Match this

You gotta love Bigfoot's reasoning for why expenses he identifies with "holding office" should be discounted in any consideration of campaign matching funds. The Almond administration's strange argument, heard before the state Elections Board on Tuesday, reveals an organization "deeply in denial," as they say in psychoanalytic circles.

The BeloJo's Katherine Gregg quotes Missing Linc campaign ramrod John "Monsieur Pompadour" Holmes as saying, "You're damned if you do, damned if you don't . . . I mean . . . what is this? We should be criticized for publicly asking a board questions about the law?"

No, Pompy, you're not being criticized for "asking questions" -- you're being criticized for attempting to promote a ludicrous hairsplitting of the law, the end result of which would lead to such a blurring of the lines as to make the entire matching-funds rule a joke. And by the way, there seems to be a bit of a difference in "asking a board questions" after you've already filed campaign-expenditure statements using your new interpretation.

Speaking of blurring the lines, part of the Almond camp's argument -- that using current campaign funds to pay off debts from previous elections is within the intended limits of the law -- is legitimate. It`s these dicey expenditures for "state-related" expenses and charitable donations that inquiring minds question.

The Missing Linc sez, "All I want is a level playing field." Certainly, this is a unique argument -- an incumbent whining about not being on a "level playing field." Sorta like Wal-Mart complaining that the local hardware store is stealing its thunder.

We're sure that in his former incarnation as "Mr. Law 'n' Order," the governor would be guffawing just as loudly at this lame interpretation of Vo Dilun's campaign-finance laws as we are.

You can take the boy out of Cranston . . .

No one will ever accuse our old pal Vinny Pazienza of being a shrinking violet, but even Phillipe and Jorge were a bit surprised (although also vastly amused) by Pazman's comments to the British press prior to his fight last Saturday night in London for the WBC international super-middleweight title. (And we won't even get into the poster promoting the fight, which showed Paz holding the severed heads of two women.)

We're not sure how it occurred, but somehow the topic turned to sex during Paz's interview with Steve Bunce of the Telegraph. And let's just say that if anyone had been concerned about whether Vinny could hold his own with lurid English newspaper reporting, they'd had nothing to fear.

"If [Pazienza's] renowned fighting skills desert him, the 34-year-old American believes his sexual prowess will guarantee him a future as an actor in adult films," wrote Bunce. Then Pazienza went on to describe his valiant comeback from a broken back suffered in car accident that had left him with a metal "halo" (but without the type that would get his story onto the Christian Broadcast Network).

"I knew if I could have sex with a girlfriend, I would fight, because I need to do both. That is my life: sex and fighting," said Pazienza "By the summer I was in full swing -- in the ring and in the sack. There were some movies that I was involved in and I could have easily gone into the adult entertainment business. It is no secret I like to sleep with two or three porn stars. I can do it -- I have what directors need."

Although Paz did lose his bout against Herol Graham that Saturday, it may not have been a wasted evening altogether. The guest list for his private party afterwards with his pals in the porn biz "reads like a business-card display in a West End telephone box," Bunce reflected.

Now why don't we get more of this sort of coverage from the likes of Casa Diablo fave Bill Reynolds in the Urinal's sports section? Rather than passing on to readers his trademark judgments of first-run Hollywood feature movies, Bill, in deference to Paz, could throw in a few quick reviews of movies at the Columbus Theater that would be more in line with Vinny's tastes, such as Thigh Noon or Pumping Irene. But Vinny, really, what would your mother say?

Let's get Stone-d

It is safe to say that after the death of former state police superintendent Col. Walter Stone, more than a few past and present state troopers were less than pleased to hear retired statie Major Lionel Benjamin say in a television interview that Stone was like Raymond Patriarca in that they both demanded respect from their men.

Nothing like comparing the law officers

under Stone, who made him famous for cracking down on organized crime, to actual mobsters. After a statement like this, P&J can only help but wonder whether Benjamin's partial-disability retirement pension was the result of brain damage.

In deference to Stone's passing, no one will publicly say anything at all bad about the famed colonel, but some intrepid reporter still might do well to deconstruct the legend and add a bit more information to the mystique surrounding the Rhode Island police icon.

P&J know there was no love lost in some quarters for Stone, especially when it came to the accoutrements to his legacy -- i.e., his allegedly working seven days a week and never taking a vacation. Indeed, who would have had the steel cojones or professional death wish to mark the Colonel as "on vacation" after being told by their fabled boss that his time off was strictly a "duty" mission?

What's more, Stone's consolidation of enormous power in the Biggest Little was allegedly due to his ability to convince Vo Dilun's always less-than-totally-ethical or temperate power brokers that he knew where the bodies were buried (even if he hadn't a clue), and this created a wonderful air of good-ol'-boy buddying up to Stone.

But not to speak too ill of the departed.

Philippe and Jorge, after all, always enjoyed Col. Stone's superior taste in uniforms for his troopers and his patent fascination with the leather boots and chest straps with which he outfitted his boys.

As Col. Paul O'Leary, former superintendent of the New Hampshire state police observed, "What J. Edgar Hoover was to federal law enforcement, Colonel Walter Stone has been to state law enforcement." Gotcha loud and clear, Paul. (Nudge-nudge, wink-wink.)

Pork-barreling

We hope that Other Paper food editor Donna Lee is watching her back. Further evidence that erstwhile BeloJo political columnist M. Charles Bakst is gunning for her job appeared this week, when Chuckie, using von Bismarck's famous maxim about the similarities between making laws and sausages, launched into one of his increasingly frequent tributes to the glories of food.

The headline, LAWS AND SAUSAGES: SENATOR REED MULLS THE LEGENDARY ADAGE, had indicated that there would be some discussion of the messy business of the legislative process. And Chuckie did get around to this in the final paragraph, including a few predictable quotes from His Jackness.

Still, the bulk of the column was dedicated to the glories of Westerly's famous "soupy" sausage, as Bakst described in some detail how the local delicacy is put together and regaled readers with a description of the foods he and Jack had wolfed down in the back of Ritacco's Market.

Your superior correspondents are, of course, deeply envious of M. Charles's knack for using his station as the Urinal's political columnist to sustain his gastronomical lifestyle. We just wish that characters like Chuckie and John Holmes would come clean as well and get a regular column in the food section of the paper.

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