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Give everyone a chance


While recently ambling around the Biggest Little with black cloths on our heads, your superior correspondents met six — yes, six — people who have not had an opportunity to tell the BeloJo or one of the local television stations how they felt about the passing of the Pope. You would think that the wall-to-wall brain-dead coverage managed to get to everyone in the state, but we found six humans who didn’t talk to any reporters about the Pope. Let’s try to get everybody next time, folks.

Speaking of Mr. Pope and the attendant incense-waving, miter-wearing, gold brocaded robes extravaganza that his funeral has become, Phillipe & Jorge do have a few musings. Although ardent churchgoers in our youth, P&J have drifted toward a theology that features a combination of voodoo and Jiminy Cricket, arming ourselves with gris-gris bags and Mississippi mud dolls from Reverend Zombie and Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo in New Orleans, while wishing upon stars when in dire need of a miracle. Not to mention our fallback to the Church of the Sub-Genius when we seek a short duration personal savior.

P&J once spent a few days on the vagabond trail in London in the 1970s with a young Polish man we befriended. A Catholic, he described how Poland’s Communist rulers discriminated so heavily against people of his faith in those days. That alone was enough to make Karol Wojtyla’s ascension to the Vatican’s highchair incredibly uplifting for his countrymen.

From the ethereal to the practical: you are sadly mistaken if you don’t think the conclave of cardinals is going to be the religious equivalent of a WWE-Texas steel cage death match. To use another sports analogy, the cardinals will be going into the corner with their sticks and elbows up at every turn, trying to garner votes while at the same time pretending they are looking for divine inspiration. One thing P&J find laughable — however politically correct it is for the mass media to mention it — is the notion that Francis Cardinal Arinze of Nigeria might be in there with a shout to become Pope John Paul II’s successor. If you think the idea of a black pope is going to fly in Italy or Ireland, which have significant Catholic populations (never mind our wonderfully non-racist country), have another 10 Chiantis or Guinnesses. Sorry, but Mr. Arinze shouldn’t be looking to purchase any red slippers in the foreseeable future.

Literary note: at this important time in the Catholic Church’s transition, we recommend you pick up a copy of Kingsley Amis’s wonderful book, The Alteration. It is based on the premise that Martin Luther became Pope and the Spanish Inquisition succeeded. The result is a world lacking electricity, with foppish and fey church high officials skipping around in their vestments, enjoying the good life and young boys (well, he got that right). Castrati, the young boys with excellent soprano voices who were relieved of their nuggets, to prevent their voices from breaking upon reaching puberty, still exist — hence the book’s title. It’s a wonderful take on history, society, and religion, in a style P&J couldn’t enjoy more.

Snip, snip, darlings!

MATT BROWN AND THE CHI CHI FACTOR

Now that Jim Langevin and Patrick Kennedy, the two early favorites to run against Linc Chafee, have weighed in and declined, the rest of the Democratic Party’s field is starting to settle down. It’s Matt Brown and Sheldon Whitehouse — and one would assume, nobody else. It’s a good thing for Sheldon that he announced promptly, because of what P&J like to call "the Little Chi Chi factor."

The Democratic primary to replace the Bud-I as mayor was wrapped up early. Perhaps the biggest factor was how David Cicilline announced early, way before anyone else. Many others hesitated, waiting to see if the Bud-I got convicted. This proved deadly for all of them, in particular, the biggest gun in the race, former mayor and ambassador Joe Paolino. (Disclosure: Jorge worked in that campaign for Paolino.)

The way in which David announced well ahead of the others (not to mention how he ran an excellent campaign) made him an early frontrunner, and he only built momentum from there. Your superior correspondents believe that Secretary of State Matt Brown understood the importance of David’s early entry and consequently made a similar move. This may the best thing that Brown has going for him.

Make no mistake. Matt Brown is a viable and attractive candidate. Although the party establishment, by and large, will line up behind Sheldon, with party big shots telling Brown to go away or dissing him in other ways, this will not necessarily work. In fact, it could backfire. That said, the older, more experienced East Side white man in this race is ultimately the better candidate. Compared to the experience, knowledge, and abilities of our man, Master Whitebread, Brown is "Sheldon-lite."

SENATE, PT. 2:LINC VS. SHELDON

This is painful. P&J are big fans of both of these guys. If it comes down to these two, either way, Vo Dilun will have a great US senator. The question is, is it better to have a member of the Republican party in there, a man who has a little bit of juice with the executive branch (and let’s face it, Linc has just a little bit of juice with Dubya), or is it better to strengthen the Democrat presence? It’s a complex world.

