Cranky in RI

Rhode Island: Fail.

2008-10-11T02:01:00.002-04:00

So the Connecticut Supreme Court just ruled that same-sex couples have the right to legally marry there. Good. So, now Rhode Island is bordered by two states with equal marriage rights. Two other New England states have civil unions, and even Maine has some easily accessible although limited protections for same-sex partners. Way to go, Rhode Island, for lagging behind once again.

Now that we can make our own SomeECards, here's one expressing some sympathy:

Pirates For the Win!

2008-09-22T10:53:00.001-04:00

Excellent: Pirates counter-protest Phelps cult. And drive them away. Yarrr!

Blog changes

2008-09-03T05:31:00.002-04:00

I am pretty inept when it comes to technical stuff, but I futzed around a little and gave my blog a slightly new look in the process. More importantly, I added an RSS feed for Rhode Island projects listed at DonorsChoose.org. It should go without saying that my little blog is not endorsed by them, nor am I affiliated with them in any way other than being one of many, many donors. But I felt like trying to help out the students in our little state was worth putting the information out there for anyone else who might care. If I knew much about RSS feeds, I would hail the ability to set one up with whatever search criteria you want as an incredible gift. But since I'm cranky and was barely able to figure it out, I'm just glad I got through it finally, and I hope it helps someone. Please give. One of those projects has only three days left to be funded (hint, hint.)

Newspaper accidentally tells the truth

2008-07-06T19:57:00.002-04:00

A commenter on Dan Savage's blog made the Best. Screen. Capture. Ever.

I went to the Daily Oklahoman website to see what they were saying about the Seattle basketball team moving to OKC, and this was on the front page. The animated ad trotted out from the right side and landed right on Jesse's mug. All I did was take a screenshot and add the text in the gray box at the bottom.

Sam Nunn? LOL!

2008-06-25T21:01:00.001-04:00

Hopefully this stupid idea has already died its deserved death, but just in case it hasn't, here is my warning, in LOL-speak for the clue impaired:

So sad, so infuriating

2008-06-18T06:21:00.003-04:00

You know, there are so many things to be sad and infuriated about if you're an LGBT activist. Myself, I have to be selective in what I get upset or outraged about, else I would always be upset or outraged. But this...well, it bothered me on the usual abstract level to see the pictures and footage of protesters with nasty signs onsite where same-sex couples in California were being legally married. But I just shrugged and was slightly sad that some people won't just let other people be happy. But then I saw this post on Bilerico:

One of the Christian protesters (pictured below) was chanting at his body - "Satan Got You!" "What is the Devil whispering in your ear about now?"

I yelled at the guy, "If you are such a Christian, why aren't you praying for the guy dying on the concrete?" The protester replied, "God killed him for loving fags!!" The cops even stepped in and told the guy to shut his mouth.

I mean, I'm just speechless. I just want to weep. And scream.

Freeway Blogger on video

2008-06-01T11:08:00.001-04:00

Short film about the Freeway Blogger. He is truly a hero, and we all can be, too.

RIP Mildred Loving

2008-05-05T15:49:00.002-04:00

Thank you, Mildred and Richard. I can't say it any better than this post at Shakespeare's Sister. The quote at the end is particularly beautiful.

The primary

2008-03-02T21:59:00.004-05:00

Are you excited about the primary? I'm not. Nauseated, maybe, but certainly not excited. But of course I will vote because, as the quote attributed to Plato says, "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

So, here's my sincere contribution to Get Out The Vote efforts. Sorry about the formatting; I do not have mad HTML skillz:

Thank you, Tom Tomorrow

2008-01-28T21:31:00.000-05:00

Saw this originally on Bartcop, but I'm linking to the original out of respect for Tom's work. Please, please look at this cartoon and heed its message, Democrats. If the link doesn't work anymore, try this one.

Signed, Dub, crying in the wilderness

In memory of my father, 1933-2007

2007-12-01T01:44:00.000-05:00

I've been catching up on several months of Ode Magazine and was particularly struck by this passage from a column in the September issue:

He comes to believe that all his choices are stamped on the destiny of the world, because of the infinite repercussions inherent in each one of them. Daniel becomes aware of the importance of his thoughts, his words and, most significantly, of making gestures of love toward others, or even toward the Earth itself. He comes to see everything as the seeds of an eternal harvest. For the first time, he has the feeling he is living in each moment. He blesses the sun that caresses his skin, the water that refreshes his throat, the wind in his face.

