Sleep tight

One hopes they have a queen-size bed handy in the woman's prison at the Danbury federal penitentiary. We wouldn't want Rosemary Glancy rolling off her cot every night once she becomes a full-time boarder.

After a jury of Glancy's peers showed a surprisingly (for Vo Dilun) skeptical view of the Providence Tax Assessor's Office Bribe Tribe and convicted her on all counts, "the man downtown," "E1," and "E2" might be tossing and turning a bit at night. Especially since we still have miles of videotape to play, and the lyrics sung for prosecutors by folks like David Ead and Jerry Mosca -- who have already copped to guilty pleas and are cooperating with the authorities -- have yet to be played for public consumption.

Mayor Buddy "Vincent A." Cianci, who couldn't possibly be either "the man downtown" or one of the E-Team, has been his glib self in dismissing the mentions of his name that have arisen in court, with references to putting "Uncle Joe" Pannone on the Providence Film Commission and calling him a "GoodFellas wannabe." We wonder how well the Bud-I's sense of humor will hold up in the future, should the investigation get a little deeper than Pannone's "bad-a-bing, bad-a-boom," poor man's Joe Pesci shtick.

While Buddy keeps the one-liners coming, perhaps he should be more afraid of his former lieutenant Frank Corrente's media silence "on the advice of his lawyer." P&J hear Corrente has been far less shy and retiring behind the scenes, and is wearing out stenographers at the US attorney's office with some serious Plunder Dome backfilling for the feds.

Who would blame him? At age 70, Frank, who quickly resigned from City Hall before the Plunder Dome tapes hit courtroom VCRs, was probably looking forward to the evening pasta and gravy, and then a drink and cigar with the old boys as he headed into his dotage. Given what has been said in court of his role, the future may be dimmer. Unless, of course, he gets a sudden attack of total recall about his days at Kennedy Plaza, and a government-approved makeover and relocation to the Southwest. (Whoops, no "Mayor's Marinara" sauce available there.)

Big hits

Hats off to two of P&J's favorites, Michael Brennan and Amanda Wright, the king and queen of Lafayette Village in NK. Michael's opening at AS220 last week, featuring his extraordinary hammered metal fish, was tabbed as "Editor's Pick" for best Providence gallery feature on the Digital City Web site, a well-deserved honor. (The show continues for a month, so be there or be square.) And Miss Amanda, a full-time lobsterwoman and accomplished artist in her own (W)right, was highlighted, along with her Disney dog, Maggie, in the "Neighbors" section of April's Rhode Island Monthly.

Love and adore ya, kids.

Typo of the week

From the Netcoast lister on the Internet:

"The GTZ (German Development Aid Organisation) offers a shorttime job for a planning expert within a coastal zone planning project in Tunesia for 3 month. Flewently french language required."

Needless to say, you won't have competition for the position from the sender.

Safari update

On Tuesday morning, folks from Providence Artists United, the group that formed to rally opposition to the attempted eviction of the Safari Lounge (and who promise to continue to address other issues of importance to the local arts community), sent a response to a BeloJo editorial, "Whither now the Safari Lounge?," published March 15. In their response, which we hope will appear in the Other Paper sometime soon, PAU contest numerous elements of the editorial.

First, the Urinal's characterization of the Safari's court victory as "a technicality" is challenged. The Safari, says PAU, owed money for alleged maintenance fees, not late rent. That landlord Stanley Weiss failed to provide the legally required five days' notice before commencing eviction proceedings is also noted. Clearly this was a dubious attempt at eviction.

It has also been hardly mentioned in the BeloJo's pages that the Safari's owners, Jimmy and Catherine Ilarraza, made repeated attempts to pay Weiss, but were rebuffed while Weiss had already gone out and rented the space to someone else at a much higher rate.

Of greater concern is the BeloJo's contention that "What the Safari ad [placed by PAU] saw as class discrimination is really an economic rather than a sociological phenomenon." The PAU was quite clear in its ad that the situation was an economic one, but the group maintains that there's a closely related sociological component. In explaining this, PAU compare the way Mr. Weiss and the Providence city establishment dealt with the Groceria, an upscale food market on Weybosset Street that was backed by $150,000 of city money. The Groceria went out of business after only seven months because the clientele for such a business doesn't really exist downtown at this time.

A clientele does, however, exist for the Safari, but it's apparently not the type of clientele desired by Stanley Weiss. The commentary by the PAU ends with this: "We know we can't turn Stanley Weiss into a saint, but at least let him treat his tenants ethically, and in time the Renaissance will happen. Rushing the "seedy" undesirables out the back door is not a good way to speed up the process. In fact, it deteriorates the reputation of those who do so, and it corrodes the sense of community in the city as a whole.

"There are many of us here whose apparent seediness conceals courage, ingenuity and dedication to Providence, and if you lose us you will lose a lot. Providence has been blessed with an incredibly interesting and cutting-edge redevelopment vision. The realization of this vision will depend on learning from the endless list of failed urban redevelopment projects, and appreciating assets the city already has. The arts are acknowledged to be chief among these assets. But the arts will never survive in a city ruled by top-down economics, where costly ventures like the Groceria can be scrapped and tried again, while independent businesses like the Safari Lounge are harried out of existence."

This is exactly right. Providence, the television show, is a cute and comforting soap opera. It is also a patently bogus depiction of our capital city, dead on arrival in its plastic unreality. What's really vital and exciting downtown is happening at places like AS220 and the Safari Lounge. These places represent how real scenes develop.

Reap what you sow dept.

It's undeniable that New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's implementation of the broken windows theory of policing has led to a reduction of crime in Gotham. For those unfamiliar with the concept, the idea is that a signal of disapproval is sent by aggressively pursuing those who jump turnstiles, urinate in public or commit other minor, but annoying, offenses. As such, it is assumed people will become better behaved.

New York's much ballyhooed efforts in this direction have certainly borne fruit with a dramatic reduction in crime, as well as the perception by many New Yorkers that the streets are cleaner and safer than they have been in some time.

But there now appears to be another concern, inextricably linked to the aggressive policing tactics of Giuliani (who was in the Biggest Little this week for a fund-raiser hosted by Governor Bigfoot), that is proving more insidious and difficult to halt. In pursuing a more aggressive approach to crime, the NYPD has become noticeably more brazen, especially the street crimes unit, which flaunts the motto, "we own the night." As cops are rushed on the street with less training, an increasing number of innocent people have been harassed, arrested and, in the worst cases, assaulted and killed by the police, especially in poor and minority communities.

Now the other shoe is poised to drop. An unintentional consequence appears to be playing out in New York City courtrooms. The Diallo verdict aside, a recent New York Times report indicates that juries are becoming less inclined to accept the testimony of law enforcement officials at face value, as has traditionally been the case. Recent prosecutions in New York boroughs show that skeptical jurors are posing much tougher questions to law enforcement officials. There has also been an increased number of acquittals.

Lessons should be learned from this experience. If the aggressive pursuit of crime reaches a point where civil liberties are flouted and an institutional blind eye is turned to increased police harassment and brutality, there will be hell to pay on another level. New York, it seems, is beginning to experience the limitations of such an approach.

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