In particular, my favorite, the Marquis de Lafayette. In 1777, at the age of nineteen, the wealthy aristocrat offered his military services as an unpaid volunteer to the Continental Congress, and was given the rank of major-general. (Nineteen!) Clicking immediately with George Washington, he was instrumental in the Battle of Rhode Island and the defeat of the British at Yorktown. Lafayette returned a few times after the war, always to a hero’s welcome. This included a visit in 1784 to the Golden Ball Inn on Benefit Street, a four-story party hall next to the old state house, where the women of Providence made a very favorable impression on him. The Golden Ball Inn was torn down in 1941. Quel dommage.

The honorable Matt Jerzyk has a post to this effect over at RIFuture, as does Sir Ian McKellen Donnis at N4N, but I feel the need to reiterate: what’s up with the AG? While 42 other attorneys general signed on to support the Free Flow of Information Act, which would create a qualified federal shield law for reporters, Patrick Lynch did not. Lynch, who on June 19 was elected president of the National Association of Attorneys General, does justice (no pun intended) to that organization’s alias: the National Association of Aspiring Governors.

I think a lot of Rhode Islanders take for granted an important lil’ Rhody anomaly: most states have district attorneys and attorneys general, these being two distinct positions and offices. We’re small enough that the two positions are lumped into one office. Our attorneys general, therefore, spend the majority of their time and energy prosecuting criminals and upholding severe criminal justice policies rather than representing the larger interests of all our citizens.

In March, I was privileged to attend the 11th Annual Liman Public Interest Colloquium at the Yale Law School. In keeping with the topic of the conference—”Liman at the Local Level: Public Interest Advocacy and American Federalism”—we had the opportunity to hear from Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, Ohio Solicitor General William Marshall, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, and James Tierney, Director of the National State Attorneys General Program. These four fellows have used their positions as state and city attorneys to compensate for the failings, negligence, and misguided decisions of the federal government and judiciary.

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I understand one of his many vetoes this legislative session: the courthouse construction bill, a piece of legislation pledging $88 million to the construction of a new Blackstone Valley courthouse. According to the ProJo, Carcieri said in his veto message, “Never, not even once, has any Rhode Islander — save a legislator or a judge — ever spoke to me of the pressing need to build a court-house in the Blackstone Valley.”

On the urgency of the project, however, Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank Williams declared in an April speech:

The need to better serve our citizens in northern Rhode Island and to decongest a severely overcrowded Garrahy Judicial Complex in Providence by building a Blackstone Valley Courthouse is not going to go away.

As a legal intern with the RI Office of the Public Defender, I may not be privy to every aspect of life at the Garrahy complex. I do, however, work there 4 days a week from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and I’m a bit perplexed by the congestion with which the Chief is concerned. In fact, things can get pretty slow around there, and I’ve taken to reading The New Yorker in between Judge Higgins’ arraignments in Courtroom 4C, where I am usually stationed.

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Flaming balls… can you ever have enough? Rhode Island is one of only five states left with a complete ban on all consumer fireworks according to this refreshing piece in the ProJo by William A. Weimer, president of Phantom Fireworks. Sure he’s motivated by self-interest, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. According to Mr. Weimer,

The fireworks-related injuries in America have dropped dramatically, and the use of consumer fireworks has gone up several fold. From 1992 to 2006, the actual number of fireworks-related injuries has dropped over 26 percent, while during the same period use of fireworks measured by imports from China has increased from 87.1 million pounds to 278.2 million pounds, or almost 220 percent. Based on injuries per 100,000 pounds of fireworks used, injuries have dropped an amazing 76 percent since 1992. This is based on information published by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

And besides, a Founding Father said so!!!

John Adams, before he was our second president, said in 1776 in a letter to his wife, Abigail, that Independence Day “ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade . . . bonfires and . . . illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from this day forward forevermore.” Fireworks provide the citizens of this state and this nation a means to celebrate their freedoms.

I’ll even concede the bottle rockets, but I want everything else. And if I see one more idiot local news reporter blowing up a watermelon with what is clearly a whole stick of dynamite, I’ll just spit.

