Crystal ball

For a guy who predated by generations our current society, you can usually count on legendary newspaper columnist H.L. Mencken to get it right. We refer to a quote sent along by our pal Charles McDuffie:

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

Right on the money, H.L. Sleep tight in those red states, boys and girls.

ONE FOR MY BABY, AND ONE FOR THE ROAD

Phillipe & Jorge, long-time beer lovers, were pleased to see how Russia’s Parliament wised up last week when lawmakers defeated a proposed law that would have stopped people from drinking beer in public places.

Your superior correspondents have followed the recent New York Times stories describing the Russian view of beer as no more than a counterpart to soda, and something omnipresent in the hands of its youth and adults. There is no age limit for drinking in Russia, and it is common to see people downing the amber fluid as they walk along the street. Suds are also catching up with vodka as the Ruskies’ favorite alcohol.

And no wonder, since as the Times reported last week, it is common to see people drinking beer in the morning on their way to work, in the subway, at the movies, and in frigid outdoor parks. To P&J, the new law was going way too far in demanding that citizens stop chug-a-lugging in places like schools, day care centers, and hospitals. Hey, if you can’t have a few brewskis with your kid in the child care, or allow students, doctors, and nurses to ease the stress of exam-taking and brain surgery, what are you supposed to do?

The Russian lawmakers have displayed their wisdom. As we all know, they would certainly never drink injudiciously — would they, Mr. Yeltsin?

GUILT BY ASSOCIATION

As one wag said during the famous local trial of Claus von Bulow, who was accused of murdering his heiress wife, Sunny, "They are all guilty." This was due to the improbable scenarios put forward as evidence as well as the, pardon the expression, overkill of coverage by the media.

Well, that circus couldn’t touch the recent courtroom "drama" of the Scott Peterson murder case, in which he was found guilty of the respective first- and second-degree slayings of his wife and unborn infant. The media were just as guilty as the punk Peterson. They beat people — the American public — to death. No one was more in contempt of court than the TV networks that spent time during every one of their newscasts bringing us some little sordid piece of news or inane analysis every night for months.

A vast wasteland, indeed. Sleep tight, Newton Minow.

HOW CAN WE MISS YOU . . .

. . . if you won’t go away?

This is P&J’s attitude toward the overwrought retirement of NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw, now being lionized by every print, radio, and TV drama queen with the slightest of forums. Your superior correspondents think it is due time for Brokaw to go. He is the first of the "Big Three" of network anchors, along with CBS’ Dan Rather and Peter Jennings of ABC, who have yet to be dragged, kicking and screaming, from their seats and sent not so gently into that good night.

Brokaw and his pals represented the worst kind of journalism, where they presume to be the main attraction, rather than stories of substance. They even adopted new titles for what they really should be called — "newsreaders" — as they are aptly described in England. But Tom, Dan, and Peter have all co-opted terms from real newspaper journalism shops by anointing themselves as "managing editor" (Brokaw’s soi-disant handle) or the like, when, in fact, they are just talking hairdos in consultant-selected suits.

Brokaw’s faux posturing reached its shameless nadir when he began promoting his book, The Greatest Generation, on the air. This was a disgraceful bit of hucksterism masquerading as news, indicating that Tom knows absolutely no shame.

Under the preening egotism of Brokaw, Rather, and Jennings, TV news has taken a dizzying fall as far as content goes, and their recent lapdog coverage of the Bush administration is abhorrent. Brokaw will now be replaced by an even shallower version of himself in the person of Brian Williams, while Rather continues to chain himself to his anchor desk while dressed in Mideast mufti, and Jennings carps about the other anchors, no doubt miffed because he missed his last Botox injection.

We can thank these three bigheads for opening the door to Fox News. That whirring sound you hear is Edward R. Murrow and Chet Huntley spinning like industrial lathes in their beds.

