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There's nothing quite like returning to Rhode Island from the Deep South to provide me with concrete examples of why neither side of the major-party divide is particularly scrupulous these days. First a little background for out-of-staters and other usually uninterested parties: Steve Laffey is the Republican Mayor of Cranston, RI's third (I think) largest city. Since taking office (after a great campaign in 2002) he's been in the spotlight for his tireless advocacy for Cranston taxpayers. This being RI, that can usually be construed to mean "has fought public service unions tooth and nail." He's fired over-compensated crossing guards, hired private investigators to spy on sleeping union workers (I swear to God) and grappled with city teachers, all the while using the media masterfully to stay in the spotlight (a little too much, his critics would say). Personally, I think he kicks ass, but I'd prefer he stay in Cranston and not be sent to, say, the US Senate. So anyway, as you can imagine, he's pretty popular, and he's running for re-election. As you might also imagine, unionized workers in Cranston don't think he's so great. Without the means to swing the general election, what's a well-organized minority group to do? Why, disaffiliate from the Democratic Party and vote for Laffey's challenger in the September primary election. In Rhode Island, voters can register to vote without affiliating with a party (essentially "Independent"). This allows those voters to vote in either Democratic or Republican (or Green, or Crazy Monkey, whatever) primaries. The idea is that those without a strong affiliation with either party can vote where they think their vote will matter most, and overall it's a good policy. Of course, there are ways in which it can be exploited. So the Public Service Employees Local Union 1033 recommended that its members disaffiliate, making them eligible to vote in the Republican primary, with its greatly reduced voter turnout. It's perfectly legal, but morally wrong (it seems like that's an all-too-common description these days, doesn't it?). I like the ideas which benefit the majority of citizens but depend on a modicum of unlegislatable integrity, such as "don't vote in the other party's primary if you're committed ideologically to the opposition." Laffey, with his typical bombast, is decrying the attempts "to rig, manipulate and corrupt the election." That's not entirely right, but something dirty is going on. He'll probably be on TV tonight playing the persecuted champion of the tax-payer. (Laffey also said "I don't know if you could find this anywhere, ever having happened. Tell them, in case they've forgotten, we actually live in America," though he should probably look into what Georgia Republicans have been up to lately.) I'm really a big supporter of unions, as I think anyone who knows their history should be, but it's clear to me that there needs to be some good-will reforms within them (that goes for the RI Democrats too, and probably for the RI GOP too if its current Laffey-ization continues). Is it possible in our increasingly nasty political environment? I don't know. Vote Bil in 2004.

In what seems to be becoming "support your small theater week," Matt, Em and I saw Kill Bill Vol. 2 last night at the Cable Car. Tonight is Trot night, so we (and our wallets) are taking a break from movie going. Anyway, the Kill Bill movies were really weird to me. I love Tarantino, but I didn't even see Vol. 1 until last week, on DVD. Plus I have no nostalgia for Kung Fu movies, and my sense of cool died sometime a few years ago, so I didn't get too excited for these movies. I mean, I enjoyed them both quite a bit, but if I didn't see them I think I would have been ok with that. So yeah, I'm not going to write a "review," but do make sure to hit the Cable Car whenever you can. I flashed my now-obsolete college ID and got in for $6. Sweet.

Sure, Nomar came back to the Sox last week, giving our team a nice boost. Today, however, the season begins for Christopher Trotman Nixon. Trot is by far my favorite player on the Boston team, we've been watching him since his days in Pawtucket, and if you watch a good amount of Sox games it's impossible not to like him. He's missed all of this season so far with a herniated disc and a tweaked quad, but now he's healthy and rearing to go. Mark your calendars, June 16th is the day that the 2004 Red Sox really start to take off. We're celebrating with tacos, of course. You should tune in tonight, 9 pm.

