June 16, 2014 – RI Future

June 16, 2014June 18, 2014

Rhode Island Graphic Design Challenge: Oops, you forgot Block Island

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In the course of my job, I spend a lot of time with budding graphic designers, marketing students, and the like. Often, they’ve received some Rhode Island-centric assignment that will include a logo. Drawing a logo that represents Rhode Island can be relatively difficult if you’ve given it some thought. The anchor can be too official, given that it appears across State departments and branches. The quahog is indistinguishable from any other clam to the average person. So what does that leave us with? Well, the tried and true method is a silhouette of Rhode Island.

So it’s fair to say I’ve seen a lot of silhouettes of Rhode Island. And my feedback is almost rote now. “Where’s Block Island?”

To be fair to many of those who send the silhouettes to me, Block Island isn’t nestled as close as the other islands. But it’s roughly 75% larger than Prudence Island (and about 12x more populated) and Prudence almost always appears in a Rhode Island silhouette – albeit, often with a new landbridge between it and Patience Island.

But what would this article be without examples? The most glaring examples tend to come from Rhode Island’s political community. Here’s the Rhode Island Democratic Party’s logo (which eliminates not just the typical biggies of Block Island and Prudence, but also Jamestown’s island home of Conanicut):

Here’s the late Anchor Rising logo:

And in case you missed it up at the top of the page, RI Future’s current logo:

Over time, I’ve gotten into an ongoing Twitter back-and-forth with @Blockislandinfo about their missing island, and it’s yielded gems like this one:

@SamGHoward left off another one. pic.twitter.com/YyBZXkhNWj

— Block Island Tourism (@Blockislandinfo) May 23, 2014

That’s from GrowSmart RI’s Power of Place summit, which was all about Rhode Island.

That said, I’ve seen some examples of including Block Island. For all of its faults as a logo, the RI Welcome Back Center‘s logo at least contains Block Island. Foolproof Brewery also uses an RI silhouette that includes Block Island to show where in the state it’s brewed:

And that example shows that you can include Block Island and still make a design that looks good, even if you’re restricted by having to make a circular one. And this is important, because there was once talk of secession on our small southern island. Maps matter, and Rhode Island is small enough already without ignoring bits of it – especially important tourism-generating bits.

P.S. Some other odd configurations of the Rhode Island silhouette I’ve seen: Rhode Island as a single landmass sans B.I., Rhode Island missing all islands (and thus missing the “Rhode Island” part of it), and Rhode Island including Bristol County, MA.

If you see any more examples of odd Rhode Island silhouettes, feel free to tweet me (@SamGHoward) or post them in the comments below.

June 16, 2014

Hotel workers plan week long hunger strike for $15 minimum wage

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The Rhode Island House, under the leadership of Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, moved to strip away the political power of Providence hotel workers by inserting a provision in the state budget that would prevent municipalities from setting their own minimum wage last Thursday night. This week, the Rhode Island Senate takes up discussion of the budget, and though Senate President M. Teresa Paiva-Weed might wish to continue to ignore the demands of underpaid and overworked hotel workers, it will be hard to do so as five women engage in a hunger strike at the State House in protest.

Starting Thursday, five women, including four hotel workers and Central Falls City Councillor Shelby Maldonado, will be camping out 24 hours a day at the State House, refusing any sustenance except water to call attention to the terrible way in which this year’s budget specifically targets low wage workers with the intent of politically silencing their voices. The plan is to strike until Governor Chafee makes his final decision on the budget, which will be a week from Thursday, if past experience is any indicator.

At a press conference Monday afternoon, Unite Here!’s Jenna Karlin talked about how finding volunteers for the hunger strike was not a problem. The problem was settling on only five people to participate, there were so many eager to step up for the cause.

Mirjaam Parada is one of the hunger strikers. Parada works at the Omni Hotel and presently makes a comfortable wage in excess of $15, but she is participating in the strike out of solidarity with the workers at the Renaissance and the Hilton, who make far less than she does, and struggle every day to make ends meet.

Hotel worker Evan McLaughlin, who will not be participating in the hunger strike, wants everyone who walks into the State House over the next week to understand that the women not eating outside the the building are doing so because the General Assembly has decided that they do not have the right to petition their city government or fellow voters for fair wages under the new law.

This change in the law targets the Providence hotel workers, but the effect will be state wide. All 39 town and city councils in the state will lose the ability to determine a key aspect of their economy under the new budget. This is in some ways an end run around democracy itself: The Providence City Council put the measure to give hotel workers $15 an hour on November’s ballot for the voters of Providence to decide. The law championed by Mattiello’s House takes away the power of voters. It seems “big government” is only a problem when it affects a business trying to turn a profit and not when it affects a family trying to eat.

Central Falls Councillor (and union rep) Shelby Maldonado will also be participating in the hunger strike. Maldonado wants to best represent the people who elected her, and she feels she can best do this by championing the democratic process. The rights of the people to determine what is best for their communities is being usurped by a General Assembly that is beholden only to business interests at the expense of low wage workers, and this situation has to stop.

