Progressive News, Opinion, and Analysis
Without comment, just thought folks would be fascinated by the office’s logo, as noted by Spencer Ackerman today.
So CNBC thinks Rhode Island is a rotten place to do business … well at least Yankee Magazine recognized that the Ocean State has some of the coolest coastal communities in the region. In its annual ranking of the best beach towns in New England, editors ranked five Rhode Island municipalities among the 25 best in New England.
Newport and Block Island, ranked fourth and fifth respectively, were the top local towns. Watch Hill squeaked into the top 10 and Narragansett was named number 15. Little Compton, 21. It’s hard to argue with many of the towns the esteemed editorial staff included, but Jamestown and Charlestown – and maybe even South Kingstown – certainly deserved spots as well.
Here’s the full list, with my commentary in italics:
Just as they do in education metrics, Massachusetts cleaned our clock; the Bay State claimed 14 of the top 25 spots. On the other hand the tiny Ocean State eked out second place from the comparatively giant Vacationland; Maine took only four of the slots.
But why compare beach communities to business climates? They are both important components of our economic success, but as a culture we spend far too much time bemoaning the latter and not nearly enough capitalizing on the former. It is our tourist towns that endow Rhode Island with much of its fantastic quality of life and while they may not garner much attention at the State House or in stump speeches, our beaches and coastal communities are the best tool we have at our disposal to attract either new businesses and/or residents. To that end, beach towns can be said to be the Ocean State’s strongest economic asset.
At first blush one might guess the East Greenwich Rotary Club wouldn’t be the easiest audience for a progressive mayor of Providence to impress. But this, remember, is Angel Taveras, and I’ve honestly never known a politician with such a gift to win over various constituencies and to influence positive outcomes.
Angel inherited a cash-strapped city and handled it by getting the three-headed hydra of Providence politics – taxpayers, public sector unions and tax-exempt non-profits – to fork over their hard-earned money almost without so much as a debate. He also negotiated a peaceful and mutually beneficial outcome with the local Occupy crowd, a feat I believe to be unmatched in America.
Last week, he traveled downstate to the most conservative town around to talk to a group of business-backing Rotarians, and how do they greet him?
“You should run for governor!” he was told, according to East Greenwich Patch.
It’s easy to understand why Angel is so popular … he’s got an uncanny ability to level with both friends and foes, to tackle problems head-on and to date he’s proven he’s utterly unafraid of reaching consensus on any issue regardless of where a solution may fall on the political spectrum. That is exactly the set of skills Rhode Island needs most in a statewide leader.
He even explained to the group why it is that folks in East Greenwich ought to care more about the plight of Providence:
“We’re all co-dependent … Providence is the heart of the state. If your heart’s not healthy, the rest of your body isn’t. We’re all in this thing together.”
Taveras has already done wonders in healing the state’s heart … here’s hoping he the EG Rotarians, and many others, will get their wish and Angel will apply his considerable political acumen to the rest of the state via a run for governor in 2014.
Barrington balked a bit in its bid to ban plastic bags last night. The Projo reports that last night “a divided council authorized the town solicitor to draft an ordinance on the use of plastic bags but was unable to define exactly what that measure would say.”
The Council will hold a workshop sometime in August to discuss the ramifications of asking people to supply their own grocery bags – here’s a cheat sheet on how that debate will go down: the environment will be a lot better off and CVS will make a tiny bit less money.
Speaking of recycling, Bradley Campell of RIPR delves deep into how the recycling process works in Rhode Island.
WPRI gives Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee some love … the PCCC called Sheldon “a rising progressive star” in an email it sent out yesterday that Ted Nesi turned around into a pretty informative post. Me, I’m not really sure how much higher his progressive star can rise … he’s introduced the best bills in Congress this year and he seems perpetually willing to stick up for the middle class. Sheldon is the number one star of the progressive movement in America.
A rising star would be more like Darcy Burner, from Seattle. Watch this woman, as she is sure to make some political waves in her career.
By the way, I want RI’s junior senator to start a giant funk band called Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Sheldon and the P Triple C, for short.