“How come I feel all this gratitude, when I’m going to die?” he asks me. “Soon I shall be the wind and the water and the sun. But most of all, I’ll be the sparkle in the eye of a man whose mother I took care of or whose child I healed. See, that’s my soul. What I’ve made of myself: I, who already exist everywhere and who will exist forever.”

One morning there’s a brief message on my desk: a printout from the hospital computer, bearing that most discreet of all euphemisms: “Daniel M., C.T.B.” Ceased to breathe. Yet I can’t help wondering whether in fact he has only just begun.

ProJo: Malice or Stupidity?

2007-10-08T21:20:00.000-04:00

There's a famous quote with unknown origins that says something like "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." That quote has come to mind a few times recently when looking at the Providence Journal.

On 29 September, the ProJo ran an article about same-sex couples living in Rhode Island who got legally married in Massachusetts. The article reports that there are more than 200 such couples in legal same-sex marriages in the state. Okay. But the headline says R.I. home to 200 same-sex couples. As in, 200 same-sex couples, married or not. Big difference there, particularly since a study to which the article refers (PDF) notes that there are more than 2400 same-sex couples in Rhode Island. So the headline, which is all that many people will read, misstates the correct number by a factor of twelve. I know from dealings with reporters over the years that generally they do not write their headlines--the editors do. I am fairly certain that Scott MacKay would not make such a big mistake, so clearly the mistaken (or at least incorrect) headline comes from a careless (?) editor.

Then we come to 7 October. A letter to the editor from Tucker Lieberman (disclosure: I know him slightly) explains that, contrary to the overblown, nasty rhetoric in a recent op-ed, transgendered people have been protected by civil rights law in Rhode Island since 2001, and the sky has not come anywhere close to falling. A good letter, but what does our headline writer use to label it? Time for R.I. to protect the transgendered. So apparently the headline writer only barely skimmed the letter before writing the headline. Lieberman's clear point is that RI already protects transgendered people.

Yes, the most likely explanation is stupidity. But given that it is apparently the same set of editors who choose to publish such nasty, deceptive op-eds on LGBT issues in the first place, one does wonder if malice is also involved.

Who knew that.....

2007-09-16T01:34:00.000-04:00

...the NY Post had a Uganda edition? Here we read that:

Red Pepper's Sunday edition ran its "expose" of prominent gay and lesbians, under the headline "HOMO TERROR! We Name and Shame Top Gays in the City."

You can see the actual Red Pepper article here and here. I guess there really is nothing new under the sun.

Another reason to love Nova Scotia

2007-09-15T02:21:00.000-04:00

This story just made my day:

Two students at Central Kings Rural High School fought back against bullying recently, unleashing a sea of pink after a new student was harassed and threatened when he showed up wearing a pink shirt.

The Grade 9 student arrived for the first day of school last Wednesday and was set upon by a group of six to 10 older students who mocked him, called him a homosexual for wearing pink and threatened to beat him up.

The next day, Grade 12 students David Shepherd and Travis Price decided something had to be done about bullying.

"It’s my last year. I’ve stood around too long and I wanted to do something," said David.

They used the Internet to encourage people to wear pink and bought 75 pink tank tops for male students to wear. They handed out the shirts in the lobby before class last Friday — even the bullied student had one.

"I made sure there was a shirt for him," David said.

They also brought a pink basketball to school as well as pink material for headbands and arm bands. David and Travis figure about half the school’s 830 students wore pink.

Larry Craig meets Avenue Q

2007-08-31T03:33:00.000-04:00

Omigodomigodomigod....this is just too brilliant for words. I give thanks that I am living in the age of YouTube so I can take joy in things like this:

If Larry Craig Were Gay

Curiously, I was thinking about Craig before I found this video and was thinking that I wish that I had the skills to make one about him to the tune of "Schadenfreude" (which, for those who don't know, is a song from the same musical.) I guess I should post a comment there and suggest that to the creators of this one.

Automated news search strikes again

2007-07-02T00:53:00.000-04:00

Fresh on the heels of the last post, a website that I visit for gay news seems to be run at least partially on autopilot and linked to this funny fake news story without noting its nature (although the site which hosts the story itself makes it clear that it is fictional.) It made me laugh because I read it after going out for dinner and coffee at midnight after waking up for the day at around 9:00pm. The final graf:

The study confirmed that between 11pm and 3am, 60% of shoppers loved mutual cock or fanny play, 20% were stoned and the remaining 20% was a mix of drunks, bag ladies and miscreants.

