Starting next week, the new name will be “The State of Alex and Ani and Providence Plantations.” The Department of Motor Vehicles will be issuing new license plates with a choice of four collectible bangles, including Quahog-Contentness, Coffee-Milk Celebration, and Anchor of Hope.
“I don’t think of this as a bailout,” said Raimondo. “It’s an investment opportunity, with a little bit of bling!”
Although the exact terms of the deal remain classified as a “business secret,” Raimondo assured the public, “This is a very sweet deal. They’ve purchased all our debt in exchange for the right to collect tolls, raise taxes, teach color and chakra theory in schools, and require people to assemble jewelry in exchange for their unemployment benefits.”
In an early morning ceremony at the State House, House Speaker Nicholas Matiello, and Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed were each presented with empty charm necklaces with plenty of room for contributions from lobbyists and special interests. “We are looking forward to jerking the governor’s chain,” said Mattiello.
“Historically, Rhode Island was the costume jewelry capital of the world,” explained Brown University Professor Dr. I.M. Fulaship. “Now the costume jewelry has retaken the capital and the entire state.”
]]>Those moderately familiar with Alex & Ani’s jewelry line are aware of the pseudo-religious “new age” veneer the company puts on its products, and Oppenheimer wonders if the company is a “capitalist success story” or a “worldwide church,” before quickly declaring the answer to be “both.”
The core philosophy of Rafaelian’s church is monstrous and anti-human. Alex & Ani profits from selling a worldview based on fear and superstition, one that especially targets the gullible and ignorant. Worse, the company puts forth the idea that everyone deserves what they get, a sort of new-age Calvinism/prosperity gospel in which those who have good lives are reaping the benefits of the positive energy they put forth, and those who are struggling are the recipients of the life lessons needed to turn their sorry lives around.
Oppenheimer links Alex & Ani’s philosophy to Rhonda Byrne’s “The Secret” a 2006 book that highlights the importance of the “Law of Attraction” which says “if you put out good energy, good things will come back to you.” Oppenheimer explores this idea in the following exchange with Rafaelian:
On the flip side, the law of attraction implies that people are responsible for the bad things that befall them: put out bad energy, get back bad energy. Ms. Rafaelian said she does not believe that people bring tragedy on themselves. But when I proposed the hypothetical case of, say, a woman who had been raped multiple times, her reply suggested that if the woman was not to blame, somehow her energy was.
“That poor person may have to experience some horrific things until they learn something on such a subconscious level that they can elevate from that place, and they won’t have to deal with that experience again,” she said. “When these things happen over and over to the same people, they have to have their own space to remember their true beautiful self and say, ‘Physically and emotionally, this isn’t for me anymore.’ ”
Some people, it seems, need to be repeatedly raped before they learn the valuable life lessons they need. Hold on a second, I have to throw up…
Okay, I’m back. I submit that no decent person can truly believe this twaddle whose mind is not completely overtaken with trite platitudes, theological nonsense and class privilege. Rafaelian’s statements to Oppenheimer are obscene, monstrous, anti-human and nauseating.
The idea that people are always and ultimately responsible for their lot in life should be immediately recognizable as idiocy. Were all the passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 putting bad energy out into the universe? Are the children being treated at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in need of valuable life lessons? How many homeless people need to say “physically and emotionally, this isn’t for me anymore” before than can secure safe living spaces?
The philosophical ideas of Alex & Ani are narcissistic nonsense that insults the dignity of those who are leading impossibly difficult lives. Further, selling jewelry under the claim that “they hold vibration of pure energy, healing love” and that before being sold “every product has been blessed by my priests, it has been blessed by my shaman friends, protected from radio frequency, from radioactivity” may not be illegal, but it is certainly morally reprehensible. These claims are bullshit, and every penny that supports such bullshit does so at the expense of those the money spent could have helped.
]]>I’d say it’s the latter is where Rhode Island’s marketplace of ideas misses the mark. Case in point: Mark Patinkin’s column this morning on worker versus management rights.
He chose to focus on the spat between college buddies Rob Rainville and John Feroce, who it turned out didn’t enjoy working together as much as they liked partying together. Rainville was the attorney for Alex and Ani and Feroce the CEO. When the business and/or personal relationship turned sour Rainville, a lawyer, filed suit. Alex and Ani is under intense scrutiny as of late, and this is certainly a newsworthy topic. But it’s not an example of labor versus management rights – it’s an example of what can happen when longtime friends add loads of money and a law degree to the equation.
Better examples of the tension when employees and employers part ways exist in Rhode Island, and Patinkin would have had to only read the newspaper he works for to find about them.
One from yesterday’s Providence Journal described how the owner of a Warwick tree service fired an worker when he got hurt with a chainsaw on the job. And when the employee stood up for his worker’s rights, management had him deported. A judge awarded the employee a $30,000 settlement and then the state fined the owner $150,000 when he failed to make good on the restitution.
