Much ado about DUI

Last week's Deadly Experiment on Channel 36 featured a discussion about drunk driving laws. The issue was raised in the shadow of the news that James Souls, the driver responsible for running down Timothy Lyons on a country road in East Greenwich, had been granted parole after serving only three years of a five-year sentence. Although intoxication had not been cited in his conviction, Souls had acknowledged drinking four beers on the day of the accident.

Adding fuel to the DUI fire was last week's debate at the State House over a proposal to lower Rhode Island's legal blood-alcohol level from .10 to .08. And jumping into the fray was US Senator John Chafee (R-Rhode Island), who suggested that a national level of .08 could be achieved by withholding precious highway funds from states not acceding to the new standard. (This, you may recall, was the same method used to persuade states to boost from 18 to 21 the age for legally consuming alcohol.)

Also last week, there was mucho coverage of Red Sox slugger and Foxy Lady regular Mo Vaughn's trial on DUI charges and a column by M. Charles Bakst in the BeloJo supporting the proposed .08 level. In short, the latest public debate on drinking and driving has begun.

The consensus on the Deadly Experiment seemed to be that we need to get tougher on drunk driving. Former lieutenant governor Tom DiLuglio helpfully pointed out that there is also the issue of those who drive under the influence of drugs (legal or illegal, we would add) and those who are just plain tired and drowsy behind the wheel of an automobile. Some truly brave souls have even suggested a graduated licensing procedure for younger drivers.

But the one component missing from all of these discussions -- the one that no one really wants to mention -- is mass transit. Basically, we've created a society in which it is virtually impossible to fully participate without having access to an automobile. Indeed, the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority's bus service is only viable in certain areas during certain hours, so tough luck if you don't happen to live near a bus line or if you need to get somewhere after 7 p.m.

But, of course, the principles of yahoo capitalism ensure that we won't seriously consider strengthening a system that has made so many of the countries of Europe, for instance, such reasonable places to get around in. The wealth of too many lawyers, insurance and automobile companies, and highway construction people and the politicians whose campaign funds swell with contributions from these sources is sufficient to guarantee that any discussion of what is in the public interest will never truly include mass transit as an area worth looking into.

Federal transportation funding priorities reflect this, with over 90 percent of these monies slated for projects involving highways and automobiles. What's more, proposed RIPTA rate increases are driven by the fact that federal support for mass transit continues to shrink. Apparently, we prefer having no real transportation options.

Phillipe & Jorge would love to see the Biggest Little, a state with a population and geography ideal for such a pursuit, lead the way in the creation of a truly viable mass transit system. But we're not holding our breath.

Dead Kennedy

Folks, you know you're deep in the manure when Phillipe and Jorge and the Urinal's hyperactive uber-yuppie biz editor Peter Phipps are fighting on the same side against you.

In his column in last Sunday's BeloJo, P.P. put state Representative Brian "Walking Eagle" Kennedy in his cross hairs and joined the ever-lengthening line of folks appalled by the blatant power-grab legislation (read: ordure) that Kennedy has submitted in an attempt to gut the Department of Environmental Management on behalf of the House leadership development community.

In what must have been gleaned directly from the mouth of Tim Keeney, the former DEM director who quit in disgust over the witch hunt conducted by Kennedy's know-nothing Klown Kommission, Phipps paints a vivid picture of how P&J's favorite political punks, House Speaker "Pucky" Harwood and Majority Leader "George of the Jungle" Caruolo, had Walking Eagle do their bidding in their shameless plot to turn the fate of the environment over to those looking to make a cheap buck off Rhode Island's natural resources.

We hope Kennedy is walking tall in the halls of the State House after reading, "True to their words [to Keeney about investigating DEM because he was daring to make moves to improve DEM without their approval], Harwood and Caruolo wound up a little-known real estate appraiser from Hopkinton and set him loose."

P&J can only imagine what Walking Eagle was promised in return for carrying the leadership's water. Why does something having to do with real estate legislation come to mind?

Last week, your superior correspondents suggested that we did not want to kick developers in the ass for testifying against DEM because we feared breaking Walking Eagle's nose. Might we suggest that Phipps also be careful in putting the boot to Pucky and George of the Jungle's backsides? We wouldn't want to have Kennedy bite his tongue -- except when he tries to speak.

Marcel, come home!

Last week, Governor Bigfoot looked like Muhammad Ali backpedaling around the ring, flicking out jabs, and trying to escape the wrath of Joe Frazier as he appeared before the public in North Kingstown and at Save the Bay's annual meeting to confront the proposed "Pave the Bay" initiative for Quonset Point.

The person Big Linc has to thank for putting him on the firing line is his Economic Development Corporation director, John Swen, who recently replaced the immensely talented Marcel Valois.

Prior to Almond's appearance at the public hearing held at Quonset Point, Swen's performance had been abysmal and startling, due to his lack of understanding on how much Rhode Islanders resent being hosed on environmental issues.

First, Swen had claimed that this was the 10th public hearing on Quonset and a proposal to fill 550 acres of Narragansett Bay, which was news to the 500 or so people in the room. They evidently didn't regard the EDC meetings with Quonset (inserted somewhere down the agenda) as a plea for input.

And neither, apparently, did Almond. Essentially putting his heel on Swen's neck in full view of the audience, Bigfoot quickly assured the crowd that more public hearings would indeed be held on the matter.

Of course, you can't blame Swen for making the proposal to fill the Bay and turn it into a megaport for ships bigger than the Titanic his lead card, especially considering that he was part of a droning, condescending 90-minute presentation put on by outside consultants as a restless crowd waited to ask Almond questions.

And Swen must have loved having Big Linc perch him right up front at the Save the Bay shindig, where Bigfoot again poured oil on the troubled waters by promising more public hearings and by keeping up his retreat on the Pave the Bay part of the Quonset redevelopment.

Although one of the best vignettes of the evening was a crusty shellfisherman's turning to one of Swen's Teamsters-for-hire and saying, "We're here because we want to be, not because we were trucked in," this is not an us-or-them scenario regarding jobs, as EDC would have it.

The environmental community is all for starting work on the Commerce Park piece of the development plan, which was reached through honest consensus and will yield a projected 15,000 jobs. But the community is against Swen's absurd proposals, which, P&J are told, even have lost the backing of Governor Bigfoot's office, save for holdout Michael DiBiase. Now where did I put Marcel's new phone number?

J.T. Walsh

One of the most powerful images Jorge remembers as an undergraduate at the University of Rhode Island in the 1960s was Jimmy Walsh on stage at the old theater in Quinn Hall. In those days, Jimmy Walsh was better known as a political activist, but if you had the pleasure and opportunity to see him on stage, you knew that he was born to be an actor.

J.T. Walsh died last Friday, but he left behind a number of powerful performances in films as diverse as A Few Good Men, The Grifters, House of Games, Sling Blade, The Client, Breakdown, and Good Morning, Vietnam.

He was a great actor and a wonderful person. And he loved Rhode Island so much that he returned to his home state frequently to spend time with his family and friends here. What a terrible loss. Our condolences to his family, especially his brother, Chris, and sister, Mary.

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