IAN DONNIS

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

Luke’s Record Exchange will spring back to life

IAN DONNIS — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:21:31 GMT

Retail Rebound
When Luke T. Renchan announced in March that his landmark record shop, Luke’s Record Exchange in Pawtucket, was closing after 29 years in business, it was a sad and not very unsurprising story.

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.

Bioneers to push quest for green jobs

IAN DONNIS — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 03:16:07 GMT

Environment
Taking up a new way of doing things isn’t easy in the best of times, so it’s no surprise that the ongoing fiscal crisis complicates efforts to promote the so-called green economy.

Taking up a new way of doing things isn’t easy in the best of times, so it’s no surprise that the ongoing fiscal crisis complicates efforts to promote the so-called green economy.

Yet considering the potential gain, pushing ahead seems to make sense. As the New York Times recently reported, a study released on Monday found that California’s energy-efficiency policies created nearly 1.5 million jobs from 1977 to 2007, while eliminating fewer than 25,000.

Among other things, the study by a University of California, Berkeley, economist “found that while the state’s policies lowered employee compensation in the electric power industry by an estimated $1.6 billion over that period, it improved compensation in the state over all by $44.6 billion.”

So what’s the way forward?

This will be the topic of much discussion during the latest incarnation of Bioneers by the Bay, which its organizers call “the Northeast’s premier conference on the environment and social justice.” It takes place from Friday, October 24 through Sunday, October 26 in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

According to the conference Web site (connectingforchange.org), “Over 2000 students, teachers, green business innovators, scientists, grassroots leaders and everyday folks from across the East Coast will gather to embrace, share, brainstorm, network, heal, learn, teach, celebrate, recharge and connect for change. We will roll up our sleeves and harvest tangible, practical solu-tions to the specific challenges we face here in the Northeast and the world at-large.

“We have planned a rather remarkable three days of live keynote presentations, afternoon workshops, an extensive Youth Initiative program, a downlink of the 19th Annual Bioneers Conference in California [www.bioneers.org], an exhibition hall featuring sustainable businesses and organizations, a community action center, films, music, art installations, a farmers’ market and local & or-ganic food.”

Environmentalist Van Jones, author of The Green Collar Economy (Harper One, 2008), is among those slated to take part.

With an op-ed in Monday’s ProJo, Jones pointed to the benefits of Green jobs: “A new report, entitled, ‘US Metro Economies: Current and Potential Green Jobs in the U.S. Economy,’ re-leased by the US Conference of Mayors, says that we can create over 4 million green jobs if we aggressively shift away from traditional fossil fuels toward alternative energy and a significant improvement in energy efficiency.”

Norman Mailer’s ‘White Negro’ gets the treatment

IAN DONNIS — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:35:04 GMT

Action speaks!
Long before suburban kids began digging Dr. Dre and Tupac, an earlier generation of young white people venerated the jazz and swing music of the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s.

Avant-oompah!

IAN DONNIS — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:22:58 GMT

Mixing old and new, Providence’s What Cheer? Brigade takes a stand against pre-fabricated culture
Unexpected and improbable spontaneity is a trademark for What Cheer?, one of a number of groups that blend punk rock ethos with the mobility of marching bands

ON THE MARCH: The mobility of What Cheer? and similar street bands makes for a moving party,
sometimes in unexpected places.

During the end of a recent West Coast excursion, Providence’s What Cheer? Brigade wound up under a bridge in Seattle, playing Brian Eno’s “Here Come the Warm Jets,” a favorite song of the 18-member street band, with a group other musicians. It was a moment that left “big tough boys in our band crying,” recalls trombonist Susan Sakash, because of “the sense of creating something beautiful at the end of this long, draining tour.”

Such unexpected and improbable spontaneity is a trademark for What Cheer?, one of a growing number of groups that blend punk rock ethos, the mobility of marching bands, and a idiosyncratic sense of willful anachronism, centered on brass instruments and the absence of electronic amplification.

In August 2007, for example, What Cheer? played a national festival in a small hill town in Serbia, a situation that left the locals “really excited and confused,” Sakash says. “They weren’t turned off by our level of rowdiness,” although the band’s less than orthodox musical arrangements, as well as the participation of female musicians, caused some head-scratching. In response, says Sakash, without a hint of understatement, “We tried to explain that we’re not a traditional band.”