I’d like to know, since it seems to be a topic worthy of debate, what Mark Patinkin thinks of this situation. To me it seems pretty obvious both the employee and employer would have fared better if the employee enjoyed the full rights of American citizenship, probably would have saved us taxpayers money too.
Or how about this one from last week, in which a former Hasbro employee says she was fired for being gay and a woman. According to the ProJo, the woman “alleges that her open commitment to the cause of womens rights, her gender and her sexual orientation led Hasbro to falsely accuse her of misconduct and subsequently fire her last January.”
If his Twitter timeline is any clue, I would expect Mark Patinkin to be even less empathetic to workers’ rights when the worker in question is a female.
How come, instead of ordering their own dessert, women say they’ll just take a bite of yours, and then eat half of it?
Patinkin, Mark (@markpatinkin) February 6, 2014
And admitted to being a sexist in a January tweet:
Am I the only sexist who wonders why Jennifer Aniston doesn’t get married but cheers on George Clooney for avoiding capture?
Patinkin, Mark (@markpatinkin) January 21, 2014
No, Mark Patinkin, you are not the only sexist who wonders such things. But it is good that you can admit to being a sexist. That’s the first step. You ought to also admit that your most recent column about employee versus employer rights does more damage to this important discussion than it does service.
]]>Click here if you can’t see the above video.
Both these Rhode Island powerhouses will clean up on Valentine’s Day, but what is even more interesting that CVS and Alex and Ani also both represent the two different kinds of flagships for a neighborhood economy. CVS traffics in convenience and Alex and Ani traffics in style, but one business model or the other usually anchors any successful enterprise zone – be it a Main Street or elsewhere.
But I think the Saturday Night Live spoof on CVS was more honest about that company’s business model than the message Alex and Ani paid local film maker David Bettencourt, senior cinematographer at Seven Swords Media, shot the commercial”to craft for them.
Alex and Ani isn’t helping to revive any Main Streets. It’s locating stores on already successful Main Streets. Here in Rhode Island, there are Alex and Ani stores in Wayland Square, Newport and East Greenwich. But there is not an Alex and Ani in West Warwick where Bettencourt shot scenes for the commercial and where company CEO John Feroce grew up.
I’m not suggesting there Feroce should put an Alex and Ani store in downtown West Warwick (though it certainly would certainly help the city’s economy more than it would hurt the company’s profit margin). But it sure does seem like a great argument for state aid to struggling cities if you ask me.
Think about it: West Warwick fits the bill for educating Feroce when he was growing up, but when he becomes a job creator he does so in East Greenwich and pays property taxes on a home he owns on Bellevue Avenue in Newport. That all works out great for East Greenwich and Newport, but not so much for West Warwick. This is Main Street revitalization only if you are okay with the West Warwicks of the world being left behind.
]]>Wednesday Dec 18, 2013
North Kingstown, RI – Good morning, Ocean State. This is Bob Plain, editor and publisher of the RI Future blog podcasting to you from The Hideaway on the banks of the Mattatuxet River behind the Shady Lea Mill in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.
It’s Wednesday, December 18 … there are less than two weeks left in 2013 and the Capital City is making a late run to beat its 103 shootings last year. Yesterday, it recorded numbers 99 and 100 yesterday when a man and a woman were found with bullet injuries after crashing their car while driving themselves to Rhode Island Hospital. According to the ProJo, the man was shot on the same Elmwood Ave corner last year. Do me a favor and read the Providence Journal story by Greg Smith, and then ask yourself again if taxes are the biggest issue facing the Ocean State.
Rhode Island Catholics are calling on Bishop Tobin to apologize for slamming Nelson Mandela on abortion while the rest of the world was mourning his death. The group plans a news conference today when it will deliver a petition signed by 19,000 people to the dioceses today.
And speaking of influential conservatives who say stupid and hurtful things …. let’s be clear about something else, too: John DePetro indeed does have a First Amendment right to call women whores. And so does WPRO, for that matter … see George Carlin’s famous seven dirty words routine for a list of the words they don’t have a 1st Amendment right to use….
But if you want to make this a First Amendment issue, you better be ready to defend the rights of those who want tell as many people as they can NOT to support businesses that calls women whores. The more relevant question is whose rights will Alex and Ani decide are more important to their bottom line.
…And still on the topic of saying hurtful things, Justin Katz pens a post in which he gives the Humanists of Rhode Island a some nice props. But Katz’s post centers on the Freedom from Religion’s State House decoration which says, “Religion is but a myth & superstition that hardens hearts & enslaves minds.”
In differentiating that banner from the Humanists’, Katz writes, “That message is different in kind, not just content. It’s an overt (indeed, hard-hearted) attack on what others believe and a short-circuit of a sense of community and spirit of public discourse.” And then he has this asterisk: “Note that venue is important; seasonal decorations merit a different standard than policy debates.”
