Au revoir, Valois

Pay close attention to last week's resignation of Marcel Valois, director of the state's Economic Development Corporation, boys and girls. It obviously means big trouble in Lincoln Almond's administration.

Valois, after all, is one of Almond's top advisors. A highly regarded and capable player, he understands economic development and, more importantly, its direct link to education and the need to produce skilled high school graduates.

Indeed, whenever Governor Bigfoot spoke about these issues and Valois was in the room, Phillipe & Jorge would marvel at how we never saw Marcel's lips move.

Valois resigned, apparently, after feuding with the increasingly suspect Edward Morabito, The Missing Linc's chief of staff and political operative. What is alarming is that Morabito came out on top against one of Almond's oldest allies -- a man who has led Vo Dilun's growing economic turnaround.

We wonder just who has Governor Bigfoot's ear these days and, worse, what they are saying. Good luck, Marcel. Don't look back.

Agony of defeat

The Giovanni Ciccone "Graciousness in Defeat" Award goes out to David Mellor, British Conservative and former Heritage Secretary. On May 1, Mellor lost his local seat in Parliament after 18 years.

While this was an upset to be sure, what made it worse was that his seat had been targeted by Sir James "Goldenballs" Goldsmith, the garrulous and eccentric millionaire and former owner of The Times of London.

Goldsmith primarily resides in Mexico now, but he returned to create the Referendum Party and to run on its ticket against Mellor. He didn't win, but as three-way race specialists like The Bud-I know too well, Goldsmith took enough votes to skew the election to the Labour candidate.

When Mellor later went onstage to concede defeat, the Times reported, "He looked as if he might cry." As Goldsmith stood nearby on the Wandsworth Town Hall stage relishing the moment, "Mellor suddenly erupted, shrieking that Sir James, with his 1518 votes, had `nothing to be smug about. The Referendum Party is dead in the water. Sir James, you can go back to Mexico. Your attempt to buy the British political system has failed.' "

This only inspired Goldsmith, as seen in an accompanying photo, to clap his hands in delight and howl with laughter. "Putney said, `Up your hacienda, Jimmy,' " Mellor hollered. "He's finished. He's nothing in British politics. He's finished!"

Geez, Giovanni, makes you sound like a real sport.

Walking Eagle

This week's Walking Eagle Award goes to the formerly reliable Superior Court Justice Joseph F. Rodgers, for saying it was OK for Judge Melanie Wilk Famiglietti to erase David Collins's criminal record after Michael Burns, a chief prosecutor at the Attorney General's office, and state police honcho Anthony Pesare vouched for the felon. What's worse, the case was not conducted under "the letter of statute." (Read: It was patently illegal to do so.)

Fortunately, Rodgers's attempt to gloss over this hummer was sandbagged by Famiglietti, who finally came to her senses. She told the BeloJo that she had not been aware of the extent of Collins's criminal record when she'd agreed to expunge it. If she had, she said, she might have ruled otherwise.

Nice job, Rodgers. That's the way to restore confidence in Vo Dilun's judicial system. Not under "the letter of the statute?" Is that like "no controlling legal authority?"

Although P&J are quite surprised by his decision, we're sure this week's Walking Eagle should go to Justice Rodgers. This citation, of course, honors those people so full of shit they can't fly, whether under the letter of the statue or not.

Morally bankrupt

New York Times columnist Russell Baker noted this week that corporate giant AT&T, in their 1996 annual report, refers to the company's mission as one to "enrich (the) personal lives" of their customers. This reminds P&J of those signs we often see in banks informing customers that various forms of identification will be required "for your protection."

It must also be "for our protection" that if someone deposits a check with insufficient funds, the bank charges not only the issuer of the rubber check but also its recipient.

The fact is that corporate bullshit and lying have reached such a level that we take them for granted. Big businesses are almost solely concerned with enriching their executives and stockholders. And while they once acknowledged that there was such a thing as "civic responsibility," such talk these days is usually part of some PR strategy.

Even the reactionary political pundit Arianna Huffington (of all people) acknowledges this in a column in this week's US News & World Report. In it, she scores the nationally syndicated radio clown and big money butt-boy Rush Limbaugh for his sour commentary on last week's presidents summit on volunteerism. "Citizen service is a repudiation of the principles upon which our country was based," Limbaugh had sneered. "We are all here for ourselves."

Well, Rush, your superior correspondents always thought that the "principles upon which our country was based" were more of a difficult balancing act between self and community, not some social Darwinist, yahoo capitalist, Ayn Rand wet dream as unbalanced and unrealistic in its reading of human nature as its mirror-image Communist counterpart.

Didn't "big socialist" programs like the G.I. Bill do more to improve the lot of most Americans than any of the right-wing's trickle-down fantasies? We think so. P&J aren't saying the answer is "big government," but you can rest assured that "big business" unchained is doing very little to address the growing divide between rich and poor. Until we deal effectively with this problem, our country has big troubles. We say, "a mongrel system for a mongrel people."

Hand jive

In this BeloJo photo, US Senator Jack Reed attempts to promote a "kinder and gentler" hand signal for Vo Dilun motorists to appropriate when expressing displeasure with another's driving skills.

Kudos & congrats . . .

. . . to CBS, for their big sweeps "event" -- Mario Puzo's The Last Don. Don't you think a better title for the three-part film would have been The Godfather Lite? Special note to Joe Mantegna -- love those clothes.

. . . to the Tandy Corporation, parent company of Radio Shack. They're arguing through their attorneys that "Bianca's Smut Shack," a website out of Chicago specializing in smutty talk, is infringing on their trademark, which covers "The Shack" and "Shack." Should the B-52s ("Love Shack") and Jimmy Gilmore and the Fireballs (1963's "Sugar Shack," still played on discerning oldies stations throughout the galaxy) be expecting a letter soon? And what about the ubiquitous Shaquille O'Neal? A letter from Tandy oughta straighten out his taco-challenged head once and for all.

. . . to Casa Diablo regular and Cranston resident Jim "McJim" McGlynn, screenwriter of the current independent feature film Traveller. The movie received a "critic's choice" rave ("This quiet yarn hits the mark with surprising depth") in this week's US News & World Report. Yes, we are shameless promoters of any and all hometeam products. Go see it when it comes to town.

. . . to the gals at the Satin Doll in downtown La Prov. Now that the Cabana Girls saga has ended, we're glad to see that some of the employees at another local institution have picked up the slack with a story about one dancer's attack on another with a meat-tenderizing hammer (nice poetic touch there). Seems the assailant was accusing the victim of giving oral aid and comfort to a patron. Of course, owner Dick Shappy claims the dancer's story about extracurricular activities in the club is just another Fellatio Alger tale.

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