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DAVID SCHARFENBERG

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Gay Marriage: yes or no?

Rhode Island advocates have shunned the ballot box, fearing defeat. Is it time to reconsider?
In 32 states, voters have weighed in on same-sex marriage. In 32 states, they have rejected it.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | October 17, 2012

Action Speaks, the panel discussion series at Providence art space AS220, continues its fall season October 24 with a discussion of Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the landmark Supreme Court decision that overturned a law banning contraception and found a right to privacy in the Constitution, paving the way for the Roe v. Wade (1973) ruling that legalized abortion.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | October 18, 2012

Chaplin’s Modern Times, in our time

Action Speaks
Action Speaks, the panel discussion series at Providence art space AS220, continues October 17 with a look at the Charlie Chaplin film Modern Times (1936), an enduring meditation on economic upheaval.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | October 10, 2012

Asleep at the wheel

The state's weak system for vetting contractors allows millions to flow to companies with poor environmental and workplace safety records. It needs to be fixed
In the early morning of April 9, 2007, a small armada of Cardi Corporation trucks crept up Rustic Hill Road in North Scituate to the construction site for the new Ponaganset Middle School.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | October 03, 2012

Cicilline’s comeback foretold

Survey Says
WPRI-TV released a new poll this week giving Congressman David Cicilline a six-point edge on his Republican rival Brendan Doherty.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | October 03, 2012

Cycling and democracy

Action Speaks
Action Speaks, the panel discussion series at Providence art space AS220, continues October 10 with a discussion of cycling and protest culture.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | October 03, 2012

Headmaster goes feminine

Print
Matthew Lawrence — blogger, event planner, and man about town — and Jason Tranchida — designer, artist, and man about town — met seven years ago at a bar where both worked as DJs.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | October 03, 2012

What happens when we patent life?

Action Speaks
What happens when we patent life?

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | September 26, 2012

Will race tip the balance?

Research from a Brown University professor points to an intriguing answer
Any hope that Barack Obama's election would usher in a "post-racial" politics was, of course, naïve. Race is the great American problem. The great American obsession.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | September 21, 2012

At RISD: designing ballots, designing democracy

Elections
Hanging chads were not the only problem with the Florida ballots at the center of the Bush-Gore election fight in 2000.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | September 19, 2012

After this week’s elections, is same-sex marriage dead?

Primary Day
Elections matter. And on Tuesday, Rhode Island's Democratic primary did not go well for the state's same-sex marriage advocates.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | September 12, 2012

Rhode Island’s marquee Congressional race may deliver the answer

Does the truth matter?
Last week at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan delivered a rousing attack on President Obama — full of distortions.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | September 05, 2012

Cicilline-Gemma II lands with a thud

Debates
After their raucous, televised debate a week previous, there was an air of expectation surrounding Congressman David Cicilline and businessman Anthony Gemma's recent Democratic primary debate on WPRO radio.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | September 05, 2012

Did Gemma land enough blows on Cicilline?

Debates
Early this week, WPRI-TV released a poll giving Congressman David Cicilline a 12-point lead on his Democratic primary rival, businessman Anthony Gemma.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | August 30, 2012

How does Doherty measure up?

Can Rhode Island's GOP hopeful win over voters like golden boy Scott Brown?
After Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown pulled off his stunning victory in the January 2010 special election to fill Senator Ted Kennedy's seat, every political reporter and strategist in New England was eager to anoint the next truck-driving, populist star of the GOP.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | August 22, 2012

Gemmapalooza and RI’s strange relationship with the truth

Talking Politics
In the run-up to Congressional candidate Anthony Gemma's highly anticipated press conference this week, unveiling allegations of voter fraud by incumbent Congressman David Cicilline, the chattering class — this observer included — was pretty much unanimous: Gemma had to deliver the goods or he was finished.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | August 22, 2012

Will the Senate kill gay marriage — again?

Yes, it seems — unless this fall’s elections shake up the chamber
When same-sex marriage legislation died in the General Assembly last summer without so much as a vote, attention focused on openly gay Speaker of the House Gordon Fox. Had he done enough? Had he pulled the plug too soon? Had he failed the gay and lesbian community?

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | August 08, 2012

Poetic disobedience at AS220

Art Dept.
"We, the artists & intellectuals, famous & unknown. We, mud people, snake people, tar people. We, bohemians walking on millennial thin ice; our bodies pierced, tattooed, martyred, scarred; our skin covered with hieroglyphs & flaming questions."

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | July 25, 2012

New Penzance = Rhode Island

A tour of the whimsical world of Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom
Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom is the most profitable film in recent memory at Newport's indie emporium, the Jane Pickens Theater. And little wonder.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | July 26, 2012

Let’s make campaign finance reform sexy

Going Big
Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse was out on the hustings this week promoting his DISCLOSE Act, which would require the sort of independent political groups playing an outsize role in the presidential election to report on who is bankrolling their operations.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | July 18, 2012

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

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