March 15, 2016 – RI Future

March 15, 2016March 16, 2016

St. Patrick’s Day, 1989: The biggest upset in college basketball history almost happened in Providence

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

There should be an interesting twist to this year’s St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in Providence.

The NCAA’s March Madness basketball extravaganza tips off in the Capital City on March 17 featuring eight very diverse teams. So there will be quite a few foreigners – as we should and will regard them - wandering the streets and undoubtedly getting a skinful on St. Paddy’s Day. Smile, treat ‘em nice, and just enjoy the free sideshow by basketball fans exploring the eccentricities of Little Rhody. They are legion.

But this isn’t the first time the NCAA tournament and St. Patrick’s Day came crashing together in Providence, Rhode Island. The last time was 1989, and it turned out to be the show of all shows.

Notre Dame played Vanderbilt in the nightcap of a doubleheader that day. When you have a team named the Fighting Irish playing in any kind of competition on St. Patrick’s Day, it exponentially ratchets up the amount of drinking that will be done by the sons and daughters of The Auld Sod, as well as those pretenders to the breed who annoyingly use Irish accents for a day. (Just stop it! Stop it now!)

So the streets of Providence that day were teeming with Ireland-affiliated men and women and the tag-alongs. Kind of like “The Walking Shitfaced.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many drunks being readily accepted in public as a whole, and I worked in midtown Manhattan on St. Patrick’s Day for a few years. Nuf sed.

But inside Civic Center, one of the most memorable games in NCAA history was being played, and we got a perhaps not-so-nice slice of American culture. Princeton, the lowest (#16) seed in the region, was playing Georgetown, the #1 seed. A #16 had never beaten a #1 in tournament history. It would take a miracle.

Georgetown then was the NWA of college hoops. Led by its gigantic and intimidating black coach, John Thompson (a PC grad and former b-ball star here), his team was full of in-your-face, talk-shit-take-none bruisers with a reputation for a defense that strictly took names and kicked ass, with an essentially all black cast.

Princeton had a coach named Pete Carril, as tiny as Thompson was imposing, a kind of basketball Yoda, although the way he danced around on the sidelines that day made you think more of a leprechaun. His team of “smart,” virtually all white players essentially gave clinics on how the game of basketball should be played.

Problem was, Princeton took control of the game and made Georgetown look shambolic. Running plays that would have made a drill sergeant proud, the Tigers took their time and just kept putting points on the board, as the crowd went crazy.

As Princeton neared the biggest March Madness upset of all time, the Civic Center became louder than I have ever heard it. Anyone who wasn’t a Georgetown fan, which meant most of the 10,000-plus on hand, was rooting for Princeton. Part of it was because local PC fans detested Georgetown, but for the neutrals, not only was it an abiding love of the underdog, but it was those wonderful, cerebral white kids outsmarting their fierce and frightening black opponents. You didn’t need to be Cornel West or Donald Trump to figure that one out, however distasteful. Ah, nice to know we have come so far.

At any rate, Georgetown’s only lead was taken on what was to be their final basket, to go ahead 50-49. Princeton had two shots left with less than 10 seconds to win it, but the first was blocked out of bounds. Princeton’s second shot was a) deflected by Mourning as Princeton’s Kit Mueller shot; or b) Mourning hit Mueller on the wrist as he shot, which would have given Mueller two potentially game-winning free throws. Due to this non-call, Georgetown and the refs were booed off the court as loudly as the dreamers and hopers and perhaps darker thinkers in the crowd could muster.

And maybe only an old snake charmer like St. Patrick could appreciate what happened in the not so far future, for any number of reasons that make you feel better: John Thompson’s son went on to play college basketball…at Princeton…for Pete Carril. Were everything so nice.

On The Ball And Off The Wall is an occasional sports column by Chip Young, a Rhode Island journalist who was a sportswriter and broadcaster for 25 years. Best known as Phillipe, of Phillipe and Jorge’s Cool, Cool World, Young was also an All-America soccer player in college, he is in the Brown Athletic Hall of Fame. Today he takes a look at one of the most near-famous basketball games ever played in Rhode Island.

March 15, 2016

During Sunshine Week, ACLU seeks court order for the release of documents a local journalist has sought for years

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island has asked a federal court to order the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to release thousands of pages of documents in support of its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on behalf of local journalist Philip Eil, who has been stymied for years in his effort to obtain from the DEA evidence disclosed at a major prescription drug-dealing trial. In its motion for summary judgment filed yesterday, the ACLU called for the release of “the wrongfully withheld documents post haste.”