As the local flowering of a small yet significant musical subgenre, What Cheer? Brigade puts a distinctive Providence touch on a broader anti-materialistic movement, combining an implicit social critique with the pure joy of a great sound. The band’s winning name references both the long-ago arrival here of Roger Williams, who fled religious rigidity in Massachusetts, and the sense of pursuing an offbeat contemporary quest.

Close to home, the Olneyville-based ensemble is just as likely to be found taking part in a scholastic parade in Central Falls, staging an impromptu musical farewell for an I-195 on-ramp facing imminent destruction, or playing a fundraiser for state Representative David Segal (D-Providence), a progressive favorite, at Nick-a-Nee’s, the Jewelry District watering hole.

What Cheer? aptly describes its mode as “Luddite hardcore” — a celebration of reclaiming public spaces and bringing people together in an era of rampant consumerism and prefabricated culture. At the same time, the band’s people-powered music is simultaneously old, new, dramatic, stirring, heartfelt, and groove-inducing, for young and old alike.

“I’ve never seen any other band have the ability to get such a broad cross-section of the community dancing as quickly, as vigorously, as they do,” says Segal. “I’m not much of a dancer myself, but I can’t help myself when I’m at one of their shows.”

Barbarisi assigned to the Sox; more changes coming

IAN DONNIS — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 07:25:57 GMT

As The ProJo Turns
In a locally unorthodox move, the Providence Journal is reassigning Dan Barbarisi, its well-regarded Providence City Hall reporter, to cover the Red Sox.

Why Rhode Island is hurting

IAN DONNIS — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 06:57:50 GMT

Bad days are here, and there is little in the past to make the future seem hopeful
If the nation’s fiscal crisis confirms that Rhode Island isn’t alone in facing serious economic woes, the state doesn’t suffer from a lack of other challenges.

If the nation’s fiscal crisis confirms that Rhode Island isn’t alone in facing serious economic woes, the state doesn’t suffer from a lack of other challenges that threaten the quest for its long-sought potential.

The seriousness of ongoing budget woes could be seen in revelation last month that the state had ended a budget year in the red “for the first time in modern accounting history,” as the ProJo described it. The unsettled state of affairs makes inevitable another rancorous budget debate — with impassioned testimony about the impact of proposed cuts — after the General Assembly returns in January.

Fallout from the national economic mess can be expected to have a harsher toll in Rhode Island, considering how the state is already bedeviled by high unemployment and a disproportionate effect from the foreclosure crisis.

Twin River, meanwhile, is having trouble paying its bills, a partial reflection of how the golden goose of gambling — the state’s third-largest source of revenue — is proving less reliable in a downturn.

If these budgetary/economic problems persist long enough — and it will be surprising if they don’t — they can be expected to blend into the opportunism surrounding the 2010 gubernatorial race, when Republican Steve Laffey, independent Lincoln Chafee, perhaps, and a Democrat-to-be-named later will hawk their own financial prescriptions.

On the education front, public schools continue to under-perform in many Rhode Island communities, as demonstrated by the abysmal scores reported last week on the state’s first science test. When it comes to higher education, an area in which a greater investment could yield future dividends, the state’s cash crunch is leading officials to plan instead on tuition hikes.

It would be a mistake — not to mention counter-productive — to think that everything in Rhode Island is doom and gloom.

Renewable energy, as with the wind farm announced last week, offers hope for jobs and economic development. The presence of as contemporary a thinker as John Maeda, RISD’s new president, is a good thing. In June, the Milken Institute’s 2008 State Technology and Science Index ranked Rhode Island 10th, up a notch from 2004. The state was last week an-nounced as the winner of $12.5 million National Science Foundation grant — one of 23 in the country — to improve math and science teaching at the middle school and high school level.

Journal job cuts: Practical or self-destructive?

IAN DONNIS — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 06:47:47 GMT

As The ProJo Turns
When John Hill sought his first mortgage as a young reporter, his banker told him, “Oh, you’ll be fine — you work at the Journal .”

When John Hill sought his first mortgage as a young reporter, his banker told him, “Oh, you’ll be fine — you work at the Journal.”

