Community

Taking the Edge Off the Hardball

By Justin Katz | December 23, 2011 |

It occurred to us, this last weekday before Christmas, that given all the reaction to the public-sector unions’ decision to treat the Crossroads homeless shelter as a hostile enterprise based on its support for pension reform, it would be a good idea to direct you to the charity’s donation page. SEIU Local 580 President Phillip…

Changing Cranston as a Way to Save Providence?

By Carroll Andrew Morse | May 28, 2011 |

I don’t know if GoLocal Providence‘s Dan McGowan is tied into some developing behind-the-scenes chatter, or if he is simply trying to think outside-of-the-box, but he offered a regionalization concept in this week’s Side of the Rhode column that has not yet been offered elsewhere in public with the potential immediacy of his other examples…Get…

Bob Watson’s Alliterative Allegory About Potential Poor Priorities at the People’s … er, Palace

By Monique Chartier | February 14, 2011 |

(… shoot, couldn’t think of a better word for capitol starting with “P”.) George’s comment yesterday under Marc’s post um, excuse me…. T H E S T A T E I S G O I N G B R O K E ! reminds me (how could I have forgotten?!) of the remarks that Minority…

Ground Zero, the Mosque, and the Sacred

By Carroll Andrew Morse | August 17, 2010 |

Robert Nisbet, the noted American sociologist from the last century, identified a set of sociological ideas that couldn’t directly be derived from the other social sciences and therefore defined sociology as a distinct discipline. One such idea was that of “the sacred”. As is true of most basic sociological concepts (as identified by Nisbet and…

Hang Tough, Rhode Island

By Marc Comtois | March 31, 2010 |

As Congressman Kennedy famously said, “WATER….” I’ve been lucky enough to still be able to work during the day and save the sloshing and pumping for the evening hours. Our property abuts a little babbling brook that turned into a quick-flowing stream over the last few days and the water went 4-5 ft. higher than…

Narcisse an Example for Us All

By Marc Comtois | January 5, 2010 |

Today, Bill Reynolds writes about Floyd Narcisse, the much-beloved Central High basketball coach who recently passed away from cancer: I first met him at a summer league game in North Providence in the late 1980s. He had moved here from Springfield, Mass., transferred then by AT&T. From the beginning he brought an energy, a love…

Re: Conserving Civilization – The Coliseum

By Marc Comtois | September 18, 2009 |

Like Justin, I read Michael Knox Beran’s piece about the loss of the marketplace (the agora) with interest. Beran contrasted the emptying agora (the town square or marketplace) with the filling up of castles both old and new built. Beran points to an upper class culture striven for by the modern day aristocrats (czars and…

Govern or Be Governed

By Justin Katz | September 6, 2009 |

Returning home from the Johnston, a couple of weeks ago, I floated along in the fast lane of 195, my mind flitting through political thoughts, and it took me a moment to register the fact that traffic in both of the other lanes had come to a crawl. A sign explained the reason: “Left two…

Contrasting Portraits

By Monique Chartier | August 14, 2009 |

… painted by Michael Morse over at Rescuing Providence. When one of them, a twenty something shirtless tattooed tough guy refused to get out of the way I had to give him a “little” nudge. The time to show you are a man is not when your aunt is dying in front of you. If…

A Fireside Chat with Dan

By Justin Katz | August 6, 2009 |

Alright, there wasn’t really a fire, but since we’re talking radio, I like to imagine that there was one. Dan Yorke and I had that sort of conversation, yesterday, on 630AM/99.7FM WPRO. Those who missed it or who would like to revisit something (for kind or scurrilous reasons) can stream the whole segment (about an…