In a 15-page memo, ACLU volunteer attorneys Neal McNamara and Jessica Jewell, from the law firm of Nixon Peabody, argue that the DEA has wrongfully withheld thousands of pages of evidence shown during the 2011 trial of Dr. Paul Volkman, whom the Department of Justice calls “the largest dispenser of oxycodone in the country from 2003 to 2005” and who is currently serving four consecutive life terms in prison.

Requesting the prompt release of this trial evidence, McNamara and Jewell write, “The government cannot on the one hand hold this case up as an example of how it investigates and prosecutes diversion cases and on the other state that the majority of the evidence used to convict such a defendant is not actually available to the public. FOIA is meant to prevent such ‘secret law.’ The general public clearly has an interest in knowing how Volkman was investigated and prosecuted.”

In support of the motion, the memo further notes that the federal government itself has uploaded to a publicly accessible judicial records website some of the documents it continues to withhold from Eil.

The ACLU’s legal memo was accompanied by an eight-page affidavit from Eil, in which he describes an array of obstacles he faced while covering the Volkman trial. Before the trial began, Eil says a DEA agent told him he could be charged with witness tampering for conducting interviews with potential witnesses. In 2011, while attending the trial, in Cincinnati, he was subpoenaed for testimony by the lead prosecutor and barred from re-entering the courtroom, though he was never actually called to testify. When he filed his FOIA request with the Department of Justice in February 2012, the agency took more than three years to fully respond, and withheld more than 85 percent of the pages it processed. Many of the pages released were significantly redacted.

“In 2009, when I learned of Volkman’s indictment, I set out to tell the story of a highly-educated man – my father’s former classmate – who became one of the most notorious prescription drug dealers in U.S. history,” Eil states in the affidavit. “As we approach the five-year anniversary of the verdict in that case . . . I am astonished that the vast majority of evidence from his trial remains sealed off to that case’s plaintiff: the American public.”

ACLU of Rhode Island executive director Steven Brown stated: “I am hopeful that the court will put a stop to the DEA’s flippant attitude towards the Freedom of Information Act. The agency’s siege mentality in trying to wear out Mr. Eil through years of delays amounts to an appalling attack on the public’s right to know.”

The DEA (represented by the office of Rhode Island U.S. Attorney Peter Neronha), has until May 4th to respond to the ACLU’s motion, with rebuttal memos due in June and July. Oral argument will likely be heard before U.S. District Judge John McConnell, Jr. sometime later this year.

These filings take place during Sunshine Week, a week designated to educate the public about the importance of open government, and at a time of heightened criticism of President Barack Obama’s transparency record. In 2015, the Associated Press reported that the Obama administration had “set a record again for censoring government files or outright denying access to them” in 2014. And, last week the Freedom of the Press Foundation reported that “the Obama administration – the self described ‘most transparent administration ever’ – aggressively lobbied behind the scenes in 2014 to kill modest Freedom of Information Act reform that had virtually unanimous support in Congress.”

Eil is an award-winning freelance journalist who served as the news editor and staff writer at the Providence Phoenix until the paper’s closing in 2014. He has since contributed to VICE, Salon, the Atlantic, Rhode Island Monthly, and elsewhere. He has conducted more than 100 interviews, across 19 states, for his book about the Volkman case.

March 15, 2016March 15, 2016

RI workers need fair scheduling on the job

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

For those who did not count during the Democratic Debate on March 9th, the candidates and moderators brought up jobs 22 times as they discussed the erosion of the middle class and the lack of good jobs available to working families. Across the country, including here in Rhode Island, cities and states are seeking to raise the minimum wage and provide for paid sick leave in order to better support workers. These issues are important, we need better wages and the ability to take off when sick, but we also need more control over our time and stable work schedules to plan our lives around.

Increasingly Americans are finding that their hours of work change from day to day or week to week with little or no notice. In fact, according to research from the University of Chicago, four out of ten early career adults receive their schedule with less than one weeks notice. In addition, many who need full-time work are only offered part-time hours, and workers are treated as “on-call”- expected to be at the beck and call of their employers around the clock. We lack what used to be a basic standard: the stability of a predictable schedules, and it’s taking its toll on our workforce. Even as a bank employee, I feel this change acutely.

