Jeez. While Homeland Security is shutting out all the Brits, the least we could do is keep our own bands here. The staff over at the Phoenix managed to agree on a ‘Fifty States, Fifty Bands’ piece without firing a single shot. For each state they picked best all-time band, best solo artist, and best new band. I declare that they totally nailed Texas, particularly with the new band White Denim whom I have already been pushing in this space (video of ‘Mess Up Your Hair’).

The Phoenix staff recommends the song ‘Let’s Talk About It’… video after the break.

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Good morning, dosers! You gotta love a Guv whose idea of “reaching out” to his constituents is to appear on the Bill O’Reilly show.

Governor Carcieri spent several minutes last night on national television during an appearance on The O’Reilly Factor criticizing Providence’s mayor and police chief for not endorsing his attempt to curb illegal immigration.

The governor cited the recent arrest in Providence of Marco Riz, an illegal immigrant arrested several times before he allegedly kidnapped and raped a Warwick woman, as an example of the need for his executive order.

(On the subject of this Marco Riz thing, I am SO SURE that a legal U.S. citizen has never kidnapped and raped a woman. I just wish violence against women got this much attention from Carcieri on a regular basis. Sigh.)

I’m not going to even bother posting a clip of O’Reilly’s show. You know the drill. Instead, here is Bill Moyers (you know, a real-life journalist) schooling O’Reilly’s producer in a candid video:

Last night, Ari and I watched Elia Kazan’s 1947 classic A Gentleman’s Agreement, the story of a journalist, P. Schuyler Green (Gregory Peck), who pretends to be Jewish for a magazine series on anti-Semitism. When his son, Tommy, faces hateful words at school, Green is forced to explain to him what it means to be a Jew, and the importance of the separation of church and state. His simple words in explaining the Jeffersonian idea to Tommy drive home the simplicity of this idea, even in 1947. Have we made backwards strides?

Tommy: What’s anti-Semitism?
Phil: Well, uh, that’s when some people don’t like other people just because they’re Jews.
Tommy: Why not? Are Jews bad?
Phil: Well, some are and some aren’t, just like with everyone else.
Tommy: What are Jews, anyway?
Phil: Well, uh, it’s like this. Remember last week when you asked me about that big church, and I told you there are all different kinds of churches? Well, the people who go to that particular church are called Catholics, and there are people who go to different churches and they’re called Protestants, and there are people who go to different churches and they’re called Jews, only they call their churches temples or synagogues.
Tommy: Why don’t some people like those?
Phil: Well, that’s a tough one to explain, Tommy. Some people hate Catholics, and some hate Jews.
Tommy: And no one hates us ’cause we’re Americans?
Phil: Well, no, that’s another thing again. See, you can be an American and a Catholic, or an American and a Protestant, or an American and a Jew. But look, Tommy, it’s like this: one thing’s your country, see like America or France or Germany or Russia. The flag is different, and the uniform is different, and the language is different. [...] But the other thing is religion, like the Jewish or the Catholic or the Protestant religion, see that hasn’t anything to do with the flag, or the uniform, or the airplanes. Got it?
Tommy: Yup!

Now change “Jew” to “Muslim,” and we’ve got a lesson pertinent to most present-day Americans.

When former Charlotte NC mayor Harvey Gantt ran (twice) against Jesse Helms, he sought the endorsment of former UNC star Michael Jordan. Jordan’s reply at the time: “Republicans buy sneakers, too.”

An endorsement from Jordan could have helped the popular black mayor unseat one of the senate’s most bigoted members, but Mike sat on the sidelines. Apparantly, Helms’ death prompted Jordan to expound on meeting the racist codger, and to finally endorse Gantt:

“A number of years back, I was in Raleigh at some function and I was introduced to the Senator. ‘Hello Senator Helms, nice to meet you,’ I say, offering my hand. He looks up at me, sizes up my hand, and smiles like he’s addressing the help back at the plantation: ‘Nice to meet you too, Fred.’ I’m like, Fred, huh? No, it’s Michael, Michael Jordan, the basketball player. He just goes, ‘Nice to meet you Fred.’ That’s one crazy mother (muffled).”

Someone later told Jordan that Helms had a “humorous habit” of calling all black people “Fred.”

