Quonset Point lie(s) of the week

Since it appears that the groups promoting the megaport at Quonset Point, including Governor Bigfoot, House Speaker Pucky Harwood, Senate Majority Leader "Punchy Paul" Kelly and state Economic Development Corporation director John "What Clean Water Act?" Swen, have no intention of being candid with the public, Phillipe and Jorge will try to help them out each week by exposing blatantly misleading statements made by those who plan to ruin Narragansett Bay and the Biggest Little.

Unfortunately, this will include, upon occasion, even generally reliable stalwarts like Save the Bay's Curt Spalding, who continues to talk about the plight and concerns of local community groups near Quonset as if these people are the only ones being screwed. As we all know, everyone who lives in Vo Dilun will feel the adverse effects of a megaport development. (And a tip of the beret and sombrero to the BeloJo for their wonderful Sunday feature on what it would be like to live near the type of port the carpetbagging Quonset Point Partners (QPP) hope to erect. Hopefully, the idea of having to say goodbye to the stars and hello to all-night heavy-metal performances will sway more than a few votes toward opposing this monstrosity.)

For novices dealing with this attempt to obliterate our quality of life, the first and most basic truth is that while the proposed megaport has been painted as a boon to the state's economy and as a great deal for Vo Dilun, the proposal, as it has been presented, is not economically feasible for QPP.

You mean the developers want to build a megaport that will cost them money? Not likely, Einstein. All they want is a toe in the door, and then begins the influx of cargo ships roughly the size of Prudence Island cruising through the Bay's East Passage as if on a moist Route 95.

Rhode Island as the sailing capital of the US? Fuggedaboutit. Then again, P&J did enjoy watching QPP frontman Chip Norton try to explain how these 900- to 1300-foot post-Panamax cargo ships would twist and turn their way down the Bay to Quonset (throughout the night, of course) without incident or interfering with sailors or fishermen. Apparently, Chip didn't realize that the person who'd asked him this question at a recent URI presentation was a former submarine commander in the Royal Navy, who thus knew that every bit of Chip's response was gold-plated bullshit.

This week's economy-sized pack of lies was exposed by the good folks at the state Department of Environmental Management after they reviewed the first set of environmental characterization studies for the QP stakeholders group. The first cute trick was giving DEM only two weeks at Christmas to review the studies, which was far from sufficient: "Coordinated intradepartmental reviews of this type normally require a month for relatively routine requests," wrote DEM's director then, Andy McLeod, in a letter to Mr. "What Clean Water Act?" Swen. "Certainly, data upon which decisions of state and region wide significance may be based merits at least as careful scrutiny."

Worse, the studies appear to be the sort that would get you a failing grade in a high-school science class. Said DEM: "old data, no samples near QPD." And then there's this: "another study that is missing . . . is a report [on] the human use of the Bay as an indication of the environmental condition of the QPD area."

Add to this using the wrong-sized trawl net to measure the impact on lobsters in the area and "no mention of potential impacts of dredging to larval shellfish" and "the assessment of contaminant sources in the region is based on outdated information" and "the water-quality data presented is at least 13 years old," and you're probably really confident now about the credibility of QPP's study, eh?

Our favorite, though, was, "The word `decease' in the last sentence of this paragraph should be `decrease.' " No, perhaps that's just what the megaport proposal should be: deceased.

The Gerber Diairies, pt. 4

Now that those clowns over at the Department of Business Regulation have suspended my insurance license, I have to hang around this hellhole all day. Well, I might as well be comfortable. Think I'll write to that kid from Westerly and find out where I can get one of those White Zombie T-shirts.

I think that things are looking up on the pension front, however. I told Bob Goldberg the other day that there is a pretty strong argument for why the state shouldn't be suspending payment. First of all, most of the years I've amassed for the pension come from when I was the mayor or on the School Committee in Cranston. I wasn't stealing anything back then.

Actually, if we win on the pension, I think that I might be able to upgrade it to disability status. I've been suffering from headaches, and I have reason to believe that they are directly related to all the hair spray used by female employees in my office in Cranston.

Finally, heard back from Nelson Mandela, and what did I get? An autographed photo. Can you believe this?! He must have found out about Manafort.

Well, it's getting near time for the Jerry Springer show, and I told Bobo that we'd check it out together. That Bobo is pretty sharp. He told me that Jerry is the most popular program in the juror's lounge over at the Superior Court building. Somehow that ought to play in my favor.

Monument time for Bonzo

It's always comforting to know that right-wing nutbags are capable of operating on more than one track. While most of the attention of such Republican extremists has been centered on trying to rid the nation of Wet Willie Clinton, a news report emerged about a group dedicating themselves to the pursuit of adding President Ronald Reagan's noggin to Mt. Rushmore.

This week, that idea was nipped in the bud by the National Parks Service, which announced that any further drilling on Rushmore would destabilize the current monument. Still, Phillipe & Jorge certainly can see the wisdom in considering such a tribute to Reagan, because the Ronzo was such a "regular guy" as president. Herewith are our top reasons for why we'd love to see Reagan up there on the mountain.

1) His commemorative trip to the cemetery at Bitburg, where Waffen SS troops were buried. This was so inappropriate that, as P&J pal Scott Duhamel points out, it actually politicized the Ramones (Bonzo goes to Bitburg), no mean feat.

2) His casual management style, typified by regularly falling asleep while attending cabinet meetings and visiting dignitaries.

3) His regularly telling stories he "remembered" from the movies but thought were true, such as the bomber who went down with his plane. The best of this genre was when Reagan claimed to have been present when the concentration camps were liberated. He'd actually seen it in newsreels!

4) His attitude toward homework. After his chief of staff, James Baker, noticed that Reagan hadn't even opened his briefing book at the World Economic Conference in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1983, Ronzo explained, "Well, Jim, the Sound of Music was on last night."

5) His trading arms for hostages with Iran after proclaiming a policy of withholding weapons from nations that sponsor terrorism.

6) His secretly conducting an illegal war in Nicaragua.

7) His choosing really high-quality cabinet members, such as James Watt and Alexander "I'm in charge" Haig.

8) His sending the Marines to Lebanon for no good security reason.

9) His conquering the powerful forces in Grenada.

10) His willingness to regularly rearrange his schedule at the behest of his wife's astrologer.

Kudos and congrats . . .

. . . to former Providence Phoenix columnist E.L. (Ted) Widmer, who is currently serving duty as a speechwriter in the office of the President of the United States. Our guy Ted just had his first book published. Young America: The Flowering of Democracy in New York City (Oxford University Press) is a look at the "Young America" movement led by John O'Sullivan in the mid-19th century. The book was reviewed by big-shot intellectual Garry Wills in the New York Times Book Review two Sundays ago, and although Wills sniped here and there about some minor analytical disagreements with Ted, it is largely a positive review.

Those familiar with Ted's past work in the Phoenix (primarily his Rhode Island Almanack column) know that he is an expert at presenting obscure and arcane historic subject matter with great wit. His book may be his greatest academic achievement since he edited and published the official newsletter of Mike's 17 Bar on Snow Street in Providence during the days when it was one of the premier bust-out joints in town.

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