No southern comfort for the Bud-I

Are there indeed similarities between the riverboat gambling conviction of Louisiana Governor Edwin "Pirate Kingfish" Edwards and our own Plunder Dome shenanigans right here in the Biggest Little? Perhaps. Even the august Urinal's editorial page points out the lessons we might learn when the public is entranced by a "raffish" politician who's known for turning a blind eye to, or even engaging in, public corruption. (Now, who could possibly fit that bill up here? P&J are stumped.)

However, the insidepolitics.org Web site of our old pal Darrell West, the new head ramrod at Brown's Taubman Center for Public Policy, suggests there might be more than just a moral lesson to be taken away from the Louisiana case:

"The conviction [May 9] of Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards on racketeering, conspiracy and extortion charges related to riverboat casino licenses may be a model for how the US attorney's office plans to proceed against Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci. According to sources familiar with Operation Plunder Dome, federal authorities have been following the Edwards case with great interest as a model of how to win a major corruption case against a leading political figure."

Oh, you mean our federal agents think the Bud-I might be involved in some sort of corruption in Our Little Towne? Perish the thought! You'd think that more than circumstantial evidence would have been necessary to doom Edwards to spending the bulk of his retirement living in confinement, at US taxpayer expense. (And Frank, is that envelope going into or out of your pocket?) Still, West's provocative report remains intriguing. Let's hunker down and wait and see what happens.

The gift of giving

Phillipe and Jorge have long admired the many Rhode Island Bar Association programs which provide reduced-fee or pro bono legal services to those who need them. Might we suggest another?

One-third of the state's elected officials currently fail to file reports, detailing gifts they receive or holdings which may represent a conflict of interest with their official roles, with the Rhode Island Ethics Commission. Perhaps the bar association might offer its services to track down and prosecute these officials. After all, this is the time when the new "Baloney Bill" proposal to raise the limit on gifts that politicians may receive, predominantly from lobbyists -- Phil West of Common Cause got it right when he called it "legalized bribery" -- is being hotly contested.

The ethics commission has been insidiously and cynically undermined by Governor Bigfoot and the General Assembly leadership, who haven't provided enough funding for this important agency to carry out enforcement actions. Should a version of the Baloney Bill go forward that increases the amount of bribes, excuse us, gifts that can be accepted, it would be absolutely criminal, so to speak, to allow people to thumb their nose at their legal responsibilities to the commission.

And then there's the fact that most of the ethics commission members who are pushing for the change are lawyers. And the lobbyists who stand to benefit from it are predominantly attorneys. Considering all this, perhaps the bar association might want to challenge the perception that too many lawyers are yuppie scum greedheads who have only a passing acquaintance with, and little interest in, ethical behavior. Time for the more admirable members of the bar to step up, don'tcha think?

Pucker up, Providence

One of the wackier and more creative grassroots efforts to come out of Renaissance City was started by a group of Brown students who, last Saturday afternoon, May 13, at the little park on South Main Street across from the Superior Court, conferred hugs and kisses on any passersby who were favorably inclined. More than 200 humans were willing to take part -- a major success for the organizers.

Laura Braslo, a Brown junior who was spokeswoman for the "Pucker Up, Providence" event, tells P&J that this is only the first such gala planned. "A lot of money has been pouring into downtown for the last decade or so, so we wanted to sort of move the focus away from expensive high-profile industry, like the mall, which is very expensive, and the Mr. Potato Heads down there, and bring it to a more basic interpersonal level," Laura explains. "We're sort of concerned there hasn't been a real emotional revitalization [and this is] a way to get some good feeling going on downtown."

Laura, who hails from upstate NY, says the pucker up idea grew from a senior semiotics class on the uses of public space and public art. The concept was not to have some sort of grope-fest or make-out session. Says Laura, "We really wanted to focus on urban revitalization in a personal way. We put up lots of mistletoe and signs saying `Beautify Providence, kiss someone'."

Hey, the mistletoe is still up, so get out there and start smooching.

Redheaded stranger

As Phillipe and Jorge address the important issues of the day in this space, the public response to your superior correspondents is often swift, poignant and opinionated. A case in point was last week, when we delved into the political arena to mention the courtship of Caterina Bandini, news anchor for Boston's Channel 7, by the gladiator of L.A. International Airport, our own US Representative Patrick Kennedy.

