was just enamored by the stories he would tell. He never pushed me toward law enforcement, my parents never did. As a matter of fact, my father was a dentist and wanted me to become a dentist like he, his brother, his uncle, and the rest of the family.

I saw a Rhode Island state trooper once when I was in college. I was at Rhode Island College, and I saw atrooper, and I just thought he was so squared away looking, so sharp, and just had command presence. And when I met a trooper, the trooper I met with was so professional and comported himself with so much dignity and integrity, I thought this is a career that I might be interested in. I looked into it a little bit, and I applied. I was young — I was 20 years old when I applied. As a matter of fact, in my class, Steven Pare — who ended up as a colonel as well — we were the youngest two in our academy.

Expert: Expanding wind power could unhinge insects

STEVEN STYCOS — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:58:45 GMT

Unintended Consequences
Last spring, a red tail hawk was hit and killed by Rhode Island's one functioning wind turbine at Portsmouth Abbey School. Brother Joseph Byron says the bird was the first animal fatality he has seen since the 241-foot-high structure started producing 660 kilowatts in March 2006.

Last spring, a red tail hawk was hit and killed by Rhode Island's one functioning wind turbine at Portsmouth Abbey School. Brother Joseph Byron says the bird was the first animal fatality he has seen since the 241-foot-high structure started producing 660 kilowatts in March 2006.

An internationally known bat researcher, however, says tens of thousands of bats are killed annually by wind turbines in the US. Unless researchers are monitoring a site, says Boston University professor Thomas Kunz, bat fatalities often go undetected, because their bodies are lost in the brush or eaten by scavengers.

In a November 19 lecture sponsored by the Rhode Island National History Survey, Kunz, director of BU's Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology, labeled wind energy "brown," not green. He also warned that high numbers of bat fatalities may cause populations of insects to increase dramatically.

Concerns about the environmental hazards of wind power have been muted as Rhode Island promotes wind power as a major way to meet its legally mandated goal of producing 16 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Rhode Island environmental groups have pushed for wind power to reduce burning fossil fuels, which produce carbon dioxide, one of the principal causes of global warming. Noting that global warming may be a greater risk to animals than wind turbines, Eugenia Marks, senior director of policy for the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, says, "There are risks and benefits to any course we take. What we need to do is increase the benefits and decrease the risks." But Kunz says not enough is known about the dangers of wind turbines, especially to bats.

Kunz reports that wind turbines currently produce 21,000 megawatts of electricity nationally, with another 8000 megawatts planned. "Whether the fauna can withstand that development is certainly not clear," he says. Solar, nuclear, and underwater generation are better ways, he argues, to meet rising energy demands and to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Bats appear to be attracted to wind turbines, Kunz says, but since they fly at 25 to 30 mph they cannot always avoid turbine blades whose tips may move at 125 mph. Pregnant bats, carrying babies that comprise 25 percent of their body weight, have an especially difficult time maneuvering around turbines' rotating blades. Many bats also die when their lungs explode due to rapid air pressure changes caused by whooshing turbine blades.

Buy Nothing Day: A good cause for tough times

IAN DONNIS — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:07:43 GMT

Consumerism
During the 11 previous years in which Buy Nothing Day has been staged in Rhode Island, there have been economic downturns and times when the national economy was humming.

Give thanks to those who fight for civil liberties

MARY ANN SORRENTINO — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:12:04 GMT

A quarter-century ago, Dan Donnelly, a friend and fellow plaintiff in an unsuccessful challenge of a religious holiday display on public property in Pawtucket, wondered who could possibly lead the local chapter of the ACLU in constitutionally challenged Rhode Island.
Rights + Reasons

Down and out at Thanksgiving

IAN DONNIS — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:43:27 GMT

Social needs are rising across Rhode Island, and things will get worse before they get better
In a time of widespread layoffs, decimated retirement accounts, and uncertainty about the fallout of the ongoing fiscal crisis, downsized requests for help are a sign of the times.

In a time of widespread layoffs, decimated retirement accounts, and uncertainty about the fallout of the ongoing fiscal crisis, downsized requests for help are a sign of the times.

In a possible harbinger of similar efforts by other social agencies, Westerly Area Rest Meals (WARM) recently launched "A Dollar Makes a Difference!," a campaign in which it is seeking donations of $1 a week, from October 1 through March, 1 to help Westerly's most needy residents keep warm this winter.

"People do not have the same resources that they had six months ago," notes Leah Eagen-Stoddard, WARM's development associate. Seeking such small donations doesn't make people "think whether they're going to have to dip into their family's budget. It almost takes the decision away, it's so nominal . . . It does reflect the environment we're in now, because people are thinking a lot more carefully about where their money goes."

