Stars and Stripes forever

The White House is busily arranging for form letters to be mailed by soldiers in Iraq to their hometown papers, extolling the luxurious lifestyle offered in Baghdad and the enormous gains that the US has made in turning the country into a virtual Disneyworld. Meanwhile, that disreputable, left-wing rag supported by the scheming commies at Rummy Rumsfeld’s Pentagon had a bit different take, according to an October 16 article in the Washington Post:

"A broad survey of US troops in Iraq by a Pentagon-funded newspaper found that half of those questioned described their unit’s morale as low and their training as insufficient, and said they do not plan to reenlist . . . The survey, conducted by the Stars and Stripes newspaper, also recorded about a third of the respondents complaining that their mission lacks clear definition and characterizing the war in Iraq as of little or no value. Fully 40 percent said the jobs they were doing had little or nothing to do with their training . . . The findings, drawn from 1935 questionnaires presented to US service members throughout Iraq, conflict with statements by military commanders and Bush administration officials that portray the deployed troops as high-spirited and generally well-prepared . . . In the first of a week-long series of articles, Stars and Stripes said yesterday that it undertook the survey in August after receiving scores of letters from troops who were upset with one aspect or another of the Iraq operation."

It’s no wonder that Dubya and the Bushies don’t trust the liberal media. There’s obviously a great left-wing conspiracy afoot. We hear they are even mentioning how soldiers are getting killed daily in Iraq. Imagine!

Bring ’em home.

FISCAL FITNESS FOR FELONS

P&J hear rumors that two components of Governor Don "The Don" Carcieri’s secret "Fiscal Fitness" task force involve trimming the eating habits at the Adult Correctional Institutions.

One proposal that would supposedly save thousands is removing the pickle that now comes on inmates’ hamburgers. There goes the idea of having it your way, eh, you hungry cons? Maybe the ACLU can restore it by claiming the pickle is a nutritional vegetable. (Remember when the Reaganites tried to insist ketchup was a vegetable for the purpose of kids’ school lunches? Go get ’em, Steve Brown.)

The other idea bandied about — and quite a continental one at that for our elegant ACI friends — would be to stop serving both breakfast and lunch on Sundays, substituting just a single-serve brunch. Hey Vito, pass the eggs Benedict. You better save me the Sunday Times crossword too, or I’ll whip your mofo ass! And how about another mimosa, dawg?

FOX IN THE HENHOUSE

Your superior correspondents may not be fully up to speed on the machinations of the Vo Dilun Ethics Commission, or the legalisms that determine whether an individual is in violation of its regulations. We usually rely on what is known far and wide as "the laugh test." It provides what P&J consider a very reliable barometer, since it relies on those pesky things called "the facts."

House Majority Leader Gordon Fox has conspicuously failed the laugh test exam, trying to say that the legal work he did for lottery giant GTECH, for the Providence law firm with which is associated — while voting on an exclusive 20-year lottery deal for GTECH — was not a conflict of interest. (Fox has denied to the Other Paper that he did any work for the lottery-maker prior to his House vote, but a GTECH spokesman says the billing of work by Ferrucci Russo and Fox began before the vote.)

I guess we’re simply to ignore the fact that GTECH hired Ferrucci Russo in connection with the multi-million dollar deal with the state — legislation for which Fox not only voted, but seconded, to be simply a little Vo Dilun co-winky-dink. (Give us time to wipe the tears of laughter from our eyes and stop bending over double after that one.)

Fox is now the subject of two separate conflict-of-interest complaints before the Ethics Commission, one brought by state GOP head ramrod Patricia Morgan, the other by Operation Clean Government. P&J’s old friend, the lovely lawyer Sara Quinn, who drafted OCG’s complaint and is the former commissioner of the state conflict-of-interest commission, has even suggested that the House investigate whether Fox’s alleged conflict might warrant the forfeiture of his seat. We wonder who’s laughing now?

Don’t you just love a good joke?

CLASS ACTS

George Steinbrenner, principal owner of the New York Yankees has never been known as a particularly gracious gentleman. He is the epitome of the petty tyrant. When not making an illegal contribution to Richard Nixon (okay, that was years ago, but we haven’t forgotten) or appearing in television commercials, he can usually be found verbally abusing his players or managerial staff.