On edit: and by the way, if this story were true, it would give new meaning to that random chant, "We're here. We're queer. We're not going shopping." Well, at least not until after 11:00pm, I guess.

A line from out of the blue

2007-06-29T06:06:00.000-04:00

An automated Google News search that emails me occurrences of a certain string led me to an article I otherwise wouldn't have read, about a movie that I likely won't go to see. (Although I must admit that it is an interesting bit of synchronicity that one of the stars of said movie was on one of the very few television shows that I watch yesterday.)

Anyway, author Michael Cunningham, who did the screenplay adapted from a novel, talked about the issues that some artists have around that process. But the last line of the article no doubt speaks to much more than that:

"Our lives are being mostly made rotten," he lamented, "by people who don't know when to let go."

Marriage quotes

2007-06-15T05:03:00.000-04:00

So, the Massachusetts legislature voted down the attempt to put marriage rights for same-sex couples to a referendum. Good. A few quotes from the news stuck with me:

In one of the early Associated Press stories:

Across the road, gay marriage advocates stood on the front steps of the capital waving signs that read, "Wrong to Vote on Rights" and "All Families Are Equal."

Jean Chandler, 62, of Cambridge, came with fellow members of her Baptist church in an effort to rebuff the image that strict followers of the Bible are opposed to gay marriage.

"I think being gay is like being left-handed," Chandler said. "If we decided left-handed people couldn't marry, what kind of society would we be?"

The Boston Globe published a statement from a senator who changed her mind and voted against the amendment:

I know from listening to my constituents, since I first became Senator this year that this vote, the vote I take today, is the right vote for the people I serve. I have been most impressed by the number of individuals who have called me and asked me to change my vote because they have changed their minds. One grandmother told me she had changed her mind and wanted me to change my vote in case one of her grandchildren grew up to be gay or lesbian. She did not want any of her grandchildren to be denied the right to marry the person they love. This is exactly the legacy we will leave to generations beyond us, and the example we can set for the nation and, I daresay the world, which is certainly paying attention to what we do and say here today.

The Attleboro Sun Chronicle has an article about a senator from that area who also changed his mind and voted against the amendment:

He finally decided to change his position and vote against the ban while talking about his father with a visitor Wednesday.

The visitor had asked Ross about his business as a funeral home director.

Ross, R-Wrentham, said he was recalling how his father was an undertaker before him.

His father told him that the business teaches you that everyone is entitled to respect and dignity.

"As I told that story, I started to cry and had to excuse myself. That story came from up above and was dropped on me," he said.

The memory of his father teaching him the importance of respect confirmed for him that he had to vote against the ban because it would have subjected gay couples to "hatred and bigotry," he said.

Ross said gay marriage has been allowed in Massachusetts for about three years now.

Couples have been united and families formed in that time.

Gay couples have never done anything to hurt him or his family, so why should he hurt them? he asked.

Note: the Sun Chronicle a few weeks ago also published an open letter to Sen. Ross, which is also worth reading.

Congratulations to our friends in Massachusetts. Here's hoping that it won't be long until Rhode Island's legislators also stand up for what is right.

A Rescued Comment

2007-05-05T17:35:00.000-04:00

Jon from Rhode Island Law Journal has turned off comments on his blog for the time being and has deleted or at least made invisible comments that were previously posted. That's his prerogative, of course, as it's his blog. But given this, I wanted to rescue (to the best of my memory) a comment that I recently made on one of his recent posts. Jon noted that the ProJo's Achorn claimed that Rhode Island has “many clueless voters, utterly ignorant of the candidates and the issues.” I responded something along the lines of, "If he really believes that RI voters are utterly ignorant of the candidates and the issues, he should blame his own newspaper for giving such short shrift to down-ticket races. Particularly impressive was the coverage of General Assembly races in Providence/North Providence: a single article covering nineteen races. Wow, that's helpful."

Wisdom from Vonnegut

2007-05-05T17:28:00.000-04:00

I'm pretty sure I have read all of Vonnegut's published works now, after having checked out "God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian" from the library a couple of weeks ago. He wrote many times on the idea that people in our society are terribly lonely due to the breakdown of the extended family system. I was particularly struck by part of what he wrote on that topic in this book:

I met a man in Nigeria one time, an Ibo who had six hundred relatives he knew quite well. His wife had just had a baby, the best possible news in any extended family.

They were going to take it to meet all its relatives, Ibos of all ages and sizes and shapes. It would even meet other babies, cousins not much older than it was. Everybody who was big enough and steady enough was going to get to hold it, cuddle it, gurgle to it, and say how pretty it was, or handsome.

