Word on the street Myspace bulletins has it that tomorrow evening The Scurvy Dog on Westminster’s going to be invaded by homos.  I could say more about this, but I’ll hold off to see who shows up and what they’re wearing.

The What Cheer? Brigade has the lead in this week’s Phoenix.  (Photo swiped from Ian.)

Of course seeing Lightning Bolt is always worth it, especially if you can get real close and help hold the drumkit still. But tonight get there early for The Usaisamonster, whose terrifyingly dense folk metal is like if the Bolt played at Woodstock. Check out new track “Cocaine Wedding”, it’s got horns people. Horns! Hey, that picture looks like the Milky Way from the side. Lightning Bolt, The Usaisamonster @ The Living Room, 8pm $8

Another 40 million or so souls get to march on to our natural demises — we have a six-month reprieve before CERN is back up and running and the rest of us get sucked into that man-made black hole.

It’s being expressed on the left and on the right. Over here at Townhall.com:

Final returns are still weeks away, but it’s not too early to acknowledge one of the big surprises of the presidential election of 2008: the disastrous decline of fringe party candidates in a year that once seemed ripe for their efforts.

It is a bit of a surprise, what with two former high-profile members of Congress — Cynthia McKinney and Bob Barr — as well as Ralph running, that the third parties have essentially been a complete non-factor. And this is especially strange in the context of the unpopular centrism displayed by both McCain and Obama, in their support for the bailout bill — there are strong crits to be made from both the left and the right.

The left-leaning third parties probably would’ve had an easier time of it had Hillary been the nominee. (Nader did just announce the opening of 22 field offices, but too late in the game to turn him into even a substantial threat to ’spoil’.)

But Barr’s inability to gain traction among laissez-faire Libertarians, in the context of the bail-out, and especially given Ron Paul’s set-up and continued agitation, and good vibes, is the real shock.

Counterpunch yesterday published this plea for support for Alex Svboda and Jason Friedmutter.

Revolutionary change comes about through the everyday hard work and sacrifice of people like Alex. She was out there for us that fateful day — all of us who have felt the sting of indignity at work and who believe that working people deserve better.

Let’s be there for her now. Alex and Jason need financial and moral support to have their innocence affirmed at trial. You can e-mail providenceiww@gmail.com for details on how to lend a hand.

Please lend your support as the IWW members face trial, for getting beat up while exercising their First Amendment rights.

(More broadly, Counterpunch is usually a pretty interesting read, and we recommend a weekly scroll through their archives — even though they crapped on your devoted blogger three separate times in 2004, for daring to suggest that it was unfortunate, but okay, to feel compelled to vote for Kerry if you lived in Florida.)

Already broke the fast.

Ari- Sure hope you’re holding it down for us, cuz we wanna blog through another year.

(That’s an ironic posting of an un-ironic image, from MakHeavenForSure.com.)

Tomorrow, at Brown.  (MacMillan is on Thayer, right by the SciLi.)

Did you know that you don’t vote for the president? Do you think that is fair? Do you think that states’ rights need to be protected to ensure they have a say in our national leader?

Just in time for the elections, we will have two of the world’s premier scholars of the Electoral College argue the merits of and problems with our system. George Edwards, author of Why the Electoral College is Bad for America, will meet Tara Ross, author of Enlightened Presidency: the Case for the Electoral College in MacMillan 117 at 7 next Thursday.

Michel Martin and Tell Me More were at the Black Rep recently to discuss RI’s commemoration of the end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Host Michel Martin kicks off Rhode Island’s Freedom Festival with a conversation on a bicentennial commemoration, marking the end of the transatlantic slave trade.

Martin is joined by Katrina Browne, writer, director and producer of the documentary Traces of the Trade; James Campbell, professor of Africana Studies at Brown University; Mary-Kim Arnold, executive director of the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities and the Rev. Jeffery A. Williams, pastor at the Cathedral of Life church.

You can listen to the piece, which was broadcast nationally, here.

HQ is at 321 S Main St. Phone-banking to NH from 5-8:30 if you can make it there early.

Plus the debate will be on the teevee! Drinks! Anger!!! Local 121, 10pm FREE

In what’s apparently one of his last articles on the Metro beat, Dan outlines this month’s happenings at India Point Park, including the opening celebration of the brand new pedestrian bridge.

This is a big month for the park. In addition to the bridge opening, artwork involving the park will be on display at Providence City Hall until Oct. 28 as part of an exhibit called “Park as muse: Artwork of India Point Park.”

A community parade and party celebrating the opening of the bridge is planned for Saturday, Oct. 18, from 1 to 4 p.m.

The neighborhood’s also started asking questions about why the bridge’s opening has been delayed for so long — for more than a year — without the required fines being assessed against the contractor.

Ian lets us know about more shake-ups.  Dan was getting to know the City beat real well, too:

The changes continue to come fast and furious at the Providence Journal, where City Hall reporter Dan Barbarisi is being reassigned to cover the Red Sox, and where State House reporter Steve Peoples is being detailed to the City Hall beat.

The moves, confirmed by ProJo sources, come as the statewide daily reportedly plans to scrap most of its locally zoned news editions.

Providence’s afropunk navigators Science For The People bring their wares to AS220 along with out-of-towners Centipede E’est, who do something that sounds like Faust, and a band called the Gambees who play what on their Myspace they call “a new genre” which I guess means Bowie b-sides as covered by Pavement. Yes, that picture is what they look like. Oh, you kids and your hats! AS220, 9pm $6

Then at geigh bar Wheels check out Dirty Dirty and Orca Beats at midnight. It’s free!

Here’s the ACLU’s take:

“The new guidelines reduce standards for beginning “assessments” (precursors to investigations), conducting surveillance and gathering evidence, meaning the threshold to beginning investigations across the board will be lowered. More troubling still, the guidelines allow a person’s race or ethnic background to be used as a factor in opening an investigation, a move the ACLU believes may institute racial profiling as a matter of policy….

The FBI originally adopted internal guidelines in the mid-1970s after investigations showed widespread abuses and violations of constitutional rights by the agency, including the politically-motivated spying on figures like Martin Luther King, Jr. Ironically, these newly revised guidelines could open the bureau up to exactly that kind of abuse once more.”

Via Ian, via the BDH. Miko’s is kaput:

A locked door, a dark, almost bare interior and a large sign reading “Space for Lease” in red letters. Today, that’s all that greets visitors and customers to what was once Wickenden Street’s popular sex store, Miko Exoticwear.

The shop closed this July after a “mismanagement” of funds by the store’s manager - who had quit shortly before then - made it impossible for the business to remain open, owner Jeff Gellman told The Herald.