You’re right, it makes no sense, but General Colin Powell—formerly Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—will deliver the keynote address for the U.S. Scholar-Athlete Games—currently taking place at the University of Rhode Island—tomorrow night at the Providence Performing Arts Center. The speech will take place at 7 p.m. and will be followed by a Question and Answer period. Tickets are on sale at the PPAC box office and cost $20 for adults and $15 for students 18 and younger.

And, the ProJo reports:

Schedule permitting, Powell may also lead the games’ first “peace walk ” by about 1,000 competitors and their coaches in downtown Providence tomorrow afternoon. The walk is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. from the park on South Main Street near the Licht Judicial Complex and proceed along the river walk to Burnside Park. Since the games began, in 1993, the goal has been to eventually hold a “peace summit,” said Dan Doyle, the games’ founder and executive director of the Institute for International Sport, which sponsors the games. The peace walk is the first in a series of events meant to lead up to the summit, he said.

And, no, I’m not paying $20 either.

Fri, 5/23, 5-7pm: SALON – Journalist Robert Whitcomb on his 2007 book, Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound, written with Wendy Williams.

A spirited account of the plutocracy’s attempts to quash an alternative energy initiative that would plant wind turbines on Nantucket Sound, Cape Wind is more relevant than ever as Governor Carcieri seeks developers’ bids for an offshore wind farm intended to generate at least 15% of Rhode Island’s electricity. Join Providence Journal editorial page editor Whitcomb for a conversation about the many vested interests still battling it out in Massachusetts, and a look at the future of wind farms in Rhode Island. Books will be available for sale and signing, thanks to Borders!

The week-long series on criminal justice reform continues tonight, at AS220:

May 15
6:30pm Poetry ft. Lemon, Inphynit, Supreme, ACI writers, and BSS RhodeShow

8:30pm  “Artists and Social Change” - Bert Crenca (AS220), Teny Gross (Institute for Study and Practice of Nonviolence), and Ghyslaine Jean (In House Freestyle);

10pm Corinne Wahlberg, P.J. Pacifico and The Low Anthem

Does it count as shameless self-promotion to promote my promotion of a friend’s event? Hopefully not. Scope my piece in this week’s Phoenix on the upcoming criminal justice reform festival, Justice or Just Us?, taking place at AS220 real soon.

Though it’s not the lecture title that’s most likely to turn out our readership, we’ll tell ya about it anyway…

Fri, 5/2, 5-7pm: SALON – Romance novelist Laura Moore on Romance Writing 101—It’s Not All About Sex!

Join Laura Moore, a recent arrival to Providence, for an ardent conversation about the many twists and turns in the plot that led her from a career in art history and teaching to writing romance fiction. She will spill her secrets about the genre and business of romance writing and the newest trends in this billion-dollar publishing industry, plus answer the biggest page-turner of all: has she at last discovered happiness? Join us to find out!

For Athenaeum members and their guests.

UPDATE: Footage, courtesy of the Greenwash Gorillas themselves… even as this was a pretty amazing spectacle, the footage kind of makes me want to give Tom a big hug. While I understand the criticisms of Friedman’s work, I wonder if this was an effective way to get the message across, or whether this merely reflects poorly on the University… thoughts? Could the pie-throwers have raised their dissent during the Q&A with as much flair?

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman had just begun his Earth Day lecture at Brown last night, when Molly Little ‘08.5 and a colleague let him know what they thought of his work. The Brown Daily Herald reports:

A female audience member ran on stage last night and threw a green pie at New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman […]. The woman had been sitting in the south side of the auditorium’s front row when she pulled the pie out of a Brown Bookstore plastic bag that had been tucked in a red backpack and leapt out of her seat.

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Wowsers: 

Tuesday, April 15th - Israel/Palestine: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace  - A forum featuring Dr. Norman Finkelstein, the controversial scholar and author of Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History; Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict; and The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering.  Finkelstein’s work on the Middle East has been praised by people such as Noam Chomsky and Edward Said.  The event begins at 700pm at Brown U.’s List Art Building, room 120 (64 College St. in Providence).