And those recent television commercials with Derek Jeter are truly things of wonder. While they parody Steinbrenner’s well-known image of being a prick, the real purpose is making Georgie look like a swell guy for going along with the joke. Ultimately, though, the commercials are just another form of self-aggrandizement.

As the Red Sox left New York at the end of a thrilling, frustrating, and ultimately highly painful (for Sox fans) American League Championship series, Steinbrenner said, "Go back to Boston, boys. Goodbye. They didn’t treat us very well in Boston, but you know we get the last laugh." Good thing that there are class acts like Jeter, manager Joe Torre, and (yes) Roger Clemens on the Yanks, because their maximum petulant leader’s spoiled brat demeanor is enough to make anyone not residing in the borough of the Bronx hate the team.

Meanwhile, back in the Biggest Little, sombreros off to our own Mr. Gracious, John "The Journalist" DePetro. Told that rival talk station WPRO-AM was planning to bring in Joan Rivers, on an exclusive basis to fill in for rehab-bound Rush Limbaugh, the WHJJ host cracked, "wasn’t Phyllis Diller available" and wondered aloud whether Nipsey Russell would also appear on ’PRO’s air. DePetro also noted that Rivers used to fill in for Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, implying that this marked quite a comedown.

Apparently, no one has shared with John the old maxim, "You meet the same people on the way down that you do on the way up." Having heard DePetro suck up to plenty of less than A-list celebrities on his show, we must say that his mean-spiritedness in the course of trying to be funny is a telling sign. Like virtually everyone else in show biz, his ratings will someday decline, leaving him open to the same sort of, "Gee, what an over-the-hill bust-out" type of comments. You’d think he’d know better.

MANY RIVERS TO CROSS

In a related note, it looks like PRO’s attempt to juice its ratings with three hours a day of Rivers fell through after Premiere Radio Networks, the outfit that handles Limbaugh’s syndication deal, put the hammer to the deal, claiming that its arrangement with the station precludes it. For area listeners, this may not be such a bad thing since, judging from Rivers’s first show on Monday, her knowledge of the Biggest Little appears severely limited. No, the Pilgrims did not land here (Plymouth Rock’s a bit to the north) and the Bud-I, to our knowledge, never put anyone in the trunk of a car — though you might want to check with Sheila Martines on that one.

While we’re sure that Rivers would have provided a spike in PRO’s ratings, P&J still prefer a more local orientation of talking talkers. Therefore, much as we occasionally score DePetro, at least he’s a Vo Dilanduh and knows the lay of the land around here.

VIVA, MEG CURRAN

A well-deserved testimonial dinner last Friday evening, October 17, at the Providence Marriott for the departing US attorney, Meg Curran. The event was thick with law enforcement notables and they gave Ms. Curran a proper send-off. Meg herself spoke at the end, hinting broadly that she would most-likely take on one of the positions being offered to her in the Cicilline administration (yes, Little Chi Chi was there, making some brief and thoughtful comments). Whatever Meg decides to do, we should all be grateful for her exemplary public service.

FREE STATE PROJECT

What are we to make of the purported movement, started with an online article by Yale graduate student Jason Soren, to flood the state of New Hampshire with libertarians? The free thinkers would presumably then seize control of the government. According to an October 17 article in the Christian Science Monitor, more than 4800 people have already signed up to move to the "Live Free or Die" state, although, at present, only a handful have actually made the move.

New Hampshire already boasts a low-tax and low state service type of government, with an emphasis on city and town affairs. The idea is to encourage a core of activists to move into New Hampshire and then concentrate on running for school committee, town council, and other local positions, and eventually, gain sway in state politics. While this is certainly a more ambitious attempt than, say, the efforts of the Cool Moose Party, we have our doubts that old-line Granite State types can be convinced to (for instance) roll back gun laws and legalize drugs.

Just the same, P&J have posted lookouts on the state’s borders to keep an eye out for former Providence Eagle publisher, Vin Suprynowicz, now a libertarian activist based in Las Vegas.

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