Yikes, Jim!

Jan Reitsma goes back a long way with Phillipe and Jorge, and we’ve always considered him a good friend and very accomplished environmental professional. But the now-former director of the state Department of Environmental Management was definitely hit with a massive head cramp when he fired off his notorious e-mail to Ralph Boragine, another highly respected enviro who is vice chairman of the Rhode Island Marine Fisheries Council. Reitsma chairs the council, and the correspondence was instigated by a difference between Reitsma and Boragine over ground-fishing regulations.

Given the contents of the e-mail, Governor Don "The Don" Carcieri was left with no option other than to fire Jan. While the Other Paper seemed to initially treat the e-mail with kid gloves, and sought out Jan’s allies for words of support, it just doesn’t do to call a colleague a "fuck-up," say that his comments make you want to "puke," or to suggest he’s a "whining baby" and needs mental health counseling. Other than that, what do you really think of him? In part, Reitsma’s e-mail reads: "This response makes me puke. Get off the ------- Council if you cannot control yourself. I will not stand for your outrageous and insulting behavior any longer."

Reitsma is not Dale Carnegie, and he’s more than capable of blowing up good when provoked, but for God’s sake, don’t put it down on paper with your name on it. That’s Machiavelli’s Rule No. 1. Or is it the Bush administration’s Rule No. 1? These things have a remarkable propensity to bite you in the butt, as we are sure Boragine was aware. Not that we would accuse him of leaking the confidential note to the media, so the inflammatory accusations could be quoted on, say, Channel 10’s evening news, which actually ran the "F" word with discreetly placed dashes in place of the "UC" combo preceding the "K."

Hopefully, Jan will hook on somewhere else in the state where he can make more contributions to environmental protection and planning, as he did at DEM. But a word of advice to our old pal — one cup of coffee, not 12, in the morning, and keep your finger away from that "Send" button.

JIMMY, JAY, AND JOE

Your superior correspondents were saddened last week to learn of the sudden death of Jimmy Doorley. Just 59, Jimmy had run in Jamestown’s Jack-O-Lantern Jog two days before being discovered in his home by a close friend, and he was presumably the victim of a heart attack. A teacher and counselor for 30-plus years in the Providence schools, this brother of former Providence mayor Joe Doorley was a well-known figure on the island.

Fittingly enough for a sweetheart of a guy and sports fan extraordinaire (during the service, his sister joked that since he died on a Monday, no one knew who won the football pool he ran), his memorial service at St. Mark’s Church in Jamestown was SRO, with friends and acquaintances from all around Little Rhody. Jimmy was always willing to help any and all in times of need. Kudos to Chuck and Tricia Masso, and Jimmy Grogan for their wonderful touch of draping with black bunting and laurels his favorite barstools under the TV at Chopmist Charlie’s and Tricia’s Tropi Grille, keeping the spot reserved for Jimmy all week. A very good man gone, and he will be sorely missed.

Another fallen comrade is Joe Castro, the longtime Brown University sports trainer, who succumbed after a long battle with cancer. Joe became a surrogate big brother and parent to hundreds of Brown athletes during his career, and Phillipe gratefully received his guidance more than once while sitting in the trainer’s room. Ever loyal and faithful to Brown students and the school, Joe will also be missed by many.

Finally, while on the subject of Brown sports, and in a bit brighter vein, the university announced its 125th anniversary football team prior to the Penn game. While P&J have watched many of the 50 selected Bruins play over the years, we’re sorry that one man we know and love didn’t make the final cut: Jay Fidler, ’43, an All-America tackle while at Brown, who was on the final ballot. But Big Jay will always be Number One on P&J’s scorecard and in our hearts, and we know that many of his fans feel the same way.

HIJACKED, BIG TIME

While the liars that abound in Dubya’s White House of Horrors continue to compliantly lead the American media around by the nose, the international press isn’t afraid to point out that the emperor has no flight suit. How come we don’t read domestic stories like this recent piece by Ritt Goldstein from the Sydney Morning Herald, published with the headline, "Cheney’s Hawks ‘Hijacking Policy’ ":

A former Pentagon officer turned whistleblower says a group of hawks in the Bush Administration, including the vice-president, Dick Cheney, is running a shadow foreign policy, contravening Washington’s official line.

"What these people are doing now makes Iran-Contra [a Reagan administration national security scandal] look like amateur hour . . . it’s worse than Iran-Contra, worse than what happened in Vietnam," said Karen Kwiatkowski, a former air force lieutenant-colonel.

