Plunder and lightning

Nothing like a lightning, mid-day raid of City Hall to get Mayor Buddy "Vincent A." Cianci's attention, and keep him holed up in his Power Street fortress. The FBI and U.S. attorney's "Operation Plunder Dome," in which the chairman and vice chairman of the city's Board of Tax Assessment were allegedly laundering money for use in bribery and extortion scams, had the Bud-I furious by day's end. Why not? After all, from what Hizzoner said, he wasn't getting a piece of the action. What were suspects Joe Pannone and David Ead thinking? Don't they have enough sense to cut Cianci in? Shame on youse guys. And if the amount of actual alleged corruption uncovered so far is not at all commensurate with the level of media play this story has received, we say, "stay tuned." We don't believe that the U.S. attorney's office would stick out its neck this far if it didn't have a lot more dirt than they've revealed so far.

The subgenius level that Ead and Pannone were operating on is apparent when one considers that fact that, not only was cooperating witness Tony Freitas active in a number of government reform circles, but, in the early '90's, he even had his own radio show. That's right, Mr. Freitas used to buy time on the home of disgruntlement, WALE, in order to rave on about political inequities. If you were going to be entering into a kickback scheme, wouldn't you think, you'd want to avoid small businessmen with the mark of the zealot?

Amid the turmoil came the stunning and courageous admission the next day by our newest best friend, Rhode Island's U.S. attorney, Meg Curran, who helped spearhead Operation Plunder Dome (simply loooove that name, gang), that she has been diagnosed as having multiple sclerosis. If having a great sense of humor is an antidote, we know she'll be just fine. Meanwhile, it has done little to affect her physically. We heard that when Curran entered the room where Pannone and Ead were being booked, she tore the velveteen belt off her Lord & Taylor suit and threatened to horsewhip them to within an inch of their lives, shouting "You're not pulling that cheap crap in my state, boyos." Fortunately for the suspects, she was restrained by three burly FBI agents and dragged away from the cowering duo.

Weren't we also treated to a trip down memory lane when it was revealed the money was allegedly laundered through a vending machine company owned by Ead? It's quite interesting that Ead, a former Providence police officer, would want to get into the same business dominated for years by a guy named "Raymond." Well, we will just have to sit back and wait now to see if NBC will manage to produce a two-part series, starting with a "very special" Law and Order and completed on Providence.

You are there (right?)

Two nice pieces last week by Jim Seavor on new TV anchors in the local area while awaiting Andy Smith's formal ascension to the throne as the Urinal's new TV critic. It went a long way towards explaining why TV news is so absolutely lame, and why the JARheads at Channel 10 dominate the market hereabouts.

Seavor profiled Jim King, who will replace the stultifying Walter Cryan at Channel 12, as well as WLNE's Amy DeLuca and Ron Harbaugh, the latter who looks like he could have been Art Lake's high school classmate. While King is originally a New Englander, he comes to The Biggest Little from Minneapolis, and is hardly in tune with Vo Dilun's unique history, characters and attitudes, never mind geography. The same goes for DeLuca and Harbaugh, who arrive from Sacramento and Topeka, respectively, also bereft of any Little Rhody institutional memory. (DeLuca is married to a Vo Dilunder, but we imagine he doesn't accompany her to work to help her out in local places and faces.)

As these three labor to identify the right direction to point when talking about Narragansett Bay, Channel 10 has the same, familiar faces it has persevered with at the top of the ratings charts for ages: Dougie White and Holly Wood in the studio, Art Lake and Frank Colletta in the morning, and Jim Taricani and Dyana Koelsch as the I-Team. Talk about knowing historical points of reference, Lake alone can remember Noah's Ark, never mind the Hurricane of '54. This adds the kind of substance to reports and interviews that King, DeLuca and Harbaugh could not possibly be expected to previously know or learn on the job.

Phillipe and Jorge did get a kick out of the last paragraph in Seavor's article on Channel 6:

"[Harbaugh] is part of the team that works on the `You Paid for It' series. Starting tomorrow and continuing for the next four Fridays, he'll be visiting different locations in the area and viewers will have to guess where he is."

Neat! So will Harbaugh.

What are you lookin' at?

A wonderful juxtaposition of front page photos and headlines in the Other Paper's April 28 edition. Under the head, "A lack of confidence," there was a picture of two Providence cops just above a subhead of "Police vote shows distrust and suspicion." When one examined the caption, it explained that neither of the two officers would give their names (just as a group of cops refused to do for an accompanying photo on the jump page). Nice to see that La Prov's finest appear to be experts when it comes to distrust and suspicion, and show a stunning lack of confidence themselves. Love that faith in the public. Or could it be that the pictured men in blue should have technically been on their beats at the time, instead of voting to oust their chief? Just asking.

Drug news

A tip of the sombrero to Robert Ellis Smith, publisher of Privacy Journal and a voracious reader of a wide variety of periodicals, newsletters and in-house industry publications. From the April edition of the Drugs in the Workplace newsletter, Bob passes along this news flash: "Darryl Strawberry, who has been in recovery from cocaine and alcohol addiction for over four years, has agreed to serve as the national spokesperson for the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD). Strawberry will appear at NCADD functions around the country, as his schedule permits."

It would appear that the Straw's schedule is wide open around now.

On a more positive note, AIDS Project R.I. (APRI) is reaching out to gay men to help them defend against hepatitis A. Sexually active gay men are one of the groups considered to be at highest risk for contracting the infection, so APRI is holding clinics at Gay Bingo, the Walk for Life and the Gay Pride Parade this year. The vaccine being offered, Havrix, is absolutely free. The next Gay Bingo (a fab night for everyone, even straights) is tonight (May 6) at the Riviera Bingo Hall on Elmwood Avenue in Cranston. The Walk and Gay Pride Parade are both in June. Stay tuned to this Cool, Cool World for more info.

The two tiers of economic justice

The Senate Finance Committee is looking at a bill this week that would provide tax breaks, in the form of an earned income tax credit, to those earning $15,000 a year or less. House Finance took up a similar piece of legislation last week. What's interesting is how government works on a two-tiered class level. When Terry Murray and his high-rolling buddies wanted legislation introduced to slash taxes for the over-$200,000-a-year crowd, they didn't bring it in front of legislative committees for scrutiny, but discussed it in closed-door backroom sessions.

Faced with the sanguine theory that tax breaks for the wealthy will create lots more job opportunities and thus enhance the business climate here in the Biggest Little, one has to take such rich guy bleatings with a grain of salt. How many jobs has Mr. Murray created, compared with the jobs he's cut, thanks to his bank merger? And, what ever happened to the jobs for women on welfare that the big shots at APC promised as part of the tax break on stock options deal they bullied through the General Assembly a few years ago? APC's response is that the phantom jobs program was "not a legal obligation." (The concept of "moral obligation" is, of course, non-existent in the corporate world.)

For instance, what, pray tell, have those bellowing for a tax break for the wealthy done in terms of raising the minimum wage so that people might be able to live on their salaries? P&J say that to give the high rollers a tax break, we want to see a solid quid pro quo. In other words, show us the concrete evidence that everyone will profit (i.e. real job numbers, a living wage) and we might be receptive. So far, the record indicates that the backroom crowd who want tax breaks are the same people responsible for cutting jobs, reneging on promises, and arguing against raising the minimum wage.

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