Wouldn't you have loved to be that baby?

For once, Cheney told the truth, but...

2007-04-13T04:21:00.000-04:00

...but the "moderate" Senate Republicans didn't tell us--until now. This gem from an article in former senator Lincoln Chafee's hometown paper, the Warwick Beacon:

Chafee is troubled by Rice’s message “to do whatever it takes” to get what you want. And he said that is what turned him off from President George W. Bush. He recalled how shortly after Bush’s win in 2000, he and other liberal Republicans had been invited for lunch with Vice President Richard Cheney. Chafee had seen Bush as one who would unite, not divide, the country.

Cheney made it clear that wasn’t going to happen.

“We’re not going to do anything we said,” Chafee said, quoting Cheney.

“That kind of set the stage for my relationship with the president after that,” Chafee added.

Of course it is obvious to anyone with the least bit of awareness that BushCheneyCo did not do anything that they had promised in campaign 2000. But the fact that Cheney actually told this group of senators that they had no intention of doing anything they had promised....well, isn't that interesting? Might things have been different if any of them had told the press at the time that he had said that? We'll never know, thanks to Chafee's party loyalty. Thanks, Linc. Hope you never run for anything again.

So It Goes

2007-04-13T04:07:00.000-04:00

Vonnegut has died. There is nothing I can say that hasn't been said better by others. I really liked this tribute video that someone put on YouTube. There's a lot about him on YouTube for those who are interested.

Some months back, I went to take my recycling up to the bins at the nearby public library. They had had a used book sale the previous few days, and the stuff that didn't sell was recycled. So there in the bin was a copy of my favorite book, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (along with several other items that didn't sell.) Well, I couldn't let that happen, so I rescued Rosewater. I already had a copy of my own, but I figured I would pass this one along to someone. My original plan was to give it to the cool guy at the cafe next door because I figured he would know someone good to pass it along to. But I kept not remembering to do that. I recently did give it to a friend of mine and told her to give it back to me if she didn't want it. We'll see if it comes back to me or if she takes it to heart.

Beautiful

2007-04-11T01:05:00.000-04:00

Some wonderful Freeway Blogging in Chicago. Thanks as always to Bartcop, whose link to it said, "Bet you a dollar you can't click and NOT laugh out loud at this truism." And he was right.

Get your soda with sugar, while supplies last

2007-04-04T21:15:00.000-04:00

Props to ProJo blogger Sheila Lennon for her post alerting us that for Passover, Coke puts out a batch sweetened with real sugar, not high-fructose corn syrup. She links to a post with more information about it at Off the Broiler. In case you're not familiar with the problems with high-fructose corn syrup, you can read about it from this article at Sixwise, which also gives links to other information.

For those in Rhode Island who want to buy some of the Passover Coke, I found some at the Stop & Shop on Branch Avenue in Providence and the Shaw's off of North Main Street in Providence. I posted a couple of comments on Sheila's blog about my initial unsuccessful searches for it in stores in some of the suburbs. I didn't check any other stores once I found it tonight, but I would imagine that some of the other stores in that part of Providence might have some.

The irony for me is that I actually have almost entirely given up drinking sodas starting last summer, after having been addicted to them for many years. These days I will have one only very rarely. But I bought a couple of two-liter bottles of this special batch and will no doubt drink them. Still not good for me, but better than the regular stuff at least.

Wanna connect to the world?

2007-02-05T04:53:00.000-05:00

Update: Never mind--no one joined the game from my link, so I'm out of the game now. Oh well.

A friend of mine invited me to this game, but I can't think of anyone else I know who might want to play. So I'm putting this invitation out there for the friends and strangers who happen upon this blog: Join the game and connect to the world. I followed my links back to the beginning and connected with several countries along the way. You can, too.

Dan Savage Tells It Like It Is

2007-02-02T18:45:00.000-05:00

There is just nothing I can either add or excerpt from this wonderful post from Dan Savage in which he tells Mary Cheney exactly what we all want to tell her. Go read it now. Thank you, Dan!

Darfur Wall

2006-12-11T02:06:00.000-05:00

I haven't blogged here in a while due to election busy-ness, illness and travel. But this is worth signing on today and sending people to: the Darfur Wall. Their hope is to get many, many people to give at least a little, so let's all pitch in. If you're curious about what organizations receive the donation, see the "About" page. Thanks to Sheila Lennon for the pointer.