Right, the venue in question – the State House – is for policy debates. That’s the point. This is a policy debate and sometimes people say hard-hearted things in policy debates. In fact, I dare say no one else in Rhode Island politics takes as hard-hearted a view on policy debates as you … no fair going soft on us when it comes to church and state matters…
So here’s a pretty cool look into how Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is working across party lines to make the world safer and Rhode Island’s economy stronger, all in one tiny piece of what could otherwise be called pork. In the Defense Authorization bill, Sehldon worked with Republican Rob Portman to include a rider for what’s called “asset tracking provisions.” In other words, the bill would require fancy bar codes on military guns and ammo. Well it just so happens that there’s a Rhode Island company that makes these fancy bar codes: A2B Tracking is located in Portsmouth and employs about 50 people there. Coincidentally or not, A2B’s website says they are hiring!!
Ronnie Biggs died yesterday … he was the world’s last great train robber. In 1963, he and 14 other guys stole $7 million in bank notes from a train in England. Biggs turned himself in in 2001.
December 18th is a giant day in American history … in 1620, the Mayflower made landing in what would later be named Plymouth Harbor. And on this day in 1865, America would abolish slavery.
In less world-changing historical events, on this day in 1966 Tara Browne, friend of Mick Jagger, was killed in a car wreck … you know her because her accident is the one John Lennon sung about in “A Day in the Life”
…I bet you can guess what our song of the day is!
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Smiley, along with Jorge Elorza, is one of two progressive Democrats vying to be the next mayor of Providence. He spoke about his policy differences with Mayor Taveras, how he would address the city budget, the Superman building and schools and much more.
]]>After teachers and other union members protested a Gina Raimondo fundraiser, the infamous shock jock called them “union hags” and spelled out the word “whore” on the air.
DePetro’s often derogatory rhetoric is clearly at odds with how Alex and Ani markets itself as a “lifestyle brand.”
“Companies that advertise with WPRO must understand they are empowering a misogynist to continue attacking women,” according to the video. Alex and Ani’s “self-proclaimed mission is to spread love and positive energy. So why are they supporting hate speech by advertising on WPRO’s John DePetro Show?”
Off air, DePetro has worked closely with Alex and Ani CEO Giovanni Feroce. In May, DePetro hosted a talk series at a local theater featuring Feroce (as well as former governor Don Carcieri and Catholic priest Father Bernard Healey).
DePetro has been plagued by his misogynistic conduct throughout his career. He was fired from a Boston radio station for calling a female candidate for governor a “fat lesbian.” After being fired for the comments, he was by WPRO. In 2012, he was accused of sexually assaulting a female co-worker at WPRO.
]]>Then he added as he walked away, “I’ll see you in court.”
I’m assuming he means for the sexual harassment suit our former colleague Dee DeQuattro has filed against him, but who knows. Experience tells me the truth is usually the opposite of what John DePetro says it is, so perhaps I won’t see him in court. Though I do know he appeared before the state Human Rights Commission for the allegation recently. So on the other hand, maybe I will see him in court.
Either way, I plan to see him tonight night when he hosts a panel discussion with former governor Don Carcieri, Catholic priest and State House lobbyist Bernard Healey and former GOP state senator and Alix and Ani CEO John Feroci at the Odeum Theater, also on Main Street in East Greenwich.
This is a pretty tight-knit group. The evening is being sponsored by Besos, a new local restaurant. The owners are very good friends with both Feroce and the Carcieri family (in fact, they bought the former governor’s downtown mcmansion from him). All of participants belong to the local Catholic church, where Healey is the priest.
Coincidentally, these conservative Catholics were booked by a liberal Jew. Frank Prosnitz, former ProJo and Providence Business News editor, has been leading the local effort to revitalize the Odeum for years. He’s managed to get the doors open, but with renovation bills now due he’s turned to this conservative cabal to help bring in some revenue. It will certainly be interesting to see what kind of crowd this group attracts.
I don’t know Feroce too well, though I did meet him years ago when I was in college and he was in the state senate. Bernie Healey is best known for lobbying State House leaders against marriage equality. Carcieri used his two terms as governor to advocate against immigrants, equality, poor people and the public sector. Few Republicans have been willing to defend him since he left office and his infamously failed scheme to give his friend Curt Schilling public money to make a video game has rendered him one of the least popular local politicians in recent memory. DePetro is widely regarded as the most mean-spirited and dishonest person in Rhode Island politics and/or media.
Alex and Ani aside, it’d be hard to put together a trio that has done more damage to Rhode Island than Carcieri, DePetro and Healey. I wish the local theater much luck, but this seems like more evidence things aren’t going well for the Odeum.
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