Add Projo columnist Ed Fitzpatrick to the list of journalists to take issue with Anthony Gemma’s unbelievable social networking prowess.
Hitchcock himself would have a hard time scripting a scarier trip abroad than what Mitt Romney just pulled off. He managed to make enemies with England, of all countries, before running roughshod like a bull in a china shop over one of the most delicate political situations on the planet. but Chris Cilliza of the WaPo wonders if it matters.
In his post, he quotes prominent Republican Ed Rogers who sums up everything you need to know about the presidential campaign this year: “Let’s face it,” Rogers said. “Romney can’t win, but Obama can lose.”
NBC has rightly earned some ink deriding its coverage of the Olympics so far (even as it breaks viewing records). But people on Twitter have been the fiercest critics of the National Broadcasting Company, attacking it again and again as the network stumbles to walk a fine line between pleasing their advertisers and dealing with the fact that the whole world can find out what’s going on on the web or from 24-hour news.
For instance, I checked Twitter on Friday and discovered all the secrets of the Olympic opening ceremony; Daniel Craig’s entrance, the NHS celebration, that some MP had complained about all the “multicultural crap”, that there was a tribute to British terrorism victims, etc. See, I follow a few British accounts, and they were reacting in real-time. Since I’m not particularly excited about the Olympics, I just assumed I was missing the opening ceremony and got on with my life.
Until it got to be about prime time, and NBC decided to finally show it in America. It was an eery experience, one made really goddamn annoying by Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera attempting to outdo each other with inane commentary. While we here in Rhode Island experienced the global event with only a three-hour delay, in California there was a six-hour delay. Naturally, quite a few people were pissed off, and made their displeasure felt; with such Twitter trends as #NBCfail, “Shut Up, Matt Lauer” and #Costasfacts (named for Bob Costas’ wonderful additions like reminding everyone that Uganda was once ruled by Idi Amin—as though everyone didn’t already know; thanks Last King of Scotland).
It wasn’t any better on Saturday, because by 3:00 PM anyone with access to the Internet and paying attention knew that the US beat South Korea, that Ryan Lochte took gold and Michael Phelps finished fourth, and that Elizabeth Beisel had taken silver. But instead airing all of that live, as it happened, NBC decided they would rather show that after 8:00 PM. Keep in mind, prior to 8:00 PM, NBC Nightly News reported those results anyways. You could’ve watched it online (assuming you subscribe to cable) or on your smartphone, but those two things were down most of the day as people tried to do exactly that.
I can understand why NBC would want to put high profile events on after 8:00 PM. That’s actually reasonably convenient. However, in this modern era, there’s absolutely no reason you can’t broadcast things live first, and then broadcast them again at a more convenient time.
There’s also absolutely no reason, if you have three hour time delay, to be an idiot and not look up who Tim Berners-Lee is (he’s the inventor of the World Wide Web). But instead of doing that, NBC decided to treat America to Meredith Viera going “if you don’t know who he is, well, we don’t either.” Or now, just on Monday night, NBC had its own commercial spoil the information that it’s withholding. This kind of idiocy isn’t forgivable.
Neither is what NBC did to The Independent’s Guy Adams; getting Twitter to suspend his account because he was criticizing them. Deadspin (linked above) has the best summation, but essentially, Mr. Adams posted a corporate email to an NBC’s Olympics executive. Even though the email account is public and corporate, upon prompting from NBC (which Twitter has partnered with to provide real-time coverage of the Olympics—irony!), Twitter decided to suspend the account due to a policy which bans sharing personal and private emails!
Somehow, you’d think Twitter, which has watched similar stories play out countless times on its own service, would know better. That NBC is a domineering jerk isn’t surprising, given the way it’s behaved. But Twitter, seriously, this is like a Facebook-style move. Guess that’s been working out though; treat your customers like garbage and somehow profit.
Anyway, at this point, it seems like the only thing on television with a greater time delay than the Olympics on NBC is HBO’s The Newsroom. And it’s also garbage.