Adventures in juxtaposed headlines, 4 October 2006

2006-10-05T01:57:00.000-04:00

Currently these two stories are one after the other on the ProJo website:

Paris Hilton says former Miss Teen Rhode Island punched her

In wake of violence, area schools review safety procedures

We have generic Zoloft God bless America

2006-10-02T04:02:00.000-04:00

If you're wondering about the title, it comes from a Molly Ivins misquote of a Walgreen's sign in Austin not long after 9/11:

Anyway, so I was excited to hear that my drug of choice, Zoloft, had gone generic recently. With my crappy health plan (nonetheless the best available to me in this state with the insurance monopoly), I have been paying almost full price for Zoloft every month. So I thought, oh good, now I'll have substantial savings. Wrong. I save a grand total of eleven bucks with the generic. So next time the insurance companies try to claim that the reason rates are so high is because people refuse to use generics, tell them to go fuck themselves. Actually, tell them that no matter what.

It follows logically

2006-09-13T15:04:00.000-04:00

Hmm. Losing senatorial candidate Steve Laffey once said:

"All the homosexuals I've seen are sickly and decrepit, their eyes devoid of life."

Well, here's Laffey:

Look at those eyes. According to what he once said, he must be a homosexual. I'm just saying.

The brilliant convergence of our local media

2006-09-09T01:15:00.000-04:00

I don't believe that there is any conspiracy at play here. As Twain said, "Never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity." But it is almost breathtaking how the local media have played things in such a perfect way as to keep the voters an uninformed as they can.

I'm sure this is the case all over the state, but what I have in mind is the example from my own neighborhood. The state senate seat is open for the first time in ten years, and there are four candidates running in the primary. There's a lot of interest in this race -- signs all over the neighborhood and all that. So what do the local media do? The local weekly newspaper, the Cranston Herald, decides that it will sponsor a candidate debate, to take place less than a week before the vote. But, likely because of their sponsorship of said debate, they do not report at all on an earlier debate/candidate forum which they did not sponsor. (And I should add that this candidate forum also had candidates for other races of interest in the community.) So the voting public misses out on a chance to read about what was said at that forum.

One might figure, well, that's the paper's prerogative; they want to promote their own debate. But...their debate, as we heard in the previous paragraph, takes place less than a week before the primary. And they are...a weekly paper. And so, they will not be able to run a story about the debate before the election, as the paper comes out on the same day as the debate is held. And just to put the icing on the cake, since the Cranston Herald sponsored the debate, that gives the Providence Journal an excuse not to acknowledge that it happened (not that they apparently feel they need an excuse, as their coverage of state legislative races around the state has been uniformly poor.) So, no one reports on the debate. I even looked around for blog coverage, but nothing there either. Amazing. I have already decided who gets my vote, so this failure does not affect me personally. But it is a disservice to voters who want to be informed and hope that the media will help them with that.

These say it all

2006-09-03T08:37:00.000-04:00

Katrina-Inspired GOP Motivation Posters.

A Dem with spine in Alabama

2006-08-22T03:01:00.000-04:00

This just made my day:

The survey by the Christian Coalition of Alabama also wants to know where candidates stand on a host of other issues including prayer in school.

Democrats are accusing the coalition of attempting to gather the information and then skew it to favor their opponents.

One Democrat, Alvin Holmes (D-Montgomery) (pictured), has sent Coalition President John Giles a letter saying he would gladly answer the 75 question poll if Giles would answer questions showing the source of the Christian Coalition's money.

Giles in the past has refused to divulge the information and is currently not required to. Holmes is supporting legislation that would force the coalition and other nonprofit groups to disclose the source of money used to run ads to influence a legislative issue or a referendum such as the gay marriage ban.

"Until you answer those three questions, go straight to hell," Holmes said in the letter to Giles.

The next best thing in this day and age

2006-08-13T03:25:00.000-04:00

Someone noticed one of those "sleds" in their neighborhood, you know, those things that tell you how fast you're going to shame you into actually following the speed limit. And someone thought, wow, it would be a funny bit of political theatre to cover up the "Your Speed" with something else. Someone figured it would be easy to do -- just take measurements and get some posterboard and put the doctored sign on top of the regular one. But then, someone thought it might be a bad idea. First off, there's a legitimate safety issue, namely that people might be distracted by it from laughing or from being confused. And so the local police might not like that and might come after someone. But moreover, someone worried that maybe an even bigger deal of it might be made given the particular message, and that a federal case might be made of it, and someone might be in an even bigger amount of trouble. Someone adores the Freeway Blogger and is pleased to see locals following that person's lead, but someone is worried that authorities might not take as kindly to temporarily altering a sled. So, someone had to settle for the next best thing in this day and age, a photo edited to put in the message that someone wished were on the sled. Knowing of someone's plight, I took pity on someone and am publishing the edited picture here. (Apologies for any formatting oddities it causes. Someone is an amateur at editing photos.)