"[President] George Bush isn’t in control . . . the country’s been hijacked," she said, describing how ‘key [governmental] areas of neo-conservative concern were politically staffed.’

Ms. Kwiatkowski, who retired this year after 20 years service, was a Middle East specialist in the office of the undersecretary of defense for policy, headed by Douglas Feith . . . In a separate interview, Chalmers Johnson, an authority on US policy, said that the administration’s neo-conservatives had in effect seized power from Mr. Bush."

They say that things are upside-down in Australia. But if any country’s citizens are topsy-turvy as they’re fed their morning bowl of B.S. (Bush shit), it’s here in the US, where the media are frightened to be called traitors for reporting the truth.

Go take your nap, Georgie Boy. Big Time’s in charge now.

A FEW WORDS FROM PATRICK

Your superior correspondents have often poked fun at US Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, but we’ve also found him, time and time again, to be a strong and forceful voice for issues of importance to Vo Dilanduhs. Again, this is one of those times. Therefore, we give Representative Kennedy the floor to make some cogent and, we think, important points (from a recent statement):

Picture this. You’re at home, maybe playing with your kids, grilling some burgers and hot dogs for dinner, maybe even somberly watching the highlights of the recent Sox season. Your doorbell rings, and when you answer, it’s a deliveryman handing you a letter saying that you’ve just won the raffle you recently entered. Your winnings? A brand new car, fully loaded, painted to whatever color and scheme you want. It’ll be delivered to your house next week, and not only that, the raffle organizers say they’ll even pay for the insurance costs associated with your new vehicle and build a new garage to accommodate your new ride. Sounds fantastic, right? You’ve had concerns about your old car for a while and now here’s your chance to put those concerns to rest. What could go wrong?

The next week, the raffle committee pulls up in a flatbed truck and lowers your new car into your driveway. The problem? It’s got no wheels or axles. "What gives?" you ask, seeing your car resting on the frame in your driveway. "Well," the raffle organizers say, "we know we promised you the car and here it is, we just didn’t have enough cash to pay for all of it. But you can’t argue that you didn’t get a new vehicle?"

Ask yourself: Who would embrace such ridiculous logic? Who would stand for something so absurd, so devoid of any common sense? Well, here’s the answer. The Bush administration is asking you to accept this logic in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that was going to radically change the face of public education in this country.

The new car equivalent I’m talking about is the massive under-funding of the NCLB. When I voted in favor of this bill, I did so because it provided accountability so parents could know how well their children were learning. The bill I voted for provided programs that would ensure that teachers had access to professional development programs that would make them better teachers. It provided school improvement grants, which would help schools with the technical assistance they needed to provide their students a quality education. In other words, parents, teachers, and administrators embraced this law as a positive step forward.

But like the shiny car now squatting in your driveway, President Bush has baffled everyone by inexplicably refusing to allocate the amount of money that he asked for in his very own law. That has made NCLB, a good law and one I was proud to vote for, an albatross around the neck of many school administrators, teachers, and students in this nation.

States across America are being asked to create completely new assessment systems, track every student’s test scores, enrollment status, and graduation records, require teachers to attain certain quality levels, and raise school standards without giving them any new money to do it.

So just as you could enjoy your new car sitting on blocks in your driveway, so too can you enjoy watching the school districts that your children attend struggle to meet the mandates handed down from the White House without any additional money to do so. As a member of the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee, which controls spending for the NCLB, I’ve worked consistently to urge Congress to provide the funding that states need for this law’s implementation. I will continue to fight this fight, one that unfortunately wont go away until every school and every NCLB program gets the funding it deserves. When it comes to quality education of the future generations of this country, the laws we pass should not be too good to be true.

We think that the representative makes a lot of sense here. What do you say?

NOT ALL GOOD NEWS

Sure was a positive and upbeat assessment in the Arts section of Sunday’s BeloJo about how well small movie theaters around the state are doing these days. We are as pleased as anyone to see the positive changes going on at lovely independents like the Stadium in Woonsocket, the soon-to-be-back-in-business (we hope) Park in Cranston, and the Columbus on Providence’s Broadway. Yes, things are looking up, but the package of articles on the independent film theater scene seemed to neglect how the Castle, the venerable neighborhood movie palace in Our Little Towne’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood, is up for sale.

Apparently, the ambitious move to present live theater, food, and drink at the Castle hasn’t caught on and the business is on the block (we hear for an asking price of around $900,000). Although the inclusion of these details in such a celebratory piece might have put a damper on things, we certainly hope that whomever purchases the Castle will choose to remain in the neighborhood movie business.

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