Margin of error
BY PHILLIPE & JORGE
Your superior correspondents have to wonder about the big play offered by the
BeloJo last week to the recent polling done by Darrell West and the Taubman
Center for Public Policy. The biggest "news" was a finding that Myrth York had
a big lead over Sheldon Whitehouse and Tony Pires in the Democratic primary
race for governor. This finding, based on a random sampling of 264 likely
Democratic primary voters, was said to have a "margin of error" of six points.
Pardon us if we're not buying it. This seems like a mighty small sampling and
we don't believe for a minute that the more substantial polling by the
candidates' organizations indicates similar results. Of course, we can't say
for certain because the candidates aren't releasing their surveys.
We don't doubt that Tony Pires, with less name recognition and less money to
promote his candidacy, is lagging. But our take is that Myrth and Sheldon are
more like neck and neck at this point. Nobody we know really believes that
either candidate is sporting a big lead.
More to the point, why is the Other Paper giving this dubious survey such
prominent exposure? It couldn't have anything to do with the ongoing
relationship between the Taubman Center and the Urinal now, could it? This
particular race has a long way to go and by mid-July, we suspect, we'll see a
nasty turn to things.
A Vo Dilun first
This Monday, June 24, at the Radisson Airport Hotel in Warwick, Enable America,
a national organization that works to assist people with disabilities to
achieve greater independence through employment, civic involvement, and
community participation, will hold a town hall meeting for folks with
disabilities. This is the first in a series of town hall gatherings taking
place across the country. Among the participants will be our two US senators,
Jack Reed and Linc Chafee, Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian, Joanne Wilson,
commissioner of US Rehabilitation Services, and Marie Younkin-Waldman of Tech
Access of RI. The confab runs from 8:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m.
Ding-a-ling!
The bad taste bell at Casa Diablo was pealing like Big Ben at the Queen's
Golden Jubilee this week.
First, we had the report of the rather strained emotions of South Korean fans
at the World Cup, who view Americans as arrogant pigs and think we rigged the
Winter Olympics to get a gold medal for U.S. speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno at
the expense of a South Korean. Most especially, our Asian friends are upset
over our disdain for eating dogs, typical table fare for some South Koreans.
With this in mind, we can hardly describe as a diplomat the American soccer
fan who has a Web site with a large picture of current cartoon film star
Scooby-Doo with the caption, "Hey South Korea! Eat me!" Naturally P&J are
appalled. (P.S. Big points to the Urinal headline writer in last week's
"Deadbeat" movie review section, who titled the summary of the box office hit
and critic's nightmare Scooby-Doo as "Scooby-Don't.")
Second, as Phillipe and Jorge were watching educational TV on Monday, June 17,
during the airing of Goldfinger on Channel 6, a news promo came on with
a professional female hairdo reading the extraordinarily intriguing, but inane
tease, "The new Bond film and the lesbian kiss at 11!"
Holy Sappho, Oddjob! While we are hardly shocked when TV stations use their
own entertainment programming to pump news and vice versa -- such as exploiting
the 007 angle -- what's this about a lesbian kiss? Is it in the Bond film? In
which case, is this the way to promo news to what was undoubtedly a younger
prime time audience? And if not, we hope it wasn't a rehash of the
"controversial" movie, Kissing Jessica Stein since it's no longer
playing at local theaters.
But so what? ABC6 may have needed some filler. (Naturally, P&J didn't
watch the Channel 6 news at 11 to find out, but the next time the station airs
an Ian McKellen flick, we hope we'll get get a breathless, "Previews of the
second Lord of the Rings movie, and a homo anchor at 11!")
Roll over, Rover
Speaking of queens of all sorts, P&J were delighted to see the jam Dubya's
pink, porcine, and perverse advisor, Karl Rove, got into when a computer disc
with his Jack Handey Deep Thoughts on the 2002 election was found in DC's
Lafayette Park last week. And we think the FBI and CIA are incompetent.
The disc contained two PowerPoint presentations, one by Pig Man and another by
White House political director Ken Mehlman to a visiting group of California
Republicans. Most of Mr. Rove's banal thoughts and less-than-sage advice were
hardly news. However, his advice to Boy George that he must "grow" his outreach
to Latinos, suburban women, Catholics, and union members -- all traditional
Democratic voters -- was tempered by Rove's suggestion that Dubya only
"improve" outreach to African-Americans. But even moving from his probable two
percent approval rating among blacks would be a miracle, given the way that
brother Jeb's gang screwed black voters in the 2000 vote and how Junior and his
party's history have little to do with wanting any people of color even in the
same room with them.