Many people have responded, Eagen-Stoddard says, either with checks for $22, by rounding the amount up to $25, by sending a few dollar bills, or just one. The effort — 21-year-old WARM's first heating assistance fund — has raised $7052 since October 1.

At the other end of the spectrum, from November 24 through January 3, the Capital Grille in Providence will offer a "$1000 charity martini" — it comes adorned with jewelry — to benefit the hunger-relief organization Share Our Strength (strength.org).

Across Rhode Island, nonprofits, community groups, and others are responding in various ways, from Trinity Rep staging a free December 1 performance of A Christmas Carol to the annual post-Thanksgiving Buy Nothing Day coat exchange (greens.org/ri/bnd) staged on the State House lawn and at additional locations.

The not-very-surprising constant, social agencies and advocates tell the Phoenix, is a significantly heightened level of social need as Rhode Island heads into the 2008 holiday season.

"There are people who are seeking support from us who in the past have been supporters," says WARM's Eagen-Stoddard. "Our soup kitchen numbers are going up."

The economy in Rhode Island — which recently eclipsed Michigan as the nation's unemployment-percentage leader — was already stalling before the national fiscal crisis emerged in September.

The state's ongoing financial woes (highlighted by the discovery of a $357 million deficit in the current budget), which will cause additional cuts to social programs, meaning that less assistance will be available at a time of growing need. To top it all off, no one expects the overall economic situation to improve anytime soon.

Unchecked power and secrecy — not gays — are the church’s problem

MARY ANN SORRENTINO — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:05:35 GMT

Vatican Myopia
Presenting more evidence that it just doesn't get it, the Vatican recently issued new so-called, "psychological screening guidelines" to weed out priest candidates with "psychopathic disorders," but only those related to sexual misconduct — specifically homosexuality.

Presenting more evidence that it just doesn't get it, the Vatican recently issued new so-called, "psychological screening guidelines" to weed out priest candidates with "psychopathic disorders," but only those related to sexual misconduct — specifically homosexuality.

This announcement ironically came on the heels of an Associated Press report about another massive sex abuse settlement. This time, the Catholic Diocese of Pueblo, Colorado, will fork over $4 million to settle claims by 23 men who accuse a religious brother at a Catholic high school of having sexually abused them.

Such settlements are now so routine they get only page five mentions, often below the fold, in major newspapers. The Vatican has good reason to be concerned: if only it were concerned about the real problem!

The new guidelines hope that "detecting defects earlier would help avoid many tragic experiences." They go on to specify they will now target would-be priests with, "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" while allowing to go forward those with a "transitory problem" (those who have overcome "it" for three years).

If this sounds like a page from the book of "a little bit pregnant," it is.

The idea that gayness might be measured in degrees — manageable to deep-rooted — is absurd. It's telling that monitoring heterosexual perversion is not mentioned. The premise that priests who sexually abuse children are routinely gay in their orientation, when experts consistently say that pedophiles are just as likely to be heterosexual as homosexual, shows Rome's myopia.

The Vatican's latest treatise on homosexuality also echoes the evangelical Christian belief that gay men and lesbian woman can be "changed" through prayer. Married senators in airport men's rooms and married preachers having gay trysts prove that no amount of prayers, novenas, or hymns can change the leopard's spots. (They may prove leopards ought to be leopards, however, and not chameleons.)

The Vatican guidelines also insist that priests must have a "positive and stable sense of one's masculine identity."

Has the pope seen Brokeback Mountain? Those guys were rodeo riders, hunters, and boozers. It doesn't get much more "macho" than that. Still, after herding livestock all day, and surviving the elements in a tent, they'd put out the campfire and make love under the moon. Were they not "real men?"

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) commented on the guidelines appropriately. It called for a necessary shift in the Vatican's centuries-old "unchanged culture of secrecy and unchecked power in the hierarchy," saying that this is what allows dangerous priests to exist without scrutiny in parishes.

Bingo.

Mister Sister picks up where Miko left off

AMY LITTLEFIELD — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:02:43 GMT

Sex In The City
When Miko Exoticwear on Wickenden Street closed its doors for good this summer, Providence lost a local landmark.

Heslin's rise: A change of the guard, but to what effect?

IAN DONNIS — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:44:55 GMT

As The ProJo Turns
Thomas E. Heslin, the Providence Journal's new executive editor — like his storied predecessor — bridges two distinctly different journalistic eras.