“Yeah, humorous. Hilarious. It was then that I realized I made a mistake, I should have come out to support the brother. Let him know, if he runs again, give my office a call, we’ll hit the campaign up with all the Air Jordans and Jordan brand apparel they need. On the house. It would be my honor to be the official sponsor - along with Gatorade and Hanes — of Harvey Gantt’s next campaign.”

Let’s first note that calling Michael Jordan - one of the most universally respected people on the planet - “Fred” is just plain disgusting. Let’s also note that Gantt declined the endorsement, citing Jordan’s poor management of the Charlotte Bobcats.

I’ve often seen gentrification as a difficult problem to tackle. For many of my friends—young, working people trying to live in diverse areas and support themselves on small, non-profit or public service salaries—it is a struggle to find housing without becoming an agent of gentrification. But a New York Times piece today about Mount Morris Park, a traditionally-black Harlem neighborhood, explores one of the uglier examples of that phenomenon.

Timothy Williams chronicles the recent dispute over the neighborhood’s Marcus Garvey Park where, since 1969, drummers from Africa and the Caribbean have played an important role in shaping the social fabric and dynamic of the place. “The musicians,” he explains, “who play until 10 p.m. every summer Saturday, are widely credited with helping to make the park safer over the years.”

Across the street from the park however, at 2002 Fifth Avenue, is “a new seven-story cream and red brick luxury co-op with a doorman, $1 million apartments and a lobby with a fireplace.” Predictably, there have been some disputes about the character of the neighborhood.

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As I mentioned in a prior post about the Garrahy Judicial Complex, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately in that facility’s Courtroom 4C, where arraignments for RI’s 6th District take place. The judges at arraignment give a shpiel about the meaning and consequences of a plea whenever someone pleads out at that stage of the game, and I often take much of that shpiel for granted.

An important part of what they must instruct the defendants is that any criminal conviction or guilty plea will affect any immigration status or proceedings. For many, this means that deportation is inevitable. One thing missing from the shpiel, however, is consideration of how a guilty plea and prison sentence will affect the defendant’s status in Family Court. All too often, defendants are counseled to accept a shorter sentence with time served only to be served with Family Court subpoenas on charges of neglect—neglect that occurs while these parents are behind bars—or deportation papers.

Colorlines magazine has a great piece this month on the intersection of systems—namely immigration, incarceration, and foster care. In “When an Immigrant Mom Gets Arrested,” Julianne Ong Hing and Seth Wessler write:

Immigrant mothers are not the first to deal with the ways that different government agencies intersect, usually to their detriment. The experiences Black families have had with child welfare and criminal justice policy make clear what can happen to communities when family policy intersects with a set of other punitive policies.

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From Rinku Sen, RaceWire:

On last night’s broadcast, a repeat from June 16, Colbert did the kind of thing that I almost never rely on white media figures to do. He was interviewing Kenneth Miller, who wrote a book about how the proponents of “intelligent design” are trying to teach creationism at schools. At one point, Miller compared creationists to women who fraudulently collect welfare checks, saying they’re asking for a government handout, “I would compare them to welfare queens,” he said.

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Or so read the headline yesterday on one of my favorite blogs, History Is a Weapon. And when you look at the late Senator’s resume, he’s left us little reason to mourn. Here are a few of his most remarkable achievements:

• Fighting integration;
• Opposing Martin Luther King day;
• the Helms-Burton act, the centerpiece of the embargo against Cuba;
• Disputing ALL Affirmative Action programs;
• Voting to bail out the savings and loan industry AND to slash school lunches for impoverished children, medical care for disabled veterans, prescription drugs for the elderly, and wages for working families;
• Hating all gay people;
• Supporting apartheid in South Africa;
• Routinely fighting against AIDS research from the beginning, blaming people suffering from the disease for it;
• Leading the fight to discontinue Pell Grants for inmates;
• And, in 1993, singing Dixie to the first African American senator, Carol Mosely-Braun, and promising to make her “cry.”

I think HIAW sums it up well, when they proclaim: “Hell burns hotter tonight.” Want some more inspiring food for thought? Check out “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro,” a speech given by Frederick Douglass in Rochester on July 5, 1852.

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.