News

Vaseline and blood: the writings and writhings of Eli V. Manuscript

Letters
Eli V. Manuscript says he kept his performance tame at the debut of his "The Empty Room" reading series earlier this month in Providence.

By: PHILIP EIL | March 21, 2013

The Cost of War

When assessing the cost to America of the war in Iraq, a blue-ribbon panel says President Obama is all wet
With the tenth anniversary of the war upon us, a team of economists, lawyers, humanitarian personnel, and political scientists has developed a comprehensive, by-the-numbers look at the human, financial, and social impacts of the Iraq conflict.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | March 20, 2013

H.P. Lovecraft gets his due

Letters
"I'm generally up to my armpits in the creepiest, slimiest, nastiest kind of critters that the ocean produces," Niels Hobbs says.

By: PHILIP EIL | March 13, 2013

What is Linc hiding?; the Big East gets small; blunders at Halitosis Hall

Show us your hands
"What's that you're holding behind your back?"

By: PHILLIPE AND JORGE | March 13, 2013

'Digging Us a Hole': Student climate activists descend again on TransCanada in Westborough, protesting Keystone XL

By: WEN STEPHENSON | March 13, 2013

Can Providence rise to the greatest civil rights challenge of our times?

School reform
Standardized test scores — cold, flawed, too often depressing — come and go with little notice these days; an ugly drumbeat we'd prefer to ignore.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | March 06, 2013

In search of Cumberlandite

Geology Dept.
Rhode Islanders are fond of saying "only in Rhode Island," even when it's not true. This isn't the only state teeming with corruption, long-toothed palookas, or landmarks that "used to be" something else.

By: VICTOR PAUL ALVAREZ | March 06, 2013

David Shields on How Literature Saved My Life

Q&A
In the fourth chapter of his new book How Literature Saved My Life , Brown alumnus David Shields contemplates nothing less than the meaning of life: "Isn't everyone's project, on some level, to offer tentative theses regarding what — if anything — we're doing here?"

By: PHILIP EIL | March 06, 2013

Ya gotta have heart; hoping for fresh air; more dirt at the Vatican

Thanks, Dr. Koop
You may have noticed the passing of former US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who turned in his famous braided Salvation Army captain's uniform on February 25, at age 96.

By: PHILLIPE AND JORGE | March 06, 2013

Weeks after Aaron Swartz’s death, a friend takes action

Aftermath
Providence State Representative David Segal's 2010 Congressional campaign was a shoestring affair. It would not prevail.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | February 27, 2013

On the Providence River: oysters, slaves, and the ‘Moses Plan’

The Waterfront
Robert Geake remembers the smell.

By: PHILIP EIL | February 27, 2013

Picking on the Pope; pithy phrases; creative economy stimulation

Stolen jokes of the week
While Phillipe and Jorge are bona fide yucks-a-minute geniuses, we must occasionally draw on other sources for the boffo humor our readers deserve.

By: PHILLIPE AND JORGE | February 27, 2013

WPRO drops St. Pierre

Off Air
Buddy Cianci was on a plane to Florida for a five-day vacation. So Ron St. Pierre, his longtime talk radio sidekick, had the microphone to himself.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | February 20, 2013

WPRO axes St. Pierre; LaPierre misses the mark; who wants to be pope?

Ronzo gets the boot
News broke late Thursday that talk radio station WPRO had laid off Ron St. Pierre, a Rhode Island Radio Hall of Famer who was serving as producer and de facto co-host of Buddy Cianci's show.

By: PHILLIPE AND JORGE | February 20, 2013

In the woods with the Rhode Island Men’s Gathering

Beat the Drum
In the 1950s, President Dwight Eisenhower occasionally traveled to the backwoods of Rhode Island to hunt and fish on the sprawling property of oil tycoon W. Alton Jones.

By: PHILIP EIL | February 20, 2013

The Station fire: 10 years after

Four writers on the tragedy that disfigured Rhode Island
It's been 10 years since fire tore through a roadhouse in West Warwick — killing 100, injuring 200 more, and singeing thousands of New Englanders whose mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and friends died inside The Station or never quite figured out how to live outside of it.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | February 13, 2013

Q&A: On climate change, it’s Sheldon Whitehouse v. Washington

Q&A
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has taken a lead role in one of Washington's most important — and intractable — public policy fights: reining in climate change.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | February 13, 2013

Cutler goes to Copenhagen

Citizen Diplomacy
It was a woman who brought Andy Cutler to Providence 10 years ago.

By: DAVID SCHARFENBERG | February 13, 2013

The Pope cashes out; a nod to Salty; the police blotter

Pontiff’s pension ploy
Phillipe and Jorge have conducted an extensive investigation into Pope Benny Andajets' decision to resign from his exalted post, and we've discovered that the first Catholic pontiff to bail since the 1400s has done so for one reason and one reason only: he has a pisser pension deal he wants to cash in on.

By: | February 13, 2013

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The New Abolitionists: Global warming is the great moral crisis of our time

Why the climate-justice movement must embrace its radicalism to fight it
I want to say a word for radicalism — for the role of the radical in building a movement to confront climate change, the most urgent crisis human beings have ever faced.

By: WEN STEPHENSON | March 12, 2013