A self-help guide for the uninsured

MARION DAVIS — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:38:01 GMT

Where to turn if you need health-care and don't have coverage
For the vast majority of Rhode Islanders — the insured — health-care is something you get when you need it. Feeling sick? Call the doctor. Slip and fall? Go to the emergency room or an urgent-care center. Need surgery? It's not fun, but it's covered.

We live in parallel universes.

For the vast majority of Rhode Islanders — the insured — health-care is something you get when you need it. Feeling sick? Call the doctor. Slip and fall? Go to the emergency room or an urgent-care center. Need surgery? It's not fun, but it's covered.

But for more than 100,000 uninsured Ocean Staters, seeing a doctor can cost $150 or more, an ER visit can easily top $1000, and a hospitalization can lead to bankruptcy.

And now unemployment is swelling the ranks of the uninsured: a record 50,200 Rhode Islanders collected unemployment in September, and the state's unemployment rate has risen to 8.8 percent. Simultaneously, the state has cut RIte Care, its Medicaid program for families, to help close a major deficit, leaving thousands of poor children and families without coverage.

"Over half of the adults who are coming in now as new patients don't have insurance," says Merrill Thomas, CEO of the Providence Community Health Centers, which serve more than 35,000 mostly low- and middle-income people. "It's a bad spiral downward."

So if you're uninsured and need health-care, what do you do? Here are some options.

COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS
Much as Thomas and his statewide counterparts worry about the growing wave of uninsured patients, they are there to help everyone who needs them — it's their mission.

Community health centers provide comprehensive primary care to anyone who comes in, and offer a charge based on one's income: a $20 minimum if you meet federal poverty guidelines, or gradually more, up to fees comparable to a doctor's office, if you're fairly well-off. "The poverty guidelines aren't as stringent," Thomas says. "If you're a student and you're making $10,000 a year, you're going to qualify."

The centers also help patients get specialty care, medications, and, if needed, hospital care, and connect them with programs for which they might be eligible, from RIte Care (which remains a great safety net for pregnant women and children) to drug assistance programs.

Rhode Island has 12 community health centers, some with multiple locations — from Woonsocket, to Coventry, to Block Island — with a concentration in urban areas. Each has a different range of services and fee scales; to find one near you, visit rihca.org.

THE RHODE ISLAND FREE CLINIC
Can't afford to pay anything for health-care? The Rhode Island Free Clinic, in Providence, is there for you. Just be warned, though, it may be hard to get in — because the clinic can only care for about 1000 of the estimated 35,000 people eligible for its services.

As RI struggles, entrepreneur sees promise

IAN DONNIS — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:55:17 GMT

Techwatch
The revelation that Rhode Island faces a $300 million-plus deficit for the current year is just the latest bit of dire economic news about the state.

The revelation that Rhode Island faces a $300 million-plus deficit for the current year is just the latest bit of dire economic news about the state. So maybe it's because he's young (29) and from the other side of the country (San Diego) that Wayne Franklin thinks Providence's small size offers exciting opportunities for leveraging sustainable economic development.

"I think a lot of the stuff is the smaller layers that make a city great," says Franklin, who became intrigued with Providence after repeatedly flying into Rhode Island and seeing parts of its cityscape while driving on I-95 to Boston. "It's just a cool city, and it's manageable, and I feel I can have more impact here."

Acting on this principle, Franklin over the summer launched OfficeLAB (urbansuninvestments.com/knowledge/news/), a cool office time-share on the third floor of the elegant old Federal Reserve Building, 170 Westminster Street, in downtown Providence.

For $175, programmers, Web designers, and other home-based workers can gain 40 hours of monthly access to office space, a game room, a conference room for meeting clients, and rotating gallery-like displays of art work. (There are also perks, including a receptionist-greeter, free coffee and copying, and high-speed Internet.) Twelve people have signed on thus far, far short of the maximum capacity of 80, but it's a start.

The bigger plan of Franklin — who has a background in real estate — is a new venture called Seed Providence, "an initiative to seed investment and collaboration in new ideas, ventures and places that further the economic, environmental and social sustainability of Providence."

The effort will consist of three inter-related parts: a Web site (seedprovidence.com, due to be launched this week) meant to be "a useful online resource for understanding the Providence 'experience' "; an investment fund that will invest "in new projects and ventures that will make Providence a better place, while earning a solid return on their investment"; and labs, funded through Seed Providence, that will attempt to foster education, local investment, urban experience, and such buzz-worthy concepts as creative economy, social entrepreneurship, and environmental stewardship.

While longtime Rhode Islanders can point with exasperation to the state's struggles to advance the cause of economic development, Franklin, who moved to Providence with his wife about a year ago, detects a lot of opportunity.