But job security isn’t what it once was — as anyone familiar with the newspaper industry knows — so Hill, now the president of the Providence Newspaper Guild, is among those watching and waiting as the ProJo prepares to implement what are thought to the first-ever economic layoffs in its lengthy history.

The cuts, which have not yet been reported in the Journal, were revealed September 24 by the Guild, and will claim roughly 30 news-related jobs (none in advertising), including three fulltime reporters. The layoffs are due to be implemented on October 10.

Those losing their jobs include Cranston reporter David Scharfenberg; East Bay reporter Meaghan Wims; online reporter Brandie Jefferson, news librarian Linda Henderson; experienced part-timers, such as Laura Meade Kirk, who has been with the Journal for more than 20 years; as well as at least two management employees, section editors Karen Maguire of the North edition and Jean Plunkett of the West Bay. Most of the cuts are based on lack of seniority.

Another reporter was due to be cut, but her job was saved when Sean McAdam, the ProJo’s nationally respected baseball writer, left for a job with the Boston Herald, reportedly frustrated by how he had been prohibited over the summer from appearing on sports radio station WEEI and espn.com.

Asked about the impact of the cuts, Hill says they can’t help taking a toll. Union officials are waiting until management shares its plans for reconfiguring the paper’s resources before offering a more detailed judgment.

The layoffs come after a recent company-wide buyout in the parent Belo Corporation, which was taken by 22 ProJo employees, failed to hit management’s minimum target of 35. “That was based on figuring that it was fulltime people going,” says Guild administrator Tim Schick, “and because our seniority system requires that they take part-timers first, they had to reach in deeper to reach the number they were looking for.”

Although it is not thought to be intentional, Schick says, the layoffs include a disproportionate ratio of women — by about a three-to-one margin.

Meanwhile, the ProJo’s “In Her Shoes” women’s initiative, conceived as an effort to draw more readers to the paper’s Web site, is reportedly on hold, in part because of the difficulty of pursuing the project with diminished staffing.

Man and machine

IAN DONNIS — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:37:29 GMT

John Maeda talks about technology — and his quest to understand RISD
Leave it to John Maeda, the Rhode Island School of Design’s new president, to invoke the long-term value of art at a time when global financial markets are gripped by uncertainty.

Leave it to John Maeda, the Rhode Island School of Design’s new president, to invoke the long-term value of art at a time when global financial markets are gripped by chaos and uncertainty. He made the point last week on his blog, our.risd.edu, pointing to the high level of interest in an auction featuring the work of British artist Damien Hirst.

Maeda, 42, brings a hefty reputation to his new perch. Esquire recently named the internationally recognized designer and author (The Laws of Simplicity) among the 75 most influential people for the 21st century.

We talked this week in his sparsely decorated Providence office.

What is most exciting to you about what’s happening right now with technology?
I think the most exciting thing now is that technology has sort of plateaued — development around it, the world’s kind of had enough of it. We’re looking for the next step. That’s what I’m excited about. I’ve found that most things I used don’t really work anymore, and I’m lucky if they do.

Even to maintain them is not just a Geek Squad thing — you need like 10 Geek Squads now, and I’m a bit of a geek myself, so what does all this mean? What it means is we’re entering a world where people will want to have the benefits of technology, but they’ll demand a higher quality of experience from it.

I think it has to do with defining technology on its own terms, and on new terms, on real terms. It was great at the inauguration where [Nicholas] Negroponte spoke about how the birth of the Me-dia Lab at MIT came from artists and designers who were trying to get computers to do things they wanted it to do, like, for instance, show a typeface called Helvetica on the computer that would show only one typeface. That was actually designers demanding that the computer be more visual, more like the media that they used. But now, like 20 years later, I’m not sure that we’re looking at it anymore, so I think artists and designers have to take control of it again.

Activists pitch green jobs as a win-win for Rhode Island

IAN DONNIS — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:36:49 GMT

Clean Energy
With global warming looming and the US economy in a mess, environmentalists have a simple answer for promoting environmental protection and economic development.

With global warming looming and the US economy in a mess, environmentalists have a simple answer — green jobs — for simultaneously promoting environmental protection and economic development.

And as part of a national day of action this Saturday, September 27, local activists plan to stage a community discussion about “Greening the Rhode Island economy,” at the New England Institute of Technology in Warwick, from 9:30 to 11:30 am.

