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Ain't we got fun?
BY PHILLIPE & JORGE

Residents of the Biggest Little should be quite pleased at the choices we've got for governor, on both sides of the aisle. As long as our pal Jimmy Bennett keeps trying to torch Don Carcieri about his business background, the level of debate will continue to be at the groin level so relished by your superior correspondents.

Actually, P&J are surprised and pleased at the Democratic primary race, given that we consider Myrth "Peppermint Patty" York, Sheldon "Sherbert Whitebread" Whitehouse, and Tony Pires to be intelligent, well qualified and equipped with a high level of integrity -- the latter certainly not being a given in Vo Dilun political circles. (Hi, Mr. Speaker.) P&J have been very impressed by Peppermint Patty's commercials about the horribly compromised Ethics Commission, a perfectly appropriate target for our next governor.

Perhaps Sherbert's handlers will realize that tiptoeing through the tulips, portraying their candidate as Mr. Nicely-Nicely (which he is), is not what voters -- extremely upset at being hosed by their elected leaders -- are looking for these days. It's red meat time, and Peppermint Patty's campaign seems to be aware of this, making the most of it without actually slaughtering a water buffalo in the town square to get the point across.

We'd like to see one last joker in the pack, with all due respect to Tony Pires. How big do you think it would be if our favorite Portuguese pol threw his PawSox cap into the camp of either Myrth or Sherbert by Labor Day? P&J like Tony, despite his having once been a tad too close to the unspeakable Speaker Pucky, but he is a kind, decent, and thoughtful guy who will simply never muster the votes to win. But boy, talk about a guy with a two-ton monkey wrench in his back pocket. Make the right choice Tony, and you'll have season tix to the PawSox and Pats for life.

Sub-Mensa roundup

It appears there's no such thing as an election in Providence without the ritualistic vandalism of campaign lawn signs (disclosure: Jorge, aka Rudy Cheeks, is a member of Joseph R. Paolino Jr.'s campaign staff). The campaigns of each of the mayoral candidates appear to have been hit by this scourge, which, essentially, has nothing to do with elections and everything to do with low-level street crime.

When you think about it, outside of costing the campaigns money, the only way a candidate could gain from this would be to have his or her signs vandalized or destroyed. And since I'm quite certain that none of the candidates are directing an effort to have their own signs destroyed (in fact, except for their largely fruitless efforts to try to stop the insanity, I can pretty much assure you that none of the candidates have anything to do with any of this). In any case, it's hardly a wonder that this particular activity persists in a land where people have been walking on their hind legs for centuries.

But the sign vandals do get a certain amount of cover as other moronic acts persist here, there and everywhere. To wit:

* J.G. Goff's Pub on beautiful Bristol Harbor has a tradition of printing jokes on its weekly menu. Last week, a customer called for a boycott of the eatery when a "joke" on the menu had the following punch line: "Hire the handicapped . . . They're fun to watch." Amazingly, Goff's owner, Steve Cleary, initially tried to claim that the complaining customer's "interpretation of the remark was taken out of context."

* The New York Times reported that Little League officials in Kearny, New Jersey, suspended a coach for encouraging his team to throw a game in the district playoffs last month. Seven of Larry Davidson's Kearny National All-Star players told a league committee that the coach told them to throw the game with the Kearny American All-Stars because, "They had a better record and thus a better chance of advancing in the Little League playoffs." You will be shocked to learn that Coach Davidson told the Times that his "players took his words out of context."

* If he lived in Providence, Roberto Cercelletta would be a trusted employee of the Department of Public Works with the nickname "Buckles." Instead, he was recently busted in Rome,

Italy, for just doing his job. For the past 34 years, Mr. Cercelletta has been fishing coins out of the Eternal City's legendary Trevi Fountain. Although the money is supposed to go to charity, it was learned that Buckles, described in news reports as "an otherwise unemployed, mentally unstable man," was keeping most of the money literally being raked in. For about 15 minutes of work a day, Buckles would frequently gross more than $1000. When police finally nabbed him, he slashed himself with a knife and, according to police, resisted arrest. Your superior correspondents could not confirm rumors that Ed DiPrete is poised to take Buckles' place if he decides to finally throw in the towel.