A lot of important pieces are in place, he notes, pointing to the compact scale of downtown Providence and its amenities, the presence of a vibrant creative community, and the recent arrival of John Maeda, the tech-savvy president of RISD.

Newport company touts grease as a gas competitor

CARROLL ANDREW MORSE — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:34:57 GMT

Energy
While the return of gas prices to a more palatable level has stifled public discontent for now, it's hard to predict when the next oil shock may occur.

While the return of gas prices to a more palatable level has stifled public discontent for now, it's hard to predict when the next oil shock may occur. And when it does, Rhode Island, Newport Biodiesel will still want your grease.

Since January, Newport Biodiesel LLC (newportbiodiesel.com) has been converting an average of 20,000 gallons of used restaurant cooking oil per month into vehicle fuel and home heating oil at its production facility on the outskirts of the Newport Naval Base.

Newport Biodiesel provides barrels to its suppliers, the restaurants fill them with grease, and Newport Biodiesel then sends a truck to collect it. As Amanda Marcello, a manager at Eleven Forty Nine Restaurant in Warwick attests, "There is no out of pocket expense" associated with a restaurant's role in grease supply.

Nat Harris, the company's production manager, estimates the amount of used restaurant oil available per year in Rhode Island to be about 2 million gallons. With average oil-to-biodiesel yields in the range of 93 percent, a nearly equivalent volume of fuel could theoretically be produced.

Presently, collected oil is processed in batches of 1000 gallons per day. Harris says his company plans by the end of winter to upgrade to a continuous process known as cavitation "that will do five gallons per minute, as long as you feed it" — making outputs of 1 million gallons per year possible.

At that point, the primary limitation on output will be the volume of waste oil that can be brought in. Newport Biodiesel's immediate goal is to collect enough oil to produce 350,000 gallons of fuel per year. It is actively seeking to enlarge its roster of suppliers to help them reach that total.

Because Newport Biodiesel doesn't pay for its "feedstock," its costs are relatively fixed, mainly the cost of collecting the oil (using a truck powered by the firm's own biodiesel, of course), plus the costs of processing: straining food particles and removing excess moisture from the oil, regenerating "tired" oil using methanol and sulfuric acid, and turning oil into diesel using methanol and potassium hydroxide.

When petroleum prices approached $150 per barrel earlier this year, Newport Biodiesel was selling its product for between 20 and 80 cents less per gallon than petroleum-based diesel.

"This summer, we would produce 1000 gallons, put it in the tank, and it would be gone within an hour, because we were cheaper," says Harris. Based on recent production costs, he estimates that Newport Biodiesel can compete on price with petroleum diesel when petroleum prices exceed $90 per barrel.

Two many Americas

MIKE MILIARD — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:55:16 GMT

Could an Obama administration mean an end to the red-state/blue-state divide?
It's worth reminding ourselves that when the Republicans are out of power, they go apeshit.

In North Carolina, a man electrified his John McCain campaign sign so it delivered a nasty shock to the nine-year-old neighbor trying to steal it. In California, a man hanged a Saran Palin effigy — stylish black pumps swaying softly in the breeze. In Pennsylvania, at a Palin rally, a corpulent man gleefully toted a stuffed monkey, a Barack Obama sticker wrapped around its head like a turban.

The interminable months of this election just past were marked by some strange and ugly behavior. It seemed at times to be the concentrated distillation of the past eight wildly partisan years — years in which the so-called red-state/blue-state dichotomy has become ingrained in America's fabric.

So, now that we're getting a new president, what happens?

That a number of rightward-leaning folks — Colin Powell, Christophers Buckley and Hitchens — endorsed Obama was encouraging. They believed something legions of rabid rightists do not: that the only way forward for this country is to elect a man of decency and competence with an inclusive vision for the country. Still, no one's naïve enough to suggest that the entire nation will dissolve into a big melty goop of purply bipartisanship the second Obama takes office.

But 10 days on from that momentous election, with the map seemingly redrawn (even vermillion Indiana turned blue) it's worth asking whether or not we might expect some changes in our national character.

McCain, in the gloaming of his candidacy, presided over one of the most disgracefully divisive campaigns in US history. The language and insinuation employed by his ticket and its supporters should be abhorrent to anyone who cares about the promises of liberal democracy: "the real America" . . . "traitor" . . . "the other folks."

Meanwhile, Obama — worldly, biracial, unbeholden to baby-boomer hang-ups, born in a blue state but with red-state roots — showed throughout the campaign that he means to offer something better. A cease-fire (or at least an abatement) in the culture wars. A sense of unity and common purpose. A general appeal to our better natures.