Monday, April 21st - Tom Brokaw Lecture & Book Signing - Author and former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw will speak at 600pm in the Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 101 at Brown U. The lecture, sponsored by the Office of the President, is free and open to the public. At 5 p.m., prior to the lecture, Brokaw will sign copies of his books Boom! and The Greatest Generation in Sayles Hall.

Tuesday April 22nd - Bolivian President Evo Morales to Deliver Lecture - Bolivian President Evo Morales, that country’s first indigenous head of state, will deliver a lecture on international affairs titled “From the Andes: New Visions, New Voices,”  beginning at 400pm in Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 101. Doors will open at 3 p.m. For more information, contact the Office of University Events at (401) 863-2474.

Tuesday April 22nd - Earth Day with Thomas Friedman - Green is the new red, white and blue, according to New York Times columnist and bestselling author Thomas L. Friedman, who speaks in Salomon 101 at 600pm. A three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and most recently the author of “The World is Flat,” Friedman has covered the Middle East conflict, the end of the Cold War, U.S. domestic politics and foreign policy, international economics and the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat.

+ Tuesday, April 15th - Israel/Palestine: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace  - A forum featuring Dr. Norman Finkelstein, the controversial scholar and author of Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History; Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict; and The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering.  Finkelstein’s work on the Middle East has been praised by people such as Noam Chomsky and Edward Said.  The event begins at 700pm at Brown U.’s List Art Building, room 120 (64 College St. in Providence).

Here’s Finkelstein announcing his departure from DePaul University, after being denied tenure:

They continue their series on stuff that was going on at around the same time America’s fourth-oldest library got rockin’:

Fri, 4/11, 5-7pm: SALON – Meanwhile, At That Same Moment…

Part 6: Historian Jane Lancaster on the slave narrative, circa 1838. In 1838, Elleanor Eldridge, a Rhode Islander of African American and Native American descent left Providence on a book tour. She was selling her Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge, an “As Told To” memoir, incidentally one of America’s first memoirs of a free black woman. Join us to hear what Lancaster discovered about the women - black and white – behind this ground-breaking narrative and its publication and distribution, and discuss what Eldridge’s story tells us about the trajectory of race relations, abolitionism, and feminism in Rhode Island, from 1838 to today. For Athenaeum members and their guests.

Tonight from 6:30 to 8:30 don’t miss the opening of “Beyond the Birds and the Bees” - a public exhibit revealing the history of sex education in America over the last 100 years produced by the Public Humanities grad students at Brown. By looking at the military, schools and the ways that parents have explained the whole mess of intercourse perhaps we can better understand the state of our youth today. I wonder if there will be anything on rainbow parties … John Nicholas Brown Center, 357 Benefit St.

Info on the week’s events here. And the word on tonight’s kick-off below.

7pm Monday March 31st
At The Black Rep (276 Westminster)

DARE and PolyPhonic Kick-Off Event
DARE workshop followed by PolyPhonic Open-mic with spoken word, short films, and a DJ.

DARE is excited to host a workshop kicking off the “Looking the Storm in the Eye” week of events. This workshop will include:

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…But you gotta cozy up with a member first.  (Or sign up for a trial membership, which easily pays for itself in wine and cheese.)

Tonight’s Salon, 5-7pm:

Independent filmmaker Don Mays on his in-progress documentary, Deeds of Desperate Valor and the 230th anniversary of the RI First Black Regiment and the Battle of Rhode Island.

“A third time the enemy with desperate courage and increased strength, attempted to assail the redoubt, and would have carried it but for the timely aid of two Continental battalions dispatched by Sullivan to support his almost exhausted troops. It was in repelling these furious onsets, that the newly formed black regiment, under Col. Greene, distinguished itself by deeds of desperate valor,” wrote Samuel Greene Arnold in 1860.

Deeds of Desperate Valor will be a full-length documentary chronicling the unique and important contributions to the history of RI and the United States made by the RI First Black Regiment during their five-year service fighting in the Revolutionary War. Join us for a discussion of the regiment and the film, to be screened at the week-long celebration taking place in Newport August 24-30, 2008 in recognition of the 230th anniversary of the legendary Battle of Rhode Island. (Note: for another view of Mays’s talents, don’t miss his production of The Bluest Eye, Lydia Diamond’s adaptation of Toni Morrison’s classic novel, on stage at Providence Black Rep February 2 through March 9, more info at blackrep.org) For Athenaeum members and their guests.