“As Rhode Islanders struggle to make ends meet amidst a declining job market, a turbulent economy, stagnant wages, and record high gas prices, our green economy presents an opportunity to dig ourselves out of the ditch,” US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who will offer the keynote address, says in a news release. “Investing in clean renewable energy production and improving the efficiency of our cars, homes and businesses will stem the tide of global warming, break our dangerous dependence on foreign oil, and create entire industries of new ‘green collar’ jobs to sustain American workers.”

A panel discussion featuring local environmentalists and activists will follow Whitehouse’s address. Those interested in attending the free event can show up at the door, register at greeningrieconomy.com, send an e-mail info@greeningrieconomy.com, or call Greg Gerritt at 401.621.8048. For details about the national event, see greenjobsnow.com.

Denise Parrillo of Clean Water Action says the local green jobs’ event grew out of a desire among local environmental activists to capitalize on the national day of action. “As we started to plan, people got really excited,” she says. “Hopefully, this will just be the start of something” to promote the expansion of green jobs in Rhode Island.

As the Conservation Law Foundation noted this week, as part of a “cap and trade” emissions auction set to begin this Thursday, a price will be put for the first time on carbon dioxide emissions from US power plants. Rhode Island is among the states participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which will use the savings from this program in some of its member states to support energy efficiency.

Given the US’s traditional dependence on fossil fuels, however, building greater support for green jobs often remains an uphill fight.

Parrillo hopes that the events across the country this weekend help to build support for federal incentives and other steps that would promote the expansion of green jobs. Like other proponents, she points to Rhode Island’s job shortage and the need for clean energy in underscoring the practicality of green jobs.

McCain’s crooked talk on torture

IAN DONNIS — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:02:49 GMT

Critics, including a local former army interrogator, say he’s trying to play both sides of the issue
It might surprise some that McCain’s record in opposing torture and the Bush administration’s terror-war approach is more complicated than his comments suggest.

THE LIMITS OF PAIN: Although Ritz faults McCain for what he calls inconsistency on the issue, both
men agree that torture is ineffective in extracting useful information from prisoners.

Regardless of your political stripe, it’s hard not to be impressed by how John McCain endured and overcame his five-and-half painful years in a Vietnam prison camp. And not only did he fight and suffer for America, as Fred Thompson reminded us in cringe-inducing detail during the recent Republican National Convention, the Arizona senator has come to be viewed as a leading legislative opponent of torture.

McCain’s firsthand experience and moral outrage was evident during the Republican presidential primary: he quickly rebuked Rudy Giulani when the former New York mayor made light of sleep deprivation and questioned whether waterboarding — simulated drowning — was really a form of torture.

More recently, on August 31, Reuters reported that McCain, during a Fox News interview, “issued some of his harshest criticism to date of the use of torture against terrorism suspects during President George W. Bush’s administration . . . ‘I obviously don’t want to torture any prisoners. There is a long list of areas that we were in disagreement on,’ McCain said of Bush.”

So it might surprise some people to learn that McCain’s record in opposing torture and the Bush administration’s terror-war approach is more complicated than his comments suggest:

In February, he voted against a Senate bill (now in legislative limbo) to ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation techniques on terror war detainees, theoretically leaving waterboarding and other “enhanced” tactics on the table as an instrument of US policy.

He tacitly supported the nomination as attorney general of Michael Mukasey — who, when asked by US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse during Senate confirmation hearings — flatly declined to say whether he considered waterboarding a form of torture.

In June, McCain joined President Bush in condemning a US Supreme Court decision that gave federal court access for detainees at Guantánamo Bay.

Meanwhile, debate continues about the impact of two complex pieces of legislation, the Detainee Treatment Act (passed in 2005) and the Military Commissions Act (2006), which helped burnish McCain’s reputation as a leading US opponent of torture.

Buyout implemented, life continues on Fountain Street

IAN DONNIS — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:23:00 GMT

As The ProJo Turns
Whether by accident or by design, there was little evident fallout of the latest Providence Journal buyout in the days after 22 employees ended their time at the ProJo.

Voter apathy remains a primary staple

IAN DONNIS — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:04:35 GMT

Talking Politics
The big story from Tuesday’s primary election, understandably enough, was the seeming upset by Michael J. Pinga of state Senator Stephen D. Alves.