But what can we realistically hope for? Can "the first truly 21st-century figure in American politics," to borrow Washington Post op-ed writer E.J. Dionne's words, actually bridge these deep national divisions? Will the end of the Bush years signal the simultaneous end of interstate rifts? Or will the antipathies between the government and its malcontentsonly calcify further?

Short answers, in order: we'll see; no; and potentially, but hopefully not.

Divide and be conquered

BY STEVEN STARK — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:57:04 GMT

The GOP relied on talk radio to carry its water, but votes are worth more than ratings
Things do indeed look bad for their Grand Old Party. Actually, it's even worse than they think.

What with their decisive loss in the presidential election and the party's distinct minority status in the House and Senate, the Republicans could be forgiven for being pessimistic. Things do indeed look bad for their Grand Old Party.

Actually, it's even worse than they think.

Since the dawn of the 20th century, guess how many times the incumbent party has failed to succeed itself in the White House after one term. Once in 11 tries — in 1976 when Reagan took out Jimmy Carter. Statistically at least, the odds are not good for a Republican in 2012.

On top of that, counting last Tuesday, the Republicans have now failed to win the popular vote in four of the past five presidential elections. And in the fifth, they barely got by John Kerry. So despite appearances (owing to Washington's high neocon profile), it's actually been 20 years since the GOP was a dominant force in presidential politics.

There are plenty of theories circulating about how the GOP got itself into this mess, but one prime suspect clearly isn't getting its due — conservative talk radio.

The partisans will howl in protest, but while certainly not the only culprit, the relentless stream of invective from the right side of the dial has undeniably been a major contributor to the GOP's demise. It's no coincidence that the Republican eclipse began just when conservative talk radio found its audience.

Rush Limbaugh's show was syndicated in 1988. It's been a steady climb toward the top of the ratings for him and his imitators ever since, but pretty much downhill for the party they all support. Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and the others are enormously successful media performers and they may have single-handedly rescued AM radio from financial oblivion over the past two decades.

But while wildly popular with their devotees, these partisan bloviators are enormously unpopular with the electorate as a whole. Limbaugh, for example, has about a two-to-one unfavorable rating nationally, according to a Rasmussen Poll.

What's more, these figures are all rabble-rousers — high intensity, "hot" performers whose appeal is based on energizing their base. That's all well and good for radio — it works, after all. But it's becoming increasingly apparent that it's a terrible way to structure the energy of a mainstream political movement that seeks to win more than 50 percent of the national vote.

Mod on the move

IAN DONNIS — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 01:33:12 GMT

Obama supporter Lincoln Chafee talks about the post-election landscape
The Brown University class being taught this semester by Lincoln Chafee, the Republican US senator-turned-independent supporter of Barack Obama, has an up-to-the-moment title: “Whither America.”

KEEPING HIS POWDER DRY: Chafee’s next move remains an open question.

The Brown University class being taught this semester by Lincoln Chafee, the Republican US senator-turned-independent supporter of Barack Obama, has an up-to-the-moment title: “Whither America.”

Now, after the seemingly interminable presidential campaign, Obama will soon turn his attention to the same subject.

Chafee, who was set to be part of an Obama rally at Chicago’s Grant Park as the returns came in on Tuesday night, was one of a number of present and former Republicans who lent their support to the Democrat. As the son of a GOP icon and as someone who felt compelled to leave the Republican Party, he encapsulates the shifts that have marked the party in recent decades.

What the future holds for Chafee himself remains to be seen. He demurred, pre-election, when asked about his possibly taking a place in an Obama administration. Nor would he reveal his decision-making about a potential independent gubernatorial run in 2010 (see “Chafee for governor?” News, April 10), although Chafee says some Rhode Islanders have encouraged him to pursue such a bid.

We talked Monday in his office at Brown’s Watson Institute.

You’ve called George W. Bush the worst president in history. So how difficult will it be for Obama to move the country beyond the legacy of the last eight years?
Very difficult. My gosh, eight years of poor decisions, starting right from the beginning — I was there for that big tax cut, a $1.6 trillion tax cut. [He] took the surplus, a historic surplus, that took decades of work to finally get, where revenues were exceeding expenditures — a very good thing. And instead of investing it in worthwhile programs, like a good business would have done when you’ve got profits — pour it back into the institution and make it stronger — and also there’s room for tax cuts, the estate tax. [Instead], we squandered that opportunity and embarked on a spending spree, a trillion-dollar spending spree: wars overseas that are costing us trillions of dollars. A prescription drug benefit to Medicare added a whole new benefit to it without doing any other reforms; [Bush] created a huge federal bureaucracy, homeland security. Farm subsidies came back.