Oh, and ignore the fact that the first slides of Rove's and Mehlman's
presentations had the White House logo on them, meaning there's illegal
political campaign activity going on at the White House. Remember the GOP
outrage at Al Gore soliciting donations from his office? Someone might want to
file charges. Who might that be, Mr. Daschle?
Unwelcome guests
Phillipe and Jorge had a marvelous time, as did the many distinguished guests,
including almost every leading politico in the state, at the June 14 roast of
Dr. Pablo Rodriguez, to benefit the Rhode Island Latino Civic Fund, at the
Crowne Plaza Hotel in Warwick, the event organizer who had to mdeal with hotel
management. Well, everyone except perhaps some hotel employees.
Crowne Plaza management staff had more than a little attitude problem while
arranging the various aspects of the big night and was extremely heavy-handed,
demanding cash payment up front. This is never an easy task for a non-profit,
especially a fledgling one. Add to this that the collection of checks from
major sponsors traditionally takes place after the event. The hotel's dunning
was ostensibly due to the fact that the Crowne Plaza had "problems" with
non-profits in the past. Although other non-profits were forced to endure the
same circumstances, United Way people say they had been billed after one of
their events at the site. Que pasa?
A financial angel flew to the rescue of the Latino Civic Fund organizers on
the day of the event, after hotel management stiffly informed them that "the
chef will not begin cooking" if money wasn't in hand by noon -- quite a nice
sentiment. But if the Crowne Plaza is going to adopt this sort of
anti-community posture, P&J would suggest that kindred groups -- as well as
the many corporations and foundations, such as Citizens Bank, Fleet Bank, and
the Rhode Island Foundation, that generously contribute to groups like the
civic fund -- might consider doing their major event and conference business at
a friendlier site. That goes double for any politician who expects the backing
of the many good, responsible, and effective non-profits that serve the
residents of the Biggest Little.
A final bit of advice to the Crowne Plaza management: In case you haven't
noticed -- or didn't check out the attendees on Friday night -- this is a very
small state. Word travels fast.
Going postal
Watch for informational pickets outside the main Providence's post office on
Corliss Street on Tuesday, June 25 from 2 to 6 p.m. Three of the unions
representing postal workers will be taking part, joined by a number of other
local unions. The postal workers want to inform the public that reorganizing in
the US postal service will result in reduced customer service. Window hours are
to be cut and the number of clerks serving the public reduced while, at the
same time, the price of stamps will go up. P&J hear there will be a large
turnout.
More irked government workers
A couple of DCYF case workers tell your superior correspondents that the
agency's administration, concerned about low morale among the workers, decided
to do something about it, but rather than asking the workers about problems and
issues, they decided they needed to feel better about themselves.
Employees became subjected to something called "e-mailaffirmation." Every day,
each worker was sent an e-mail "affirmation." One of our sources tells us, "The
thoughts ran along the lines of `Today I will only do one thing at a time. I
will think of myself in positive terms today. I am supporting and directing
myself today . . . ad nauseam." There was apparently an option to unsubscribe,
but it took weeks and numerous irate e-mails to get a person's name dropped
from the e-mail list.
Our social worker friends say priorities at DCYF seem a bit skewed to them.
They claim an unusual number of day-long "retreats" at URI's Alton Jones Campus
occur throughout the year, featuring "multi-course gourmet meals."
Administrators also attend regular out-of-state conferences, and when they
return, one source tells us, "They don't have to write reports, make
presentations, or conduct any training based on the material from these
conferences."
Needless to say, the retreats and conferences indulged in by the big shots
have done quite a bit less than the e-mailaffirmations to lift staff morale.
RIP
Mary Kilmarx, former state representative, activist, feminist, reformer, and
one of the Biggest Little's original advocates for open and responsive
government. She will be greatly missed.
Kudos & congrats . . .
. . . to the soon-to-be Sir Mick Jagger. Bet nobody who was conked on the head
with an RC Cola bottle at the infamous "Stones Riot" in downtown Providence in
1964 (or remembers the famous Andy Dickerman/Stones face-off at the airport in
Warwick in 1972 that landed Mick & Keith in the Apponaug pokey for a few
hours), saw this one coming. And if they ever get around to "Sir Keith," we'll
know that the sun has finally set on the British Empire.
. . . to the genius who put together the current television commercial for
Connecticut's Mystic Aquarium. Your superior correspondents were thrilled that
the background music used in the spot was lifted from Ed Wood's masterpiece
Plan 9 from Outer Space. This is right up there with using a selection
from Harry Partch's Delusion of the Fury as the music in an ad we
produced for Leo's (featuring wine-sipping dogs and a gaggle of patrons engaged
in synchronized eating) that ran on Cox Cable's local origination station in
the early '80s.
Send stuffed quahogs and Pulitzer-grade tips to p&j[a]phx.com.
Issue Date: June 21 - 27, 2002
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