filed under: Featured | Local Yokels
Lil’ Rhody Racks Up Presidential Appointments
12:52PM ON
02/08/2010
BY
Annie Messier
Barack Obama has an eye for talent—and it’s pointed at Rhode Island.
This weekend, Obama appointed Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, which describes its mission as connecting people through various arts and cultural tourism. Lahiri joins five other PCAH committee appointees, including visual artist Chuck Close, BET co-founder Sheila Johnson, and Ken Solomon, CEO of the Tennis Channel.
Lahiri, whose novels and short story collections include The Namesake, Interpreter of Maladies and Unaccustomed Earth, moved to Rhode Island as a toddler and graduated from South Kingston High. (Her father Amar has been a librarian at URI since 1970, earning a master’s there in 1973, and his wife Tapati is currently a URI degree candidate.) Lahiri’s memories of Rhode Island include observing some panic over an impending hurricane. (What, no mention of bread and milk?)
Although she didn’t attend college in Rhode Island, Jhumpa has spoken at local commencements, given readings at Brown and URI, and received an honorary URI degree. She also taught creative writing courses at RISD and Brown.




Sorry for the short notice about this–although if you read our comments maybe you know already–but there’s a meeting tonight at 6pm at Capitol Ridge (the senior high-rise on Smith Street across from St. Patrick’s) to talk about the possibility of making Pleasant Valley Parkway one-way. We posted 


A burgeoning 






This is usually Beth’s beat, but… 

1:21PM 02/08/2010
Rob said:
I will never try it. Life is too rich an experience to blur it with mind altering drugs. ...
about 36 Sponsors Introduce Marijuana Decriminalization