It was just totally irresponsible on the fiscal side, and the biggest repair work, I say, is restoring American credibility. We’re not respected or trusted at home or abroad, and can you believe what the administration [is saying]? No, you can’t. That’s a bad thing.

At the Biltmore, exultation and ecstasy over Obama’s win

IAN DONNIS — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:35:14 GMT

Talking politics
Shortly before 9:30 pm on Tuesday, a huge roar went up among the Democratic crowd packing the 17th floor ballroom at the Providence Biltmore.

VICTORY SCENE: Part of the hopeful crowd in the Biltmore ballroom.

Shortly before 9:30 pm on Tuesday, a huge roar went up among the Democratic crowd packing the 17th floor ballroom at the Providence Biltmore. Barack Obama had been projected as the winner of Ohio — a state that Republicans have almost always had to win to gain the presidency — and the steady optimism among the assembled turned into something more ecstatic.

The throng, which slowly started to gather at 8 pm, was unusually diverse — young and old, black and white — for such an occasion, seemingly befitting Obama’s barrier-breaking victory.

In the flush of the win, and the dawn of a new presidency, it was easy to forget that most of the members of Rhode Island’s Democratic establishment had reflexively backed Hillary Clinton during the bygone primary season.

Cliff Monteiro, president of the Providence chapter of the NAACP, had been so excited on Election Day, he says, that he woke up at 3 am and couldn’t fall back asleep, watching cowboy movies to try to relax and pass the time before voting.

“I never thought it would happen in my lifetime,” Monteiro says, “but I am so grateful that a man who represents all of America — because he is half-black and he is half-white — and I think that this country is more central. It’s not to the extreme right, it’s not to the extreme left, and I think he is more central and focused [on] the feeling of America. And I’m just excited that it’s the right man at the right time to lead our country out of the terrible dilemma that we’re in economically and politically.”

In some respects, Obama’s win was conventional, since poor economic conditions and a very unpopular incumbent almost always spell a loss for the party in power. At the same time, the meteoric rise of a once little-known black Democrat was nothing less than remarkable.

“To me, it will mean a change in the way that government is run, from top to bottom,” says Chris Blazejewski, a lawyer who heads up the Providence faction of Drinking Liberally.

Former Providence mayor Joseph R. Paolino Jr. says, “Bush just blew it, between the economy and the war.” He assigns global importance to Obama’s victory, predicting that it will rally financial markets: “I tell you what it’s going to do overseas. It’s going to give people a second look that we need to feel good again about Americans, to the people that are our friends and allies in Europe who have been disillusioned by what’s been going on these last few years, our friends in the Middle East, throughout the world. They’re going to have more trust in Obama.”

The alt-candidates

STEVEN STYCOS — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:28:15 GMT

On the Rhode Island ballot: a revolutionary, conservatives — and Ralph Nader, of course
A revolutionary, Ralph Nader, a Baptist minister, and two former congressmen from Georgia are all running for president in Rhode Island.

A revolutionary, Ralph Nader, a Baptist minister, and two former congressmen from Georgia are all running for president in Rhode Island. Two of these five third-party candidates are more conservative than Republican John McCain, and the other three are more liberal than Democrat Barack Obama. Supporters of each gathered the 1000 signatures needed to win a ballot spot. These candidates hope that their presidential campaigns will publicize political views not often heard in the public debate.

Getting the word out can be difficult. With little money and few supporters, third-party candidates are barely visible, except on the Internet, where each has a detailed Web site.

Here’s a summary of the five parties.

Chuck Baldwin

Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party (baldwin08.com)
Baldwin, a Baptist minister in Florida, is a graduate of conservative televangelist Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Bible Institute in Virginia. His online campaign biography proudly notes that two former conservative presidential candidates, Patrick Buchanan and Alan Keyes, have spoken at his church.

Baldwin, who is on the ballot in 35 states, has also been endorsed by renegade Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. The Constitution Party’s platform calls for phasing out Social Security, abolishing the Federal Reserve System and the Internal Revenue Service, and substituting private charity for government welfare programs. It also supports states’ rights and believes any state may with-draw from the union.

The party’s Rhode Island chairwoman, Newport piano teacher Monique LeMaire, says she was hooked four years ago by the party’s slogan of “Honor God, Defend the Family and Restore the Repub-lic.” Opposed to gambling, she would like to close Newport Grand and replace it with affordable housing. Although the US had to invade Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein, LeMaire says, she adds “Let’s get our troops back from Iraq. Let’s close our borders and have our troops protect our land. That’s logical.” The Constitution Party has about 20 members in Rhode Island, she says, and is not running any local candidates.

