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.

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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 about this issue before and have heard pros (ie. people would not be so confused when driving down a narrow divided boulevard where both sides are two-way, there might be fewer accidents, a bike lane could be created, stop signs would be less confusing to non-residents…) and cons (people that live on the parkway might be driving around the block to get home.)

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Jef has posted the 3 proposals for the Wickenden St. intersection that will replace the area that was under the old 195 overpass.  RIDOT deserves a lot of credit for listening to an initial volley of complaints about their earlier proposal — which was too suburban, and focused on moving cars with limited concern for bikes and pedestrians.  The new offers are much more appropriate, and the essential concern reduces to whether or not we should have a median: The upside is that it’d provide a refuge for pedestrians, and could make the crossing easier.  The downside is that the sidewalks wouldn’t be as wide as they’d otherwise be, and cars tend to move a little more slowly when there’s a chance of a head-on collision if they should accidentally veer over the double-yellow.   I think this is my choice at the moment:

Head over to GC:PVD for the other options and more details, and email Melanie Jewett in the Planning Department and/or Lambri Zerva at RIDOT with your input.

You might’ve caught this ad during that football game that was on last night:

I know these ads are test-marketed to death, but how is this paranoid wignutty vision of an enviro-fascist dystopia supposed to help sell cars?  Scare people into it?  It almost made me hate environmentalists, and sure ain’t spreading any good will, even towards Audi’s “Green Car of the Year.”

Okay, that wasn’t too bad. The Who are a good fit for this sort of thing — loud and big and everyone can sing along. That was Ringo’s kid, Zak Starkey, on drums (not a day goes by I don’t think about Keith Moon). Then the Saints opened the second half with a totally mental onside kick and scored, and then the Colts answered right back. Good game so far.

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Don’t let the weekend end. Head downtown to AS220 on Monday and hear Pepi Ginsberg play folk rock. Also, Last Good Tooth combines a raspy howling voice of Penn Sultan and a beautiful songbird voice of Abigail Noyes. Tallahassee performs folky/acoustic/indie/country music and will be stripped down and acoustic with guitar, banjo and violin. Detroit Rebellion is agitated blues and protest tunes.

9pm, $7, Monday, AS220, 115 Empire Street

The State House has been pretty chaotic over the last while, as this has been brewing: Speaker William Murphy is going to step down from that post this week, to be replaced by current Majority Leader Gordon Fox.

RIFuture’s probably the place to turn for the most interesting ongoing discussion of the situation.

A burgeoning movement’s afoot to compel Congress and the Prez to enact question time, a la Prime Minister’s Questions in Britain.

We live in a world that increasingly demands more dialogue than monologue. President Obama’s January 29th question-and-answer session with Republican leaders gave the public a remarkable window into the state of our union and governing process. It was riveting and educational. The exchanges were substantive, civil and candid. And in a rare break from our modern politics, sharp differences between elected leaders were on full public display without rancor or ridicule….

America could use more of this — an unfettered and public airing of political differences by our elected representatives. So we call on President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner to hold these sessions regularly — and allow them to be broadcast and webcast live and without commercial interruption, sponsorship or intermediaries. We also urge the President and the Republican Senate caucus to follow suit. And we ask the President and the House and Senate caucuses of his own party to consider mounting similar direct question-and-answer sessions. We will ask future Presidents and Congresses to do the same.

Sign the petition here.

UPDATE: It’s looking like a few different entities are heeding the call, including the Providence City Council, and the City of Woonsocket.  This is very good news, which’ll help keep the schools funded and the streets plowed.  Updates to follow.

ORIGINAL, 2/03: Would somebody please sue the State over this already? Essentially, Rep. Scott Guthrie made a key find yesterday — the Governor is obligated to have made the third quarter’s car tax payment to the cities and towns on Monday, Feb 1. He hasn’t done that, and is willfully avoiding doing so. That’s $7-8 million to Providence, and about $30 million state-wide. The Governor is hoping to eliminate those payments to cities and towns, per his supplemental budget proposal, but that law hasn’t passed yet. And might not.

RIFuture has it here. Channel 10 covers it here. (If for no other reason, please watch the video so you can scope out Scott’s mustache.) We passed a resolution today, demanding the payment.

But to force the issue, we need a city or town to sue ASAP, on behalf of its residents, and for the benefit of everybody in the state. Is somebody willing to step up?

Area fans watching the Super Bowl are apt to cheer for the Saints, if only to root against Indianapolis and that sissy hand-flapper Peyton Manning (whose own mom calls him Peytie-Pie, by the way). Plus everyone wants something nice to happen for New Orleans to make up for the FEMA trailers. However, we have a local boy in this one, and he plays for the Colts — defensive back, special teamer, and former East Providence Townie, Jamie Silva. Here’s his bio from the Colts website.

…attended East Providence High School…was four-year, two-way starter as RB and DB…ended career with more than 4,500 rushing yards and 49 TDs on offense and 300 tackles and 16 interceptions on defense…had 2,100 yards and 29 TDs as senior…was Rhode Island Player-of-the-Year by Providence Gridiron Club as senior…was all-state choice as junior and senior… team won state title as freshman and senior…team captain was named Super Bowl MVP in senior season…also lettered in basketball, baseball and track…

So he’s a chronic under-achiever. Lately he’s been giving interviews all over the place and he always seems quite charming and grateful to be getting to the Super Bowl in his second season. Plus he has long hair. Jim Donaldson had a nice profile in the ProJo. (So how ’bout that — you’re reading about sports on the Dose!)

In conclusion — Go Jamie!

