I spent almost a year living in Beijing, and, whenever I told people I was Jewish, there was fairly standard reply: “犹太人很聪明很有钱”.

Translation: “Oh, Jews are smart and rich.” I even purchased an (extremely offensive) book in Shanghai called the “The How Jews Make Money Pillow-Side Reader.” Yes, that’s a rough translation, which is nothing compared to some of the “facts” in the book. For example, did you know that JP Morgan and John D Rockefeller were Jewish? I sure didn’t. Wait, because they weren’t.

At any rate, Brown Alum and current Beijing resident Alison Klayman, who’s blogging the Olympic madness over at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, went to Houhai Park in Beijing for a closer look at what Chinese folks think about the people of Israel:

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No wonder the General Assembly tabled progress on and the Governor vetoed dialogue about medical marijuana compassion centers… just look at what’s happened in California! In this week’s New Yorker, David Samuels offers an insanely long insider’s look at the cannabis culture of California post-Proposition 215 and (the aptly named) Senate Bill 420. Here’s a taste:

One of Captain Blue’s regular marijuana customers was a dispensary in Venice Beach. The store, which has cement floors, a glass display case, and a couch the color of aluminum, looks like a cross between a photographer’s loft and a Kiehl’s boutique. When I last visited, large Mason jars in the display case were filled with designer strains of weed selected by the owner, Cindy 99, whose nickname refers to a variety of designer pot. In a refrigerator, and marked “For medicinal use only,” were treats such as marijuana granola and marijuana milk chocolate with crispy wafers. Above the counter hung a notice: “To our valued patients: in accordance with California law, we are required to add 8.25% sales tax.”

And this excerpt is my favorite:

Growing ganja lets you feel that you’re still living on the edge, especially when you’ve become a little complacent politically. Emily nodded, and took another puff. “The forest is still getting cut down or whatever,” she said, watching the fragrant smoke swirl in the breeze. “But you’re still working out here. You’re still subverting the Man. And you’re getting people high.”

[Full disclosure, since some of our readers have a tough time with sarcasm and send angry e-mails: compassion centers are a really good idea. A ridiculous number of pot-smoking hippies who benefit from the arrangement are merely collateral damage.]

Providence Business News reports  big cuts to wages and health care in the Laborers’ International Union of North American Local 1033’s–the biggest union in town–new contract with the city.  Remember, lower wages and inaccessible health care for union workers means lower wages and inaccessible health care for everyone who works for a living: 

The City of Providence said changes were made to prevent layoffs and maintain job, financial and retirement security for employees (including an 8-percent wage increase over the next 37 months), and are seen as a big step forward in public-employee labor negotiations, according to Mayor David N. Cicilline. With other union contracts coming up, the new deal may serve as a model. . . .    

One change that will have an impact on union workers is an increase in health-care cost co-sharing, which will nearly double over the next four years. Individuals’ cosharing will jump to $1,000 per year from $400, while family plans will see an increase to $1,900 from $900.

 I know there’s a recession on and we’re all suffering, but I can’t help but wonder why Cicilline and some of his well paid staffers,  who make six figures, aren’t stepping up to cut their salaries and take their share of the pain.

Itinerant reader Nathaniel tips us off to this smokin’ hot video of a Bush lobbyist shaking down representatives of Kyrgyzstan’s exiled ex-president for “a couple hundred thousand dollars” in Bush library contributions in exchange for a visit with Dubya.

And that’s legal?? The UK Times says this is a real “row,” which I assume means one more in a series of soul-numbing lessons on the direct relationship between power and corruption. Thanks Lord Acton!

Or perhaps it’s just that Presidential libraries are the ultimate shakedown.

The New York Times has a piece today on a RI Training School program that puts juvenile offenders to work restoring old New England diners through the New Hope Diner Project. The youths restore the diners’ decrepit buildings, work the griddles and cash registers, and will (eventually, hopefully) manage the actual businesses sometime in the future. Pam Belluck writes:

“The whole poetry behind it is that these are kids who have been pretty much cast away emotionally and criminally, getting a chance to restore beloved eateries that have been cast off from society, too,” said Daniel Zilka, the acting director of the American Diner Museum, who rescues decrepit diners and helps run the project. “If they continue on the path that they’ve been moving upon they would end up in an adult correctional facility. This is probably their last opportunity.”

The offenders at the detention center, some as young as 13, have been convicted of crimes like sexual assault, armed robbery, breaking and entering, and drug offenses, and sentenced to serve 6 to 18 months. The center, the Rhode Island Training School, also has maximum security for offenders including murderers, but offenders qualify for the project only if they behave well enough to move to the regular detention population. They must also have, or nearly have, a high school equivalency diploma.

Work release is an important reentry mechanism for many offenders, but should these youths be encouraged to spend their time studying and developing more general skills before jumping into this line of work? Or do programs like this create order, stability, and options for young people with seemingly no way out?