(The item pictured here is from Brothers Pyrotechnics. I doubt that I could ever bring myself to detonate the awesome packaging.)

The Dose reminds you to obey all laws. Contact your representatives about changing this one.

Those of us who missed Mayor Cicilline at Saturday’s Pride festivities should be placated by news of how he spent that day. The U.S. Conference of Mayors, gathered for their 76th Annual Meeting in Miami from June 20-24, unanimously passed a resolution calling for city-coordinated drug overdose prevention efforts.

The Resolution championed several strategies to reduce fatalities from drug overdoses, including:

• Supporting the distribution of naloxone – an opiate antagonist medication effective in reversing the respiratory failure that typically causes death from opioid overdose;
• Urging state governments to adopt “Good Samaritan” immunity policies that shield people who experience or witness an overdose and contact 911 from prosecution;
• Calling on the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to fund research to evaluate the effectiveness of overdose prevention interventions and develop model programs; and
• Calling on the FDA to take steps to facilitate the testing and approval of nasal and/or over-the-counter formulations of naloxone and to consider recommending prescription naloxone concurrent with strong opioid analgesics.

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One of my mentors here at Brown, renowned conservative-economist-turned-social-activist Glenn C. Loury, frequently debates cultural critic John McWhorter in dialogues about race and politics on Bloggingheads.tv. On Sunday, their conversation turned to hip-hop (the focus of McWhorter’s new book All About the Beat: Why Hip-Hop Can’t Save Black America), Barack Obama, and the effect of each on Black America.

While I applaud Loury’s defense of hip-hop and appreciate McWhorter’s defense of Obama, I take issue with the false dichotomy these scholars have erected between the two. Loury says hip-hop is politically-charged and Barack Obama’s message is destructive; McWhorter says hip-hop is destructive in a way that counters the positive message of Barack Obama. But hip-hop, at its roots, is political, and many of its leaders have long championed Obama’s message and agenda through their words and rhymes. Obama, in kind, has become one of few mainstream voices for the ideology that underlies hip-hop.

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Look, folks over at the Associated Press… I know things are bad. Real bad. Still, when you’re penning the End Times journalism pick of the week, write a decent headline.

Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.

Horatio Alger, twist in your grave.

Twist, damn you!

In other sad news, and a subtle reminder of how ridiculous this headline is, Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is dropping out five days before the the presidential runoff election there.

At a news conference, Mr. Tsvangirai, who leads the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, or M.D.C., said he was unwilling to ask the party’s supporters to go to the polls on Friday “when that vote will cost them their lives.”

Mr. Tsvangirai’s decision came on a day when governing party youth militia armed with iron bars, sticks and other weapons beat his supporters as they sought to attend a rally for him in Harare.

Everybody knows that just before you get to New Haven proper on I95, there is this giant American flag. Its all tattered and brown, and it can’t always appear majestic because of its shear weight. RISD prof and local smartist  Liz Collins will be bringing 8 knitters and thousands of queers together to reimagine the original pride flag - maybe even surpassing 95’s old glory. The flag will incorporate the original hot pink and turquoise that we now see missing (representative of sex and art respectively). It happens today between 12PM and 6PM at Waterplace Park and is the fourth installment of Collins’ Knitting Nation project.

In legal news, velvet-tongued hook-master R Kelly was acquitted on 14 counts of child sex crimes by a jury in his native Chicago after 6 years of courtroom drama. While a grainy video tape did show a man giving a young girl a golden shower, spawning the Dave Chappelle spoof “Piss on You (Remix)”, jurors were unable to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that this man was Mr. Kelly.

Big ups to the legal system on this one. In celebration, let’s all watch this video from Jay-Z and R Kelly, released before all this brouhaha started, in which Kells croons: “You can’t touch me, no you can’t touch me/ Jigga, Kelly, not guilty.” Or, if you want to relive the classics, peep this:

So, Dennis Kucinich brought 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush the other day, and shortly after his website mysteriously stopped working.  (It’s back now.)  It’s quite the interesting, if incredibly depressing, read.