Em and I finally saw Super Size Me at the Avon (support your small theaters!) last night, which is good because it closes tomorrow. The documentary that asks "what happens if you eat nothing but McDonalds three meals a day for a month?" was excellent, and not exactly what I expected, which is refreshing. James got it right in his posts, but I'll touch on my impressions: Production value: I was blown away with how polished the film was. Usually when I think of documentaries I see black and white images, shaky cameras, sub-par sound. In this one, there's nothing of the sort. Really well done. Politics: I assumed the movie would be a companion piece to Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation (an expose of the fast food industry akin to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, though not nearly as influential [also, a must read for the socially conscious]). Super Size Me isn't overtly ideological at all. The impetus for making the film was the famous lawsuit brought against McDonalds for making a couple teenagers into McFatties, but creator Morgan Spurlock doesn't make a judgement either way about that case. I'd say the primary focus is on health, which is not a partisan issue (well, shouldn't be, rather). Humor: the whole thing is funny, from Spurlock describing the McEffects of his McDiet (including the McTummy Ache, the McGas and the McSweats, all of which lead to some McPuking on Day 2 of his experiment) to a school lunch manager proudly pointing out that they don't sell soda in the lunch room (offering, instead, equally sugar loaded lemonade). There's even some sad "Jay-walking"-type clips to laugh at. Spurlock has a great sense of humor, and it really comes through (one exchange ends with "when I have kids, I'm going to punch them in the face every time we drive by a McDonalds." You should see the film for the context). Advertising: There's an important, if underappreciated, segment about how junk food companies market their products to kids. One interviewee in the movie says that if a parent sits down with their child every meal for a year and somehow makes nutrition cool, "instead of Britney Spears hawking Pepsi, maybe radishes", that parent would still be at a 10-1 disadvantage in sending good messages to that child (according to a stat which says the average American child sees 10,000 ads per year for fast food, sweets and soft drinks). When people get all self-righteous about how "if people could just exercise a little self-control" they wouldn't be so fat, I think they discount what a tremendous disadvantage we are at in making good choices. A multi-billion dollar industry whose job it is to battle your self-control makes a fair fight difficult. I like James's idea of the documentary becoming a brainy cousin to reality TV. Of course, that's not necessarily saying much, as Paris Hilton could probably be considered a brainy cousin to, say, Jessica Simpson. So I definitely recommend seeing Super Size Me if you haven't already, though it's probably nearing the end of its run. I'm sure the DVD will be forthcoming, given the success in the theaters. Check out the crowd if you see it, though. I noticed that there were only four men out of 35 or so patrons, and no one was fat. Kind of funny, in a not surprising way.

I'm re-reading George Orwell's 1984 and I swear, I'm not even 10 pages into it and I am spooked at how many analogies we can find in modern government and politics. Scary. I didn't have to read this in high school, but my informal survey of my friends finds that they all did, so I don't know what happened to me. Anyway, I hope America's youth are still delving into this classic, it seems more important than ever. ... Matt complained the other day (over bagels, eaten outside overlooking a beautiful East Greenwich parking lot) about the scare-mongerers who invoke "Big Brother" as a warning against things like internet shopping or traffic cameras. There's a little irony for you. ... And speaking of Big Brother traffic cameras, I love red light cameras. I've noticed a bunch in Providence lately and I want them all over the place. Of course, I have a barely controllable desire to be a traffic vigilante and personally punish traffic scofflaws on my local roads. But that's just me.

As my internet drought continued into its, like, millionth day, I broke down and popped a recently arrived AOL trial disk into the cdrom and signed up for a free 50 days of evil. Like probably everyone who had internet access back in the twentieth century, I started with AOL (version 3!) and learned its awfulness firsthand. Then I went to school, where it was free, and eventually cable modem technology caught up with us. But now, as the student loan bills pile up in depressing numbers, 50 days of free internet sounds better than the alternative (which is a computer whose only use is creating nice spreadsheets to tell me how much interest my loans are accumulating EVERY DAY). Well anyway, 50 days of AOL, so far has been worse than nothing. I spent about four hours fighting with a terrible installation of version 9.0, finally having to roll back my computer to its previous settings. Since I had already handed over my credit card info, I searched for a version 8 disk which I eventually found (for once, the ubiquitous nature of the AOL free trial disk was a positive). So anyway, perhaps (maybe), we can all expect more than one Cry for Help every week. I feel awful neglecting my little corner of cyberspace for so long.

How nice that on Flag Day the Supreme Court dodges the "Under God" flap (pun, oh yes, intended) by kicking atheist Michael Newdow's case out of court on a technicality. The Supremes decided that Daddy Newdow, with only partial custody of his child on whose behalf he brought his suit to remove the words under God from our pledge, didn't have the right to sue, thus relieving themselves from making the decision. That's fine. They'll probably have to deal with it eventually. I said a while back that the magic words should be taken out solely on the basis of their sketchy origin (as a symbolic gesture by hyper-religious hyper-patriots in the '50s), but I also don't care too much. My rudimentary knowledge of the founders' intentions was to make sure that no one religion was entrenched or excluded; the existance of God wasn't really at question. Still, don't you love it when events align so fittingly as to preserve the current pledge to the flag of the United States of America on the day set aside for its further exaltation?

Hello everone (including any Justice Department guests!) I'm here at the Warwick Public Library taking advantage of their free wireless internet access. It seems they've blocked every port except the web browsing one (understandable, if inconvenient), so I can't check my email spam, but that's ok. I'm going to get caught up on my precious political blogs and FINALLY publish some posts to the URBlog, so check over there later today. In other news, summer, eh? I spent the morning recharging the AC in my car, and since I wasted so much fossil fuel doing that I rode the bike to the library, proving yet again how out of shape I am. It's a beautiful day to be outside, though, and it should be a beautiful night for some Nomar (he's really coming back tonight, we were hoodwinked yesterday). I hope everyone else is enjoying the sunshine!