I have worked as a customer service representative at Bank of America since 2003, and because of a disability, I rely on the bus to get to work every day from my house in East Providence. As someone who needs to use the bus, any change to my schedule could be disastrous. For example, if I get moved to the shift that ends at 10:00, I won’t be able to take the last bus at 7:00.

Recently there have been indications that the bank will start “optimizing” our schedules by forcing us to bid for our hours based on performance metrics every few months. This Hunger Games scheduling forces workers to compete with each other for the most preferable hours of work. Here, our time rather than a bonus or a promotion opportunity, is the prize.

The impact of such scheduling practices is that your life becomes uprooted every time a new bidding period comes around. This is a serious concern for me because while the bus schedule is out of my control, I should have more influence over my work schedule. For so many of my coworkers who have built their lives around their schedules, this unpredictability will not work.

While shifts of work are becoming increasingly unpredictable, our time at work is becoming increasingly restricted. For example, in my case, my coworkers and I only have two and a half minutes to use the restroom outside of our breaks, and some managers dock our pay when we go over. I will never forget when a manager suggested in front of a group that my middle aged female co-worker should buy special undergarments if she needed to go to the restroom more often than allowed. Of course, instead of buying diapers, many of my coworkers risk infections or refrain from taking prescribed medications because they might cause them to use the restroom more frequently.

In the bank branches, many tellers face further indignities. According to the Center for Popular Democracy, a third of bank tellers are only offered part time hours despite many desiring full time work. Far too many receive schedules just days before a shift starts and are forced to scramble to try to provide adequate care for children and aging parents.

As a customer service representative at a bank, I believe that everyone deserves to know how many hours they will work, so they can budget effectively. And, as a long-term resident of Rhode Island, I believe our state can do better to support working people. That’s why I have joined the Fair Workweek Coalition, a group of workers, labor unions, and community organizations from across the state pushing for commonsense reform so that our jobs help us live our lives, not upend them.

The legislation that we are advocating for, Fair Workweek for Rhode Island, incentivizes employers to give workers their schedules in advance and compensates employees for last-minute scheduling changes. The legislation will also help create pathways to full employment for workers who are struggling to get by on part-time hours, by requiring companies to offer available hours to their current workforce before hiring additional part-time employees.

As the legislation continues to move through the State House, the Fair Workweek Coalition wants to hear from more Rhode Islanders who struggle with erratic schedules. Please reach out to RIFairWorkweek@gmail.com to share your story with the coalition. Together, we can regain control over our time and our lives.

March 15, 2016March 15, 2016

Pattern of protester suppression at Raimondo events emerging

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Activists protesting the Clear River Energy Center in Burrillville, Invenergy’s proposed $700 million gas and oil burning energy plant, have been showing up at many of the public speaking events attended by Governor Gina Raimondo and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse over the last few months. Raimondo is on record as fully supporting the power plant, Whitehouse has recently shifted from being for the plant to saying that he has to be neutral.

The protesters have been peaceful and respectful. There have been no efforts towards disrupting events. For the most part protesters silently hold signs declaring their views, only speaking up at the end of the event.

Recently, however, protesters have been excluded from attending these public events and come under increased scrutiny from various law enforcement agencies.

On March 4, Lorraine Savard, a retired public school teacher, went to the Rhode Island State House with her anti-power plant sign, where she expected to be able to hold her sign at the back of the room during the Cherry Blossom Festival, held in the State Room.

“I was allowed into the State Room on the condition that I not wave the sign,” Savard wrote of the incident, “I sat with my sign on the floor next to me. Overstuffed red couch toward the back is where I sat. Sign facing out. It did not take long for the girl to come take my sign and hide it out of sight. I left with my sign.”

Savard told me that “the girl” is the member of the governor’s staff who maintains an office in the State Room at the State House.

In response to an inquiry, Marie Aberger, press secretary for Governor Raimondo, said, “The Governor’s staff did not take a sign away from anyone in the State Room. We are fully supportive of the public’s right to free speech.”

Three days later URI Professor of Physics and occasional RI Future contributor Peter Nightingale attended a NORAD press conference in Quonsett, RI. He stood outside the event with his sign, discussing the proposed power plant with Congresspersons David Cicilline and James Langevin.

