As someone who helped chronicle the troubled state of the Providence Police Department during the latter part of Buddy II, I think Dean Esserman has represented a necessary and important fix for a department in need of modernization and greater accountability.

However, as Te-Ping Chen reports in this week's Phoenix, a heightened emphasis on Internal Affairs under Esserman has become a contentious issue for some Providence officers.

The boorish behavior of Alex Rodriguez and Scott Boras -- who, during the fourth and clinching game of the World Series, dropped the news of how A-Rod was opting out of his lucrative contract with the Yankees -- has cemented the slugger's toxic reputation.

Even Murray Chass, a longtime Sox-phobe, has this to say:

In a nod to critics of the ProJo's notorious interpreter editorial, the paper offers this follow-up editorial today:

Governor Carcieri has explained that he did not mean to include court interpreters in his recent radio comments denouncing taxpayer-funded interpreters for immigrants, the subject of the Oct.

House Speaker William J. Murphy just returned the call I placed earlier today to his spokesman, Larry Berman. Murphy declined to answer questions about the issues surrounding the tax break not received by Duie Pyle, but he did share these words, seemingly reading from a statement and making some contemporaneous changes:

Rhode Island for Community & Justice is inviting people to attend a free preview screening at 5:30 tonight, at the Providence Black Repertory Company, of Traces of the Trade: A story from the Deep North, a locally filmed documentary.

It tells the story of producer-director Katrina Browne's ancestors, the DeWolfs, who are described as the largest slave-trading family in American history.

While the White House warns Iran about the peril of gaining even knowledge about nukes, the United States remains the world's largest arms dealer.

The United States maintained its role as the leading supplier of weapons to the developing world in 2006, followed by Russia and Britain, according to a Congressional study.

Jeff Britt, a central figure in the FBI's investigation of possible State House chicanery and A. Duie Pyle's non-receipt of a $333,000 tax break, was previously Governor Carcieri's liaison to "dissident Democrats" in the General Assembly.

A few years ago, these dissident Democrats mounted an unsuccessful challenge to House Speaker William J.

. . . is that they can be undone, as will apparently be the case today when the General Assembly returns for a veto override session. We refer specifically to the ill-advised move to try 17-year-olds as adults in Rhode Island.

The New York Times covers the issue today, with a story headlined, "Rhode Island May Ease Law on Young Offenders."

The weekly Political Roundtable on WRNI (1290 AM) can now be found online, and Scott MacKay, a veteran political reporter at the ProJo, used the occasion last week to share some thoughts on the ongoing conflict between the Journal and the administration of Governor Carcieri.

MacKay noted that the ProJo has endorsed Carcieri during each of his gubernatorial runs.

In contrast to the fertile period from the late '90s and into the new decade -- when Nick-a-Nee's, the Wild Colonial, the Red Fez, the Decatur Lounge, and Lili Marlene's burst upon the Providence scene -- things have waned a bit n recent years.

Babe's closed. The Custom House closed. And we know all about the Decatur.

Now, good guy David Segal offers the news that Talk of the Town, a downtown Providence mainstay, will serve its last rounds on Wednesday night.

The Providence Business News today has a strong editorial in support of the Working Waterfront, an issue that I wrote about here:

Plans to re-develop the Providence waterfront for commercial and residential use would require zoning changes that eventually would lead to the displacement of century-old industrial businesses that are doing just fine, thank you very much.

As John Mulligan reports today that a global warming measure has moved to the US Senate's front burner, there are a number of other signs of the swelling effort to come to terms with this pending environmental catastrophe:

-- The New York Times recently reported on how global warming is starting to divide the Republican presidential candidates:

Dave Layman, PR maven and a regular panelist on A Lively Experiment, last week used the show to focus some fire on the Providence Journal's coverage of Governor Carcieri.

This came after the panel discussed a news release -- headlined, "Governor Hypocrite Strikes Again" -- released last week by Democratic Party chairman Bill Lynch

It doesn't seem that long ago when this all began.

It's hard to imagine a better storyline than Jon Lester winning the deciding game. My personal pick for series MVP was Papelbon, but you can't grouse about the honor going to a guy like Mike Lowell.

And yes, we always knew that they could do it. As I wrote on March 30,