NANCY GEWIRTZ

Flags are at half-staff this week at Casa Diablo as we mourn the passing of Nancy Gewirtz, the feisty, sharp-minded (and sharp-tongued) advocate for social and economic justice, who passed away Sunday after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. As co-founder, along with Linda Katz, of the Poverty Institute at Rhode Island College’s College of Social Work, Gewirtz left a deep imprint on a couple of generations of students.

We will miss her op-ed pieces in the BeloJo, where her impressive command and knowledge of budget figures underscored how a systemic bending over for corporate interests continue to screw the poor and working poor. This, she would argue, was a far greater cause of inequity than profligate government spending. She helped to ensure state-sponsored job-training and child care elements, as part of a committee selected by former governor Linc Almond to craft welfare-to-work policies in the state. Many consider the Biggest Little’s welfare overhaul program one of the most successful and progressive in the country.

At this point, P&J assume that Nancy Gewirtz would tap her pencil with impatience at this little paean, and suggest that we get to work and organize. To steal a slogan from our old friend R.M. Nixon, "Now more than ever," people are needed to push for equality and justice. Thank you, Nancy Gewirtz, and let’s get going.

WALKING THE WALK

We know that many of our regular readers heartily agreed with the thoughts expressed by P&J’s good friend, Phil Edmonds, in the November 12 column. He wrote about toning down our acquisitive, consumerist ways as a means of living a more reasonable and sustainable life in harmony with the earth and each other.

For those who found wisdom in Phil’s words, we want you to know that the annual Buy Nothing Day Coat Exchange is on tap for Friday, November 26 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the State House lawn, across from that great bastion of consumerism, the Providence Place Mall. (The rain location is just around the corner, a few blocks away at St. Patrick’s Parish, 244 Smith St.)

If you need a winter coat, come get one, and if you have a coat to donate, please drop it off. Adbusters conceived the idea for Buy Nothing Day as a jab at the traditional biggest shopping day of the year — the day after Thanksgiving. Dozens of local, grassroots organizations are involved. If you’d like to help or garner more information, contact Greg Gerritt at (401) 331-0529, or gerritt@mindspring.com, or Phil Edmonds at (401) 273-4650, or pppphilwhistle@juno.com. Considering the ever-growing amount of people facing hard times (and an especially hard winter this year), it’s an important initiative. It’s also good for your soul.

WACKY WAR WEB

Those evil geniuses at the Pentagon are enthusiastically backing a concept intended to give their grunts and field marshals an alternative Internet-based "God’s eye" view of battlefields near and far. The New York Times had the details on Sunday, November 14. Whether this concept will ever work or justify the multi-billon dollar cost is another question. We’re reminded of Ronnie Raygun’s "Star Wars" concept, conceived as anti-missile shield, and embraced by some of Dubya’s neo-conservative brethren. But after the White House hoodwinked the American press and public into the need for an unnecessary war in Iraq, anything seems possible, never mind how insurgents armed with donkey carts and rocket-propelled grenades seem to be holding their own in parts of Iraq.

SHORT CUTS

• It’s a good thing that the Constitution provides for Senate confirmation of Supreme Court nominees. At least this way, whomever Bush nominates will be obligated to walk up the Capitol steps on his or her hind legs to get to the hearings, answering the first of about 100 concerns.

• Club Mambo, you got some ’splainin’ to do.

• Nice to see that state Representative John McCauley (D-Providence) has defected from the Murphy camp to the DeSimone camp. Apparently, the DeSimone folks are committed to getting every member of the House who sounds like someone in a Queens junior college production of Guys and Dolls in the fold.

• Word at Casa Diablo is that the box under Bush’s suit jacket in the first debate actually carried the flawed software used for touch screen voting machines in Ohio. Dubya just felt a lot more secure knowing that proof that the election was in the bag was nearby.

• Are P&J imagining things or has there been an unprecedented explosion in recent weeks of spam e-mails offering "Rolex" watches? Our guess: all the infamous 42nd Street hustlers, rousted out of the area in the ’90s are now operating out of some underground Internet boiler room.

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