We’re having an awesomely huge sale all week here at Book By Book, 30% off everything in the store; classic literature, new releases, sci-fi, tons of art and art history, world history, crime thrillers, Harlequin romances, some very fine cookbooks, chick lit, dick lit (I made that up), and so, so much more. Also, we’re air-conditioned to where you can see your own breath and we’ll have free coffee. See you there! Book By Book, 1005 Main st. Pawtucket in Thee Hope Artiste Village July 8-13

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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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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* Dennis Kucinich gets a just little less lonely as Florida Congressman Robert Wexler, of Colbert/Cocaine, and more recently Obama-backing fame, co-sponsors articles of impeachment for Dubya. Maybe he read Vincent Bugliosi’s book?

* Only an Obama-caliber uniter could bridge the gap between sci-fi overlord George Lucas and traditionally conservative Evangelical Christians. Plus, he wears a helmet!

* Scientists create souped-up, 100 mpg Prius; The experimental uber-car is then fed to Truckasaurus.

* Rhode Island schools closed for the heatwave; local students work on “sweat your ass off at home” independent study project.

* Lil Wayne is finally getting his due: an New York Times article praising his emotional vulnerability.

* Google Founder Brin heads to space to meet with Data, Captain Sisko, and swarthy Cosmonauts.

* And, bringing it back to one, President Bush is sorry about all the messed up shit he said; messed up actions still ok, though.

Phrases such as “bring them on” or “dead or alive”, he said, “indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace”.

A new documentary, about the RI budget predicament:

We did real well, should you be wondering.  Thanks for those who turned out last night.  Our goal is to sure up incumbents and help fight for open seats this election season.  Be on the look out for more activity, and activism, in coming weeks and months.

Oh no!

An explosion that destroyed 20 fireworks warehouses in China three months ago will probably dim night skies in the United States this Fourth of July.

Fireworks vendors said that because of the sudden shortage, fireworks such as bottle rockets, ladyfingers and Roman candles, as well as mortars used in professional displays, will be hard to get, meaning many of the usual pyrotechnic extravaganzas across the country may have to be pared back or even canceled.

”Everybody in the industry is scared to death that their orders aren’t going to get here in time,” said Ken Sprague, president of Hamburg Fireworks Display in Lancaster, Ohio, which choreographs fireworks shows throughout the Midwest. ”I haven’t slept a full night in months.”

The explosion occurred in a city that makes 95 percent of America’s fireworks. Fireworks factories in China, and anywhere, are extremely dangerous by the way. And the shortage is because many factories were rightly closed after this major blast.

Meanwhile, a three day period of mourning has begun in China for victims of the devastating earthquake in Sichuan, as hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of migrant workers try to reach home. On a cool note, If you want to contribute to the relief effort, Google has hooked up with organizations that will use 100% of your donation to support emergency relief efforts.

No word yet on what the situation may be in PVD, Bristol or at McCoy Stadium come the 4th, but I think we’ll be ok with less.

I’m heading down to Promet in a bit, for a tour of the “Working Waterfront.”

It’s worth checking out the Providence Working Waterfront Alliance’s website, to get a sense of the breadth of work that goes on down there — along with plenty of photos (don’t know exactly what to make of the tag-line at right), and a history of the port.

Here’s Working RI’s new radio spot on the budget crisis.

There’s at least one class of Rhode Islanders that’s not touched by the austerity measures being pushed through the State House.

Liberal elf and Princeton economist Paul Krugman sez that almost 80 percent of us drive to work alone, thus stupidly hastening the demise of our planet and the collapse of our economy.

So where are all the WWII-referencing posterz about how driving alone is driving with Chavez, or OPEC? Not exactly the same thing, granted.

So what’s a better analogy? (more…)

If you’ve ever driven Tillinghast Road in East Greenwich, been part of the Rhode Island Airport Corporation, or traveled back in time to early 19th century Rhode Island and run for office, you are part of a grand story that’s coming to a close. The old-ass law firm now known as Tillinghast Licht, founded during the Late Cretaceous (in 1818) is set to fade away over the next six months. Maybe you know it by one of it’s different names:

In the early 20th century, with William Tillinghast still a member of the firm, Tillinghast & Tillinghast merged with another firm to form Tillinghast & Collins. It was the first of several mergers in the last century, all that saw the Tillinghast name remain preeminent. In the 1970s, Tillinghast, Collins & Tanner joined with Graham, Reid, Ewing & Stapleton. In the 1990s, Tillinghast Collins & Graham merged with Licht & Semonoff to form Tillinghast Licht & Semonoff. The name was later shortened to Tillinghast Licht to make it easier to say, according to Riedel. In 2000, it merged with the Boston firm of Perkins Smith & Cohen and called its Rhode Island office Tillinghast Licht Perkins Smith & Cohen, but the firms split several years ago, and Tillinghast Licht returned to its former name.

And Noah LLC begat Shem, Ham, Japeth and Jones, who begat Esau and Esau, who begat Dewey, Cheatam and Ezekiel…