Bob Barr of the Libertarian Party (bobbarr2008.com)
As a four-term US representative, Barr challenged the Bush administration’s restrictions on personal freedoms, but he is best known as one of the House prosecutors who presented the Clinton impeach-ment case to the US Senate.

Obama for president

PROVIDENCE PHOENIX EDITORIAL STAFF — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:23:22 GMT

Plus, Reed for Senate, Kennedy and Langevin for US House, and choices for State Senate, House, and more
The Phoenix endorses Barack Obama for President and Joe Biden for Vice President.

The past eight years have been disastrous for America: the failed (or — if you are an optimist — failing) wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the parallel rise in regional influence of Iran; the unconstitutional domestic spying and other violations of civil liberties; the appointment of radical right-wingers to the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court; the growing gap between the rich and the affluent and the rest of nation; the reckless economic policies that have lead to the current economic meltdown; and an epidemic of Congressional corruption among the Republicans and their corporate lobbying cronies.

It is impossible to emphasize the importance of redirecting America’s sorry course. The nation has lost its way.

For these reasons — and for others that are also vitally important — the Phoenix endorses Barack Obama for President and Joe Biden for Vice President.

The idea of John McCain and Sarah Palin in those jobs is simply too frightening to contemplate. The McCain and Palin candidacies are rooted in a Republican vision of America that is narrow, intolerant, and divisive. They promise to lead America deeper into a bankrupt past.

The challenges facing the next President will be the greatest in recent memory: to restore the nation’s international standing while simultaneously rebuilding a shell-shocked economy. So great is the job ahead that it is difficult not to imagine that a President Obama at times might falter. But his energy, eloquence, intelligence, and steady temperament make him the candidate best equipped to face the future.

Reed for Senate
US Senator Jack Reed is a diligent and thoughtful legislator whose influence is steadily on the rise in Washington. His ability to get the big decisions right is demonstrated by his vote against the authorization of the war in Iraq.

Reed is the latest in a string of Rhode Islanders — John O. Pastore, John Chafee, and Claiborne Pell — to distinguish themselves in the Senate, offering a sharp contrast to the shady dealings that sometimes take place in the Ocean State. Thanks to his background as an Army ranger, Reed offers an informed voice on national security issues, and he can be expected to have the ear of the president should Obama win next week’s election.

Challenger Robert Tingle, a Foxwoods pit boss who touts himself as a Reagan Republican, is among the handful of critics who fault Reed for his campaign war chest (which is unremarkable by Senate standards) and for some of his contributions from the banking and finance industry (which, largely, are a reflection of how Washington operates).

RI ’08: Prelude to 2010

IAN DONNIS — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:59:35 GMT

In a national year of change, stasis is likely to prevail at the General Assembly
During a national election season in which “change” remains the dominant motif, Rhode Island politics is locked in a holding pattern marked by a Democratic stranglehold on state and federal offices.

Correction: In a previous version of this article, the race in which Kenneth Capalbo is running was incorrect. Capalbo is running as independent against US Representative Patrick J. Kennedy.

During a national election season in which “change” remains the dominant motif, Rhode Island politics is locked in a holding pattern marked by a Democratic stranglehold on state and federal offices. Not much is likely to change after the votes are counted next Tuesday, Novem-ber 4.

If ever there were a time for the beleaguered Rhode Island Republican Party to mount a successful assault on the status quo of the Democrat-dominated General Assembly, this would have been the year. The Ocean State remains mired in fiscal woes, so voters might be ready to try something different.

And the RI GOP still offers brave talk before the election. Yet unless challengers are able to displace Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano and/or Senate Majority Leader Teresa Paiva-Weed — which is far from a certainty — Republicans (whose overall House and Senate numbers aren’t about to significantly change) will have little to show for their efforts.

Instead, Election Day 2008 signals the start of the march to a far more consequential statewide election season — complete with the high-stakes race to succeed two-term Governor Donald L. Carcieri — in 2010.

Particularly because of their antipathy toward Carcieri, but also since they haven’t had one of their own in office since Bruce Sundun’s tenure ended in 1995, Democrats will make an all-out effort to re-gain the governor’s seat.

Barring the unexpected, Stephen J. Laffey, who retains impressive political skills and will likely have learned from his US Senate primary setback in 2006, will marshal similar zeal in trying to keep the top job in Republican hands.

In the interim, here are some of the highlights from the current campaign season.

O, what a feeling
An Obama presidential victory would obviously gladden Democrats and progressives after two terms of George W. Bush. Yet it could also have a dramatic impact on the 2010 governor’s office in Rhode Island.