And what about "Laugh at Me" Laffey? He’s too smart to challenge Chafee (not to mention too arrogant and mean-spirited to ever win). His ultra-right wing stances won’t fly in the Biggest Little, nor will his scorched earth mindset. Frankly, he hasn’t the cojones to challenge the Lincster. (Your superior correspondents disaffiliate after voting, just in case some right-winger tries to challenge Linc in a primary.)

P&J look forward to following the campaign and the candidates’ arguments about why we should elect then. We’ll be secure, at least, in the knowledge that there is no down side. America as a whole should be so lucky.

DELAY-ED COVERAGE

The Rhode Island’s Future blog brings up an interesting point, saying that the Urinal has refused to adequately go after the weasel-like US Representative Tom "Cockroach Boy" DeLay, due, perhaps, to how its parent Belo Corporation has been a past contributor to the unspeakable DeLay’s campaigns. We aren’t sure this is on the mark, but will keep an eye out in the future.

What was reprehensible was Cockroach Boy’s attack on judges after the Terri Schiavo debacle, in which DeLay played a leading role in embarrassing himself. He said:

"Mrs. Schiavo’s death is a moral poverty and a legal tragedy. This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today."

P&J could agree with that last bit about accountability, but we would apply it to Dubya, "Big Time" Cheney, Rummy, Condi, Wolfie, and the rest of the lying chicken hawk war and torture enthusiasts. They have not been called to task by Boy George, but in some cases given Medals of Freedom, like former CIA chief George Tenet, in a scene right out of Catch-22. When will the time come for those folks, Cockroach Boy, and would you like them dealt with in the same implicitly violent way?

Tom DeLay. He makes some people want to shower every time he speaks.

HEADLINE HERE

Holy flagrant editorial error, Batman!

Kudos to the Urinal for giving wonderful photographic coverage to Mr. Pope on Sunday, April 3. We especially liked the very solemn picture of the Pope on the front of the Sunday Extra page, which showed him dressed in white and bathed in light, with his hands pressed to his face. The background was dark, with only the blurred image of a Swiss Guard visible. The shot took up almost the entire page. Unfortunately, an editor — no doubt overwhelmed by the artwork — forgot to put in the copy below the photo in P&J’s edition, leaving four boxes that had identical copy:

HEADLINE HERE AND

HERE HEADLINE

Context graph goes here and

hh goes here and here and he

goes here and here and here

Page FX

While something a bit more cogent and relevant was inserted midway through the paper’s run, the early edition was a wonderfully cryptic send-off for a great leader.

EASY ED’S BROAD BRUSH

It would be nice if Easy (On the Brain) Ed Achorn, the Urinal’s deputy editorial page editor, refrained from attempting to belittle people he knows nothing about. In his March 29 column ("Of merit and magistrates"), Achorn takes on the magistrate system in Vo Dilun courts. There is certainly much to criticize in a system designed to avoid the state’s judicial vetting process. But, as usual, Easy Ed cannot restrain himself from going too far, implying that Traffic Tribunal Magistrate William Noonan received his job based on "family" or "political" connections, further insinuating that he might not be able to "stand the test of a merit election process."

What is Achorn’s evidence? Simply that Bill Noonan is "a prominent Democrat and [was a] mayoral aide in Pawtucket during John Harwood’s heyday." Noonan served ably as public safety commissioner in Pawtucket under Mayor Robert Metivier. And, yes, Bill Noonan is a good friend and Casa Diablo regular. Where does Harwood fit in? Was Pucky secretly running the entire municipal apparatus of Pawtucket in the ’90s? This would be a big surprise to Mayor Metivier.

Eddie, please explain this to us. Whoops, I guess you can’t, because there is nothing to this attempted guilt-by-association tactic. What is the connection between Harwood and Noonan, other than how both are identified with the Democratic Party, both are from the Pawtucket, and (perhaps) both are of Irish heritage? Please show us a photograph or something.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

You can always count on Vo Dilun’s Little Big Man, Senator Jack Reed, to get the right take on an issue. This has been particularly true in this West Point grad and former Army Ranger’s assessments of the war in Iraq. Visiting that country recently, Jack opined: "The solution isn’t just to reduce the supply of explosives that angry people can use against us. We also have to reduce the supply of angry people."

Any chance of Dubya, Big Time, or Rummy getting that in an e-mail, Senator Reed?

Send rockin’ robins and Pulitzer-grade tips to p&j[a]phx.com.

The Phillipe & Jorge archives.
Issue Date: April 8 - 14, 2005
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