Lose Chafee

2006-08-08T00:11:00.000-04:00

The Lincoln Chafee re-election campaign has signs and stickers around with the slogan "Keep Chafee." What a lot of people don't realize is that it's a throwback to one of his father's previous campaigns. I don't have a link, but when he was running six years ago, he mentioned in a news story that some (mostly elderly) people came up to him and gave him old buttons from his father's campaign with that slogan on it. So it's somewhat clever for him to be using the same slogan this time around. I don't necessarily think that any voters around here have forgotten that his father is dead (unlike in Knoxville, where I'm not sure if voters realize that Rep. John Duncan Sr. died something like 18 years ago, and his son Jr. is in the seat now.) But it reminds some people of the goodwill that his father earned (and that he himself, in my opinion, has not.)

Anyway, the signs and stickers are becoming more numerous (in Warwick, even ubiquitous) as the primary approaches. At the same time, some people on both ends of the political spectrum are sick of him. So, on a comment thread on the RI's Future blog, someone suggested that someone needed to make a "Dump Chafee" sticker. Another person rose to the challenge although changed the slogan a bit. So now those who are interested can buy "Lose Chafee" stickers. I am not affiliated with (and don't even know) the person selling them, and I probably won't buy one myself, but I am impressed with his taking the initiative. It's amazing what can be done in the age of the Internet.

If I Wrote the Headlines, 7 August 2006

2006-08-07T22:34:00.000-04:00

In today's ProJo: Republican Statewide Candidates Ignore Dominican Community. Subheadline: Chafee, desperate for crossover primary votes, is lone exception.

In fairness, this is of course assuming that the ProJo's article is accurate. Would the reporter know the down-ticket Republican statewide candidates by sight? Well, Sue Stenhouse is easy to spot due to her resemblance to local drag queen Miss Kitty Litter (yeah, I know, I know, but I just couldn't resist. And why do you assume it's an insult? Kitty is a friend of mine), and they might recognize Centracchio. And Laffey's mouth is hard to miss. But the others? Maybe not.

Letter of the day

2006-07-23T03:04:00.000-04:00

Great letter in Sunday's ProJo:

Snobby pictures consume space

The Journal keeps running pictures from the National Museum of American Illustration, in Newport, on its Commentary pages. Consider the recent F.X. Leyendecker illustration of two well-dressed boys golfing. I rather suspect it is an image of how members of The Journal editorial board view themselves, and in that respect they are undoubtedly correct.

Hahahahahaha!

However, bear in mind that every time The Journal consumes valuable real estate with these images, it has deprived its readership of one of my brilliant letters.
CHARLES PINNING
Providence

You're wrong, Mr. Pinning. Rather, those images deprive their readers of yet another random letter from Mr. Saul Ricklin of Bristol, who has had approximately seventeen published in the last twelve months.

On edit: I remembered an Achorn column that had talked about how they choose which letters to run, and I finally found it here. Honestly, it seems like their policy gives the layout editor a lot of power. Perhaps that's why Ricklin gets published so often -- the short comments are easy to fit into leftover spaces.

Got Spellcheck?

2006-07-12T02:03:00.000-04:00

My guess is that whoever is currently writing the headlines for the ProJo does not use Spellcheck on them. Perhaps they don't think it makes sense to use it because many proper names appear in the headlines, so it would just slow things down to use it. But...maybe it's because Mercury is retrograde, or perhaps the usual headline writer is on vacation or something. But whatever the reason, there is an inordinate number of typos in the headlines of Wednesday's ProJo, at least the web version. I suspect they may correct some of them in at least some of the print editions. But for now, we read:

Crantson tax revenue at stake it talks with Water Supply Board

Garabedian seeking way to halt concret plant

Judge Dmitri, rest in peace [it's actually spelled Dimitri]

In a letter to the philanthropist, Coucnil President John J. Lombardi describes the "monumemtal problems" facing the city's schools and asks for help. [this was in a sub-headline]

Having collected these, I realize that they are all from either the letters section (which has lately been notoriously bad about typos in headlines) or from the various local sections that are not distributed statewide except on the web. So perhaps a different person is responsible for writing those headlines. But no matter what, sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

He said what?