According to a report out of London roughly 87,000 drunken Brits are smashing each other in the face each year with broken pint glasses (I can name at least two). The powers-that-be are tackling the problem head-on and, as always with such things, identifying the problem is half the battle.

The shatterproof pint glass was proudly unveiled by the government yesterday. Officials swore the country would save billions in health care costs by coming up with a glass that does not double as a lethal weapon.

I suspect that many people will start hoarding the original, shardy glasses for special occasions like Boxing Day with the family and soccer matches.

Gamers’ meet-up (with a steam-punk/retro-futurist edge) TempleCon is convening for the 5th year running. It started in Providence, but now takes place in Warwick, attracts 1,000+ gamers, and growing.  Drowned out by that Super Bowl thing, I suppose.

Who goes to this type of thing?

Lots of different people. I’ll be honest with you, fictitious-FAQ-question-person, another one of those many reasons that TempleCon was conceived is because we felt that the convention scene tended to pander to the rather unflattering stereotypes of gamers and science fiction fandom in general. We have found that the gaming hobby and retro-futurist fandom are also full of a lot of really decent people who often stay away from big events because they just don’t want to deal with all the crap, and we don’t blame them.

So, with that in mind, TempleCon isn’t just for gamers or hardcore science-fiction fans. It’s for people who game, and for people who love science fiction, steampunk, retro-futurism, or gigantic parties, in whatever form most appeals to them. What that means is that this party has lots of different types of people at it, from the incredibly casual gamer, to the disturbingly hardcore one, from people who have never previously heard of retro-futurism but want to know more, to the die-hard steampunk cosplayer, and every indecisive bastard in between.

Friday — @Firehouse 13, Pistol Shot Gypsy, LA Mob, Frequency Control @AS220, Deleted Arrows, Snowbirds, Idolands, Battlehouse @the Blackstone, Sly Shuga, Josh Willis, Apogee @Jerky’s, the Breakfast, John Beninghof, Gravity Works @Club Hell, Foredoes Me Quite, Starting Over Tuesday, Longshot, Flight Patterns

Saturday — @the 201, Knowlton Walsh, the Count @Nick-A-Nees, Danny Draher @Lupo’s, the Joe Perry Project, the Neighborhoods @Firehouse 13, Leah Carlson and the Heartless, JR Gallagher, the Jesse Minute, Global Crash @Club Hell, the Intel, Sleep City, Too Late the Hero @Jerky’s, Hood Internet, Paper Eagles, Stegosaurus @AS220 benefit, Bellows, Dire Wolves, Arcing, Hector 3, Buddyship, Alec Redfearn and the Eyesores

There’s a Palin joke in there somewhere — I’m sure they’ve heard them all by now. Kip and Tink own and operate the Liberty Elm Diner at 777 Elmwood Avenue. Having survived last summer’s wrangling with the state regarding overdue sales tax (and as a citizen I am happy to have officials working with business owners in this way — good for us all in the long run) Kip and Tink now announce that the diner has been placed in the National Register of Historic Places where it is the ‘Highlighted Property of the Week’! What does this mean for them in practical terms? According to the ProJo,

The National Register is the federal government’s official list of historically and architecturally significant properties, which get special consideration for federal assistance and are eligible for state tax benefits and loans.

So, that’s good news. The diner will soon be featured on “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives”, February 22 on the Food Network. (It’s nice to see the word ‘liberty’ in a context that has nothing to with right wing crazies. It’s not their word.)

Through a mistake on my website — it now says my CD release show is February 6th in the Phoenix. It is actually tonight at Tazza at 9pm. We’re gonna have a lot of fun, with Roz Raskin, Anjel and Amber Newman, WHO DEM??!!, the amazing BSS Dance Troupe, Mentalist William Brierly, a Local Fashion Show, and I’ll be performing with a live band.

Horizon Liquors is sponsoring this event generously giving away some free beers. Bring a winter item (hat, scarf, boots, socks) to donate to the RI Women’s Center and receive a free CD.

To preview/purchase the album, we’re in Armageddon Records and up here at iTunes.

Hope you can all make it!!  Mary B

Friday, 9pm, Tazza, 250 Westminster Street, 421.3300

One business that seems to have made a go of it in Hope Artiste Village is the Hive. Proprietor and tattoo artist, Kevin Bledsoe, has managed to kept things running even through those lonely pre-farmers days and the generally crappy economy. Also, the whole tattoo thing shows no signs of fading. Apparently Mr. Bledsoe does not limit his canvas to human flesh, and tonight’s event is all about skateboards. And I think he might be celebrating his birthday at midnight. Clever boy, he got Narragansett Beer to sponsor his birthday party. (I do not usually use posters as an image, but this is a photograph of a poster.)

7pm to 11pm, Friday, The Hive, Hope Artiste Village, Main Street, Pawtucket, 726.3050

This is usually Beth’s beat, but… Rep. Jay Edwards has taken the lead on pot decriminalization, with about half of the members of the House signing on, and many more asserting their support. If it went to a vote today, it’d pass with a veto-proof margin.

There is, frankly, a good deal of apprehension in political circles these days. Let’s call it “Scott Brown Syndrome.” People are particularly risk-averse — even moreso than usual. But the Tea Party thing, and the more general populist consternation that is creating such pressures, are in good part a function of social-libertarianism — not just slash-and-burn anti-tax sentiment. And pushing measures like this will cleave off some of those social libertarians, tending to increase support for those who are willing to work to keep government out of people’s social lives.

In other words, passing this bill would help Democratic incumbents get re-elected, not hurt them.