Nightingale reports, “Mike Miranda, private owner of NORAD, did get tired with me and my off-topic message. He asked me to leave the event, which he referred to as private. The press was there and my impression was that the public was invited, but I left.”

Nightingale wonders, “how much state and federal money is spent on shuttling our leadership to and from these ‘private’ events.”

The next day, at the Pawtucket Visitor’s Center in downtown Pawtucket, Lorraine Savard found herself unable to enter the building with her sign. “I was not allowed into the press conference this morning. I stood outside with my sign. The Visitors Center is a public place, paid for with federal funds. I’m incensed. I am a pacifist at heart and not assertive enough to have demanded entry. The police came out and asked if it was a peaceful demonstration. I alone was there. How peaceful can it get?”

In this case it was federal law enforcement officers asked Savard to leave the property.

Intrigued by these reports, I accompanied Savard to the State House State Room for the International [Working] Women’s Day Event where Governor Raimondo was going to speak. The woman who uses the State Room as her office did not take Savard’s sign, but did wag a finger and caution her against displaying it. A Capitol Police officer was stationed directly next to Lorraine for the entirety of the event as she stood at the very back of the room.

When the Governor spoke at East Providence High School on March 10, Savard was not allowed on school property. Further, even when she stood off school property, she found herself under scrutiny from two East Providence police officers.

“[I w]as not allowed on the school property,” writes Savard, “The Principal came out to tell me I would be escorted off school grounds if I did not comply. I stood at the end of the drive and was then approached by 2 EP police officers and told not to block the drive. Madam Gov waved at me when her car drove in. There was press there, I took advantage of her interview and the camera when I went back to my car. I lined up the sign to be in line with the camera. As I returned to my car with sign one of the EP police approached. I called to him and said I was leaving.”

20160301_134831 — Nick Katkevich, Lorraine Savard, Mary Pendergast

Preventing protesters from attending and holding signs at public events is obviously a serious First Amendment issue, but in the cases above, it’s unclear that these events that were open to all or designed to be open to every member of the public. Determining whether a violation of the First Amendment has taken place depends on the facts of each particular incident and on the nature of the forum.

That said, you would hope that in an open and democratic society our leaders would be particularly sensitive to free speech issues and err on the side of allowing non-disruptive, peaceful expressions of critical views and opinions. When the public is disallowed from attending events we become victims of political theater and propaganda. Without true engagement the public will not be in possession of information that an engaged electorate needs.

Governor Raimondo and others, please take note: An informed, engaged electorate is only dangerous to a politician who is more interested in maintaining power than serving the public interest.

March 15, 2016

First Unitarian Church of Providence to hang Black Lives Matter banner

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

On Sunday, March 20, at 11:30 am, The First Unitarian Church of Providence will hang a banner affirming that “Black Lives Matter” over its Benevolent St. entrance (just above the intersection with Benefit St.). It is an act of public witness to which all are welcome.

First Unitarian’s interim minister, Rev. Charles Blustein Ortman, will briefly dedicate the banner, after which those present will be welcomed into the church’s Parish House for drinks and light snacks.

The church is hanging the banner this month to mark the occasion in March 1965 when hundreds of nonviolent civil-rights activists, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., began a five-day march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol in Montgomery to demand voting rights for African Americans.

Starting at 12:30 pm, First Unitarian will show the 2015 film Selma, which depicts the tumultuous events that led to enactment of the federal Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965.
A congregational vote was taken to affirm that Black Lives Matter; hanging the banner represents the first step in a campaign through which the church will pursue racial justice in Providence, in Rhode Island, and in the US.

“We are acting in the face of overwhelming evidence that Black people and other people of color are disproportionately harmed and discriminated against by our systems of criminal justice, health care, finance, housing, education and employment,” says Reverend Ortman.

“We are also moved to act by our shared agreement,” he says, “which compels Universalists to walk together in search of the paths of wisdom, compassion and justice.”

Under the auspices of its Standing on the Side of Love committee, First Unitarian will identify activities in which its members – joined, it hopes, by members of the broader community – can engage to advance this campaign. Such activities could include participating in voter-registration drives, supporting (or opposing) legislation, attending rallies, organizing events to raise awareness and screening relevant films.

First Unitarian’s support for the Black Lives Matter movement is in keeping with its long history of standing up for social justice. Most recently, the congregation devoted five long years to bringing marriage equality to Rhode Island, which arrived in May 2013.

[From a press release]