An old friend, Ms. S. Charm, was first to reply, in high dudgeon that we would describe Bandini as a heartthrob. "When she was at Channel 10, all we [P&J] did was make fun of her hair," Ms. Charm offered in astonishment. "It used to stick straight out and looked ridiculous!" Yes, perhaps she had a point in regards to Caterina's coif as a JAR-head. Was this because she was the designated reporter, while in Vo Dilun, to stand on a bridge overlooking Route 95 during snowstorms? Such was her high status among her peers in those days.

Then the lovely Ms. P. weighed in from the wilds of Massachusetts, saying this is certainly not a match made in Hollywood heaven, a la the celebrity pairing of Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarznegger. "I'm not sure he's even Teddy's kid," Ms. P opined. "He has none of the traditional Kennedy features, like the jaw and the eyes." She then offered the startling observation that if there was someone who Patrick certainly does resemble, it's another famous red-haired Massachusetts politician -- former governor William Weld.

Naturally P&J were appalled and disgusted by this heinous suggestion. Weld, after all, is a Republican.

Why don't they leave that poor man alone?

Hey, why shouldn't the state give a tax break to developer Nicholas Cambio so he can build some cut-rate shopping center down in Coventry? Just because Nicky was one of the prominent people who helped to screw people out of their checking and savings funds during the 1991 RISDIC banking crisis, (and he copped a little guilty plea to inflating the prices of construction equipment in the mid-'90s) is no reason not to give the guy a break, eh? You think it don't take effin' balls to ask for that from the House Finance Committee? Hey, you don't ask, you don't get, you know what we mean? Nicky takes a few a these guys ta maybe the Capital Grille or Capriccio to talk it over, and maybe everything's all right then, capiche? Hey, start up them bulldozers, boys. Nicky's back!

Johnny, we hardly knew ye

God, could there have been anything more stomach-turning than John McCain's endorsement of all-hat-and-no-cowboy George Dubya last week? Add to it the varied expressions caught by photographers of the Alfred E. Neuman lookalike from Silver Spoon, Texas, smirking as McCain bent over for him in public?

P&J thought McCain brought a full boat to the table with his war heroics, soi disant "straight talk" and his unrelenting call for campaign finance reform. But instead of getting Dubya on board to fight the corruption of politics by Big Money, he came out with his lips attached to the buttocks of this wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate America.

That's OK, John. We know you've got integrity. We guess the way you prove it is to smilingly endorse a man who had his aides question your emotional stability, infer your wife is a junkie, and, in so many words, call your adopted daughter a wog. Principles, indeed. Maybe Dubya finds no problem in sucking up to a man who called his father an Antichrist, but we expected a bit more from John McCain.

Where's the helping hand?

Last November, RIPTA and the state Department of Human Services received a federal grant to provide transportation for folks moving from welfare to work. So where are the buses? The state now claims that the much-needed transportation initiative will be ready in September. So much for the ballyhooed "welfare reform" follow up. As your superior correspondents and many advocates for low-income people have suspected all along, nobody really cares about people in need, and the follow-up programs that might make workfare viable are being neglected.

Henry Shelton at the George Wiley Center tells P&J that the center's pushing for the state to at least extend cab fare to those people in dire need of transportation. So far, though, even this stop-gap initiative is falling on deaf ears. Where are all the people who were so gung-ho on welfare "reform" now that reality has set in? C'mon Linc, show us that you really care.

Kudos and congrats

. . . to Violin Road, a Rhode Island- based band featuring Jack Picard and his daughters, Leah and Sascha, who held a CD release party at the Biltmore on May 10. Jack, for many years the head ramrod of the Young Bucks, finally scored after many years on the Biggest Little music scene, with a couple of tunes placed on TV shows (Dawson's Creek and the new CBS show Grapevine) and the new band won Musician's best unsigned band contest. Their new release is out on the Deluxo label. Three cheers for the home team -- nice to see talent and perseverance rewarded.

. . . to Bill Flanagan, editorial director of VH1, former editor of Musician, and more importantly, a veteran of this publication from the NewPaper days. He has a new novel, A&R, coming out this month from Random House. Nice plug in this month's Vanity Fair.

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