Earlier this year, Senate President M Teresa Paiva-Weed participated in a vigil in the main rotunda of the State House and spoke about this issue of poverty, and her responsibility as a legislator to address this problem.

“The Senate’s focus this session on the economy will be inextricably intertwined with the causes of poverty. We can’t move the economy forward without addressing the very issues that underline poverty.”

She said the vigil and a screening later in the day of [the movie] Inequality For All “will set a tone for the year and the message will be carried with us as we work to meet the significant challenges ahead.”

Even though it seems these words were forgotten by the Senate president moments after leaving her lips, one hopes that Paiva-Weed understands that how we treat our most vulnerable citizens best demonstrates our commitment to our moral responsibilities.

Ironically, just before the hotel workers took to the State House rotunda to talk about their planned hunger strike, there was an event in the Bell Room on the first floor of the State House to celebrate the release of a new cookbook, Extraordinary Recipes from Providence & Rhode Island Chef’s Table by Linda Beaulieu, complete with expertly prepared foods from some of the area’s best chefs. This juxtaposition of fancy food for the entitled political class and a hunger strike by poorly paid workers is a jarring reminder that things are not going right in Rhode Island.

Here’s the press conference video:

June 16, 2014

Budget bill is big on corporate welfare, short on renter protections

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Crying the need to ease the burdens of doing business in Rhode Island, the House of Representatives recently passed a budget that lowers the corporate tax rate, raises the ceiling on the estate tax, pays millions to 38 Studios bond investors, raises the gas tax and the cost of a car inspection. One has to wonder how these easements will truly help businesses in Rhode Island, or lure others here, when the state’s consumers are forced deeper into poverty.

Along with raising the costs of living and depleting our tax revenue, the House, led by new Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, may literally enable the eviction of hundreds of Rhode Island’s renters by shelving important legislation.

Just Cause (H7449 and S2659), is a bill that would prevent the no-fault eviction of tenants whose landlords get foreclosed on by the bank. As housing costs rise, homeownership remains what it has always been – the American “dream,” never reality – unemployment refuses to abate, and banks continue to foreclose on homes, the threat of no-fault eviction looms over many Rhode Island families.

“Just Cause,” the informal title of the bill, refers to the state’s Landlord-Tenant Act, which describes “just causes” for eviction. The list does not include foreclosure. However, throughout the housing crisis banks have used foreclosure as a justification to evict hundreds of families from their apartments. The rationale for this, they allege, is that homes are easier to sell without occupants. One has to wonder at this claim, when a simple drive down through many parts of the state includes the shells of abandoned, vandalized, and near-worthless homes, owned by banks that foreclosed and evicted the residents. These homes are not easy to sell. In fact, the only people who will buy them are out of state investors, slumlords looking to mooch rent from Rhode Island families in exchange for criminal living conditions, and house flippers, who profit from crisis by buying cheap properties.

According to The National Low Income Housing Coalition, housing costs are already out of reach for many Rhode Island renters. In order to afford the fair market rent for a 2-bedroom apartment ($928 a month), a renter making the average wage ($11.92 an hour), would have to work 60 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. There aren’t a lot of people I know making the “average wage,” which must factor in wages lower and much higher than 12 bucks an hour. With the minimum wage at 8.oo dollars an hour, one has to wonder how many working Rhode Islanders pay their rent. Add to this the 1,468 foreclosure deeds filed in 2013 and you have a rental crisis, as tenants evicted because of foreclosure drive up the demand on scarce and unaffordable rentals. In addition, those vacant, foreclosed properties stand empty, occasionally burning down, dragging down surrounding property values and further exacerbating the homeless and housing issues of our state.

No fault evictions due to foreclosure are increasing homelessness, reducing the availability of homes, pushing up rents, and fueling a housing crisis. It’s immoral and bad for the economy to allow banks to put families out, especially when they’ve done nothing wrong and are able to pay rent. Why would Speaker Mattiello, the primary opponent of the legislation, prefer a vacant home, homeless family, and devastated neighborhoods to a property occupied by tenants who pay rent and maintain the building? Even while the Senate leadership, through the efforts Senator Harold Metts, shepherds the bill towards passage, Speaker Mattiello remains adamantly in support of an international banking industry in opposition to the state’s people and economy.

It’s time to question the ideology that subsidies for the rich and corporations produce economic prosperity. It’s time for the state’s government to utilize regulations like Just Cause to bolster a struggling economy (at no cost to the state!), and protect the interests of the majority of the state’s people.

It’s time for Speaker Mattiello to reconsider the cost of shelving this legislation.

June 16, 2014June 16, 2014

E-cigarette bill is a boon for tobacco industry

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The House is set to vote today on an e-cigarette bill that will benefit only the tobacco industry, according to anti-tobacco advocates.

“The voices for the tobacco industry are receiving more attention than the advocates trying to protect our kids,” said Karina Wood, the director of Tobacco Free Rhode Island.