From Kim Ahern at RIFuture:

While other states in the country are passing Constitutional Amendments to ban same sex marriages, civil unions and even as far as contracts between same sex couples - New England has turned into a bastion of equality and rights. From Massachusetts’s landmark decision in Goodridge to Connecticut currently taking up the case if there is a legal difference between civil unions and marriage - why has New England (with the notable exception of Rhode Island) been such a unique place for LGBT equality?

Come learn more at Roger Williams School of Law, in what is bound to be a provocative discussion involving a fantastic panel and keynote:

What: The Culture of Same Sex Marriage Symposium

Where: Roger Williams School of Law (Bristol, RI)

When: Friday, March 28 from Noon - 4:45PM.

Panel 1: The Same-Sex Marriage Debate in the State of Rhode Island

Panel 2: Civil Unions v. Marriage in New England

Cost: Free! Includes lunch and wine and cheese reception following the panels. However - if you are an attorney and would like to receive the 5 CLE credits available, the cost for that is $25. Co-sponsored by the Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay Bar Association and the RWU Law Alliance for LGBT Students.

Click HERE to register and to read more about the Keynote Address [ David Wilson - original plaintiff in Goodridge and Board Member of both HRC and Mass Equality] and each of the panelists!

Don’t forget about two awesome events happening tonight:

• The Black Air Foundation Fundraiser to Benefit the Lambert Lima Flying Squadron Cadet Program from 7:00-9:00PM at the Cape Verdean Progressive Center, 329 Grosvenor Avenue, East Providence.
• The Incarceration Rate for Males of Color In the State of Rhode Island, hosted by the Rhode Island Young Professionals, taking place from 6:00PM and 9:00PM at Brown University’s MacMillan Auditorium, 167 Thayer Street.

For those of you who missed Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci at Brown tonight, he was incredible [and bald]. Those of us who’ve read The Prince of Providence saw a very different Buddy tonight. First, he narrated his time as Mayor, the challenges he faced, and his accomplishments. He then made some key policy prescriptions–some minor, some radical:

• Providence Gardens: Buddy’s plan to cover I-95 from Broad Street to Atwells, connecting downtown with the West Side and opening a ton of land for development, residential space, business, and gardens. The highway would run, like a tunnel, under this development.
• Development on the other side of the mall, more so than exists already.
• Narragansett Landing: Development of 200 acres stretching from the Hurricane Barrier to Allens Ave. to Roger Williams Park. This would include a revamped Port of Providence, lots of jobs, and lots of green space along the South side of the city.
• The three above projects, titled “the 3 Cities” encompass 538 acres in Buddy’s imagination. He admits, “Some of that would have happened, but I was detained a little while.”
• Most radical, his plan to conglomerate the PVD metro area into one giant city including Providence, Warwick, Cranston, Pawtucket, East Providence, and North Providence. With or without conglomerating these cities and towns, he said, we are a city of 500,000 people that should have a unified government, tax base, police department, fire department, school department, and social services. Rhode Island is, and should be, a city-state, the former Mayor declared. He spent a long time ragging on suburban sprawl.

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Monday March 10th, 6PM
DR Workers Rights Lecture
Kassar House, Foxboro Auditorium (On the corner of Thayer and George)

Two representatives from the T.O.S. union, an organization of workers in the largest textile factory in the Dominican Republic, will speak about their incredible experiences as workers and organizers. Manuel Pujols, Secretary General of the union and Julio Castillo, Secretary of Press and Public Relations, will discuss their tireless work to combat poverty and advocate for humane conditions in the Dominican Republic’s free trade zones.

(Followed by the Global Exchange Panel at 8:30PM, also in Foxboro Auditorium: Representatives from Global Exchange discuss the effects of NAFTA on working conditions in Mexico and the rest of North America, and the indisputable links between corporate designed trade and economic policies and the accelerated Mexican migration to the U.S.- brought to you by OxFam.)

Monday, March 10th, 8PM
Community Dinner
DARE Office- 340 Lockwood St
A dinner-discussion with the Dominican trade unionists and representatives from various local organizations to share our experiences and discuss trans-national organizing. Fun for all!