The Agenda

NARRAGANSETT -- U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse heard some dire predictions about climate change and sea level rise this morning during a special "field briefing" of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate...

PROVIDENCE -- A Superior Court judge is scheduled this afternoon to hear Council 94's request to stop Governor Carcieri from implementing health-care cost increases on unionized state employees. Judge Patricia Hurst will hold a status conference in her chambers on...

PROVIDENCE -- A bird flu virus strain has been found in four mute swans collected from the Seekonk River -- near the Swan Point Cemetery -- as part of routine state Department of Environmental Management surveillance. While the DEM says...

Governor Carcieri today appointed Kenneth R. Walker, who's served 28 years on the Parole Board, to be the board's chairman, effective a week from tomorrow. Walker replaces Lisa S. Holley. Walker is a retired secondary education professor at Rhode Island...

An East Providence man remains in critical condition at Rhode Island Hospital today after the police said he fell yesterday from a Hazard Avenue roof where he was working. Lt. Stephen Enos last night said the call came in at...

A Warwick woman who lost control of her motorcycle yesterday while trying to merge into Route 295's north lanes from westbound Route 37 has been treated and released from Rhode Island Hospital, a spokeswoman said this morning. Patricia Reall, 65,...

Noah Merrill, former director of the Providence chapter of the American Friends Service Committee, has co-founded the organization Direct Aid to Iraq. He explains its underpinnings in detail over here.

Key paragraph:

4. We can do better

Americans who are opposed to this war are narrowly focused on the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, but we can do better. The US peace movement – itself narrowly focused on the withdrawal of troops – has a crucial role to play in expanding this vision. We must make it clear that Americans have a responsibility to be part of building a movement for a future of peace in Iraq, a movement that acts in partnership with Iraqis, and with Iraqis in the lead.

I couldn’t agree more that it’s still very important for those of us who want withdrawal to make it clear that we don’t want to forsake Iraqis. Since day one of the conflict, a significant subset of people who are kind-hearted, and were originally against the invasion have conflated withdrawal with abandonment — something much of the media has seized onto, to marginalize anti-war organizers by framing them as naive and/or cold-hearted.  We need to make it clear that we believe it to be our moral obligation to work with Iraqis to rebuild their country, on their terms.

A video of one of the Iraqi children, maimed by the American bombs, whom DAI has been able to help:

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BOSTON -- Efforts to ban artery-clogging trans fats from restaurants statewide are gaining momentum. State Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach said on Wednesday he agrees with a lawmaker who wants to impose a statewide ban on trans fats, which have...

 

Twenty-two Providence Journal employees -- 12 in news and 10 in advertising -- have taken the company up on its latest buyout, leaving unanswered for now the question of whether the newspaper will resort to layoffs to reach its target of eliminating at least 35 jobs.

As reported here yesterday, two of the big names who are leaving early next month are political reporter Scott MacKay, a 24-year veteran, and the versatile Mark Arsenault, a 10-year scribe. Since Arsenault has covered politics at times, these departures, coupled with that of political columnist M. Charles Bakst, represent a serious loss for the ProJo's traditionally strong political coverage.

Each of these reporters has imbued the Journal with some of the texture of Rhode Island, of its politics and its quirks, its charms and its flaws.

In terms of how the post-buyout Journal will structure its political coverage, including the question of whether it will fill Bakst's position, "Everyone has questions, but we don't have the answers yet," says Providence Newspaper Guild administrator Tim Schick.

I'll post an update if acting editor Tom Heslin and publisher Howard Sutton choose to speak with me about the buyout.

According to a newgroup e-mail circulated among Guild members,

The Guild expects to hear from the company by the end of next week on whether additional staff cuts are necessary. If they are, the Guild and the company will need to discuss how additional reduction will occur.

Below is the list of job titles where the company has offered buyouts.  The first number preceding the title is the number of people who have applied for the buyout in that classification. The second number is the maximum positions the company is willing to cut for that job title.