The group lobbied for new state regulations (but no new taxes) for a new tobacco product known as electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes – or, if you’re a tobacco industry lobbyist a “vapor product.” Whatever you call them, it heats liquid nicotine from tobacco without burning it; the bi-product is technically not smoke.

The House bill crafted by Tobacco Free Rhode Island and sponsored by Rep. Helio Melo initially labelled these contraptions as tobacco products, because they use nicotine from tobacco. But at a hearing by the House Judiciary Committee, a new version of the bill was adopted that labels e-cigarettes as “vapor product.”

The definition change is significant, Wood said, because it effectively removes any and all punishment from selling e-cigarettes to minors.

“It’s basically saying it’s illegal, but we won’t punish you if you do,” she said. “What am I supposed to think?”

Last year, Governor Chafee vetoed the so-called e-cigarette bill because, as he said in his veto message, it defined them as a “vapor product.”

He wrote, “The sale of electronic cigarettes should be illegal, but it is counter-productive to prohibit sales to minors while simultaneously exempting electronic cigarettes from laws concerning regulation, enforcement, licensing and taxation. As a matter of public policy, electronic cigarettes should mirror tobacco product laws, not circumvent them.”

The House votes on the bill today, and South Kingstown Rep. Teresa Tanzi is urging her colleagues to reject the bill.

“This bill serves to protect big tobacco’s interests over our children’s health,” Tanzi said. “By not classifying e-cigarettes as tobacco products, we will be eliminating decades worth of hard fought protections that we know help prevent addiction, while turning the marketplace into an unregulated wild west. This bill will leave a whole new generation vulnerable to addiction.”

June 16, 2014June 16, 2014

Cicilline promotes National ASK Day to prevent gun violence

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Congressman David Cicilline held a press conference this morning in Lippitt Park in Providence ahead of National ASK Day (June 21), a day organized nationally by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and supported locally by the Rhode Island Coalition Agains Gun Violence (RICAGV).

“ASK (Asking Saves Kids) aims to reduce unintentional firearm deaths and injury to children by encouraging parents to ASK, “Is there an unlocked gun in your house?” just as they would other health & safety questions, before their child visits another home. The ASK Campaign was created by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence in collaboration with the American Academy of Pediatrics. National ASK Day takes place every year on the first day of summer, as summer is a time when children are increasingly likely to be playing in other homes. ASK Day is on June 21st.”

Moving and emotional testimony was given by Karen Reed, a mother who, two years ago, nearly lost her five year old son to a terrible gun accident when her nine year old son found an unsecured pellet gun on Christmas Eve, and shot his brother in the eye, nearly killing him. Not only was one son grievously injured, but the other was forced to deal with the trauma and guilt of having accidentally caused so much harm. Yet who can blame a nine year old boy for such an accident? Isn’t it the responsibility of adults to secure weapons in the household?

Full press conference:

June 16, 2014June 16, 2014

The time was now for marijuana reform

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There is little doubt that that Rhode Island will one day regulate marijuana like alcohol. The political winds are just too strong. The nation supports it. And we are a solid blue state. Even among the few Republicans, Ron Paul scored better here than he did in all but two other primaries. The real question for marijuana reform is not if but when.

Sadly, it looks like the tax and regulate bill will not move this legislative session.

One of the most common arguments I have heard for delaying a move to sensible marijuana regulation is that we need to wait to see how decriminalization gets implemented here in Rhode Island and to see how legalization works out in Washington and Colorado. I find that attitude shortsighted and slightly heartless.

The crises caused by the drug war are very real and very immediate. While decriminalization is a sensible step that eases the pain, it does little to alleviate the damage done by the black market. Under decriminalization, we continue to subsidize the largest organized crime operation on the planet, the Mexican drug cartels. We may not consider the slaughter south of the border to be a major concern, but I assure you, few things matter more to the people of Mexico. And if we ever hope to secure our borders, we cannot continue to subsidize the gangs that make our southern border such a lawless place.

The effects are felt at home as well. Marijuana money fuels gang violence on our streets, too. It still absorbs severely limited police resources. And most importantly, marijuana continues to be used without any regulation whatsoever.

This means there are no controls on purity or additives. I have had many friends who have inadvertently and unwillingly ingested cocaine, tobacco, and other dangerous drugs because they were secretly mixed with marijuana.

This means there is no labeling of potency. Marijuana users have relatively little idea how large the dose they are ingesting is, making safe and responsible use much more difficult.

This means there is no restriction on youth access. Drug dealers do not card their clients.

Most of the many sensible regulations in this bill would be impossible without a legal framework to operate under.

A second reason not to delay moving to a regulated marijuana regime is economic. Many of the jobs in the East Coast marijuana industry will be located in the first state that allows those jobs in. If we are the first adopters, we will maintain an advantage in this industry for decades. And I hardly need to tell you how desperately we need jobs. It does not help to delay them.

Nor do I need to tell you how urgently the revenue in this bill is needed to address the fiscal problems plaguing our state.

We must act now to end the black market. We must act now to create jobs. We must act now to help mend our fiscal mess. For once, Rhode Island should take the lead on something good.