News

A spoon-bending mentalist takes on the Gaspee affair

History Dept.
Plaques and parades are nice, but the real story of the HMS Gaspee — the British customs schooner looted and burned off the coast of Rhode Island in the run-up to the Revolutionary War — is not rated "G."

By: PHILIP EIL | May 23, 2012

The whistleblower in the ‘American Taliban’ case returns to Brown

Truthtelling
John Walker Lindh, better known as the American Taliban, was in US custody in Afghanistan in December 2001. And counter-terrorism prosecutor John DePue had a question: could he be interrogated without a lawyer present?

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 23, 2012

A future less dour

Looking Ahead
Neal Stephenson's novels have been called everything from science fiction to postcyberpunk.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 23, 2012

Advice for Curt; unrest by the sea; Mr. Walton blows out the candles

Out-of-business plan
In case Curt Schilling is reading, here are a couple things you should never do as a businessman: 1) bounce a check to a state government; and 2) fail to meet payroll, especially when you have billed yourself as a jobs creator.

By: PHILLIPE AND JORGE | May 23, 2012

Who passed voter ID?

Two months ago Hans von Spakovsky of the conservative Heritage Foundation, de facto apologist for a new wave of conservative-inspired voter ID laws, appeared on PBS NewsHour to defend the cause.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 16, 2012

OBEY THE GIANT debuts

Film Dept.
A black Lincoln Town Car drives through the darkened streets of Providence.

By: PHILIP EIL | May 16, 2012

Schilling strikes out; war on women; the kids are all right

Holding a 38 to our head
You may recall, a couple of years back, that then-Governor Donald "The Don" Carcieri was very gung ho about the state offering Curt Schilling's 38 Studios video game company a whopping $75 million in loan guarantees through the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation.

By: PHILLIPE AND JORGE | May 16, 2012

Was Clarence Spivey wrongfully convicted of rape 40 years ago?

‘The truth has to come out’
The young woman, just 18 years old, was standing at the driver's side door of her blue Volkswagen in the parking lot of St. Joseph's Hospital in Providence on a clear and wintry Saturday evening when a young black man approached from behind and put a knife to her throat.

By: JAMES ROBINSON | May 11, 2012

SLIDESHOW: Transcripts from Clarence Spivey's trial

‘The truth has to come out’
Spivey’s account of how the police arrested him was at odds with the official version; the pants he was wearing figured prominently in the trial.

By: PHOENIX STAFF | May 09, 2012

Photos, sound, and teen pregnancy rendered human

Art Dept.
Thirty-five black-and-white photographs ring the exhibition space at TSETSE Gallery on Empire Street in downtown Providence. Here a man with a bushy goatee sitting on a motorcycle, there a woman covering her face with her hair.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 09, 2012

When the hipster label hurts

Religious Studies
Don't call it a "cool church," pastor Andrew Mook says.

By: PHILIP EIL | May 09, 2012

Night strife; bye-bye, Big East; sexual politics; Fruit of the boom

Economic development?
On weekends busloads of thugs from Massachusetts are making their way to the war zone of Richmond Street and the surrounding neighborhood we used to lovingly call "ProHo."

By: PHILLIPE AND JORGE | May 09, 2012

On politics, the media, and Providence’s ‘hidden gem’

Week In Review
It was quite the week in local news and here at Chez Phoenix .

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | May 02, 2012

The launch of PVD Pudding Pops

Sweets.
Valeria Khislavsky woke up in the middle of the night last summer with an idea: she was going to sell pudding. It was a mysterious vision, she says. She didn't have any particular attachment to pudding as a child; she isn't obsessed with pudding pop pitchman Bill Cosby. But it was, in a way, perfectly logical.

By: PHILIP EIL | May 15, 2012

Freedom from Common Sense Foundation; dance fever; what’s in a name?

Defining offensive
The controversy over the Freedom From Religion Foundation's attack on a World War I and World War II memorial on city land in Woonsocket — it includes a cross — isn't worth a week's worth of talk radio time. But it does warrant a comment by P&J.

By: PHILLIPE AND JORGE | May 02, 2012

As May Day approaches, a local labor movement at a crossroads

Protest Dept.
May Day, the international workers day, is just around the corner. But organized labor, here in Rhode Island, is not in a particularly celebratory mood.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | April 25, 2012

Revolution: Silent film at the library

At the Movies
Last I checked in with Dave Dvorchak — Providence Community Library office manager, film geek, Renaissance Man — he had found a long-forgotten cache of 16-millimeter movies owned by a defunct consortium of Rhode Island libraries.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | April 25, 2012

We voted!; the old ball game; hear them roar

Poll dances
Like all good Vo Dilunduhs, Phillipe and Jorge used our unaffiliated voter status to become "Republicans for a day," cast our ballots in the GOP primary, and then switch back to being independents immediately afterward.

By: PHILLIPE AND JORGE | April 25, 2012

The quiet push to decriminalize marijuana possession in Rhode Island

Pot is not a crime
The often frustrating push to get a workable medical marijuana regime up and running in Rhode Island has received plenty of ink in recent years. But the state's pot politics don't end there.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | April 18, 2012

Matt Jerzyk goes to City Hall

From activist to insider
Not long after helping David Cicilline win election as mayor of Providence nearly a decade ago, Matt Jerzyk, then a ponytailed activist and budding political operative, made a decision that has come to define his place in the rough-and-tumble world of local politics.

By: DANIEL MCGOWAN | April 18, 2012