Country boys

One of Phillipe and Jorge's favorite baseball players, Enos "Country" Slaughter, passed away earlier this week. A Hall of Famer, the wonderfully named redneck put in his best years with the St. Louis Cardinals, starting with the fabled Gashouse Gang, who defeated the Red Sox in the 1946 World Series, thanks to Slaughter's "mad dash" from first to home as Johnny Pesky froze on the relay in the eighth inning of final game.

Slaughter's balls-out frantic play on the field was the inspiration for Pete "Cholly Hustle" Rose's subsequent running out of every walk. And although he's been said to be at the heart of the Cardinals' racist response to Jackie Robinson's breaking of the major league baseball color barrier -- when the Cards were the most Southern and Western team in the majors -- Enos was too unworldly, P&J believe, to even care. That Budweiser cold? Spare a sip? That Red Man you're chewin'? Spare a chaw?

'Night, Country.

Death be not proud

God said to Abraham
"Kill me a son."
Abe said, "Man,
You must be puttin' me on"
-- "Highway 61 Revisited," Bob Dylan

So as Dubya the Dumb enjoys his month-long "working" (honk!) vacation at his lobbyist-constructed ranch in Crawford, Texas, he plots and schemes through his PR puppets and veep Dick "Now Not Invisible Man" Cheney, showing all us ignorant mofos why the economy's actually in an upturn, and how he's going to sacrifice young Americans in Iraq to make up for his father's shortcomings in the last war.

Got a kid of draft age whom you next want to see in a bodybag? Good, tell him to join the military service so he can be a political pawn for Boy George. Yes, the same little weasel who shirked his National Guard duty in Alabama during the Vietnam war, confident that Poppy's buddies could cover his ass, as they did. A punk who dodged the conflict with as little payback as Bill Clinton, but who was too stupid to get the blowjobs back home. He just spanked the other boys in Skull and Bones at Yale.

As Maureen Dowd recently pointed out in the New York Times, if we go into Iraq, it will be the first time in our history that the US had been in a war where we fired the first shot. All for the highly moral reason of avoiding investigations into Dubya's Harken high-jinks and Big Time's Halliburton hot-wiring. We regret to inform you . . .

This is a very important thing to remember, especially when the payback may very well be heightened terrorism against Americans here and abroad. (But this is OK since Tom Ridge has things under control, using his Flash Gordon decoder ring and M&Ms color chart.)

As ever, like his inept Daddy, Dubya has tried to make a complex situation personal -- We're gonna get that Sad-DAM! And we want Oh-SAHD-um, dead or alive! ID-EE-OTTS! Dubya, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rummy. Danger, Danger, Danger. Think any of them will be talking to the parents of deceased? Right.

Sleep tight, Daniel Pearl.

Quote of the week

From Jeanette Wall's MSNBC gossip Web site (a Phillipe & Jorge fave rave), The Scoop, comes this alarming bit of imagery, courtesy of comedian Judith Lucey, describing a close encounter with the poorly reconstructed face of Joan Rivers: "When I got a bit closer I realized what all the fuss was about. I don't want to get too graphic, but it looked like some kind of miscarriage that had somehow been molded into a face and had make-up fired at it by a cannon. It was the most alarming thing I've seen."

Truth, justice, and the American way

Those right-wing Republicans who constantly complain about the preponderance of lawsuits and huge settlement awards ought to be really proud. Thanks to the GOP, Congress amended the tax laws in 1996 to make some jury awards for non-physical injury lawsuits taxable. In addition, in a number of states, lawyers' fees are considered to belong to plaintiffs, so the award and the fees are both taxable. Here's the result:

Chicago police officer Cynthia Spina sued her employer, the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, for $2 million for sexual discrimination. A federal jury found that her superiors in the police department put pornography in her mailbox, spread sexual rumors about her, and slashed her tires. The harassment continued for eight years. In the end, the jury awarded her $3 million -- $1 million more than she had asked for.

However, because of a combination of lawyers' fees and the tax laws, she not only will lose her entire award, but will owe an additional $99,000 in taxes to the IRS. What a great country!

Send homeopathic fish sticks and Pulitzer-grade tips to p&j[a]phx.com.

Issue Date: August 16 - 22, 2002


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