Advertising

1  -  3 Advertising Sales Representatives (print & on-line)

0  -  1 Assistant Telephone Room Manager

5  -  5 Inside telephone Sales

0  -  2 Sales Assistants

2  -  2 Advertising Promotion Specialists

0  -  1 Promotion Assistant

1  -  2 Secretaries

1  -  1 Publications Clerk 

News

2  -  5 Section Editors

0  -  4 Copy Editors

2  -  5 Columnist/Special Writers

4  -  4 Reporters (print & on-line)

0  -  2 Artists

0  -  2 Photo Editor/Designers

0  -  4 Photographers

0  -  1 Visual Technician

2  -  3 Departmental Assistants

1  -  2 Library Assistants

0  -  2 State Staff Office Assistants

1  -  3 Editorial Assistants

If you have a playlist named ‘Party Time’, ‘Beach Blanket Bingo’, or maybe ‘Weed’ you need to get this song on it now. The new cd by The Dandy Warhols is loaded with great new jump-up-and-down songs, but this one is definitely my 2008 summer anthem. Just try and sit still listening to this. They are playing up in Boston in September, but it’s at the Wilbur Theater… seats! How can you sit in a seat and listen to this band? It’s not physically possible. Will somebody please book this band in a club for me?

In the recent issue of The Agenda a gentleman by the name of ‘Area C’ bemoaned the dearth of medium-sized bands touring through Providence. Amen to that. If you want to see avant garde noisemakers, or some folkie plucking away at a glockenspiel with a pitchfork, you can find that no problem. And there is the overblown crap at the Dunk and Gillette. But what about the bands in between? Why did I have to go up to Boston to see Earl Greyhound, Mute Math and Louis XIV to name a few? I miss The Met something fierce.

 

Although the Democratic National Convention begins in four days, US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, one of Rhode Island's superdelegates, says he is undecided who will support when Hillary Clinton's name is included in a roll call vote during the DNC.

Whitehouse, speaking this morning during a taping of WPRI/WNAC-TV's Newsmakers (tape from the show should be on this Web site later today), nonetheless expressed confidence that Barack Obama has a lock on the nomination.

Rhode Island's junior senator initially supported Clinton, and backed Obama only after he emerged as the primary winner. Whitehouse, who said when pressed that he backed Clinton since she was his preferred candidate, mostly offered a message of Democratic unity.

Whitehouse is in Rhode Island today for a field hearing of the Senate's Committee on the Environment and Public Works, to discuss global warming and its implications for Narrgansett Bay.

In related news:

-- Whitehouse defended his vote for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The senator has been a fierce critic of the Bush administration's Justice Department, who, with AG Michael Mukasey, will have the authority to determine "emergency situations" that justify spying on Americans at home and abroad. The authority is justified, he says in part, since it comes with a limited time threshhold. 

-- During the 2006 campaign, Whitehouse, like many Senate Democrats, promised to work to end the war in Iraq. Asked why these Democrats haven't forced the Republicans to filibuster in opposition to Democratic efforts to end war spending, he responded by saying, in short, that the votes aren't there to do so.

-- Whitehouse, who talked up Jack Reed in my recent story, says the senior senator is justified in raising a $4 million war chest, even without well-funded opposition this year. Declining to comment on what this says about how Washington operates, the senator cited the cost of running a campaign. Asked whether much of this money will be recycled as campaign donations to other Democrats, Whitehouse says there would be nothing wrong with that since Republicans do the same thing.

PROVIDENCE -- A bishop in the nation's most heavily Roman Catholic state called on U.S. immigration authorities to stop arresting illegal immigrants in mass sweeps in Rhode Island and allow federal agents not to participate if they feel the raids...

Providence’s only outdoor movie screen continues through September! This week we’re screening MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL.

Every Thursday movies will be screened at dusk on the corner of Westminster St. and Union St. Pop hits, local shorts, even some music performances.

As always, introducing the show are International shorts presented by the Rhode Island International Film Festival. Bring your friends and family down for a drink, some eats, and a free film. Movies start at Dusk, blankets welcome!!!

Members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works are coming to the shores of Narragansett Bay to discuss how climate change is affecting the Bay. The briefing, open to the public, will be chaired by Sen. Sheldon...

A morning accident has a shoulder closed on Route 95 this morning. The accident, involving a truck, is on the northbound side of the roadway at Exit 18/US 1A/Thurburs Avenue. To see how traffic is affected, see the Transportation Management...

The Pawtucket police this morning are investigating a shooting at a residential building. Last night at about 9:20 p.m., the police responded to 136 Harrison St. According to a statement released this morning by the Pawtucket police, when officers arrived,...