Earlier this year, Attorney General Patrick Lynch was the most high-profile Rhode Island Democrat to endorse Obama, back when the party’s establishment — including his brother, state Democratic Party chair Bill Lynch — was firmly aligned with Hillary Clinton. So it’s not inconceivable that Patrick Lynch, who is prevented by term limits from running for another term as AG, might land a job in Washington.

Does not compute

MIKE MILIARD — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:34:08 GMT

Will our next president be a geek hero or a guy who doesn’t e-mail?
Though he’s infamous for his aversion to computers, McCain is actually no Luddite.

If members of the voting public, curious about John McCain’s positions, absentmindedly punch “www.mccain.com” into their Firefox nav bar, they’re taken not to the McCain campaign’s star-spangled site, but to the official corporate portal of McCain Foods Limited, makers of Tasti Taters and Pizza Pockets.

It’s beyond his control, sure, that this was one URL the McCain campaign couldn’t snatch up. But it also serves as a metaphor of sorts for a 21st-century politician who’s admitted to being a computer “illiterate,” who has to “rely on my wife” for all his Web-browsing needs, and who “never felt the particular need to e-mail.”

Those quotes led to much bemused guffawing and righteous hair-tugging. Beseeched, one commenter beneath a blog posts at theatlantic.com: “does anyone have a problem with a man who can barely use a computer trying to articulate what is happening in world markets? How could he possibly grasp global economy in this day and age?”

Clearly that man was unaware of McCain’s technological bona fides. That Blackberry in your pocket? You can thank McCain, says his senior policy advisor, Douglas Holtz-Eakin. And, according to a recent New Yorker article, Sarah Palin first crossed the campaign’s radar screen thanks in part to one young Republican who’d learned about her after “randomly searching Wikipedia . . . for Republican women,” and set up a Web site, which was echoed and amplified by the blogosphere at large.

So there’s, uh, that. But what might a potential McCain administration mean for technology issues? Should we maybe expect more from a presidential ticket in this dizzying technological age than a V-P who routinely used a private, easily-hacked Yahoo! account to conduct state business in Alaska? To say nothing of a president who when asked “PC or Mac?” responded: “neither”?

Electoral engineering
Though he’s infamous for his aversion to computers, McCain is actually no Luddite. He’s served on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for 21 years, and chaired it three separate times between 1997 and 2005, as the Internet utterly transformed the world. (He was on the committee when the Senate passed the momentous Telecommunications Act of 1996, for example.) So he’s been compelled, at least, to keep apprised of technological issues.

We want a fresh start — and an untroubled election

MARY ANN SORRENTINO — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:40:39 GMT

Election Day 2008
Tuesday, November 4, Election Day, may be the most important day of our lives — and even more so for the children and grandchildren we will eventually leave behind.

Tuesday, November 4, Election Day, may be the most important day of our lives — and even more so for the children and grandchildren we will eventually leave behind.

Whoever the winner, there will be pockets of discontent, as is always the case. A McCain victory will terrify those who believe he will perpetuate the destructive and divisive legacy of W. An Obama win may galvanize the dark and deep forces that believe individual freedoms can be sacrificed at the altars of racism, elitism, and militarism.

Many of us are look to the hundreds of thousands of newly registered voters to make the result of Tuesday’s vote clear — not close. America needs a mandate that shouts how angry the nation is about the current madness and how its citizens refuse to take it any more!

We look too to the few states that, because of the warped and esoteric Electoral College system, hold the fate of the country in their hands. Even worse, America depends on voting machine technology that, in early voting these past several days, already portends snafus and worse.

Florida owes all of us, big time, for its screw-up in 2000, when Gore’s defeat, certified by the Supreme Court, ushered in the reign of W. That was marked by too many voting machine malfunctions, unreasonably long lines, and other problems.

As much as Americans long for candidates of whom we can be proud, we dream of election results in which we can believe. We don’t ask for much: just the right to go to the polls and cast our ballot knowing it will count — and for the candidate we intended.

This Election Day will mark the first time in many years when the choices are crystal clear.

For the first time in a long time, voters are out to cast a ballot FOR a man they believe can save them from the mess they are in, not against his opponent. This year, we are fighting for our economic, medical, military, and patriotic lives.

Like many, I am going to the polls to vote for a man who defeated my first choice for president. Like them, I nurse some remaining wounds about the importance of race over gender. Those wounds, however, pale against the mortal insult to Hillary Clinton and women represented, at every level, by Sarah Palin.

In Obama’s vice-presidential pick, Joe Biden, I am reassured that, even without a six-figure Neiman Marcus/Saks makeover, the second-in-command will make America a better, safer, more equitable, and more respected nation — for women as well as for men.