2006-07-05T03:25:00.000-04:00

Looks like the Boston press corps actually does their job, unlike the Washington press corps. I enjoyed reading about how Romney squirmed in response to press questions at an event he staged in support of a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriages. The whole thing is worth reading, but check out this excerpt:

“I believe the ideal setting for raising a child is where there’s a mother and a father, and the development of a child is enhanced by having the attributes of a male and a female part of their parents. . .”

"A male and a female part"? Really, that's kind of dirty, if you think about it. Why are some heterosexuals so obsessed with sex? And why won't they let my bowling teammate and her wife live their lives in peace? (Of course I don't mean all of you, and probably not even a majority of you in Massachusetts. We're still working on it in RI, though.)

On edit: oh yeah, I forgot about this picture of Romney, from around the time he declared that he could decide whether same-sex couples from Rhode Island could marry in Massachusetts:

Local media oddness

2006-07-04T05:34:00.000-04:00

A news story that normally wouldn't really interest me has me noticing and pointing out curious things about how the local media work.

Here's the deal. A Warwick city council member was arrested over the weekend for shoplifting. I previously lived in Warwick, but I was not in his district and don't really know much about him, so I just sort of shrugged when I read it on Channel 12's website on Saturday. I assume they ran a story on the broadcast news, but I try very hard to avoid watching local news because it all seems pretty annoying and mostly useless to me (all channels, not just 12.)

The story stayed on Channel 12's website all weekend (not sure what time it was posted Saturday, but Google news says it was Saturday.) On Monday, the Providence Journal ran an article about the incident. Interestingly, the original story on Channel 12's website had a piece of information which the ProJo story did not report, namely that the police said that "this may not be the first time they have caught Councilor Gallucci in a shoplifting incident."

So, later Monday morning, Rhode Island Law Journal, an interesting local blog, posted a brief note about the incident, with a link to the ProJo story. In the comments, I posted a link to the Channel 12 story and mentioned the additional information it had. Then I went to bed (I usually sleep during the day, for those who don't know). When I got up, the owner of the blog had posted a response saying that the Channel 12 link didn't work, that the story Channel 12 now had on their website didn't mention anything about a possible prior incident, and that he couldn't find a mention anywhere of a report of a possible prior incident. So I clicked on the link that I had posted earlier, and sure enough, the original story was gone. In its place was an error message saying, "The page you requested is currently unavailable. Pages on this site are constantly being revised, updated, and occasionally removed. You may have followed an outdated link or have outdated pages in your browser cache." Elsewhere on the site, they posted an AP story which had summarized the ProJo story, and Channel 12 had interjected into it that the Providence Journal is their "news partner." The news partnership entails some sort of setup between them where Channel 12's late night newscast has someone from the ProJo come on for a moment to give a preview of what will be in tomorrow's paper. I think they also do a news scroll type thing of ProJo headlines at other times. (I don't know for sure because as I said, I rarely watch broadcast news.)

Anyway, I was rather flummoxed by this turn of events. I was afraid it might make me look like one of those anonymous commenters who post false rumors to stir up trouble, like so many people over at the Rhode Island's Future blog. So, I set out to try to find the original story. It had been wiped from Channel 12's website, and clicking on the Google cache of it did not work. However, I was able to reconstruct parts of the story by Googling phrases I had remembered being in the story, and I posted the results in the comments of the Rhode Island Law Journal post (saying I wanted to prove I wasn't crazy or lying!) Early Tuesday morning, a story appeared on the Warwick Daily Times website about the incident, and this story did mention the possible prior incident. (It also got Gallucci's name completely wrong in the headline, but the paper is new in Warwick, after all.)

So, what does all of this signify? Could be any number of things. Could be that Channel 12 reported the possible prior incident without enough evidence to back it up. They did hedge by saying "may," and I don't know what the broadcast story was like (probably sensationalized.) Perhaps they got a call from legal counsel asking them to take it down for that reason. It is interesting that the ProJo surely must have been aware of this information but did not report it. Did their editor feel that there wasn't enough evidence to justify publishing it? Are they perhaps collecting evidence for a future story, keeping their powder dry? Are they annoyed that Channel 12 scooped them? (Perhaps not since they are "partners," but who knows.) Is there a political motive, i.e., someone trying to protect Gallucci? I doubt this given how the ProJo generally hates Democrats, but there's obviously stuff going on behind the scenes that is not being talked about.