Meanwhile, the world is running out of water and Africa’s running out of everything.  Oh, and the people who decide who goes to prison can’t really be bothered. None of it’s exactly new news, but it’s all depressing the crap out of me right now anyway.

So, anybody got anything happy to share? Even if it’s just a cute puppy video or something, I need something to cheer me up by the time I play music for all you nice people tonight, or else you never know what I might throw on.

Am I alone here or do all you Obama supporters feel like a long-time, live-in girlfriend, who just got the wedding proposal you’ve been waiting for?  I wept sweet, hopeful tears hearing him say, “Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.”

Sweeter words were never spoken. 

 So, Barackie, the answer is YES, YES, YES! 

 Now, where to find something borrowed and something blue…?

Obama has hit the number, and then surpassed it. He will be the nominee. HRC, in her speech last night, made no promises, and said she needed some time to think about what to do next. She then gave her oft-cited “millions of supporters” a homework assignment: “Go to my website at HillaryClinton.com and share your thoughts with me.”

But when your intrepid reporter went to Hillary’s website to write a “Dear Hillz, ur great but cmon its time to drop” letter, it was discovered that by “share your thoughts with me,” HRC meant, “sign a petition urging me to stay in.” That’s one way to win the veepstakes!

Obama’s full victory speech - delivered, in a major “up yours,” at the same spot that the GOP will be convening in a couple months - after the jump. (more…)

Just when you thought there was nothing else that Hillary’s minions could say or do to make you dry heave in terror (like, for example, claim that perennially pampered Florida voters are facing Zimbabwe-esque levels of political oppression), Harold Ickes has gone and done it.

Yes, it’s true that today’s DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting was an overall win for Obama, in that, shitshow* notwithstanding, the Committee decided to seat the FL and Michigan delegations with half-votes each, and to give Obama the uncommitted delegates from Michigan. Yes, Obama is still going to be the nominee, as he now has 2050 delegates, needs 2118 to clinch, and will pick up at least 40 between now and the final primaries in South Dakota and Montana on Tuesday, meaning that he needs only 20 of the remaining 200 superdelegates to finish the job. And yes, Hillary did indeed have every right to fight for her desired outcome, which her surrogates did in a losing effort to seat the Florida delegation with full votes before unanimously backing the half-vote compromise.

But Harold Ickes needs to get a grip. When it came time to talk Michigan, a state where Obama (and Edwards) had taken his name off of the ballot, where “Uncommitted” had garnered 45% of the vote, where turnout was absolutely anemic because there was only one candidate running (in Soviet Russia, election wins you!), Ickes had the gall to say that Hillary should get her delegates and Obama should get none, and then got so huffy about it that he threatened to take that dispute to the convention.

Huh? For a campaign that has been playing fast and loose with the word “disenfranchisement” it’s pretty befuddling to think that counting the results of an election with only one candidate on the ballot, where more people stayed home than voted, without any consideration of those factors is not basically the worst solution. Wouldn’t such a solution disenfranchise those non-voters? And what about all of the African American voters who went with uncommitted, you know, the ones who will be absolutely crucial to winning Michigan?

“Fannie Lou” Ickes cannot be bothered with such trifling matters. Here he is debasing himself in a duke-it-out with Sen. Carl Levin:

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Tonight at 9PM on HBO. The New York Times loved this thing

The casting of “Recount” is inspired. Kevin Spacey plays Ron Klain, the senior adviser to Vice President Al Gore who ended up leading the Democrats’ Florida recount effort, and Tom Wilkinson is James A. Baker III, the silky-smooth Bush family consigliere who ran the Republican effort. Laura Dern is mesmerizing as Ms. Harris, the legendarily dense public official who also helped organize George W. Bush’s Florida election campaign. Ms. Dern’s portrait comes the closest to parody — the role all but demands it — but she manages to convey some glimmers of humanity behind the thick makeup and thicker skull.

Admit it… you never really understood what the hell happened.

80% take the gun. Wouldn’t you?