Wow, that was cool. Tonight, Em and I went to the first screening of a Red Sox game at the Providence Place movie theater. First, can we all take a minute to appreciate how ridiculous Sox fans are? I'm guessing, but I bet no other baseball team could even consider charging $5 to show a game that's readily available on cable. Turnout was decent, plenty of room, but full enough for lots of clapping and whooping. They had hot dogs and beer (which they stopped serving after the 7th inning, just like at Fenway!), plus we got free t-shirts and there were two sets of tickets for tomorrow's game raffled off. The high def picture was beautiful. Clapping and yelling in a movie theater was a little weird, but all in all it was a great experience. I recommend it to any Sox fans. It helped that the game was awesome. Vintage Pedro threw eight two-hit innings, and the Boston Nine won 1-0. Sharing a 30 foot screen with a roomful of Sox fans made it even better.

I was way too young to have any inkling of an opinion about Reagan, so I have very little to say on the man. However, the obit-u-thon on cable news is making me think a lot about how awful, on all fronts, George W. Bush is as a president. Obviously we're seeing nothing but the good stuff (mostly) of Reagan, but wow. Bush couldn't even put together a sentence on our 40th president without his halting, almost stumbling style coming out. Compare that with the Great Communicator. Then there was Reagan's apology/address about Iran-Contra. Can I get a split screen of that with Bush's last Iraq-related press conference? Yikes. I'm also wondering what the coverage will be like on the day of George W.'s death many years from now (I'll most likely hear about it in my flying car...).

Still no internet. I miss you guys, and I'm so much closer to home, too. I don't even have dial-up, it's like my home computer just became an expensive typewriter. Anyway, what's up? How are we all doing? I'm fine. So Em and I went to the movies: We saw Day After Tomorrow, which wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. The hokey-factor was way down, especially given that someone from Independence Day had a hand in this flick. Tobey Maguire was really good, too. What? It was Jake Gillenahashuihayall? If you say so... The reason we went to DAT was because we missed the Red Sox movie, which only plays at 6:50 and only at Seekonk 1-10. We missed that one, despite leaving Cranston 25 minutes before it started (Cranston is maybe 6 miles from Seekonk). Seekonk is in Massachusetts, first exit off the interstate, just over the state line. A complete brain fart made me turn the car towards exit one of 95, rather than 195, so there was detour number one, though downtown Providence. Then, heading towards the onramp to 195 I took a left turn one street too early (another brain fart, I swear I usually know where I am going) and the one-way South Main Street trapped us, away from the highway. By the time we got on 195, it was exactly 6:50. Since we were minutes away, given the previews nowadays, I figured we could make it. The thing about Seekonk, though, is that there are actually two Showcase Cinemas there. Both are off of the same exit, but one is to the left and the other the right. The directions only say "exit 1 off 195." I know the Red Sox movie is at the 1-10, and I know the theater to the left is smaller than the one to the right, so we go right. Wrong choice. Apparently, although the right-most Showcase actually has 10 theaters, it's not the 1-10. By now it was past 7:00 and our hopes of getting in a little pre-Nomah Nomah (he's back tomorrow!!!) were dashed. We drowned our sorrows at Dunkin Donuts and went to look at the fish in Rumford, then hit the mall and took a nice walk around downtown PVD. We'll be back tomorrow for the first of a series of Red Sox games being shown at the movie theaters in high definition (presented by Cox Cable [that one's for you, Rob Bentley!]). I can't wait to see a 20 foot tall Nomar go deep in the hole, whirl and throw a Padre out at first! Only $5 if you want to join us, 7:00 at Providence Place. If this were New Orleans, you could even get daquiris.

I have no internet at home. It's hell. Anyways... I'm late on this, but if anyone got a dead tree edition of the ProJo yesterday, go look at the picture on the front page accompanying the Whole Foods story. The article is about how Whole Foods is making a commitment to get 10% of their energy from wind power, and to call attention to that effort they had a single (giant) windmill blade trucked in on a flatbed to display outside the North Main Street store. Well, the truck couldn't navigate the parking lot too well, so it had to roll up on a parking median/island thing, which is when the ProJo photographer snapped the shot. Trouble is, the truck was in the process of running over a tree planted in the median. It was pretty funny: "look how environmentally responsible we are!! Pay no mind to the tree we just butchered so we can install a prop..." I'm not really picking on Whole Foods, which is by far one of the best companies deserving your dollars (provided you have lots and lots of them and can afford to shop there, of course), it was just ironic.