I am annoyed with Channel 12 for basically attempting to throw the original story down the memory hole. I cannot be the only person who saw it given that it was on their site for days and probably broadcast as well. But now they are trying to cover their tracks, it appears. If they reported incorrect information, they should post a retraction. But given the subsequent story in the Warwick Daily Times, with an officer on record, it appears that there is indeed at least suspicion of a prior incident. So the information appears to have been correct. Did they pull the story from their site because their "partner" the ProJo is working on their own followup story? If so, that is a good argument against these news partnerships. We need news reported by more sources independent of each other, not fewer. If you need proof of this, compare the ProJo's coverage of the court decision about ballot questions with that of Jim Baron of the Pawtucket Times and its sister papers. I think Baron's coverage is better, and even if not, it certainly adds information not in the ProJo story. (Anyone serious about following RI politics should make a point of reading Baron's work regularly, and likewise that of Joe Baker of the Newport Daily News.)

So those are my reflections on the local media's strange coverage of this incident. I wish no ill upon Mr. Gallucci and hope that he is able to work out whatever problems he may be having.

On edit early Wednesday morning: the Warwick Beacon, which comes out Tuesdays and Thursdays, has a story in Tuesday's edition. Meanwhile, the ProJo has another story about it in Wednesday's edition, in the West Bay section, so it may or may not have run in the print version in other parts of the state. (They usually pick one or two stories from the regional sections to distribute statewide, I think.) This story does mention the possible prior incident and I think goes into more detail about it than other sources did. Meanwhile, Channel 12 has removed the AP story from its main page although you can still access it via a direct link. Meanwhile, they still have at least one out of date story about another topic on their main page ("Judge to hear arguments on ballot questions," but the decision has already been rendered.) Make of that what you will.

Yet another rotten move by AOL

2006-07-03T00:23:00.000-04:00

Yes, I know you've probably heard the story of the hell the guy went through recently trying to cancel his AOL, but that's not what this post is about.

I run an email list with about 600 subscribers, so naturally I get bounces from time to time as people cancel their email accounts without unsubscribing from the list first. No great shakes. But I just now got the daily bounce report, listing a now-former AOL user, and the bounce message included this:

Last error: 5.1.1 550 We would love to have gotten this email to [username]@aim.com. But, your recipient never logged onto their free AIM Mail account. Please contact them and let them know that they're missing out on all the super features offered by AIM Mail.

And by the way, they're also missing out on you...
(16 bytes suppressed)

(The cutoff means that I don't know what the rest of their bounce message said because the machine which runs my email list kindly spared me from having to read it.)

Amazing. AOL is putting ads in its bounce messages now. Not a good way to win friends and influence people to use your products, guys. Geesh.

Separated at birth?

2006-06-29T00:10:00.000-04:00

For those not in this area, that's RI's Sen. Lincoln Chafee. If you have caption suggestions, post them in the comments.

Use this phrase in everyday conversation

2006-06-27T03:53:00.000-04:00

Here's what the Providence Visitor, Rhode Island's Catholic newspaper, had to say about recent comments made by Sen. Edward Kennedy about same-sex marriage:

He spoke at length about his opposition to the amendment and criticized anyone who dare insist that "gay marriage" was wrong. "A vote for this amendment is a vote for bigotry, pure and simple," he said.

Alas, same-sex marriage is neither "pure" nor "simple"; rather, it is a real threat to traditional marriage, family life and religious freedom in our nation. To simply dismiss all those who support a constitutional protection of traditional marriage as "bigots" is ridiculous and dangerous. Among its supporters are members of the Catholic Church, the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches, the National Association of Evangelicals, representatives of the Jewish faith, the Mormon Church, the Coalition of African-American Pastors and 49 of his fellow senators.

It appears that, after many years of public service, Kennedy has become bloated by the blight of political hysteria and demonic demagoguery. Defending marriage is neither a movement by bigots nor an attempt to legalize prejudice. Pure and simple, it is an effort to establish in law what has always been true: that marriage is between one man and one woman.

"Bloated by the blight of political hysteria and demonic demagoguery." Wow. I think we all should make the effort to start using that phrase in everyday conversation, don't you?

Welcome

2006-06-25T05:11:00.000-04:00

However you got here, welcome. You've reached the blog of someone who is often cranky in Rhode Island. There's always plenty in this state and in the rest of the world about which to be cranky, so I figured I might as well put in my two cents. Some of you know who I am and some don't, and that's fine. Hopefully what I write will stand on its own, never mind who I am offline. Comments are welcome, but I reserve the right to moderate them if it comes to that. Can't think of anything else to write for an intro, so I'll post this and then start posting on actual subjects right after.